Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

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baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

WayWeGo wrote:Thanks for posting!

I just ordered a RS11 to interface with the NMEA 2000 bus on our boat. I thought about designing my own, but after looking at what NoLand is offering, decided I could better spend the time on other boat tasks. I will post some more info on my owner's thread when I get it installed in a few weeks.
Agreed, I actually build this stuff all the time so I figured it would be really cool and hopefully something others may be interested in to. I just found screen real-estate on a device that supports NEMA was very expensive, NEMA for sure is a great way to go and the NoLand is a great device.
baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

LandVF36 wrote:I too am interested in your project. I put an RS11 in our 73 F36 when I owned her and two Lowarance 520c chartplotters on the flybridge console to get a set of guages with alarms in front of my view vs off to the right hand side where all the mechanical guages were. I monitored voltage, oil pressure, tach, water temp from tapping into the screw terminal blocks of the wiring harness and added Lowarnce fuel flow gauges. I loved the setup, it worked well for me for several years (and is still working for the new owner.

I got interested in Raspberry Pi single board computers and started working a project similar to yours I called "FirstMate", but initially as a way to control the AC system remotely. That project was successful, but I ended up putting in a new AC system and didn't have time to reverse engineer the new controls.

On the Carver I bought this spring, I wanted to expand the NEMA-2000 network to add EGT temps, boost, and a few more temp sensors but I ran out of time. I was having trouble getting enough speed to keep up with the NEMA network form the Raspberry. Then I discovered some pre-built boards to do the conversion and ran out of time prior to my maiden voyage. I ended up putting in a display with alarms and temp and pressure transducers from Maretron.

I'll be following your progress, I want to get back to controller AC and adding additional sensors to the diesels, and other systems on board. I'm sure I'll learn plenty form your experiences.

Sounds really cool, I should find out soon how fast the data comes through her PI. However for my solution there will be more delays as i all the data is written to a time series database and that's where the gui is built form. My goals are similar to yours for automation I will be adding additional relays to control water pumps, lights etc'. and other none critical systems.
baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

Well i think i have figured out the RS11 interface to the rasberry pi.

I will be going to the boat to test it out later today.

Basically I'm streaming the data out of the RS11 via USB to the Pi, Im using Node-red to pick up the data, parse and sort it and then using MQTT to distribute it and finally Node-Red again to put the data into influxDB. This whole process in simulation on my desktop runs very quickly (of course) but i believe i will be able to stream the data to the db almost as fast as its coming out the usb port (near the same speed as the NEMA network).

However in my senario im using Grafana to build the GUI dashboard so inherently the interface refresh will be the slow spot but as i mentioned in the beginning of the thread I'm ok with a second or two delay for my needs but i want to get as near real time as possible.

If everything works today i will see if i can make a video and attach it.

So far with just a single 18" tablet an older 8" tablet on the downstairs helm (or carried around with me anywhere on the boat, i can view any of the helm dashboards) plus the PI's and a single RS11 (i will order a second for the starboard engine as soon as i have this working) I'm am at $900 Candian. To try to do this on a 18" chart plotter of any type i think we would be well over 4k+ and every 18" screen i add will only cost an additional $350-400 (i have been buying them reconditioned), not so with commercial chart plotters.

Some things i have learned this week.

The raspberry PI 3 wireless is quite week (I already knew that but didnt expect it to have such trouble going the short distance between engine compartment and fly helm). I may have to relocated the Engine PI's out side the engine compartment today as Tuesday i was not getting very good performance.

The motion detection on the fly bridge is problematic as it picks up boats and people passing by so i may relocate the camera to the main cabin.

I will likely install an inverter as i add more tablets. the 18" tablets need a wall plugged charger, on battery it lasts about 6-8 hours with the screen on auto but if i crank the brightness im sure its going to drop fast. As yet i dont no have an inverter in the boat but do have a small house bank of two batteries.
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g36
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by g36 »

Thanks I figured for the ip cameras on the public wifi vpn would be the way to go. I ll check your suggestions what I would have to do, just haven't set a vpn up before or a rasberry. I have 35 yrs in medical equipment electronic repair so your project is right up my alley.
1997 CARVER 405
"the BLACK PEARL"

past fleet
1978 F32 SEDAN CHRYSLER 318's

current fleet
1997 seadoo gts
1997 yamaha wave venture
1985 sunbird 18 ft runabout
1968 coronado sailboat 25 ft
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baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

g36 wrote:Thanks I figured for the ip cameras on the public wifi vpn would be the way to go. I ll check your suggestions what I would have to do, just haven't set a vpn up before or a rasberry. I have 35 yrs in medical equipment electronic repair so your project is right up my alley.
I've had a lot of success (in fact its all i use) with openvpn. Its very easy to setup, very well documented. Most vpn services also can provide you connection packages that you simply down uncompress and run and contain all the cirt configs etc. Also most typical wireless firewalls/routers also support it. I use raspian and open vpn is part of the base station build i'll post here shortly.
baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

I got the RS11 working today along with the other temp sensors. I tried to take a video but got caught with another issue the reflection on the Samsung tablet did not play nice i will have to get an anti glare. Its not so bad when your using it but on my phone taking a pic or video its awful.

I have a attached a screen capture which is about 20 minutes int a start up and various dables with the throttle.

