July 24, 2024  Anchor alarm function added to YDAB-01

New Alarm Button firmware adds anchor alarm mode, allows to monitor temperatures from external sources and improves AIS MOB handling.

At anchor

With the invaluable help of our dear distributors and customers we have managed to add new functionality to our Alarm Button and fix some minor issues.

Anchor Alarm

It is well known that most modern MFD/chartplotters and even marine smartphone apps support Anchor Alarms, but MFD/chartplotter is usually either not installed in the crew quarters or its sound is too puny to wake up the tired crew members. Smartphones are on the other hand, not so reliable, — their battery can be discharged over night or they can easily lose GNSS position signal deep inside the vessel or lose Wi-Fi connection to NMEA 2000 network (via Wi-Fi gateway or plotter).

Mr. Matthias Busse have proposed to make an Anchor Alarm out of our YDAB-01 button as a more reliable solution: first, YDAB-01 has a direct access to a wired GNSS data sources via NMEA 2000 network and second it can play really loud and noticeable sounds (you can even use your own custom sound).

In Anchor Alarm mode, device can be armed to monitor vessel GNSS position (received via PGNs 129029 and 129025, with 129029 data used with higher priority). If the position is detected to be outside of the set radius or if GNSS data are lost for a set timeout interval, a corresponding alarm event will be activated.

To arm the device, just press and release the button. If you got valid GNSS position data in NMEA 2000, device will be armed and its LED will shine constantly. If vessel position is detected to be outside of the set radius, event 1 will be triggered: linked sound will play and linked LED indication sequence will be shown.

If NMEA 2000 GNSS position data will be lost or becomes invalid for more than set interval, event 2 will be triggered: linked sound will play and linked LED indication sequence will be shown.

To disarm or cancel an active alarm event press and release the button.

You can put YDAB-01 into Anchor Alarm mode either via external button or with the command:

   YD:MODE ANCHOR

You can configure the radius, time interval and GNSS timeout interval with the command:

   YD:ANCHOR [1..1000 [0..600 [1..60]]]

where the first parameter sets the radius from current position in meters, default 50 meters. Second parameter sets for how many seconds the vessel position should be out of the radius before an alarm event 1 is triggered (default 3 seconds). Third parameter sets for how many seconds the GNSS position can be lost before an alarm event 2 will triggered.

Persistent arming mechanism also was implemented, you can enable YDAB-01 to save current position and into NVRAM when armed, if enabled with command: 

   YD:PERSISTENT ON

the device will re-enter armed state even when NMEA 2000 power is cycled ON/OFF. This increases Anchor Alarm reliability even more, as power issues may be induced by service jobs performed when on anchor.

New Engine Alarms

The Alarm Button can signal when it receives an error or warning flag from the engine, or it can be programmed to the operating range of the engine indicators and monitor the indicators and signal when values go out of range. We have added an option to monitor "Engine Room" and "Exhaust Gas" temperatures via PGNs 130312 "Temperature" or PGN 130316 "Temperature, Extended Range".

If your engine does not report Exhaust Gas alarm (via PGN 127489 engine alarm data field, flag "EGR System") you can use an external NMEA 2000 temperature sensor, for example, our Exhaust Gas Sensor YDGS-01 and set up Alarm Button to trigger an engine alarm when temperature is over the set threshold for set amount of time. Our Digital Thermometer YDTC-13 sensor can be used as well for monitoring the "Engine Room" temperature.

Note that those sensors should have the same NMEA 2000 temperature instance as YDAB-01 target engine instance.

Reaction to AIS MOB TEST Messages

Several users were puzzled when AIS MOB alarm is activated on YDAB-01 but there is no MOB marker shown on MFD/chartplotters. The reason is that YDAB-01 is too sensitive and by default reacts to "MOB TEST" messages received from AIS, while most MFD/chartplotters will ignore them. Now you can disable YDAB-01 reaction to such messages with setting:

   YD:MOB_TEST OFF

Raymarine SeaTalk Alarms

Reaction to Raymarine SeaTalk Alarm messages (PGN 65288) sent by Raymarine equipment is now supported in all modes. By default, processing of SeaTalk Alarms is disabled, except alarm ID 38 "MOB" in MOB mode. You can enable and arbitrarily map SeaTalk alarm IDs to Events using command:

   YD:ALARM

Again, we are very grateful for all users who helped us to improve our Alarm Button and were brave enough to invest a lot of time and effort to debug concrete issues and painstakingly following all our instructions precisely.

Firmware update for Alarm Button (v1.11) and updated User Manual are available at Downloads section.

 

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