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KBox

KBox Update - May 2020

Thanks for your interest in KBox! As of May 2020, I am not manufacturing or selling KBox anymore. All the source code and design files remain available for your inspiration and if you have any question, feel free to reach out by twitter message, email or via a github issue.

You might also be interested in my new project, inspired by KBox: a better sailing analytics platform. So if you are looking for a way to improve your tacks, perfect your downind sailing or just measure sailing angles and speeds, head over to ChartedSails.com.

What is KBox

KBox is an open-source platform to develop "smart boat" applications.

This repository contains all the hardware files for this project. For firmware, please visit the kbox-firmware repository.

KBox hardware includes:

• One NMEA2000 interface,
• Two NMEA0183 inputs (one of them can be used as a Seatalk input),
• Two NMEA0183 outputs,
• One WiFi interface that can connect to an existing network or create a new network on your boat,
• Three analog inputs to measure voltages between 0 and 23V (batteries, solar panels, generators, etc),
• One shunt input to measure current consumption of your main house battery,
• One barometer,
• One inertial measurement unit providing a magnetic compass, an accelerometer to measure roll, pitch and yaw as well as a gyroscope,
• An SDCard to record data.

Find more news about KBox on hackaday.io.

How to get KBox?

KBox is an open-source hardware project. You can review the schematics and build it yourself. We also intend to get a few batches manufactured by a professional board assembly house. If you are interested, put your name in our form!

I am interested in an early manufacturing batch.

Schematics

Download the PDF version of KBox schematics or use Kicad to open this project.

Pictures

Recommended waterproof enclosure.

The board was designed to fit in this enclosure and you can easily include multiple cable glands. The reference of this enclosure is DS-AT-0811-S. It is available from Adafruit.

License

The hardware files for KBox are distributed under the Creative Commons - Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 license.

You can share and adapt this project and redistribute it as long as you give credit to the original authors, clearly indicate if changes were made, and you re-distribute under a similar license.

Contributors

• Thomas Sarlandie

To contribute to this project, please make a pull-request via GitHub and add your name to the list of Contributors in that pull-request. Thanks!

External libraries

A copy is automatically saved by KiCad in the kbox-cache.lbr file so you should not need to have those installed in your computer.

Just in case, here is the list of 3rd party libraries used:

For the schematic:

• kicad_libs: w_analog, w_device, conn

For the PCB:

• kicad_libs: w_smd_trans (will disappear soon), w_misc_comp (rotary encoder)

A note on git subtrees

This project use of git subtrees to reference footprints from various libraries on the web. It works great and should make everyone's life easier but when you need to pull changes from the original repo or push back some updates, it can be slightly non trivial ...

So here is the best reference I have found: https://hpc.uni.lu/blog/2014/understanding-git-subtree/