Sunlight Readable Display

[fjj]

HI Fraser,

Thats really interesting. I stopped looking at the software side for a bit because I am currently designing a 3D printed box to put the screen and Pi in that will be attached to the helm station. I looked at Navipods and similar and could not understand why a plastic box cost more than the screen and Pi together. I will shortly get ack to the software side so thanks very much for your pointers. very helpful.

Thanks, Hillzzz,

That's exactly what I'm working on right now too! I'm just printing a bracket for attaching it to the instrument area above my companionway.

       

[Techstyle]

That looks Awesome!! I would think about printing it in a light colour, my black helm screen gets really hot!!

[fjj]

That looks Awesome!!  I would think about printing it in a light colour, my black helm screen gets really hot!!

Thanks! That ship has sailed now that the screen is attached with sikaflex! It will be under the spray hood though so should be in the shade. 

There’s a Raspberry Pi 4B inside and a 12V buck to provide stable power to the screen and Pi power HAT.

[Hillzzz]

HI Fraser,

Thats really interesting. I stopped looking at the software side for a bit because I am currently designing a 3D printed box to put the screen and Pi in that will be attached to the helm station. I looked at Navipods and similar and could not understand why a plastic box cost more than the screen and Pi together. I will shortly get ack to the software side so thanks very much for your pointers. very helpful.

Thanks, Hillzzz,

That's exactly what I'm working on right now too! I'm just printing a bracket for attaching it to the instrument area above my companionway.

Awesome Frazer,

here is my MK1 Plotter case i am now working on the MK5  My first print was in standard PLA but I am told that it cannot cope with the environmental conditions in a cockpit long term so i am now experimenting with other harder to print plastics that better stand up to heat. One problem i have found is that the PI overheats in the case after a few hours so I have been experimenting with rain-proof ventilation slots etc. Which is how I have got to MK5. My screen is held in place by a screwed down frame and a rubber gasket. I am hoping that will be sufficiently waterproof.
Cheers, Hillzzz
   

[fjj]

HI Fraser,

Thats really interesting. I stopped looking at the software side for a bit because I am currently designing a 3D printed box to put the screen and Pi in that will be attached to the helm station. I looked at Navipods and similar and could not understand why a plastic box cost more than the screen and Pi together. I will shortly get ack to the software side so thanks very much for your pointers. very helpful.

Thanks, Hillzzz,

That's exactly what I'm working on right now too! I'm just printing a bracket for attaching it to the instrument area above my companionway.

Awesome Frazer,

here is my MK1 Plotter case i am now working on the MK5  My first print was in standard PLA but I am told that it cannot cope with the environmental conditions in a cockpit long term so i am now experimenting with other harder to print plastics that better stand up to heat. One problem i have found is that the PI overheats in the case after a few hours so I have been experimenting with rain-proof ventilation slots etc. Which is how I have got to MK5. My screen is held in place by a screwed down frame and a rubber gasket. I am hoping that will be sufficiently waterproof.
Cheers, Hillzzz

That looks great! I’ve used Sikaflex to bind the screen to the front part of the case, then the back (Pi) housing bolts on (there are brass heatset inserts to bolt into) - there a neoprene gasket to weather seal it. I’ve popped a waterproof power connector on the back, a waterproof power button and an IP67 breather (basically a nut with a bit of Goretex on it) to allow pressure equalisation. 

I was considering heat - I have a fan inside and was thinking of reprinting the back and adding a double sided metal heatsink if it’s required.

[mairas]

One problem i have found is that the PI overheats in the case after a few hours so I have been experimenting with rain-proof ventilation slots etc. 

I would avoid ventilation slots at all costs. Condensing becomes an issue right away. I've found Waveshare's 3007 cooling fans to be very effective even in small plastic enclosures. That could be a solution as-is. But if it's not enough on its own, you could quite easily a heat sink in the enclosure. Get two large area aluminum heat sinks (the other a bit smaller) from Aliexpress/Ebay/whatever. Then, design a cutout the size of the smaller heat sink in the enclosure. Glue or solder the heat sinks back-to-back, and then glue them both over the cutout with Sika. (Would probably be easier to draw a picture...)

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Sorry, didn't read carefully, fjj already had presented that solution.

[Hillzzz]

I have now successfully printed the case in ASA which has better strength and UV resistance than ABS and is used in industry to print car parts. It is VERY difficult to get a good print and it has taken quite a few attempts. Overheating has been a problem but the current ventilation slots and a fan are sufficient to keep the CPU temperature at around 67.2 degrees C. Thats hotter than i would like but it holds steady. As the case takes a week to print on my Ender S1 Plus I will use it on the boat over the summer while designing a new case with a metal heatsink and fan incorporated into it.

So now I am back to trying to solve the screen dimming software issues.

