2020-05-05, 05:29 PM
You don't need rs422... I have been able to use the uart at 3.3v from 200ft or more runs. If you use shielded wire or ethernet wire you can use twisted pairs grounding one wire in each pair and the noise is very low.
As for using arduino gpio for buttons... It's not implemented in the mainline. There isn't a lot of gpio left over on the arduino, and pypilot doesn't deal directly with keypresses, it is a separate application. It's also difficult to use a lot of the features of the buttons without feedback from the lcd. The tillerpilots have leds so you might need something like that too. It is definitely possible to implement but I feel like the result would be the same as tillerpilots which isn't actually very good.
It would be more flexible to use a wireless remote with lcd, and just clip it to the tillerpilot somehow. I am looking into this and there are some very cheap boards with esp32 and lcd already integrated.
As for using arduino gpio for buttons... It's not implemented in the mainline. There isn't a lot of gpio left over on the arduino, and pypilot doesn't deal directly with keypresses, it is a separate application. It's also difficult to use a lot of the features of the buttons without feedback from the lcd. The tillerpilots have leds so you might need something like that too. It is definitely possible to implement but I feel like the result would be the same as tillerpilots which isn't actually very good.
It would be more flexible to use a wireless remote with lcd, and just clip it to the tillerpilot somehow. I am looking into this and there are some very cheap boards with esp32 and lcd already integrated.