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[POTM] dAISy - A Simple AIS Receiver


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Element14 and RS don't seem to be stocking this if yet, shows up in the list but no stock. Thanks for the sizes now get on with ordering.

An article did mention it was also for TX but they may have been confused with the TX/RX ready bit in the intro, it really meant it was suitable to go on a TX as the receiver. And of course I did get a bit excited until I re-read the app sheet again,, trying to figure out how it was possible to do that on so few I/Os

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Overview dAISy (do AIS yourself) is a very simple AIS receiver that I developed from scratch. It is built around the Silicon Labs EZRadioPRO Si4362 receiver, using a Texas Instruments MSP430G2553 MC

Ain't she pretty?    

Good news for everyone having difficulties sourcing the Si4362 radio IC.   I verified that the transceiver Si4463 works with dAISy. This probably also applies to Si4460 and Si4461. Besides being mor

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Element14 and RS don't seem to be stocking this if yet, shows up in the list but no stock.

 

Well, at least Element14 Australia says under availability "75 deliver in 6 - 7 working days from our UK warehouse"

http://au.element14.com/jsp/displayProduct.jsp?sku=2414377&action=view&CMP=GRHB-FINDCHIPSAP1-1004809

 

Good luck, let me know if you have any questions or issues.

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For those struggling finding the radio IC: The Si446x (60/61/63/64) transceivers seem to be software and pin-compatible with the receive-only Si4362 that I used.

http://www.silabs.com/products/wireless/ezradiopro/pages/si446x.aspx

 

I saw that for example Digikey has a few Si4460 in stock.

http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/rf-if-and-rfid/rf-transceivers/?k=si4460

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So.. dAISy looks like just what I'm looking for. I live within minutes of the sea, and have been looking at a non-sdr way of receiving AIS signals. I know you're toying with making this a commercial product, but whilst this is going on, would you be prepared to provide me with a pre-release version for a suitable 'donation'? I would happily beta test, helping improve the device - the ultimate goal will be to use the AIS feed to know when something interesting is heading out across the Solent, so I can take our little one out to see it sail past (and there's something cool about having the receiving equipment rather than just using marinetraffic.com or something else similar).

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@@jimeney @@petertux @@bluehash and others, due to recurring requests I added a poll to this thread.

 

What's the interest in buying dAISy and in what shape?

 

dAISy USB in its current form for US $50, tested & shipped, no antenna ($16 extra), no case.

 

post-9974-0-33358800-1400644211_thumb.jpg

 

dAISy BoosterPack (to be designed) for US $20, tested & shipped, basically a tidied up version of the original POTM entry.

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@@chicken A price point of $25 to $35 would be very reasonable... for the USB version. This is the hobbyist amount range. I'd imagine the people using this would be happy to get a low cost finished version than fiddling around with BoosterPacks. You should also do some research( or have already done ) on currently available products.

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Thanks for the feedback @@bluehash, that's why I'm asking. :smile:

 

Unless we're talking about selling off extra or old prototypes, $25-$35 is not realistic for the USB version. Electronics assembly and filling out customs forms are not my preferred past time and therefore building units with the purpose to sell should cover more than just BOM and postage.

 

Happy to collaborate on a lower cost BoosterPack. Including a BNC connector, the BOM would be $6-7.

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the pins near the usb port are by any chance a combination of GND, RST, TEST, VCC, RX and TX ?

it would be nice to see a schematic if possible.

 

Yes, the pin header breaks out the usual LaunchPad pins. They are TX, VCC, TST, RST, GND, RX from left-to-right. I will send you a PM about the schematic.

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hi Adrian,

 

Really enjoyed your great project, congratulations! :biggrin:  I'm trying to do my homework porting it to 5529 LP (as original LP uart in linux is a pain and my setup is a rpi running 24x7 sharing AIS data ).

 

Got all hw right initialized (I think) and it outputs some info at UART but then stops in 1-2 minutes (red led stops blinking) ... hw is ok as it works fine with original LP.

 

dAISy 0.2 started
y
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Hi @@gmtii

 

I'm always thrilled hearing about someone else picking up this project. Did you design your own board or did you go with the original breakout board?

 

As for the bug:

 

I very rarely observed hangs with the breakout on the G2553. But only after several minutes, and without the garbled text output.

 

It got much worse with dAISy USB, except for a very specific version of the software. As soon as I change something completely harmless (like increasing a buffer size or adding/removing debug code), it crashes almost immediately.. but only if there are ships nearby and USB is connected. Having no reception at home makes debugging a slow process of trial and error.  :angry:

 

My current theory is, that some of my code causes memory corruption, main suspects being FIFO or NMEA encoding.

 

Still, I never see garbage text as in your example. So I'm not sure if we're chasing the same issue. In your case, I'd try to comment out reporting of dBm and see if it improves things.

 

Will look at your diff later today.

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@@gmtii can't see anything wrong with your code. I relied on the MSP430Ware libraries when migrating to F5508, but that shouldn't make much of a difference once you got it up and running.

 

Do you have logic analyzer or scope? Would be interesting to see if the Si4362 still sends a data clock on GPIO 3. If not, a lost bit in the SPI communication could have caused an error condition -> lower the SPI clock speed. If the radio still sends data I fear you're battling the same issue as I currently do (MSP430 crashing due to memory corruption.. at least I could rule out USB library as culprit on my side).

 

Also, did you try a slower baud rate to get rid of the intermittent garbage output? 38400 should be plenty for AIS.

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