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Hi Hillzzz,
I googled "Digiwave HA-101ZIEBCAD1-V 10.1"  and couldn't find it.  Where did you buy it?
Jodel

Hi Jodel you can find it here https://www.soselectronic.com/en/product...1-v-378585

Hi Hillzzz,

Did you ever find an answer to the dimmer issue? I've just ordered the screen and would love to set up external dimmer control.

Thanks,
Fraser

Hi Fraser, If it's an external dimmer you want like a potentiometer knob style dimmer then all you need is a simple circuit that goes from zero to 3 volts with a potentiometer to control the voltage. If you look at the PDF circuit specs you will see the connector which controls brightness. I want to do it in software and i haven't found a solution yet. Cheers, H.

Hi Hillzzz, 

I was looking at software control too. I came across two issues - the one that you mentioned with the brightness going to zero after quitting the app, and another where there was terrible flicker at lower brightness levels. I resolved the flicker issue using PIGPIO, as it uses hardware PWM timing. It should also resolve your issue as there is a daemon that runs, so the setting should stay on until the power is off. I've implemented a service to listen for the GUI app and change the PWM duty cycle. I've just got a very basic Python tkinter slider to change the brightness. The service starts on boot using systemd.

I'm essentially building a self-contained plotter for use in the open cockpit, so far this screen is looking great.

Thanks,
Fraser

Hi Frazer, Could you possibly give me some pointers with the code for dimming with PIGPIO? I have tried incorporating what I thought would work into my screen dimmer slider and it doesn't  Cheers and thanks H.

[Hillzzz]

Hi all, 

I have finished printing the case in ASA which has better strength and UV resistance than ABS. It is often used to make car parts so it should stand up to a marine environment quite well. 

It is very hard to print on a cheap printer like my Ender S1 plus but with a lot of testing I found settings that mostly worked. I decided to have a recess at the back on the outside for the Druk Buck-Boost power supply. It supplies 12 volts 5 amps from any input voltage between 8volts and 36volts. Since the power supply has its own heat sink and is waterproof it made sense to put it on the outside so that it did not add to the heat inside. However the recess made the case much harder to print. 

Talking of heat I swapped out the Pi 4 for a Pi 5, both have the standard fan heatsinks and I was interested to find the pi5 runs about 23 degrees c cooler. It settled at 44 degrees C while the Pi 4 was running at 67.2 degrees C. 

I am very happy with the screen which is much clearer than an iPad. I also printed a screen cover in TPU which you can see in the second image. TPU is a bit elastic so i printed it slightly smaller so that it fits tightly and that works quite well. At the side is a slot for an external USB port this also has a TPU cover. On the back are power, Combined 5 pin Seatalk1/NMEA 0183 input output and NMEA 2000 sockets. Next thing to finish is the screen dimming software.

   

   

[fjj]

Hi all, 

I have finished printing the case in ASA which has better strength and UV resistance than ABS. It is often used to make car parts so it should stand up to a marine environment quite well. 

It is very hard to print on a cheap printer like my Ender S1 plus but with a lot of testing I found settings that mostly worked. I decided to have a recess at the back on the outside for the Druk Buck-Boost power supply. It supplies 12 volts 5 amps from any input voltage between 8volts and 36volts. Since the power supply has its own heat sink and is waterproof it made sense to put it on the outside so that it did not add to the heat inside. However the recess made the case much harder to print. 

Talking of heat I swapped out the Pi 4 for a Pi 5, both have the standard fan heatsinks and I was interested to find the pi5 runs about 23 degrees c cooler. It settled at 44 degrees C while the Pi 4 was running at 67.2 degrees C. 

I am very happy with the screen which is much clearer than an iPad. I also printed a screen cover in TPU which you can see in the second image. TPU is a bit elastic so i printed it slightly smaller so that it fits tightly and that works quite well. At the side is a slot for an external USB port this also has a TPU cover. On the back are power, Combined 5 pin Seatalk1/NMEA 0183 input output and NMEA 2000 sockets. Next thing to finish is the screen dimming software.

That's looking great! I had my first sea trial at the weekend with mine! All went really well, I'm very happy with it.

   

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Hi Frazer, Could you possibly give me some pointers with the code for dimming with PIGPIO? I have tried incorporating what I thought would work into my screen dimmer slider and it doesn't  Cheers and thanks H.

Sure, I'll grab the code next time I'm at the boat. She's in the process of being relocated from the east coast of Scotland to the West at the moment, so may take another week or so.

I have my notes though if that would help? The basics are that I am using a systems service that starts on boot, setting the duty cycle to 75% (this is modifiable to your preference), the slider app (tkinter) then communicates with that service to change the duty cycle upon request. This results in being able to close the slider app and not have the brightness drop to zero!

Cheers,
Fraser

[Hillzzz]

Hi Fjj, That screen is looking excellent! I hope to be out on the water later this week to test mine too.