This is with out calibration: that is to say im simply setting the gauge conversion so that it takes 1-12V and converts this to 1-100 and 100-1 for the fuel.

I will have to tweak further but will need to run the boat as each gauge is a scale (other than voltage of course).

Also i solved the wireless performance. I printed new cases for both Engine and the base station PI''s allowing more holes and in the change other realized that the base station PI the wireless antenna had actually broken of the board on one sire (probably got dinged by a screw driver while being screwed down or a poor solder?) any way i switched out the PI and everything is working well now.

This is with a 2 second refresh, i also tried 1sec and things also worked well. I added the RPM for both engines to the temp historic graphs so i can see cause and effect. The RPM for both engines on the historic graph is set to divide by 10.

Both engines were of when i did the screen capture.

Its also important to note that the rudder and throttle positions are not working yet and just pumping out generic random data.
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P-Dogg
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by P-Dogg »

baggins wrote:
Its also important to note that the rudder and throttle positions are not working yet and just pumping out generic random data.
So what you are saying is that you've managed to emulate the data stream that you would capture if I was trying to dock?

But really, excellent effort here. Please do continue to post your work, since after three decades or more, most of the steam gauges are ready for an upgrade. So far so good!
I needed a less expensive hobby, so I bought a boat!
mikeandanne
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by mikeandanne »

Good stuff here Baggins, on last boat I installed a data bus and some Garmin stuff, great to read things on one display,I love this but don't understand it at all,when I read a paragraph I get dizzy and have to lie down :P :lol: Keep up the good work,looks like a great display, something I would love to do,but never could unless it came in a box with very good instructions.
Mike
baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

P-Dogg wrote:
baggins wrote:
Its also important to note that the rudder and throttle positions are not working yet and just pumping out generic random data.
So what you are saying is that you've managed to emulate the data stream that you would capture if I was trying to dock?
The data im generating until i install the potentiometers for the rudders and throttles is just random data fed at the same speed as the RS11 and Temp gauges.

One of the challenges I find when maneuvering (docking) in high flow areas is "knowing" the current position of the rudders and also when cruising and trying to balance the thrust of each engine equally (i know there are better ways to do this automatically) but thought it would be cool to know the position of the rudders the throttles (may be a more difficult) would be a nice to have.
baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

mikeandanne wrote:Good stuff here Baggins, on last boat I installed a data bus and some Garmin stuff, great to read things on one display,I love this but don't understand it at all,when I read a paragraph I get dizzy and have to lie down :P :lol: Keep up the good work,looks like a great display, something I would love to do,but never could unless it came in a box with very good instructions.
Mike
Hi Mike,

There plenty of things that make me dizzy to..

Although my plan is to put the entire build process here. I may (and this is not me trying to sell stuff) offer this as a complete "built" solution as several people at my marina have asked.

As mentioned through im not saying this is a replacement for NEMA networks and high quality chart plotters just something that's quite different and a lot cheaper. Also yesterday i was able to walk up to our mechanic in the shop and hand him my tablet while the engines were running (within wireless range) and him look at the difference between the temp and oil pressure between the port and starboard engine, so its pretty cool.

Thanks for the compliments though its turning out to be a cool project.
baggins
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by baggins »

I Had a chance to go to the boat and got the RS11 almost completed.

There is a fare amount of fiddling to calibrate the gauges. The Tachs were simple as the PPR was 8 (this is the pulse per revolution) you set in the config tools. I had to use the windows config tool finally to set up the rs11. Once you enter the calibration data you upload the config to the RS11 and then the output is simpler to display. I was doing the division in Node-Red for the RPM but once i used the config utility i simply display what the RS11 sends me.

The voltage gauge is straight forward, and the fuel gauge resulted in pretty accurate readings just setting the ratios of 0-10 volts = 0-100%.

The pressure gauge however is a little harder and i may build a variable voltage supply or hook a potentiometer up to the gauge because the gauge does not move very much when running its difficult to get the scale. for instance at 3.48v its at 60 psi at 3.6 volts is at around 70 but its tough to nail down.

I'll post the results once i figure it out. Unless some one knows it ?

right now im using one RS11 to measure fuel, oil, voltage and RPM for both port and star Eng's how ever once i get the oil pressure sorted i will order a second unit and use one RS11 for Port fuel, Oil Pres, Alternator, RPM, Gals Per hour, Fuel pres (i want to add this sensor) and Temp sender which will leave one possible sensor left which i may do forward bilge water level with a potentiometer and float. The second will then do the starboard engine and rear bilge.

Right now i also connected the RS11 to permanent power but eventually i will go back to my original setup of running each RS11 after the ignition for the respective engine.
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by mikeandanne »

A question, are the gauge readings that you see completely linear or is there and small error someplace? I seem to remember with instrumentation that we used ( old tech now) where there was a translation from air pressure to volts, it was not totally linear ( very ,very close though ).
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Captrichc
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by Captrichc »

So I'm bringing this back to life. Please please tell me you got this dialed in becuase I want it.... lol
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Captrichc
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by Captrichc »

Anyone have anything like this up and running?
1974 f32 Sedan
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Captrichc
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Re: Digital Dash and automation on Trojan F36 tri-fly

Post by Captrichc »

Anything with this?
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