Pypilot starting - couple of qusetions

[zankiki]

What are your thoughts on when the motor controller should be on?

1. Always when the power on boat is switched on
2. When openplotter (raspberry) is turned on

?

[seandepagnier]

What are your thoughts on when the motor controller should be on?

1. Always when the power on boat is switched on
2. When openplotter (raspberry) is turned on

?

It does not really matter.  The motor controller draws little current idle.

[zankiki]

Hi,

I was finally putting the finishing touches on the PyPilot installation. The biggest job was to remake the hydraulic hoses, as for the electronics, everything worked almost from first try.
I was surprised that I didn't have any major problems, because I did expected them.

After first try, and about half an hour of playing with gains, I can say that I am very satisfied with how PyPilot controls boat.

But (always that but), there's one weird thing I don't get.
I have pictures, so that I could explain as easily as possible:

   
On this picture, you can see that dashed red line (actual heading of boat) is different from the red and green line with circle at end (Pypilot heading and heading chommand).
I don't understand how it can be different when I only have only one compass on board (in moitessier hat).
Pypilot worked very well even with this settings, but the problem is when it needs to follow the route (if the route is a little to the right from the ship, in this case Pypilot thinks it is a little to the left of the ship and steers to the wrong side.






   
Then I tried to change the offset in the Pypilot calibration, I moved it by 10 degrees, but both headings moved by 10 degrees, as you can see in this picture






   
Finally, i tried to disable WMM plugin, and manauly insert value. In my area, the value for the deviation is 5.5 (by WMM), from several attempts I checked that the value of -5.5 suits me. Now the headings are one over the other and everything works great.

What could be causing this?

[seandepagnier]

it is clearly an issue of applying the magnetic declination to give true north from magnetic compass. Not sure exactly what is wrong, but it must have to do with the way the pypilot plugin communicates with the wmm plugin. I will look into it, and thanks.


As for following routes, it should not matter that much since you have to be in GPS mode anyway and the offsets are compensated automatically.