Noob getting new Rasberry pi 4B question

sailormanbigd

sailormanbigd

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Jul 24, 2006
628
Legnos, Starwind, Regal Mystic 30 cutter, 22 trailer sailor, bow rider NEW PORT RICHEY, FL
Hello, have a new boat with Garmin GPS, but for redundancy I ordered Rpi4b with a DAC hat hifiberry pro for music and movie source. I don't know much about the Rpi game yet. Is it possible to use it for GPS navigation and play music files simultaneously? If so what do I download for OS to play and work well with Ocpn? What else do I need for my 30ft Mystic 30 sailboat "system"? thanks for any suggestions/help
 
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sail sfbay

sail sfbay

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Feb 21, 2013
4,638
Hunter 46 Point Richmond, CA
sailormanbigd said:
................What else do I need for my 30ft Mystic 30 sailboat "system"?............
Click to expand
What sailboat "system" are you referring to? If you are thinking about boat equipment I would start with making sure the boat is equiped with all the required safety equipment for a 30 ft sailboat AND the type of sailing you plan to do, e.g., short or single handed, offshore, racing, crusing, overnight, etc. then I would make a prioritized list of nice to have boat "jewelery".
 
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jon hansen

jon hansen

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May 25, 2012
4,335
john alden caravelle 42 sturgeon bay, wis
"it's all Greek to me"
.... but for me, the first thing i add to a new to me sailboat are new sails. the sound of new sails is music to my ears. :cool:
 
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Davidasailor26

Davidasailor26

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May 17, 2004
5,091
Beneteau Oceanis 37 Havre de Grace
I’d recommend checking out OpenPlotter - OpenPlotter | OpenMarine. I don’t know about media playback but it’s focused on the chart plotting and other types of interfacing you’re looking for. It looks like it’s Debian based so you can probably add whatever other media playback packages are needed.
 
DArcy

DArcy

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Feb 11, 2017
1,705
Islander Freeport 36 Ottawa
I'd suggest only using a Raspberry Pi with OpenCPN dedicated to navigation and not use it for entertainment at the same time. You probably could have a dual purpose set up on it and use it for entertainment then switch to navigation if your primary goes TI. I haven't used a 4B, I only have a 3B and the 4B would be more capable but my experience with RP is they are not good with multitasking.
And the last I saw on the OpenMarine site was they are not yet recommending the RP4 for OpenCPN but it's worth a try if you already have it.
 
Davidasailor26

Davidasailor26

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May 17, 2004
5,091
Beneteau Oceanis 37 Havre de Grace
OpenMarine now recommends the RPi 4 for OpenPlotter. I agree with DArcy though that for the price it might be worth having a second pi so they don’t need to multitask. I have 3 Arduinos for data collection and an older Pi logging all the data and making it available as a webpage. I don’t rely on that for charting or any media playback though.
 
sailormanbigd

sailormanbigd

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Jul 24, 2006
628
Legnos, Starwind, Regal Mystic 30 cutter, 22 trailer sailor, bow rider NEW PORT RICHEY, FL
Geez! First off its not my first sailboat! @nd it comes with great sail inventory. If you can't address the question at hand please keep your opinions and rhetoric to your selves thanks. It is a Rp[i 4 with 8 gigs of Ram memory, so should handle the multitasking. I love to sail, and have a cutter rig so plenty of sail options. What do you fogies' do on a cold and windy night? Go to sleep at dusk I presume. I would like to tap an icon and play some great Jazz or Classical music from my hard drive, or watch a 4khd video. I am a professed audiophile, sailor, handy man, diy'r, boat repair guy, and a minimal tech junkie. It just happens that I can't get to the boat for a few months, its in Boston and I'm in Clearwater, FL. So, if you don't have the knowledge, desire, or interest in my question then just move on. Incidently, the Rasberry pi is a great low power consumption device capable of many, many, many boat tasks and others-like media streamer.
 
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DArcy

DArcy

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Feb 11, 2017
1,705
Islander Freeport 36 Ottawa
I wouldn't get too wound up about unsolicited advice around here, although you did ask about anything else for your sailboat system. Could be taken differently out of context.
A lot of people use this form for casual conversation, more so now that a lot of us are locked up.
Personally, I want to hear what you end up with for entertainment as well as navigation equipment. As I mentioned, I have a RPi 3 and was considering using it for navigation at the chart table, in addition to the Raymarine MFD at the helm. I am also interested in setting up a audio/video entertainment system but have some other systems to straighten out first.
 
jon hansen

jon hansen

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May 25, 2012
4,335
john alden caravelle 42 sturgeon bay, wis
"well cool off pilgrim" :poke:


i suggest you call the raspberry Pi4 company up and ask them what it can do for you. this is a sailboat web site. we know boats. we can sail them. we can help answer 'boating questions' so as to help you sail them. we are bored cause a lot of us have our boats put away. so answering a question such as yours is fun for us. i know your in fla. i know your boat is not in fla. you told us.

i am old. i am an 'old fogey'. what i do every night ain't your business. i will tell you that it is a whole lot of fun. i am relaxed. my vessels are all ready to go. been tweeking them for a long time. what i have learned is to call the company of any said device and discuss with them how their device can work for me.

jon :cool:
 
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fred1diver

fred1diver

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Aug 17, 2013
822
Pearson P30 202 Ottawa/Gatineau
Ok so I don’t want to hijack the thread but what can you do with a rp4 on a boat? Never heard of rp before
 
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DArcy

DArcy

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Feb 11, 2017
1,705
Islander Freeport 36 Ottawa
fred1diver said:
Ok so I don’t want to hijack the thread but what can you do with a rp4 on a boat? Never heard of rp before
Click to expand
Raspberry Pi is a $35 (US) single board computer. It started out as an educational tool but people latched onto it for so many more things. It runs an operating system that branched off from Linux which a lot of developers are comfortable with. It's on its fourth generation (hence RPi 4) and there have been some variants of each generation. There is also a cheaper version (because $35 is too much sometimes) called the Pi Zero. The 8GB mentioned above is the top of the line and will set you back around CDN$103.
On a boat, you can set it up to use OpenCPN. You can just download the installer and burn OpenCPN onto a micro SD card, pop the card into the RPi and turn it on. Bingo, you are now running OpenCPN on the RPi. Plug in a USB GPS and you can see yourself on the chart. There are some plugins that you can install from within OpenCPN to do various things like interface to an autopilot. I have OpenCPN set up on a RPi 3B.
If you want to get fancy you can even build a PyPilot. I'm thinking about trying this but the support is pretty much non-existent, just the forum so you are on your own.
 
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sailme88

sailme88

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Jan 19, 2010
1,172
Catalina 34 Casco Bay
Isn't this the boat that hadn't been in the water for some ten years following the death of the owner, and the new owner was trying to get it transported on the eve of a major NE storm?
 
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sailormanbigd

sailormanbigd

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Jul 24, 2006
628
Legnos, Starwind, Regal Mystic 30 cutter, 22 trailer sailor, bow rider NEW PORT RICHEY, FL
yes, the one and only
 
Fidgit

Fidgit

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Nov 16, 2019
24
Catalina 22 4042 Any water in driving distance!
I'm in the process of setting up a raspberry pi with open plotter. I'll try to document the process and make a post when it's done. likely some time before spring.
 
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