Someone on the Taberna del Puerto sailing forum came up with the idea of simulating a speed log with an Arduino Nano. I was interested in a device like that; although I got in touch with him, I couldn’t get one, so, taking advantage of the build instructions he had shared, I decided to make it myself.
The signalling part took some effort, but in the end, with development boards and a spaghetti of wires, I had a working model (if a bit rough), so the first step was done.
We installed it on my friend Pepe’s boat (he was our guinea pig, what we’d now call a beta tester), connected to a Raymarine ST60 system. Later I adapted it for my own boat, which uses a rather old B&G Network system.
But those development boards and cables didn’t look the way I wanted, so, knowing the models were fully functional, we decided to order printed circuit boards that would simplify assembly and give a professional look.
We also thought the processor could do a bit more, for example connect over the NMEA 0183 network to serve other data such as temperature, pressure and humidity.
Anyway, keep reading and you’ll find out more.
Interested? sailoQ devices are available in the shop: the sailoQ cube-micro, speed log only, and the sailoQ cube-lite, with NMEA 0183 and SeaTalk. If you're unsure which model to choose, see Which sailoQ do I need?