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2020-02-21, 11:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 2020-02-21, 05:39 PM by Ranur.)
Next up on my OP project list is integration between my OP, my MFD and my Raymarine ST1000+. I've just started reading up on old posts after an unsuccessful attempt at getting in touch with it through pypilot and NMEA 0183 serial yesterday. When reading some of the alternatives for pypilot and rebuilds that people have done, I see that some of y'all scrap the factory functionality with the +/- 1, 10 push button setup. This all got me thinking - how about doing both - keeping the original setup, but rather than having NMEA in, (Edit for clarity) Rewiring the NMEA input wires in the connector to use them for power from the the pypilot motor controller and run them to the motor instead. (To be able to get pypilot power to the ST1000 through the std interface.)
In that way I SHOULD be able to control via Openplotter (and thereby my MDF through signal K right?) AND have instant access at the push of a button on the ST1000+? Am I off field here? or is there an easier way. SHOULD I be able to do this already through the NMEA 0183 interface?
Help me out here.
BR,
Ranur
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nmea0183 is optional for pypilot for wind, gps and route messages.
unfortunately there is not support for buttons on the motor controller, but this may be possible in the future. The motor controller uses a binary protocol.
Otherwise, you can run the buttons to the raspberry gpio with one wire per button plus a ground. Another way is to use an RF transmitter, or a wifi connection to support the buttons.
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2020-02-21, 04:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 2020-02-21, 04:05 PM by beholder77.)
ST1000+ support remote buttons though Seatalk interface
(on my previous boat i made RF remote with arduino and TTL->Seatalk converter)
But to control it from openplotter you will need to develop some kind of new software....
with NMEA you only able to send waypoints to ST1000 for "Track" mode and send wind sentences for "Wind Trim" mode (if available)
You can't just rewire NMEA wires from st1000 controller to motor terminals inside ST1000 and connect to pypilot motor controller.
I dont think this is good idea, maybe i am wrong, but there will really unpredictable behavior when ST1000 controller and pypilot will try to control motor at same time
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If they gave a contradicting message it would short the controllers.
If using pypilot you can wire the buttons use wifi/rc/ir/gpio, but it goes through the raspberry not the motor controller.
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2020-02-25, 05:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 2020-02-25, 05:29 PM by seandepagnier.)
I got esp8266 communicating with pypilot for possible wireless remote.
the esp8266 doesn't have enough ram to run the pypilot scripts in micropython. A simple python script does communicate over wifi to pypilot and is working.
Rather than write the lcd rendering bit in c, I will try an esp32 and see if it can run the same python script used on the pi.
If it can, it might eventually be viable to run pypilot itself on the esp32 which would probably be ok for the basic pilots but not machine learning.
If esp32 cannot run pypilot, then maybe it can work if pypilot is precompiled to c, or eventually just use c code to at least make a working wifi remote on the esp32 in the worst case.
It might be interesting to use ultra capacitors and rectify the power to the drive motor to refresh them to power this if it is wired to the same tillerpilot buttons rather than needing a separate battery.