[HN Gopher] OpenPlotter
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OpenPlotter
Author : slow_typist
Score : 59 points
Date : 2024-03-11 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (openmarine.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (openmarine.net)
| benob wrote:
| Is the rpi rated for environments with high humidity? Shouldn't
| it be in a water resistant enclosure?
| brk wrote:
| They're surprisingly resilient actually.
|
| I had one on my last boat (though in a space that was primarily
| air conditioned all the time. Had another on my balcony running
| a Marine Traffic AIS station for 6 years that was
| 'weatherproofed' with an unsealed ziploc bag. No issues.
| pnut wrote:
| HN crowd maybe doesn't appreciate it, but the marine sensor
| networking world, route plotting, and related tasks are an
| atrocious cesspool of overpriced, weirdly incompatible
| proprietary solutions.
|
| Regular people save literally tens of thousands of dollars per
| install by going open source in this space, and end up with
| superior toolkits.
| kepa wrote:
| I won't say we ended up with anything superior, but we
| definitely benefited on cost as you mention! We have an intro
| writeup of our experience using OpenPlotter and a Raspberry Pi-
| based setup here.
|
| https://sailingcourage.xyz/projects/plotter/
|
| Something also not often realized is that many, many sailboats
| are actually quite old (20, 30, 50 years!) and so are their on-
| board electronics. Any chance to update wiring, instruments,
| diagram out on-board electronics, etc. is probably a really
| good opportunity for nav system and overall boat maintenance.
| Difwif wrote:
| And for anyone wondering about an opportunity to shake up the
| market just estimate TAM and you'll see quickly why boat stuff
| is priced at such a premium.
|
| The number of people using things like Open plotter is even
| smaller, but still greatly appreciated by all!
| Solvency wrote:
| I'm confused why does this mean no one can Carplay-ify the
| plotter/charting world for boats?
| tamimio wrote:
| My engineering sense says RPi isn't a good choice here, there's a
| lot of potential failures that could happen, from a corrupted sd
| card, to overheating, harsh environment, among others, an
| industrial mini PC with proper protection and resources as well
| would be far better.
| tylerflick wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing, but then realized they may be
| using the GPIO pins. Even then you could get away with a usb
| wired micro.
| tamimio wrote:
| > then realized they may be using the GPIO pins
|
| A lot of industrial ones come with GPIO built in, some even
| follow the same rpi pinout.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Right, the rpi has the GPIO pins because they are a common
| feature on the microprocessors in the space.
| nine_k wrote:
| They are heavily invested into using GPIO:
| https://openplotter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/getting_started...
|
| I wonder if industrial-strength RPi clones / variants exist.
| The demand is certainly there.
| tamimio wrote:
| As I said in the other comment, there are already industrial
| PCs equipped with GPIO, and some models even include an
| integrated screen
|
| SBCs are good in conditions where reliability is not the
| primary concern - scenarios where frequent restarts are
| needed, change sd card, room temperature etc.), but in a
| boat? I don't know anything about marine conditions but
| having a malfunctioning in SD cards and overheating is not
| uncommon in robotics and especially in drones (where it's
| harder to use full fledged PC), few times actually the SD
| card died midair, no crashes thankfully.
| Epa095 wrote:
| OnLogic Factor.
| ajb wrote:
| The pi foundation supports this in the compute module, which
| has an emmc variant. However that requires that you make a
| supporting PCB. (Or buy one from someone else)
|
| If you are buying loads of them they will also customise the
| pi for you (although I think that's contracted out)
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > My engineering sense says RPi isn't a good choice here,
| there's a lot of potential failures that could happen
|
| Amen to that.
|
| I blame the YouTube influencers posting all the RPi content
| that would make you believe you can run the world on RPi. Some
| of the shit they post is truly dumb ... Ceph clusters on RPi ?
| Rather you than me !!!
|
| I once experimented with Pi's just for a fun unimportant home-
| server project. I got sick and tired of all the dumb failure
| modes, even when I expressly went out and bought high quality
| industrial SD cards, went above and beyond to minimise SD card
| IO etc. And that was just the SD card issues.... Never again.
| switchbak wrote:
| This was precisely my experience too, and as someone who's
| got a plural of decades farting around with low level Linux,
| this was not a fun experience. I wonder how many people got
| jazzed about, then turned off of Linux because of such
| experiences?
| lbrindze wrote:
| I keep my rpi in a pelican case that I modified to include an
| opening port for the NMEA connection. It gets all its
| power/data from the single connection which has a mechanical
| connection as well.
|
| I have over 5000 nautical miles logged (thanks to a very nifty
| influxdb integration as part of open plotter) using this set up
| since ~2021, and so far it's held up better than I could have
| guessed. I keep a spare pi and sds on board but have never
| actually needed them. My use case is long distance races,
| mostly in sub tropics/temperate areas, and I've had limited
| exposure to really hot air temp (say 90F and up in the tropics
| which is where I could see SDs starting to fail)
| slow_typist wrote:
| Compute model 4 then?
| Solvency wrote:
| I have always wondered why, in the world of millionaires and
| billionaires and yachts, why plotters like these have such
| ancient ugly 80s graphics. There are literally decades of UI
| enhancements, both functional and cosmetic, that could modernize
| these things. Im talking about the elite of the elite who will
| spare no expense at bespoke designed watches, monogram clothes,
| cars, etc. So it always just boggles my mind why this class of
| software languishes is in mediocrity.
|
| and you would think there would be thousands of developers eager
| to work on something like this. Being able to actually test ride
| boats, and live a more adventuous lifestyle while putting their
| engineering skills to practice.
| brk wrote:
| In that class of boat, the owner is not the one operating it.
| Many times they literally wouldn't even know how to start the
| engines much less interact with the ships systems.
| Solvency wrote:
| Still, think 1M+ speed and luxury boats, etc.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Still, think 1M+ speed and luxury boats, etc
|
| Even in that class of boat the owner will typically have a
| coxswain on his beck and call whenever he fancies going on
| a jolly.
|
| Some people have chauffeurs, others have a boat and
| coxswain ... sometimes the coxswain doubles up as chauffeur
| if the owner isn't quite rich enough to employ more than
| one person.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > I have always wondered why, in the world of millionaires and
| billionaires and yachts, why plotters like these have such
| ancient ugly 80s graphics.
|
| First because on a billionaire's yacht, there is a crew of 20
| doing various jobs, 3 of whom do shifts on the bridge. So if
| you want to know where you are, you just pick up the phone to
| the bridge and bark at whatever poor sucker is on duty (or you
| bark at the person serving you drinks who then relays it up the
| ranks).
|
| Second, on a billionaires yacht they already have large fancy
| displays with less ugly graphics.
|
| Finally I would hazard a guess that (at least some of) the
| software "languishes in mediocrity" due to the safety
| certifications.
| alexburke19 wrote:
| Signal K is an open source server / data format for marine
| electronics, often paired with OpenPlotter for building custom
| nav and monitoring systems with web standards (JSON, Websockets
| and HTTP).
|
| http://signalk.org/
|
| Has an excellent community of developers and hardware components.
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