Rasberry Pi AutoPilot

[PatriciaLynn]

OK, I have been looking for a inexpensive autopilot for a while. No luck and used systems are few and far between. Of course, an expert could find individual components and link them together. I am not expert.

I recently heard about an inexpensive system using the OpenPlotter open source chartplotter. I am going to experiment with it to drive my hydroslave power steering and will record my progress here.

Check out some information here:

Youtube.com/watch?v=r8CGixMl18k

 

[WoundUpMarine]

I was just talking to a buddy about those Raspberry Pi computers today, nifty little units. It'll be interesting to see what all you can put together. Are you going to try and tie in a rudder feedback signal and rate compass?

 

[PatriciaLynn]

I was just talking to a buddy about those Raspberry Pi computers today, nifty little units. It'll be interesting to see what all you can put together. Are you going to try and tie in a rudder feedback signal and rate compass?

Just compass for now. I have been reading about it, I may be able to run it off of my phone, which really changes the game.

Stay tuned.

 

[Old Mud]

Holy cow !! I could only follow that video for about 4 minutes. One of my Grandsons has a RP with a bunch of addons. Im not sure what he does with them but i know he builds stuff. He's only 15 but Dad bought him that stuff a couple of years ago. I know when he's on his i pad doing stuff i can't even follow him. UGH. Keep us posted.

 

[Aboard_Adventurer]

pypilot - open source marine autopilot

Pretty neat stuff. I run OpenCPN (www.opencpn.org) on a windows PC for primary navigation but have shied away from Raspberry Pi (RPi) solutions because time after time I read of people running into hardware slowdown when you have too much data being processed on the RPi. I think most folks who start off with an RPi based OpenCPN system eventually transition over to a PC to run the program. It isn't super clear from the PyPilot stuff whether you absolutely NEED OpenCPN to be running on a RPi for their hardware to function, or whether you can be running OpenCPN on a PC with this running as an auxiliary piece of hardware. I believe the former is the case which, for me at least, makes it far less appealing.

I do have OpenCPN fully integrated with my Radar (has overlay features and full control of radar functions), NMEA2k network, engine data, environmental and attitude data, etc. It is a very powerful program but a bit of a steep learning curve if you want to do more than just run the basic program. I went this route because the software itself is always being improved and all the hardware bits are easily replaced and upgraded. I'd rather be able to update bits and pieces of a navigational suite over time instead of needing to upgrade hardware every 5 or 6 years because the black box decides to die or the screen goes out. It certainly isn't for everyone, but I personally love it.

 

[steveinak]

pypilot - open source marine autopilot

Pretty neat stuff. I run OpenCPN on a windows PC for primary navigation but have shied away from Raspberry Pi solutions because time after time I read of people running into hardware slowdown when you have too much data being processed on the RPi. I think most folks who start off with an RPi based OpenCPN system eventually transition over to a PC to run the program. It isn't super clear from the PyPilot stuff whether you absolutely NEED OpenCPN to be running on a Pi for their hardware to function, or whether you can be running OpenCPN on a PC with this running as an auxiliary piece of hardware. I believe the former is the case which, for me at least, makes it far less appealing.

I do have OpenCPN fully integrated with my Radar (has overlay features and full control of radar functions), NMEA2k network, engine data, environmental and attitude data, etc. It is a very powerful program but a bit of a steep learning curve if you want to do more than just run the basic program. I went this route because the software itself is always being improved and all the hardware bits are easily replaced and upgraded. I'd rather be able to update bits and pieces of a navigational suite over time instead of needing to upgrade hardware every 5 or 6 years because the black box decides to die or the screen goes out. It certainly isn't for everyone, but I personally love it.

^ was that in english ???

 

[Aboard_Adventurer]

It was supposed to be!

 

[WoundUpMarine]

^ was that in english ???

What I got out of that was he took the red pill and lives inside the Matrix now.

 

[PatriciaLynn]

 

[PatriciaLynn]

I spent some time reading, this really doesn't look too bad. I am going to have to find a solenoid block that this can power and start experimenting.

 

[steveinak]

i've heard morticians with more emotion in their voices than that guy ?

 

[PatriciaLynn]

OK, there are 2 components for sale on the PyPilot website. The autopilot and the motorcontroller. The motorcontroller has reversible power to power a motor, however it appears I can use the leads as port and starboard signals and a ground. Not too bad.