Arduino & Raspberry Pi cruisers projects?

[lucseawalker]

I am a newbie with Arduino and Raspberry Pie but I believe that these 2 inexpensive technologies can offer great benefits to DIY cruisers ...


The first system I like to build is a multi-bilge alarm so any seawater leak, fresh water or fuel leaking from a tank .. any leak at all in any of our numerous bilges triggers an immediate alarm so we can deal with the situation very early .. before we hear or smell something ...


I searched the web and found several Arduino and Raspberry Pie techies group but I wonder if there is any group focused on useful projects for cruisers already existing online? I like to join such group if I hear about any!
We should all work together on similar projects benefiting from each other inputs


Other than running Open Cpn on teh Raspberry Pie, we can have tank level monitoring, engine monitoring, intruder alarms, energy monitoring and more

[MartinR]

there are easier ways to to bilge alarms, but it would be a nice project. You could use a 4duino, already integrated with a small touch display.

Energy monitoring would be a great project. I haven't thought of that before. Maybe I will give it a go. I have a son who is good at coding;-)

[Reefmagnet]

I've got a RPi 3+ setup as a multifunction system including an AIS receiver HAT based on OpenPlotter. If I'd known how well an RPi can be made to work as an MFD, I'd have never bothered fitting a propriety MFD.


And I've got plans to make a touch screen water maker controller "one day" and am very keen to data log my power input and output. Recording info from the current shunt will be easy enough, but reading bluetooth data from the MPPT controllers might be a little challenging.


The attraction of the RPi (for even bilge alarms) is that it is isn't horribly difficult to configure it as a web server for live access to boat data using cheap hardware and existing software.

[lucseawalker]

You mention easier ways to make bilge alarms ... but do they involved even more electronic circuits to build? I do not want to rely on small batteries as these need constant replacement ... Since I have lots of bilges on our trimaran, either we use lots of small, simple, independent alarms each with buzzer and connection anywhere on the 12vdc system or we do one circuit where all alarms connect to a small board that provide voltage and one big buzzer for all of the compartment with a display that indicate which compartment got the alarm going ...
Any further ideas?

Originally Posted by MartinR

there are easier ways to to bilge alarms, but it would be a nice project. You could use a 4duino, already integrated with a small touch display.

Energy monitoring would be a great project. I haven't thought of that before. Maybe I will give it a go. I have a son who is good at coding;-)

[lucseawalker]

Yes ... perhaps someone has already build a good system ...



[QUOTE= The attraction of the RPi (for even bilge alarms) is that it is isn't horribly difficult to configure it as a web server for live access to boat data using cheap hardware and existing software.[/QUOTE]

[MartinR]

You just need one float in each bilge and a buzzer centrally located. Wire the floats in parallel. When one float closes the circuit, the buzzer will sound. It needs a lot of cabling, though, but you have to provide electricity to the floats anyhow. you could make a panel with one indicator lamp for each float to help you find the culprit. I can not really see why you need a processor for this.

[lucseawalker]

You can buy small water sensors for just 2$ using very tiny wires versus more expensive float switches that often fail (in my experience) and require thicker wires. I just counted how many bilges I like an alarm and I get to 24! I know this is extreme but I have 3 hulls (being a trimaran). Instead of 24 alarm lights, a small LCD monitor would do the job with little electric consumption ..
But I agree in advance that electronics are very sensitive to salt water so it might pose problems that way...

Originally Posted by MartinR

You just need one float in each bilge and a buzzer centrally located. Wire the floats in parallel. When one float closes the circuit, the buzzer will sound. It needs a lot of cabling, though, but you have to provide electricity to the floats anyhow. you could make a panel with one indicator lamp for each float to help you find the culprit. I can not really see why you need a processor for this.

[MartinR]

Originally Posted by lucseawalker

You can buy small water sensors for just 2$ using very tiny wires versus more expensive float switches that often fail (in my experience) and require thicker wires. I just counted how many bilges I like an alarm and I get to 24! I know this is extreme but I have 3 hulls (being a trimaran). Instead of 24 alarm lights, a small LCD monitor would do the job with little electric consumption ..
But I agree in advance that electronics are very sensitive to salt water so it might pose problems that way...

Yes, that is a good option.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by lucseawalker

I searched the web and found several Arduino and Raspberry Pie techies group but I wonder if there is any group focused on useful projects for cruisers already existing online? I like to join such group if I hear about any!
We should all work together on similar projects benefiting from each other inputs


Other than running Open Cpn on teh Raspberry Pie, we can have tank level monitoring, engine monitoring, intruder alarms, energy monitoring and more

Have you had a look at Openplotter?
Home | Sailoog
OpenMarine

Bit of discussion about arduino/esp on there. Lots of options to integrate data into the Pi on openplotter, or more the latest signalk which is preloaded. I've largely given up with arduinos these days, esp8266/esp32 have built in wifi & more memory/faster cpu so use those to send data direct to signalk over wifi. Just ordered some PCBs to make all this easier from jlcpcb, if this actually works it will allow for 8 voltmeter inputs or 4 differential inputs, 2 x ammeters up to 3.2A, barometer plus 2 transistor switches and 6 inputs which are capacitive touch so might be able to be used as bilge water monitors. Once the data is in signalk it's easy to record everything to a database or view it online on a web site.

Openplotter is close to plug and play though esp8266/32 needs a bit of sleeves up programming but this can be done on the same arduino ide so not any different to programming arduinos with a few different libraries. Then send the data as signalk straight into the Pi over wifi.

[CaptTom]

To me the tipping point would be a reliable NMEA 2000 interface to OpenPlotter. I know there is (was?) a project to hijack a CANbus adapter and hack out the proprietary N2k data, but I'm not sure how far along that is.

The second hurtle would be a water-resistant, touch-screen, sunlight-readable monitor. By the time you price those out, the proprietary dedicated MFDs start to look reasonable.

[MartinR]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

To me the tipping point would be a reliable NMEA 2000 interface to OpenPlotter. I know there is (was?) a project to hijack a CANbus adapter and hack out the proprietary N2k data, but I'm not sure how far along that is.

The CANbus adapter works great!

[sjgharib]

I haven't tried it yet, but from what I've seen there are a couple. I purchased the ShipModul 1135 MiniPlex-3USB-N2K, which is supposed to be compatible with OpenPlotter.

we'll see!

[sjgharib]

The other thing I was looking for are the sensors - is there a 9 axis open source equivalent? Or I guess you can buy a commercial one and then the data is just coming over NMEA2000?
also - What are folks using for a ruggedized monitor?

[MartinR]

Originally Posted by sjgharib

I haven't tried it yet, but from what I've seen there are a couple. I purchased the ShipModul 1135 MiniPlex-3USB-N2K, which is supposed to be compatible with OpenPlotter.

we'll see!

Sailoog sells this, cheap and working well:

https://shop.sailoog.com/converters/...usb-stick.html

[MartinR]

Originally Posted by sjgharib

The other thing I was looking for are the sensors - is there a 9 axis open source equivalent? Or I guess you can buy a commercial one and then the data is just coming over NMEA2000?
also - What are folks using for a ruggedized monitor?

Moitessier HAT has the sensors. Also possible to buy just a sensor chip, they are cheap.