[PSUBS-MAILIST] instrument and environment display

[Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles]

Steve,

An arduino microprocessor captures the data from various sensors and 
sends it to the display processor (tablet or PI) via serial 
communication.  The graphics come from a programming language called 
processing which is basically a front-end to JAVA.  I got this working 
on a raspberry PI which means a tablet is no longer necessary although 
it still may be worth spending the extra money for it.  I was concerned 
the PI would not handle the load but the latest version has a 1ghz 
quad-core and proved to be very capable.  Total cost will be around $200 
with a 7-10 inch display.  Cheaper if the display does not have 
touchscreen functionality but touchscreen will allow doing things like 
turning on lights, fans, acting as a safety ignition-switch for the 
motors.  Add wi-fi and you could use your i-phone to operate the sub.

The PI is easier on the pocketbook to lose if water infiltration or 
condensation gets to the electronics, but a tablet would be more 
versatile since you could use it for a lot more than just submarine 
operation.  Then again, for the price of a tablet you could have a spare 
PI and display on board ready to plug in and go.  Anyway, I'll make a 
final decision on hardware later.  Just a matter of personal choice 
really...the software will work on anything although things like font 
selection are sometimes not portable between hardware.

Jon


On 7/15/2015 8:19 PM, Steve McQueen via Personal_Submersibles wrote:
> Jon, very cool. What application creates the new graphics?
> Steve
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 3:09 PM, Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles 
> <personal_submersibles at psubs.org 
> <mailto:personal_submersibles at psubs.org>> wrote:
>
>
>     I am going to move to complete computerized display of sensors
>     (depth, temp, compass, etc).  My original plan was to feed a bank
>     of 7-segment LCD displays (see attached image) but the cost of
>     moving to a tablet is going to be less than double and the
>     tradeoff of a superior display is worth that extra cost.  If I can
>     find a reasonable priced 10 inch (or so) touchscreen display I
>     could even use a raspberry-pi instead of a tablet.  I may try this
>     first since I already have a PI.
>
>     I've got a prototype for the graphics available at
>     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9X5iX5pRjM which includes depth,
>     vertical rate, pitch, roll, and compass heading modeled after an
>     aircraft multi-function display (MFD).  Note that in the demo code
>     the depth and vrate are not synchronized, nor are the green
>     up/down indicators associated with VRATE.  I've set a yellow alert
>     at 500 foot depth and a red alarm at 600 feet depth.  I've also
>     set a yellow alert at 60 feet-per-minute vertical rate and a red
>     alarm at 90 feet-per-minute vertical rate. Remember Matilda?  This
>     is where her sultry voice will gently reinforce the prospect of
>     impending doom if the visual alarms are missed (or ignored).
>
>     I will be adding cabin/water temperature, humidity, cabin
>     pressure, O2 and CO2 levels and a clock to the display as soon as
>     I can figure out what I want them to look like. Might be simple
>     dials, might be graduated bars...we'll see.
>
>     Jon
>

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