2022-10-28, 03:30 AM
I am in the process of designing improved control interfaces for pypilot and overhauling tacking support. Right now I am at a junction on the best way to support the tack feature. Mainly interested in discussing tacking and controlling it.
1) tack button. In wind modes, pressing the button once is all that is needed. < 70 degrees of wind will tack, > 120 degrees will jibe. In other modes such as gps, compass the tack button is held down and a +1 or -1 button pressed to indicate the tack direction. If the +10 or -10 button is used instead it could initiate a faster tack which could be useful in rough water where tacking could fail. This feature could also be used in wind modes as well.
2) +1 +10. Pressing +1 and +10 buttons (or -1 and -10) together initiates a tack. This eliminates the need for a tack button but could lead to accidental tacks. Should the two buttons be held for a specific amount of time (say 2 seconds) and otherwise ignored? Further, in wind mode... does it make sense to use +1 and -1 buttons together to tack/jibe in the correct direction or is this basically not useful?
I like method #1 because of simplicity of tacking in wind mode, and the ability to choose regular tacking speed, or fast tacking. I like method #2 because it eliminates needing a separate tack button. I intend to support both methods with options in the remote control programming web interface, such that you could have a tack button on one type of remote, but another remote with fewer buttons or whatever can be set up to work the second way. Or simply either way can work, but offering multiple ways of doing the same operation can lead to confusion.
I do intend to produce custom keypads for pypilot control in the next version of the pypilot computer, so I am trying hard to decide if there should be a tack button or not. Perhaps simply a blank button which can be set up to work as a tack button, but programmed to do something else instead if that is preferred.
Any other ideas or methods to support this? What would you prefer if given the option?
In either case, if tacking/jibing direction is specified by the user input and a wind sensor is present even if not in wind mode, and the wind sensor indicates that it is the wrong tack direction, should the pilot ignore the command, or "tack" anyway assuming the wind indicator is not aligned, or?
1) tack button. In wind modes, pressing the button once is all that is needed. < 70 degrees of wind will tack, > 120 degrees will jibe. In other modes such as gps, compass the tack button is held down and a +1 or -1 button pressed to indicate the tack direction. If the +10 or -10 button is used instead it could initiate a faster tack which could be useful in rough water where tacking could fail. This feature could also be used in wind modes as well.
2) +1 +10. Pressing +1 and +10 buttons (or -1 and -10) together initiates a tack. This eliminates the need for a tack button but could lead to accidental tacks. Should the two buttons be held for a specific amount of time (say 2 seconds) and otherwise ignored? Further, in wind mode... does it make sense to use +1 and -1 buttons together to tack/jibe in the correct direction or is this basically not useful?
I like method #1 because of simplicity of tacking in wind mode, and the ability to choose regular tacking speed, or fast tacking. I like method #2 because it eliminates needing a separate tack button. I intend to support both methods with options in the remote control programming web interface, such that you could have a tack button on one type of remote, but another remote with fewer buttons or whatever can be set up to work the second way. Or simply either way can work, but offering multiple ways of doing the same operation can lead to confusion.
I do intend to produce custom keypads for pypilot control in the next version of the pypilot computer, so I am trying hard to decide if there should be a tack button or not. Perhaps simply a blank button which can be set up to work as a tack button, but programmed to do something else instead if that is preferred.
Any other ideas or methods to support this? What would you prefer if given the option?
In either case, if tacking/jibing direction is specified by the user input and a wind sensor is present even if not in wind mode, and the wind sensor indicates that it is the wrong tack direction, should the pilot ignore the command, or "tack" anyway assuming the wind indicator is not aligned, or?