Signal-K and the Alternator Regulator

Here is it!  For some time I have been working on and off with the Signal-K team to add electrical components.  Slow work, at times on the back burner  - but today I can share this with you:





What you are seeing is a simple Signal-K display showing real-time alternator voltage and current, as well as temperature (in kelvin - 308 --> ~35c/94f)  On the bottom right is the % field drive (57% at this time).

Currently the 'connection' is made via a serial port, with a javescript provider converting the ASCII status strings from the regulator into Signal-K JSON messages.  The 'provider' is located here:
https://github.com/thomasonw/signalk-parser-OSEnergy

The script will work with Gen 2 or Gen 3 regulators, no problem.  And if you have the blue-tooth module installed you could point the incoming ASCII steam to the script wirelessly!

It is based on the  NMEA0183 --> SignalK converter, thank you to Fabian Tollenaar.   I do have an issue right now, and perhaps folks can help:  I use a windows client for pushing files up to github.  Seems there is an issue with this where the 'executable' permission flag is lost.  The impact is if you try to run the demo on a Linux or Apple machine you will get a 'non-executable' trap.  Presently one has to change the permission of the file 'osenergy-from-file' to allow execution.   There may be a way to configure github to force this, again if there are any github experts out there - please speak up!


OK - a start.  There is still work to be done, the Signal-k spec needs to be expanded, I need to solve the global-variable issue above, and the next step will be to create a CAN based bridge.  My RPi and CAN shield are already on order!