Replacing Lowrance HDS-5 and Sonic Hub in OpenCPN?

[clm2112]

Quick question for the group: Has anyone managed to control a Lowrance (aka Fusion) Sonic Hub unit via OpenCPN?


What I've been working on is rebuilding a small center console and would like to retire the Lowrance HD-5 chart plotter with a Pi 4 and SignalK / OpenCPN. One of the built in functions of the Lowrance is the controls for the sonic hub via the NMEA 2000 network.


I've been doing searches for any information regarding how to set it up, but have come up empty. So, I figured I would ask if it was even possible.

[nohal]

OpenCPN does nothing with the onboard entertainment systems, it is a chartplotter. It does interface with NMEA2000 networks, so someone can write a plugin to implement this additional functionality with relative ease. So far I'm not aware of anybody working on such thing.
The entertainment related PGNs themselves are (at least for some part, hard to say as the standard is not publicly available) known, described and implemented in canboat.

If the community around Signal K implemented something that will interact with your device I don't know, the best place to get correct and up to date info will be to ask on the Slack channel at https://signalk.slack.com

[stevead]

Quick question for the group: Has anyone managed to control a Lowrance (aka Fusion) Sonic Hub unit via OpenCPN?

Yes.

So far I'm not aware of anybody working on such thing.

There is an unannounced, unreleased plugin that controls Fusion media players, that works in conjunction with the TwoCan plugin. It can be downloaded from the following link
I can't remember what state I left the last build in as I think it was almost a year ago since I last did any work on it, so probably only a previous version of OpenCPN (5.6) and probably the last version of TwoCan (2.1). I don't know what platforms and version of OpenCPN it supported, nor how buggy it is.

I seem to remember it worked and did most things (on/off, change audio source, volume controls, change radio stations and tracks), except for listing the album titles & tracks and performing set up functions. Use at your own risk as I can't commit to performing any maintenance on the code in the short term.

[clm2112]

Originally Posted by stevead

Yes.
There is an unannounced, unreleased plugin that controls Fusion media players, that works in conjunction with the TwoCan plugin. It can be downloaded from the following link

Like the way the the engine instrument plugins works, I figured the sonic hub would need some form of plugin of its own.


Thanks, I will definitely look into this when I get everything mocked up on the workbench. (Boat is currently getting new transom and stringers and I'm working on a console for it in the basement.)


Been a while since I did any software work, but would like to get to know the structure of a plug-in. I'll be hitting the group up when I have enough of a working system that can monitor and log the messages being passed between the chart plotter and sonic hub.

[stevead]

Feel free to PM or email me once you have your bench test setup.

Happy to receive bug reports and fix things when possible.