NMEA Multiplexer Discussion

The NMEA Multiplexer reads from different channels, and writes to different channels, following a specific logic. This is - from a high level - what Node-RED is also doing.

Node-RED is based on NodeJS, and as such, is using JavaScript.

There are several NodeJS modules to read and write the data we are interested in. For example, there is an npm module named serialport that knows how to read data from a Serial Port. Other modules like i2c-bus, onoff are also very useful.

It would be interesting to see is that was possible o reproduce in JavaScript (on Node-RED) the features we provide here in Java. The way to read and write would be implemented as Custom Functions in Node-RED, and the Node-RED designer could be used to create particular instances of the Multiplexer.

"Small" drawback though..., I'm still not able to run NodeJS (nor Node-RED) on a Raspberry Pi Zero... I'll look into it..., more soon, here.

March 21, 2017.

There is an npm module that fits Node-RED that reads a Serial Port, 100% OK with a GPS, node-red-node-serialport.

There is a sample flow in the node-red directory of the NMEA.Multiplexer project.

Now we need to see where to put the parser. On the rendering side, this is not what Node-RED is designed for, obviously. The question would be to know how to render data as on the Character Console (or even simply the console), the SSD1306 oled display, etc.