AIS Wifi multiplexer

[Zenfunk]

Hi fellow sailors,
Not sure where to post this, it could also go into the "how do I..." subforum, so if one of the admins want to move this, please do so. 

I currently am navigating on our sailboat with the Navionics app on an old Android tablet. So far so good, everything works well. 
I also have an old AIS Transceiver which has serial NMEA output It is an EasyAIS2 from weatherdock. I'd love to have the AIS data as a Wifi signal so It can be picked up by my Tablet and be displayed in the Navionics App. From my research I came to the conclusion that I could use a Raspberry Pi with Openplotter and a Serial to USB adapter from the AIS to do exactly this. Can anyone confirm this for me?

If I already have a Pi on board then, I might as well get a small touchdisplay to have a fully fledged chartplotter below deck, but this is just the icing on the cake, not a necessity.

Thank you very much in advance for your input,
Christian

[Boatingbaileys]

Hi,

Yeah that should be possible. Does the AIS transceiver have a high speed NMEA output? I did this in reverse, sending data from my Pi system to a C80 that was NMEA so I see no reason why you couldn’t do that in the other direction.

Get the recommended usb interface they mention in the docs and it should just work. Also remember to switch output to input and I think that’s about it.


Good luck ⛵️

[MigGat]

Hi Zenfunk,

I did exactly the same thing at the very begining, i bought a very cheap nmea to usb converter (actually is a RS-422/RS-485 to USB adapter, which is even cheaper), and plugged in RPi usb port.

Then, on the Serial app, a new device will appear after you click on "Refresh". You just need to add an alias and a SignalK connection and you're done!

In this thread you can see how I tried and the community help me debug (i asked for another device but I also connected a quarkelec AIS receiver): https://forum.openmarine.net/showthread.php?tid=3370

Note that I was using OpenPlotter 2 at that time, but everything there will be useful for OpenPlotter 3

Also don't forget to read the documentation about the Serial app: https://openplotter.readthedocs.io/en/3....ght=serial

Hope this helps you as it helped me back then

[Zenfunk]

Sorry everyone for not getting back to you all sooner. Thank you very much for your answers!!!!
The AIS transcever outputs 38400 baud RS 422 NMEA data. I already have a USB to serial device so I try to get some signal to my ordinary laptop with OpenCPN. If this works I will purchase openplotter hardware. I will keep you guys posted on the progress.
Cheers, Christian

[Zenfunk]

OK, I see AIS data from my AIS transceiver in OpenCPN via the USB to RS422 converter. This is excellent news!!! So I will go ahead and buy some Raspberries. Mind you, we will be away from the boat for quite some time, so the next updates will be end of december....

[deniolpahsy]

I can't find AIS data from my AIS transceiver in OpenCPN via USB to RS422 converter. Is it due to an update error?

[SCarns]

OK, I see AIS data from my AIS transceiver in OpenCPN via the USB to RS422 converter. This is excellent news!!! So I will go ahead and buy some Raspberries. Mind you, we will be away from the boat for quite some time, so the next updates will be end of december....

One Pi will do it. I wouldn't bother with the screen. Once you get Openplotter up and running on the Pi and the AIS connected, SignalK (pre installed on openplotter) does the rest once you add in the needed plug ins from the SK App Store. SignalK essentially becomes the data hub for all your data, NMEA, NMEA2000, serial, Victron, whatever. SK will then gather all the data, convert it to whatever you need and send it to your laptop via a NMEA stream. OpenCPN can be running on any other device and any other device can connect to get the data. It's a brilliant, inexpensive, low power way to go.

I have my AIS on a NMEA2000 network, but I also have Victron equipment, bluetooth temperature sensors, engine data monitors, wifi relay switches and (in the past) solar charge controllers all hooked up and working happily together via SignalK running on a RPi4. I added in a stand alone wifi router (you could use the pi for that also, but I needed more ethernet ports) and now I have all my data on ANY device at anytime at the same time. Works great!

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I can't find AIS data from my AIS transceiver in OpenCPN via USB to RS422 converter. Is it due to an update error?

Need more info? Have you added the serial port as a connection in opencpn? Or are you running openplotter with opencpn on top of it? Where is the serial connection connected to? What versions are you running? What makes you think it was an update error? That is doubtful and it most likely is just not configured properly.