raspberry on a boat #2: Kplex as AIS NMEA wireless access point
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- Sailboats are expensive. If you own an older boat, it is mainly the accessories.
The Raspberry Pi mini computer is cheap and powerful. With some extra hardware, it can take over several tasks on a boat, like acting as a wireless access point, providing the plotter charts and software, collecting AIS information or multiplexing NMEA 0183 data.
My main goal is to build a cheap AIS access point as I am using my tablet as the main plotter but I want to get AIS data in, wirelessly.
But as I did start with it, I also investigated OpenPlotter, OpenCPN and other software packages.
So, I decided to share the outcome as there is not much available on YoutTube so far and it was sometimes tricky to find the necessary information.
This is part #2: Kplex as a wireless AIS NMEA access point
In this part we will prepare a Rasbian Buster image, configure our dAISy HAT PCB, install Kplex, configure Kplex to collect serial data from data and forward it via TCP to our tablet which is using NV Charts.
Let's go!
Thank you for a good video. I discovered this just by accident and love it. I have no clue about programming, but i hope to create something similar. My PI is finally going to be used. 😊
I noticed you had a small VHF antenna connected to your Daisy HAT. Can you share what brand/model that is? I'm looking for small portable one to test without connecting full VHF antenna via splitter.
Of course! This is a simple 144/440MHz dual band antenna. I use it only for testing and yes, portable use. On a sailboat the mast antenna is the one to go for, even if a splitter is necessary to have both, radio and AIS.
This is the German amazon link:
www.amazon.de/Stecker-Antenne-Ersatzteil-Antenna-Baofeng-default/dp/B07VRNMN84
You find these antennas all over. Just look for 144/440MHz 70cm and SMA Male.
Hi- If I use Wegmatt AIS hat on Rasp 3- and I am using an IMU which amongst its GPIO pins that it uses are SCL and GND (5,6)- I want to add a physical shutdown button that will trigger a script and that requires Pins 5 and 6. Do you have another way of making a Physical shutdown button that does not use 5,6 or will I be ok connecting to these pins even though they are being used by the IMU?
Maybe I got it wrong - but why the heck do you need specific pins for a shutdown button? If you just want to start a script you can use any GPIO input, using the internal pull-ups or pull-downs, and you poll or use IRQs to detect the press and start the shutdown script.
Would it be possible to forward sail data to a Garmin Quantix watch (via ANT+)? I know there are ANT+ USB dongles on the market. It would be a cheap alternative to their NMEA2000 to ANT+ bridge? Just asking for educational purpose atm 😊 Thanks for these videos! I really enjoy them! 💪🏻
Thanks, Michael!
Regarding your question: I am not very familiar with ANT+ and especially what interfaces/gateways are existing to convert data.
However, if there is any USB dongle which is supporting Linux/Rasbian which can talk "ANT+" and you get one of the existing NMEA inputs (like my dAISy HAT but there are others, also w/o AIS and only cable NMEA input) for the Raspberry as well, it should be just some code for the conversion itself...
Hi- I am really glad to be able to duplicate your KPlex Server project with the Wegnatt Hat, But I have a problem- the uart_control caused an error- it something about an unexpected linebreak- and I do not know how to fix it. I have been trying to find a simple example of the part_control file text to copy and paste- but Have not been successful. Can you help me?
Hi Ben,
My biggest hint would be to use Node-RED instead of KPLEX. I am not sure if KPLEX is running on the new Rasbian version. After I created the tutorial using Node-RED I switched to that solution as it was more reliable and I think the better choice as nobody is doing any work on KPLEX anymore (as far as I know).
Hallo SirReal, with antenna for the AIS do you use? Thanks
In the meantime, I use my standard radio antenna which is mounted on top of my mast. I added a splitter to be able to connect two different receivers, radio+ais. With this setup 15nm are easily within range.
Gibt es eine Möglichkeit den Raspberry auf ein Tablett oder iPad zu bringen, per WLAN oder Bluetooth so daß ich einen portablen Bildschirm habe. ?
Lg
Es gibt verschiedene Möglichkeiten, die Frage ist immer "was" der Bildschirm anzeigen soll. Man kann über diverse Tools per WLAN auch die UI/den Screen der Raspberry "fernsteuern", also remote spiegeln. Aber das alles hat immer seine Grenzen.
Sinnvoller ist es eher Tools zu nutzen, die auf der Raspberry als Webserver laufen und die man mit dem Webbrowser auf dem Mobilgerät aufrufen kann. So arbeitet ja auch Node-RED.
