Looking for tinypilot (computer) how to docs

[ironman]

Hi Ironman, 
Going through system configuration:I have rpi 3B+ with Pican-M hat which is seeing the N2K data via signalK.

If the data flows into opencpn through signalk, you are an ace. Can you see in opencpn the green bars in the upper right corner, and an updated position of your boat? Then you are on top of a really nice piece of concerted system integration. However ;-) signalk messages are not nmea messages, and you cannot forward signalk messages to pypilot on port 10.10.10.2:20220. You can only send nmea messages that are received by opencpn, and thus forwarded, or nmea messages that are generated by opencpn.

Over the N2K network, I believe to be sending out NMEA messages on port 20220, which are green in the NMEA debug tool offered by opencpn.

What I see in the second image is nmea0183 sentences from pypilot coming back to opencpn. This happens because you have a check in the Receive box in your connection settings (third image). You see pypilot sending pitch, roll and heading information back. Nothing really wrong with that, and it shows that the connection with pypilot is working, so it's good to keep it on because you see a 'pulse'. I'm just telling you this to get a better understanding of what you see. BTW, this is not N2K - it's nmea0183.

From here, back on openplotter, I open an instance of opencpn, and navigate to connections. There I made a TCP connection, to 10.10.10.2 with port 20220. I have it both accepting input and outputs. I selected RMC,APB,MWV first, but that didn't allow the pypilot to select anything other than compass(cant select GPS, Wind, True wind).

This is all fine, and I think you did select the right messages, but as Sean said, I'd skip the filter for now. Let's start simple.

It's important to understand that because opencpn is not receiving nmea messages, no nmea messages are being forwarded to pypilot. So pypilot does not receive gps or wind data so it won't enable gps or wind modes. Of course I know what you could be thinking right now, but hang on...

After selecting the current configuration(TCP, 10.10.10.2:20220), I went into opencpn, made a waypoint approx 30 degrees off my centerline and 2kn away, and told opencpn to navigate there. [...] and my NMEA messages are appearing green, meaning they are being accepted, but when I look at pypilot, I cannot select GPS, wind, or true wind.

When you have an active route, opencpn should generate nmea messages, as described here. In fact, the link says that only RMB and APB messages are sent out, but also RMC and XTE messages are issued. These sentences should appear in the debug window, and they should be green. Can you confirm that these specific messages are seen there, and they are green?

It's the RMC message that should enable the GPS option in pypilot. So I would have expected that to happen. Just skip the output filter and confirm the green status of outgoing RMC messages and we'll take it from there.

Now if you want to know how to always enable gps and wind modes, and not only enable gps mode when a route is active, that's another chapter, and you might tune in to Getting wind data into Pypilot.