Showing WP Data from Chartplotter

[Snore]

I did a search and could not find an answer- if there is one, I apologize.

The issue is I have a smorgasbord of instruments on my boat- NMEA 0183, Seatalk-1, SeaTalk NG, NMEA2000. Without investing a lot I have everybody talking to everybody.

Being frugal I am trying to set-up a second display on a budget.

Using Vesper XB-8000 WiFi, I have all the data streaming to iNavX on my iPad.

OpenCpn will present all the data, except for navigation data from my Garmin Chartplotter. If I select a WP on the plotter, it send nav info to the EV-100 AP, the data goes to the XB-8000 and out via WiFi to the iPad where iNavX displays it. But OpenCPN will not display the info.

The connection is configured to accept all, and I added GPBOD and GPRMB to be sure the waypoint data was getting into the program. Running the NMEA debug window, I can see the sentences. But the program does not recognize the waypoint, or BTW. Also the dashboard does not offer it as a displayable.

If I select a point to navigate to inside of OpenCPN, there is a nifty pop-up window that provides leg or route info. Ideally this should be coming up also.

Is there something I have not configured, or is this feature not yet supported?

thanks

[rgleason]

smorgasbord of instruments on my boat- NMEA 0183, Seatalk-1, SeaTalk NG, NMEA2000. Without investing a lot I have everybody talking to everybody.

This is not a very good approach, I think. It's fine to have instruments/chartplotters/opencpn talking with one another, but you must limit the talk to only what is necessary, and prevent bidirectional backtalk and duplicate talk which loads the data bus, causes GPS jumping and other anomolies. Try to keep it simple, and gradually build on that. Look at the big picture first and whittle it down.

Seatalk 1 Instruments ---one way, not bidirectional---> SeatalkNS/Nmea2000 with whatever device you have,

but I believe I would probably connect the Seatalk 1 to Vesper Xt-8000 which I believe it supports, and use Vesper's routines to convert to Nmea2000. Check Vesper's manual, and find their website page about connecting Opencpn. Search our Opencpn Manual and Supplimentary Books, there are details about using Opencpn with Vesper.

Then figure out what else is needed for autopilot etc.


but of course you already know this, Snore


Sharing/sending of waypoints is very dependent on your equipment as every manufacturer has different format requirements. Opencpn does support sending of waypoints for some Furuno and Garmin units. The other way is more problematical.


https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...=send+waypoint


https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...pt-rte-over-ip


Also look up beta plugin Obabel it might help.


Also do searches no this forum, there are a number of useful threads.

[Snore]

@rgleason I respectfully submit it is the PERFECT approach. I could spend $2-3 boat bucks on a full suite of electronics, or use that to cover an apartment in Paris for a month while I engineer a solution.

I did the latter.

Please accept my sincere thanks for your comments. They made me go out this morning and test for the errors you described. As you mentioned in your post, the key to making this work is moderation and to make sure critical devices like the AP only listen to one device for navigation instructions

The good news is that I proved to myself I did not have the errors you mentioned. Even better, I was able to get opencpn to receive the waypoints by manually adding them to the list of NMEA0183 sentences to accept.

[Tupaia]

By changing your planning method the problem might be solved. Instead of creating wp's and route on the plotter create them in OpenCPN. You definitely can upload the route to the GPS and onward to the AP. Operating this way when you action a GOTO on the plotter OpenCPN does show the active WP.

[rgleason]

Good work. Perhaps you would like to share how you did this in more detail? It might find inclusion in the wiki.

[Snore]

Actually, it may appear in a future issue of a well read magazine

[andrewvik]

Snore, I also want OpenCPN to display active waypoint information received from the chartplotter (Garmin 76s) at the helm. But I've given up. I just don't think OpenCPN has this functionality.

MacENC handles it elegantly, and with no fuss at all. Not only is the configuration automatic, the active waypoint and relevant data just show up when pushing GOTO on the chartplotter. And that waypoint PIER39? It isn't even a waypoint that MacENC knows about, but it plots it anyway. See how it just takes the info from the GPRMB sentence in this screenshot...