@@Sir-Real , vielen Dank für deine Antwort
Open CPn kann bei mir leider nicht geöffnet werden. Woran könnte das liegen? Fehlermeldung: Invalid desktop file
Das kann ich leider so nicht beantworten. Dazu müsste ich mehr wissen, aber solche Fragen sind am schnellsten im entsprechenden Forum zu klären. Dort direkt mit Screenshots und entsprechenden Hintergrundinfos (welche Rasbian Version, welche Open CPN version, was hast du bisher gemacht usw). Da ich aber viel zu selten in die Kommentare gucke, ist das im Forum richtig aufgehoben.
I don't know what happened but the screen command has two main problems: 1) when I enter the screen and I specify serial0 it enters but 75% of the times after pressing "esc" it doesn't go to the menu. it remains empty. (it seems there is the wrong baud rate, or parity check , ... or whatever) 2) when I press the sequence Ctrl A + K (to kill) and Y then if I try to enter again it sees the serial0 busy. No way to enter again, I have to reboot. No pending processes, no SignalK or Keplx running .... So I cannot use it. now I will reinstall everything from zero, OS included. Any idea of what happened? I am not so lucky :-(
Remote analysis are always difficult and my main target is to get basics out with my tutorials but it is really hard to help with specific issues, also due to a lack of time on my side.
But what I would check: Energy. The dAISy Hat needs some additional energy and if you did supply the Raspberry with a normal USB charger which can't provide enough energy, this behavior would make pretty much sense to me.
@@Sir-Real Thanks! I will check. and yes I understand the problem of assisting remotely. thanks anyway for your hint. this weekend I will make it work :-)
Hi SirReal ... I managed to make it work again starting from new OS but when kplex is installed after a while I have the same problem in the serial. so it is kplex the cause.
> sudo kplex -d 9
kplex DEBUG: kplex starting, config file /etc/kplex.conf
kplex DEBUG: AIS: opened serial device /dev/serial0 for input
Failed to open tcp server for (null)/10110: Address already in use
Failed to initialize Interface _tcp-id2
kplex DEBUG: Cleaning up data for exiting input interface AIS id 10000
I tried to remove kplex but it says that kplex cannot be found ...
I don't know if you can give me any suggestion ... thanks. P
Hi Paolo,
I know, your question is one year old but because I just stumbled across it: I am using Node-RED instead of KPLEX and it works (IMHO) much better. AFAIK KPLEX is not maintained anymore. So, Node-RED is a great alternative. I did explain the setup in one of my videos. Together with OpenPlotter but I also use it w/o OpenPlotter and on an installation w/o a GUI. Just terminal.
@@Sir-Real thanks a lot. Yes you are right. NodeRed is for sure the best alternative. I like it. Never used in a terminal mode. Any doc or tutorial to suggest?
Thank you for the detailed description. It works fine with NV-Charts and OpenCPN. Have you already tested the whole thing with Navionics?
Hi Oliver!
No, I didn't try it with Navionics yet. But maybe someone here in the community who can add a comment about his experience?
@@Sir-Real I was successful with NV Charts and OpenCPN. The same configuration in Navionics fails.
Well, I did download the 14 days trial of the Navionics app now. I can't test KPLEX currently, as I switched over to Node-RED as my main NMEA multiplexer, but this shouldn't make a difference.
I went to "menu\paired devices" and I used the plus to create a new one. I did set the IP of my Raspberry running my Node-RED NMEA multiplexer, TCP, port 10110 and boats popped up immediately. So, seems to work for me. Don't know why is doesn't work on your side... ?
@@Sir-Real hm. Maybe I have to use the Testsignal because AIS is not available at the Chiemsee😂. We have to test it at our holidays in Croatia. But many thanks for your support. I like your videos.👍
Ahhhhhhh, Signals are coming but I wasn‘t detailed enough. Thanks supporting me. 😂😂😂
warum nicht in deutsch ??????
Naja, jede Übersetzung kostet auch (private) Zeit und ich selbst bin von KPLEX auf Node-RED umgestiegen und nutze das auch auf unserem Boot. Daher habe ich das übersetzt, was ich empfehlen würde.
KPLEX scheint auch nicht mehr supported / weiterentwickelt zu werden, da erscheint mir mein Node-RED Ansatz (den ich nirgends sonst bisher gesehen habe) zukunftssicherer.