This has to be brief as I’m spent after a 4am rise and an hour+ dive today and have my feet up.

briefly: it works! some things to iron out as expected but given the abuse the float had (submarining by a good 1 to 2m for example due to my clumsiness at times) it stood up to the challenge really well.

Full match report another day and there will be a youtube video too.

Shout out to my local suppliers of tiny components without which I’d be snookered trying to stuff everything into the gopro case. 

Please support your local, family run businesses!

Cricklewood Electronics, North West London.
https://www.cricklewoodelectronics.com/

Addlestone Models, Addlestone, Surrey
https://www.cricklewoodelectronics.com/

Roxley Models, Great Bookham, Surrey

https://www.roxleymodels.co.uk

This is how excited I am about today... 

I rose at 4am and have finally finished dressing the float in some finery fit for today's inaugural test in open water.

The dawn light is pouring in, it's a sunny day. Let's hope it stays that way because Wraysbury lake is at its most serene and beautiful on sunny days,

Listening to With or Without You, by U2. I couldn't be happier and whether or not today is a 100% result or a 0% result, it's the process not the outcome that makes us grow and achieve our dreams.

Wish me luck!

Before you wonder, no I don't smoke or vape... my local vape shop in Kingston-Upon-Thames carries a surprising array of cool gadgetry like proper PC keyboards and the like, along with questionable power packs...

They may have been cutely coloured and sport perfect dimensions to fit in the float but it's time to confine these power packs to the toolbox for quick lab tests. Not worthy of the Mercator, they can't hold their own against a measly 400mA discharge for very long at all.

Time to bring in the Daddy - Suunto makes some of the finest dive computers in the world (along with Shearwater and other companies) and unsurprisingly their power pack rocks, sporting not one but two USB sockets so we can accommodate a separate connection to the iPhone for 4G connectivity.

Bone conductor transducer

3W transducer that emits sound directly to a flat surface instead of a moving cone

laser sensor (!) and safety goggles that block laser glare

Time of Flight sensor

1/4 inch NPT plugs for pressure pot

flight case so I'm not carrying around the Mercator in a rubbish old rucksac

Blue Robotics 1m additional cable

5 more Blue Robotics wet penetrators and spare o-rings

Blue Robotics cable repair kit - silicone tape, etc.

new miniature wiring harnesses for building v2

I2S audio amp

DAC audio amp

ESP32-CAM ESP32 development board with camera, with USB/serial adaptor board

I feel like I'm turning into Doc Brown... unfortunately Mr Fusion is beyond me.

“To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.” 

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965).

For weeks I've been stumped on a satisfying name for my sat nav...

Today my wife (Esin) and I went to an old favourite coffee shop and bistro in Thames Ditton down the road from our home in Berrylands, Surbiton. And the power of the Full English and a triple shot flat white broke the empasse...

I'm delighted to announce that my creation is christened:

Mercator Origins

Gerardus Mercator - 1512 to 1594

Image Credit: Wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License)

From Wikipedia:

Gerardus Mercator was a Flemish geographer, cosmographer and cartographer. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing (rhumb lines) as straight lines—an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts.

Mercator defined the map projection that is used as the main method to project the map of the earth (its 3D representation) into a flat 2D map. It's the world map we all know.

This Mercator sat nav is the first version in what I hope will be a series, hence the second part of the name "Origins".

Massive thanks to Mark Bruce at Wraysbury dive centre for taking me through the SDI Solo Diver course today which I passed! Awesome video taken by Mark B linked below.

Dragging my buddy out so that i can squeeze the last byte out of the comms link in real world testing is a bit of a stretch to our friendship and there’s lots of research I want to do to help decide on the best way forward. So now I have the flexibility to go solo.

To make up though,Thursday’s test day will have two buddies joining me 😀

https://www.facebook.com/reel/3217522155206030?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V

I've moved this section out of the project description as that field is limited on word count...

The console does not feature a decompression algorithm, it is not intended as a replacement for your regular dive computer eg Suunto, Shearwater, etc so it will not keep you within your decompression limits. As such please be careful paying attention to your regular dive computer whilst using this device and don't allow yourself to be distracted from monitoring your air pressure gauge and your depth and please remain aware of your surroundings and your buddy.

In summary:

* This is NOT a safety critical device which monitors your decompression limits or can prevent dive related injuries! You must use dive tables or a regular dive computer to plan/monitor decompression limits, dive depth and dive time!

* You must have been trained by a recognised scuba diving training agency and reached a minimum of PADI Open Water standard (or equivalent with another agency) to scuba dive with this device. Alternatively, a suitably qualified professional dive instructor needs to have approved the use of the device by the diver under their supervision.

* Just as for any dive you take personal responsibility to dive within your personal limits, to dive within the limits of your scuba certifications and to keep to your dive plan.

Please stay safe, have fun and I'd love to hear your feedback, questions and comments!

I'm also building this bad boy to pressure test the console out of water down to 5.5 bar or 45 metres - I don't want to do that in water. Just waiting on a pressure relief valve, an adaptor to connect to the BC inflator and a couple of other bits. It will connect up to the scuba cylinder for filling.

I'm waiting on delivery of the pressure relief valve which will fit between the gauge and the housing and the BC Inflator connector. Will need O-Rings and PTFE tape on the threads.

Credit to Michael Macdonald (macado) who originally published this design and build on his website, thanks Michael :-) The only major difference is I'm using the next size up water filter from the same manufacturer.

http://wrecklessdiver.com/building-50-o2-cell-checker/

This project wouldn’t have been put together so quickly without these fine contributors to the open source community, thanks a million for your work:

Library: tinygps+
2022
Mikal Hart
https://github.com/mikalhart/TinyGPSPlus
http://arduiniana.org/libraries/tinygpsplus/
license: pending request to author

Appilcation and artwork: Nixie simulation clock
2019
Carlos Orts
https://github.com/McOrts/M5StickC_Nixie_tube_Clock
https://www.hackster.io/McOrts/nixie-tube-watch-simulated-on-esp32-using-the-m5stick-7ab9d9
MIT license

Library: Text Scroller
2020
Hans-Günther Nusseck
https://www.hackster.io/hague/m5stickc-textbuffer-scrolling-display-fb6428
License: Hackster.io Terms

Web Server: Elegant OTA
2022
github user: ayushsharma82
https://github.com/ayushsharma82/ElegantOTA
MIT license