I am trying to integrate Pypilot with an old Alpha Marine Systems 3000 Autopilot. The Alpha linear actuator has a 10k ohm potentiometer built-in which I'd like to use. I've been bench testing rudder feedback on ADC pin 4 with a 10k ohm rotary potentiometer. I added 35100 ohm resistance to a 5V voltage divider circuit on the Arduino to bring the voltage down to 0-1.1 volt reference values . The rudder position indicator seems to be working well. I can see readings between -30 to 30 in OpenCPN, in NMEA messages and in the servo calibration tab. However, I am encountering two problems:
- In the servo calibration tab, when I try to calibrate and press "Rudder is Centered" and "Rudder at Range" buttons, nothing seems to happen. I don't see any values written to the Offset field.
- Using the pypilot plugin in, the SYNC MAX_RUDDER flag is always triggered. I tried setting various min rudder position/max position values in between -100 and 100 and changing the potentiometer angle. Nothing seems to get rid of this flag.
I am using the latest Pypilot version from Github and the openplotter distribution for OpenCPN + plug-ins (1.02 alpha)
Really appreciate your advice. Thanks!
- In the servo calibration tab, when I try to calibrate and press "Rudder is Centered" and "Rudder at Range" buttons, nothing seems to happen. I don't see any values written to the Offset field.
- Using the pypilot plugin in, the SYNC MAX_RUDDER flag is always triggered. I tried setting various min rudder position/max position values in between -100 and 100 and changing the potentiometer angle. Nothing seems to get rid of this flag.
I am using the latest Pypilot version from Github and the openplotter distribution for OpenCPN + plug-ins (1.02 alpha)
Really appreciate your advice. Thanks!