Autopilot Plugin and interface OPENCPN with Raymarine SPX autopilot

[scud]

I have been tempted by the possibility of commanding the RayM Pilot from Opencpn. I can see that in order to use the relevant plugin I may need to buy a proper interface from https://www.gadgetpool.eu/ that converts NMEA0183 to/from SEATalk1. But which one? The USB or the RS232 converter? they are both listed in the website whose link I posted.

My idea is to connect all Ramarines to the SeatalkNG backbone and then get into a Raymarine SeaTalk to SeaTalkng® converter and connect the SeaTalk NMEA Link of the website to it. The RS232 end of the SeaTalk NMEA Link qould go into a Actisense NDC4 multiplexer and from there to the WIN10 notebook with OPENCPN. The reason for the ACTISENSE is because I have several trnsducers talking NMEA0183 data into the network too.

Has anyone tried this or the SeaTalk NMEA Link would only work if directly connected to the Notebook?

[scud]

Nobody with a Raymarine pilot that may wanna share how he managed to use the Autopilot plugin?

[zlimmie]

Hi,

I've purchased the USB converter from gadgetpool. It is hooked up to a raymarine seatalk 1 port of as Smartpilot S2 main unit. Using the Raymarine Autopilot plugin I am able to control the autopilot from OpenCPN.

- I can control it manually using the autopilot "remote control" interface.
- I can send track information to the autopilot to follow a route.

Currently, I get an alarm from the autopilot on bearing changes, where I have to acknowledge the new course on the autopilot itself.

In the plugin there is a feature to avoid the acknowledging of the course change. It works, but for some reason I'm working on, it does not stick very tightly to the route when I use this mode. It seems unreliable, and zigzag around the route. It could be due to my setup, and I'm working on figuring it out. In any case, the unit from gadgetpool is recommended. It also provides you with the opportunity to use the fluxgate compass bearing to rotate the chart. Lying still, GPS bearing is wortless, so that is a recommended feature.

I've tried to combine the use of Raymarine Autopilot plugin with the Autopilote route plugin which has a better way of calculating the bearing to keep tightly to the route. Especially when turning. I've not been successful so far. Not even sure if that is a supported feature.

[wholybee]

Have you played with the waypoint arrival radius? You want to set the arrival radius to the distance before the waypoint you want to start your turn, which will vary based on the boat. I set it to 30 feet, which is 0.005 nm. Default is much longer, like 0.25nm I think. So the boat starts the turn 30 feet early, but in reality crosses right over the mark during its turn, instead of overshooting it and then zig-zagging as it tries to find the course again.

You also then need to set the "advance waypoint on arrival only." And while there is a global arrival radius setting, the setting of the individual waypoints overrides that. So, you need to edit all the waypoints and set it there, and not rely on the global setting.

I right now am not using a plugin, but am using the built in tracking that works with NMEA0183. I have not had any luck getting the plugins to work with NMEA2000, which is what my system natively is. But I think if you set the plugin to XTE mode, and have the arrival radius set correctly, and advance waypoint on arrival only, it should track very well.

[zlimmie]

Yes, and that is an important point. I learned the hard way. Waypoint arrival radius should be tuned according to your boats turning radius. It is also important as you mention that waypoint arrival radius is written to the route xml file upon route creation. So you either need to recreate routes our edit your xml file when you change the settings.

As I mentioned, using track mode, the raymarine autopilot plugin works flawlessly. I believe this uses a NMEA sentence that is sent when the course changes. As long as I accept to acknowlede the course, it follows the route.

It is when I use the feature to avoid acknowledging course changes it gets confused. In this mode, I believe it does not use the same NMEA sentences. It more or less continuously adjust the course in AUTO mode, based on NMEA input from opencpn. But I can’t figure out what it actually reads. There are filters for NMEA-sentences in opencpn, in the gadgetpool converter, settings in the raymarine autopilot plugin, and settings in the autopilot route plugin. The total combinations to try is endless. My feeling is that it reads NMEA sentences it should not, and gets confused. I believe I need to add filters to clean the NMEA stream. It would be nice to know what Raymarine autopilot uses in this mode, to try to debug.