More info available?

[bn326160]

Hi, I have an Autohelm 1000, similar to yours (Digital, without display, but a different PCB revision) laying around and am trying to get your project working on it.

I don't seem to be able to get any further than the wifi set-up screen when flashing Arduino_REST to a ESP8266.

How did you wire up the ESP to the Autohelm? You talk about a accessory port, but I thought that it's a NMEA0183 port.

Thanks in advance!

[batuakan]

Hi,

Sorry for my lack of documentation. your message and effort to use my project to give the autohelm a new chance, gave me motivation to finish up the missing documentation.

The data port on the AH1000 is to be used for windwane. One of the pins is 5V, GND, D1 and D2. I dont exactly know at the moment but for example if you cross D1 with GND that corresponds to +1 degrees, and if you cross D2 with 5V it corresponds to pressing the +10 degrees button. IF there is no short between any of the D1 or D2 pins to V5 or GND, the pin is floating means no button press. So that was my way to communicate with the AH1000.

Unfortunately ESP8266 is not 5v tolerant therefore to handle 5V so I used another Arduino pro mini to perform the signaling. See the code in Autohelm1000_Arduino folder. Esp connects to Arduino Mini through softwareSerial and Ardunino mini transmits the needed course correction to AH1000.

You can use the Wifi Setup screen to connect the AH1000 to your home network to test and play around with. However it has been problematic for me to use it like that at the boat itself, since i dont have wireless network infra structure at my boat. I will work on that a little bit in the coming days perhaps even get rid of the wireless setup screen.

Once you connect to the network, you should be able to connect to the esp with its IP address using a web browser and it should show you a simple web interface with +/-1 and +/-10 buttons, there is also a simple REST interface where you can give arbitrary course correction commands.

I will work on the documentation more.

[bn326160]

Thanks a lot!

I've found the GND, 5V and 2 D-pins. With the AH1000 upside down (power cable to the right side of this connector):		GND	5V
	⏤	⏤
/	⬤	⬤	\
\	⬤	⬤	/
	⏤	⏤
	D1	D2

Measuring between any of the D pins and GND, the power fluctuates around 0.5V Pulling the D-pins up or down didn't result in any action for me yet.

I've successfully been able to connect an ESP32 up to a 5V device using a Bi-Directional Logic Level Converter. However, in this case it might be enough to use Mosfets.

I'll dig deeper into the code first :)

[bn326160]

I got the Autohelm1000_Arduino code running on an Uno, and for now the only way to interface over it was using a PC with the Serial monitor. Sending integers over serial resulted in pulses over A2 & A3, which was measurable with a multimeter. However, hooked up to the accessory ports D-plugs, again, no result sadly.

You're probably right in the way it functions, but my unit might still be defective in some regards (just fixed it up by cleaning corrosion of the board and replaced some resistors to bring it back to life).

i3DGear 4-pin Autobuddy is probably also working the way you described it.

PS: I believe GPS navigation on the unit would work like this: GPS --- NMEA 0180/0183 ---> Radio Navigation Interface Z075 --- 4 pin ---> AH1000

[batuakan]

I think this device introduced before the NMEA era, or for whatever reason they didn't choose to use NMEA for communication.

https://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?/topic/207403-seeking-autohelm-service-manuals/

this is the manual to the wind vane, the text become more clearer the more you look at it :)

One thing that is important for the autohelm to receive the commands that you send is to push the Auto button on the autohelm. Otherwise any input from the D1 D2 pins are ignored.

[batuakan]

Did you make progress reviving your AH1000?

[bn326160]

Reviving as in I have it to repair for someone, yes :) But I didn't continue figuring out how to remote control it. Not worth the hassle. I found it to be acting weird when making the connections in auto mode and didn't want to risk to mess it up again :)