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+--- Thread: New to Open Plotter (/showthread.php?tid=6927)
New to Open Plotter - aquinn - 2026-05-17
Hi all,
I have been using OpenCPN for sometime now on my Fedora laptop, only stumbled upon Open Plotter in the last few days and it looks amazing.
So, now I am going to give this a go, but I have a few questions, if someone could please advise;
1 - Raspberry Pi selection; I see that both the RPi 4 and 5 are supported in any RAM configuration, please advise which is the most usable based on the below;
1.1 - RAM - What is the minimum amount of RAM for the setup to be fluid?
1.2 - Pi 4 or 5? Assume Pi5 as the clock speed is higher
1.3 - I would be looking to use the MacArthur HAT and Daisy HAT, There only seems to be cases available to purchase for one or the other, not both. And also only seems to be available for the Pi 4? Have zero experience with 3D printing and design, so this would most likely not be a solution for me.
Sorry, I am assuming these questions have all been asked and answered before, but I could not find them in the forum when I looked.
Many thanks
Anthony
RE: New to Open Plotter - DanLXIX - 2026-05-19
I took the view that bigger was better, so I went for an 8GB Pi5 with a 256GB SSD on a bottom board, and the MAcArthur HAT with the power module. I just found a box on Amazon that would fit everything, I'm not worried about it being in a waterproof case.
Take a look at the video's linked off the webpage - I found Boating with the Baileys video very useful
RE: New to Open Plotter - PaddyB - 2026-05-19
I ran pi4 for a while which worked, very useable. But in the edge, that was with lots of influxdb going on, opencpn with radar. Now Pi5 with 5Gb ram. That's a beast! Think generally maybe about 200mA more current draw. Does lots, opencpn/signalk always on with music playing back, or radio. Ham radio stuff as well. Just using a ply shelf made in under the chart table.
The perplexity Ai is great first place to ask any random questions you might have, more often than not the links are very useful.
https://www.perplexity.ai/spaces/openmarine-ai-support-SslrWnWdSeuxuzUAkxUVMg
RE: New to Open Plotter - rdempsey - 2026-05-19
(2026-05-17, 12:21 PM)aquinn Wrote: 1 - Raspberry Pi selection; I see that both the RPi 4 and 5 are supported in any RAM configuration, please advise which is the most usable based on the below;Are you going to use the Pi to run Opencpn or just as a data collector/distributor?
1.1 - RAM - What is the minimum amount of RAM for the setup to be fluid?
1.2 - Pi 4 or 5? Assume Pi5 as the clock speed is higher
1.3 - I would be looking to use the MacArthur HAT and Daisy HAT, There only seems to be cases available to purchase for one or the other, not both. And also only seems to be available for the Pi 4? Have zero experience with 3D printing and design, so this would most likely not be a solution for me.
-As a data point, a Pi4 with 2GB ram is all you need.
-Pi5 has much better GPU to run Opencpn with mbtiles
-Ram wise 2 is OK, 4 is good, 8 is probably not needed.
-Once you add multiple hat, you are on your own for cases. But read this:
https://forum.openmarine.net/showthread.php?tid=6099
-use an NVMe bottom, SD cards go bad quickly and are really slow