New user to Openplotter with some questions

[glepuschitz]

Hi,

my name is Gernot and I am owner of a Beneteau Oceanis 331 from 2002. I already have a raspberry pi on board of my boat, until last weekend, this was running standard raspbian (a pretty old version) combined with a diy gpio extension with an AD converter for reading two analog sensors (watertanks) and voltage of the starter batterie. There is also a BMP085 connected for temperature and preassure. Since we have also LiFePO4 batteries on board, a REC Active BMS is connected via USB converter. For AD readings and BMP085 I implemented a python script that provides the values via REST API which is then read by NodeRED and shown in a NodeRed Dashboard. The REC BMS reading is done via NodeRed directly and also shown on the dashboard. An NGW-1 was used to get data from NMEA2000, convert it to NMEA-0183 and feed it to the raspberry. OpenCPN was used for navigation. So far so good, since we had to do a major electonics upgrade, I started to replace my old implementation and want to go for Openplotter / SignalK.

Electronic changes:
* new B&G Vulcan 9 Plotter
* new B&G NAC3 autopilot
* new DST810 Triducer
* existing Garmin GPS (NMEA2000)
* existing Garmin GNX Wind and GND10
* no more NME0183 components

I also wanted to go for a raspberry pi 4 now, but for some reason, it does not boot, when my DIY board is connected to GPIO. So I switched back to the Raspberry 3 for now (not sure if a Raspberry PI 5 would do better with my board).

Status quo:
* Openplotter setup done
* SignalK setup done
* Still using NGW-1 do get NMEA2000 data into SignalK (reason below in the issues section).
* REC Active BMS is feeding data via signalk rec bms plugin (worked out of the box)
* AD Values are read via the old script (converted from Python2 to Python3) and NodeRed implementation has been changed to feed the readings into SignalK

Issues and Questions:

1. BMP085
I could not install the adafruit libs for python3, to get my script running again for the BMP085 part. So I tried, if there is some way in Openplotter or SignalK to read data from it, but it looks like this old sensor is no longer supported. I guess the easiest solution is to get a BME280 to get things done, but if someone has a solution for the BMP085, please let me know

2. Openplotter performance
System is working, but pretty slow. I did not have time to take a closer look, but I guess uninstalling grafana and influxdb plus setting swap size to 1 GB should help a lot. Have to look for other services, that are not really used by me (e.g. Notification service, but I do not yet have the full picture, if I will need it). Raspberry 4 or 5 would be nice, but if it does not work with my extension board, it is currently not an option. The PI itself should only show a dashboard in kiosk mode on startup and run signalk in the background. 

3. KIP
I really love the look of the different widgets of the new KIP version. But I still do not fully understand the user handling of KIP. Login process is quite complicated, since you first get a standard dashboard when connected to the system, then need to swipe left, go to configuration, klick the gear and then login. Close everything and then you can see the dashboard. Is there a way, to create and store a standard dashboard for all devices, for non logged in users? That would solve many of my problems currently. 

Secon question - which signalk path does the battery widget read? The rec bms plugin provides ....bms.stateOfCharge for the SOC, but that is not shwon on that widgets and path can not be set on that widget, so I guess it relies for something else.

4. Waveshare CAN USB Adapter Model A
I bought this adapter, because I thought I can directly read NMEA2000 messages. This works with the provided test tool under Windows, but I could not get this adapter to run under Openplotter / Raspbian. If someone has experience with that adapter, help is much appreciated.

I guess - more updates to come :-)

Thanks for your help,
    Gernot

[PaddyB]

Welcome Gernot 

2. I used to run a Pi3, and a zero for a while which istr is the same chip. It worked but struggled sometimes, chromium wasn't really that useful though migfht be better now. 

3. You need to log in to see the same as everyone else, but can create your own dashboards on each device if you don't log in. And logging in isn't that bad really, just a few clicks once to get set up. Have you tried 2 finger tap or long tap ( on a  tablet, think it's right click on a laptop) on a kip widget yet? Give a little graph of history - just so useful 

My batteries are electrical.battaries.****, electrical.solar.**** and the battery widget picks them up straight away.

There's a BT app which is good at getting hold of any blue tooth BLE data flying around and converting to SigK, all my victron stuff goes in that way. Though the Pi Wifi chip also does BT so sometimes can take a moment. 

Sounds like a great boat & setup, generally a very helpful bunch round here. The Perplexity Ai loaded up with relevant manuals & docs can be a great help, even if just for the links. Any vague question pops into your head it's likely it will come up with something useful.
https://www.perplexity.ai/spaces/openmar...uzUAkxUVMg
 Also the signalk discord always has devs around if you get really stuck in Sigk. Invite on the sigK website

Enjoy. 

Love my Pi5, it's a beast

[glepuschitz]

Hi Paddy,

thanks for your friendly reply.
Regarding the KIP battery widget. Mine looks similar to the one in the demo (see screenshot attached). I expected to see the SoC in percent, but only see those two dashes there (like in the screenshot). The signalk path I get, is .....bms.stateOfCharge, maybe KIP expects SOC here? The other path with ...bms.xxx are fine and shown correct. Since I cannot select any path for the infos in the widget, I was wondering, which path is expected for the soc.

Regarding Raspberry 3 - I am thinking of exchanging it, but currently I can´t since my homebrew extension board is not working with the PI4. So I hope I can get Raspi3 to work somehow, by removing memory and cpu consuming apps, that I do not use. Will see. If it does not work, the display will stay of for this season and I have to use a tablet or phone to see dashboards. That is working fine already. OpenCPN or AVNav is not on the plan currently.

Regarding the login - it is not a problem for me, but we share the boat with another couple and both of them are not that IT afine. So the initial setup could be a little complicated for them. Would be easier to just share a link, they can click and see the dashboard.

[PaddyB]

This is my soc path created by the BT sensors app-
electrical.batteries.house.capacity.stateOfCharge
The battery widget picks that up and displays it.

There's a very active kip channel over on the sigk discord might be of more help if you're still stuck, they are always happy to see any possible bugs or room for improvement. .

Don't think a link is possible for kip, it's either dashboards from the server after logging on or stored locally on the device, which is maybe even more involved. Just tried a link in a browser private window & it went straight to the initial page you see. 


 Not tried it but think you should be able to create another user in sigk to keep things separate. So they don't mess up your lovely dashboards   Maybe..

I've been making a lot of infographics in gemini for all sorts to todo lists & seldom used menus etc, making a quick one of those might help if I get round to it.