How could this feature not be a part of OpenCPN?

Cheers,
Andrew
www.SailGeja.com

[rgleason]

Well Andrew it appears you have a wp problem. Perhaps you should use mac enc.

[AedanC]

When I set a GoTo point or a route on our Garmin 750 in the cockpit it pops up as a waypoint on OpenCpn down below just like you say. Perhaps you don’t have them connected properly?

[andrewvik]

Aedan, thanks for the reply. Here's the NMEA data that OpenCPN received from the chartplotter. In this case the active waypoint on the CP is OCEANB, and all necessary info seems to be included in the GPRMB and GPBOD sentences, all of which show accepted by OpenCPN...

$HCHDG,,,,15.1,E*32
$GPRTE,1,1,c,*37
$GPRMC,202412,A,3745.9546,N,12226.0077,W,0.0,0.0,1 90420,15.1,E,D*3E
$GPRMB,A,0.00,R,,OCEANB,3746.115,N,12231.627,W,4.453,272.1,,V,D*7B
$GPGGA,202412,3745.9546,N,12226.0077,W,2,05,3.4,47 .7,M,-28.0,M,,*4B
$GPGSA,A,3,,,,13,15,,19,,,,44,46,3.9,3.4,1.6*34
$GPGSV,3,1,12,01,13,040,00,06,20,162,00,12,02,275, 00,13,36,224,49*71
$GPGSV,3,2,12,15,28,260,41,17,75,047,00,19,76,208, 43,24,25,314,00*70
$GPGSV,3,3,12,28,48,057,00,30,29,137,00,44,46,171, 46,46,46,191,46*7F
$GPGLL,3745.9546,N,12226.0077,W,202412,A,D*59
$GPBOD,272.1,T,257.0,M,OCEANB,*45

(ignore the blank spaces - some kind of copy/paste artifact)

What more does OpenCPN need to display the waypoint graphically and provide BTW, XTE, etc. details?

Connection is fine, receiving LAT/LON, time, and SOG just fine.

Cheers,
Andrew
San Francisco, USA

[AedanC]

I’m sorry but I can’t show what works for me as our boat is 200km away and we are on lockdown...... perhaps in a month or two if things go well.

[Tupaia]

Just a thought - Is the route on OCPN active? Right click and select activate.

No way of knowing this as cannot get to boat either.

[andrewvik]

Thanks Tupaia, sure after hitting GOTO waypoint on the chartplotter, I could head down to my Mac and tell OpenCPN to also go to the waypoint. Seems a bit redundant though - if my chartplotter is sending waypoint info anyway over NMEA, I would hope that OpenCPN would just display that info (show the mark, show DTW, XTE, etc). At least that's how it worked on my previous Mac nav software. Seems like a pretty basic feature.

I've played around for hours on OpenCPN. The correct NMEA data is being received (GPRMB and GPBOD). I just don't know if O can even be set up to do anything with active WP info over NMEA, aside from just re-broadcast it.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by andrewvik

I could head down to my Mac and tell OpenCPN to also go to the waypoint.

I think it is only the Route that has to be active on OCPN not the WP. If I remember correctly once the route is active the active wp updates automatically.

My system is Windows not Mac so not sure if there is a platform difference in the way this is handled.

[andrewvik]

Tupaia, thanks again.

I've sailed thousands of coastal miles and have rarely used a "route". Sure, I've had a sequence of waypoints set up, but always manually selected the next waypoint. No need to make course changes too efficient, for safety's sake.

Or maybe it's that sailors can't always sail a straight line that I don't use the route feature more.

Anyway, simply hitting GOTO WAYPOINT seems like a pretty common thing to do on a chartplotter. My autopilot responds, but it's a bummer that OpenCPN doesn't seem to react, despite being told by the chartplotter via NMEA that there's an active waypoint.

Cheers,
Andrew