Route second waypoint issue

[jamos.tan@gmail.com]

I am running OP2 on a RPi 4.
But I never installed OpenCPN using the OP2 Settings I compiled it from source because at the time of building my system there was a problem with OP2 and Opencpn... it was back in the fall so I don't exactly remember why.
I also installed all my plugins from git. Which always installs the latest.
I have another build installed from the latest img. that I could swap over to, but I found with that build, that pypilot plugin would deactivate AP every few hours, basically AP would be activated, and keeping a heading, and the boat would suddenly loose course and the screen would indicate AP was no longer activated..... really need an audible alert when that happens! Do you find any problems like that with your current setup?

The current issue I am having with pypilot plugin, is simply that it does not see or use the GPS stream, I can only use autopilot with compass mode enabled.
The current issue with autopilot route plugin is similar to what you have experienced as soon as I activate a route openCPN freezes and I have to force quite and restart.
If I disable the auto pilot route plugin I can activate a route but it does not change my heading, just keeps on the heading it was set to previously.

I am going reinstall OP2 from scratch on another card and see if I can replicate your setup. What kernel version are you running?

I was just out sailing, testing the route with the built in OpenCPN route capabilities. I had to avoid some AIS objects and other traffic, and fix a lost GPS signal before I could steer to the nearest waypoint. It seemed to work at first, see image (left-below yellow line):



You can see it curving gently to the waypoint, but then it made a sharp turn all of the sudden! First I thought, what the hell! But then I saw that the tiller was off of it's pin and not connected to the rudder anymore. My mistake, but then something really strange happened:

At that moment the tiller was retracting to the point that it couldn't retract any further and stopped moving, and on that exact moment BAM... no more AP connection??? At this point I just didn't know what the trouble was, power was properly hooked up so it couldn't be a power failure. Also when looking back at Grafana that records my voltage, amps and watts, I could see it was a little bit unstable. Also have a UPS built in, that says to Node-Red to power down the pi when there is a power loss, in order to avoid a corrupted SD. The trouble was a little bit of an instable power on the Pi and the motor controller. So maybe at the moment that the tiller had to do more work and the power cables were not connected sturdy, the Pi just went dead (or "safely shutdown" and so did the AP and Autopilot. 

So, I rebooted the Pi with a better power connection this time and tried activating the route again. But this time the tiller just went crazy, also the magnetic compass just does not do what I want in OpenCPN although there doesn't seem to be any interference. It was my understanding that OpenCPN just uses the magnetic compass for the ownship direction pointing the front at the ship in line with the compass position on the ship, and the gps heading will be a red line pointing in the direction it actually goes. Together with an activated autopilot this was really complicated for me to interpret, at the same time trying to think of a possible cause that the Autopilot just steered into directions I didn't want. 

In between I tested the Autopilot in magnetic mode without a route, this seemed to work at the time however was way to nervous in correcting routes, think I'll need to adjust the gain. Any way, GPS mode is not really working for me, also without an active route it just steers to another direction that I am really heading at.

All in all I think I need to do a few things:

- A sturdy power connection, that will not get loose. Will probably use bolts screws directly on the batteries power terminal
- Switch off my node-red UPS auto shutdown function, just in case
- Somehow test if my magnetic compass works OK on the boat
- More WiFi signal, need to set the external dongle as AP but OP2 does not allow me to do this? (sharing internet connection device settings don't make any difference)
- Adjust the gains so Pypilot isn't that nervous (oversteers)

Sorry for the long post... just wanted to share my experience. To answer your questions:

I use the image of OP2 headless, most recent one, this will have OpenCPN by default and the Pypilot plugin that comes with it works. Didn't do any major changes to the settings, or SignalK. 
Most important one was the Pypilot connections.

When you say that your GPS stream does not come through to Pypilot, what OpenCPN connection do you use? TCP port 20220 with output filters APB and all the EC@@@@?
And, what settings do you have in the Pypilot plugin? Forward NMEA off ?

I think it would be worth it to test the headless image, and go from there...