Raspberry Pi development projects on a sailboat. Compares open source to closed source ecosystems. Looks at variety of projects to do on the boat. Shows cost and current draw.

1. PI ON A BOAT?
CHANGING FACE OF BOATING ELECTRONICS
ESPECIALLY FOR THE DIY CROWD

3. THIS IS A
PI.

4. MY BACKGROUND
• CSE
• Electrical Engineering
• Sailed dinghies as well as keel
boats
• Own a ‘Good Old Boat’
• Rebuilt an engine
• Refinished interior
• Fiberglassed
• Built table
• New electrical
• ‘Thrifty’
• Our electronics (Raytheon S60)
are showing their age but
worked… what to do?

5. THINGS CHANGE

6. CHANGING THOUGHTS OF A SAILBOAT

7. YOU ALREADY WORK ON COMPLEX THINGS

8. WHY NOT TRY YOUR HAND
AT BOAT ELECTRONICS
• Maker industry especially in boats
• Open Source vs Closed Source
• Some interesting projects
• Openplotter
• Freeboard
• Sample costs
• Sample boat projects

9. PROPRIETARY VS OPEN SYSTEMS
• Proprietary Systems
• Raymarine
• Garmine
• Other
• Open Systems
• OpenPlotter
• OpenCPN
• Other

10. PROPRIETARY SYSTEMS VISION

11. RAYMARINE’S VISION

12. GARMIN’S VISION

13. PROPRIETARY SYSTEMS
PROS
• Interoperability within own
ecosystem
• Plug and Play within own
ecosystem
• Support
• Hardened for marine
CONS
• Expensive
• Not interoperable with other
systems (easily)
• Closed – what you see is what
you have
• Closed – no ability to tap into
the system

14. FAY54
BOAT

15. FROM PANBO
• If I could send the manufacturer's one message in 2009, it would be
“open up”. Dump the proprietary cabling, proprietary interfaces,
proprietary data formats, etc. Publish everything and encourage
third party software developers to interact with the systems. The
vendor who does this most aggressively will be richly rewarded by
seeing all the peripheral applications that they can not address being
solved by third parties, increasing demand for the systems vendor's
core products. All of the manufacturers will be cutting R&D this year
so they won't want to do this because a proper 3rd party program
requires R&D resources and support which means they have to cut
back internal product development even further. But those that do
will find that the get a lot more bang for their R&D buck by
leveraging third party developers.”
• Even worse in 2016!

16. OPEN SYSTEMS VISION

17. BOATING

18. SIGNAL K
• Open standard
for NMEA 2000

19. FREEBOARD

20. FREEBOARD

21. FREEBOARD
• Multiplex NMEA, convert Seatalk to NMEA and vice versa
• Broadcast NMEA over Wifi.
• Provide a low cost way way to add wind instruments, digital compass, or GPS, via NMEA to
existing systems.
• Use your existing instruments NMEA output
• Provide a chartplotter and virtual instruments over wifi to several tablets, PC's or
cellphones, all at once
• Provide low cost autopilot
• all of the above at once

22. OPENCPN
• Runs on
• Tablets
• PCs
• Macs
• Pi’s
• Maps from
many sources
• vector
• raster

23. OPENCPN
• Instruments
• Plots
• Waypoints

24. OPENCPN - AIS

25. OPENPLOTTER

26. FINALLY!
PI’S

27. SO, WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
• Built in web server
• Able to connect to other devices
• Expandable storage and networking built in
• A 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU
• 1GB RAM
• Like the (Pi 1) Model B+, it also has:
• 4 USB ports
• 40 GPIO pins
• Full HDMI port
• Ethernet port
• Combined 3.5mm audio jack and
composite video
• Camera interface (CSI)
• Display interface (DSI)
• Micro SD card slot
• VideoCore IV 3D graphics core
$35

28. RASPBERRY PI ZERO
• 1Ghz, Single-core CPU
• 512MB RAM
• Mini HDMI and USB On-The-Go
ports
• Micro USB power
• HAT-compatible 40-pin header
• Composite video and reset headers
$5

29. OTHER PI LIKE DEVICES

30. PI’S AND PC’S

31. HUGE COMMUNITY!

32. LET’S MAKE SOMETHING!
• Temperature and humidity sensor for
engine exhaust compartment

33. INSTALL OPENPLOTTER

34. BATTERY MONITOR

35. INSTALL DIGITAL
RADAR

36. LOTS OF THINGS TO DO!

37. VIEWING OPTIONS

38. COSTS
Unit Price
RP2 50
Power Supply 6
Cords 10
Keyboard 15
Mouse 15
Wireless USB 10
Sensors 20
Waterproof LCD 200
laptop 250
576
Unit Price
RP2 50
Power Supply 6
Cords 10
Keyboard 15
Mouse 15
Wireless USB 10
Sensors 20
126
All I showed Just the Pi

39. NMEA 2000
$33 + $15 = $48

40. ARDUINO BASED AUTO PILOT
$350 in parts

41. CURRENT DRAW
Raymarine
MFD
C70 9w
C80 10w
C120 12w
Radar
2kw 28w (9w standby)
4kw 34w (10w standby)
Raspberry Pi
Max 1W (typical ~0.5 W)
Arduino
Max 1W (typical ~0.5 W)
Wireless Hub / Switch
Max 1.8 W
7” touch screen
400nits: 250mA draw = 0.25W / volt = 3W
1000 nits ~ 9W
12” touch screen
1000 nits ~ 13W

42. CHALLENGES
• Canada – charts!
• Water and Electronics
• Need to program (just a bit…)
• I am on the hook if this goes bad
• Mindset

43. IF YOU ARE UP FOR IT!

44. OTHER IDEAS
• Try the projects I outlined
• And also Pi Lighting
• Pi gas sensors
• Pi Remote Monitoring – what is happening on your boat
• 3-D printing – enclosures and other bits
• Social media – share charts and places
• Pi based wave measurement
• Pi based robots to check pilings and moorings

45. NEXT STEPS
• Try it
• Play
• Advanced lego with programming
• You get to buy some new tools and gadgets
• Get a group of interested folks at SYC
• Check out what Dal and NSCC is doing
• Have fun!
SYC 2016

46. LINKS
• OpenPlotter
• http://www.sailoog.com/en/openplotter
• Raspberry Pi Foundation
• https://www.raspberrypi.org/
• 20 Interesting Pi Projects
• http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/21862/raspberry-pi-top-20-projects-to-
try-yourself
• Where to Buy
• Amazon or eBay easy
• www.canakit.com - all the items you need with their kits – good place