Adam - Does anyone know why when I connect to t...
Does anyone know why when I connect to the Seatalk chain with an optocoupler, the autopilot start showing "STLK FAIL" error? I do get data to signalk via the wired connection to the raspberry pi.
17 Replies
what size resisters do you have in the "ST data line --> optocoupler --> ground" circuit? my thought is that perhaps, not enough resistance. I have 10K, I took the 4.7K resistor off the optocoupler board and replaced it with the 10K one.
It's a 10k on the board
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I have the yellow data line and ground going in on the one side and on the other I have 3.3v ground and GPIO4 coming from the RPI
I do get data from Seatalk but the autopilot is somehow detecting a problem with Seatalk
This is connecting to one end of the chain.
Connecting to one side of the ST60 Multi
![No description](https://cdn.answeroverflow.com/1219696901578948739/image.png)
its R1 I would be interested in. Your ST line may be being pulled down by the extra consumption on it and your Autopilot may be the most sensitive to that for whatever reason. Does your ST5000+ have a second 12V high current supply for the motor?
R1 is 1k ohms. So you think it may need to be upped. Ya I believe the autopilot does.
I just double checked my notes and it says "First, remove the resistor on the input side and replace with a 10K". you could test by adding a 10K inline before or after the current one, 11K should be close enough to see if that message goes away.
OMG I just realized you're from Apres 🤣🤣. I'm the Adam from the comments section! That's so funny. I'll give that a try.
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That was it! No error now. Thanks so much 😀
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Very exciting 🙂
I also found out today that the ST60 Multi does bi-direction communication between NMEA 0183 and Seatalk. So I can put all the plotter data from RPI onto the Seatalk bus for the autopilot.
Funny enough this also means I could have just put the NMEA data onto the RPI instead of fiddling with the optocoupler. OH MAN I just realized though this means I can go ahead and use the raspberry pi 5 because I don't have to worry about the GPIO library problem! So maybe I will just go ahead and go back to looking at the NMEA 0183 solution.
nice to read you comments on YT! glad you found the solution to the ST1. my auto pilot has NMEA0183, but in only so I use ST1 for incoming to the Pi and NMEA0183 from Pi to AP. I am also hoping the GPIO issues are resolved before May, otherwise my RPI4 is going back on for the season.
Based on everything I've read on GitHub in the comments across multiple projects using the library there has been no progress. It's not looking good.
What does that look like sending out NMEA0183 to your Autopilot? I haven't dug into that side of it yet but I think that will be happening soon. I just got my MAIANA Kit in the mail so I should be able to get my chart plotter software up and running soon.
My autopilot is an ST4000, old Autohelm one and isn't very clever, it is currently not connected to the main ST network and so receives wind data from the Pi via NMEA0183. it is too old to react to AP commands.