Built an onboard AI after a bad afternoon on Lake Erie — happy to share the journey

Discussion in 'Software' started by Skipper Don, Feb 24, 2026.

  1. Skipper Don
    Joined: Feb 2026
    Posts: 3
    Likes: 1, Points: 3
    Location: Toronto, ON, CAN

    Skipper Don New Member

    Hello everyone,

    New here, wanted to introduce myself properly.

    I'm Don, based in Canada, Great Lakes boater on a 1994 Monterey 265 SEL. I came to marine electronics through the back door — not a background in the field, just a guy who got stranded on Lake Erie with a dead engine, 300 manuals on his phone, and a very strong motivation to never be in that situation again.

    The short version: electrical short killed the engine mid-lake. Turned out to be a rusted cigarette lighter adapter someone had wired in decades earlier — crossed wires, no fuse. The fix was straightforward once I found the isolation switch. Finding it was the problem. The information existed somewhere in my documentation. Accessing the right piece of it quickly, in that moment, with that stress level — that was a completely different challenge.

    That afternoon sent me down the OpenPlotter rabbit hole. NMEA2000, SignalK, a Raspberry Pi, and eventually a question I couldn't stop thinking about: what if the boat could read its own manual and watch its own sensors at the same time?

    That question turned into about two years of building. What I ended up with is an onboard AI platform — d3kOS — that runs entirely offline on a Pi 4B, connects to the NMEA2000 network, ingests the actual vessel service manual, and provides real-time diagnostic assistance based on live sensor data. No cloud dependency. No subscription. Fully offline capable.

    Current version is 0.9.1.2, in beta, free and open source under GPL v3 on GitHub.
    I'm happy to go into the technical details on any of it — the NMEA integration, the offline LLM approach, the action boundary architecture, whatever is useful. This community looks like exactly the level of technical depth I've been looking for.

    — Don (Skipper Don) github.com/SkipperDon/d3kOS
     
    Skipper Don, Feb 24, 2026
    #1
    fallguy likes this.
  2. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
    Posts: 8,629
    Likes: 1,997, Points: 123, Legacy Rep: 10
    Location: usa

    fallguy Boat Builder

    I love it.

    About 100 thoughts come to mind.

    One day I spent 4 hours trying to find a problem. Finally, I discovered a solid state DC voltage converter had a dead short,

    Another time, I forgot to wire something disconnected for winterizing. That list is long.

    But so many things AI could help with; especially on a per boat basis.
     
    fallguy, Feb 25, 2026
    #2
  3. fallguy
    Joined: Dec 2016
    Posts: 8,629
    Likes: 1,997, Points: 123, Legacy Rep: 10
    Location: usa

    fallguy Boat Builder

    Can you explain a couple things?

    1. what hardware is needed .. I don’t think the pi has n2k out

    2. how are pages from a “manual” entered into the software engine?
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2026
    fallguy, Feb 25, 2026
    #3
Forum posts represent the experience, opinion, and view of individual users. Boat Design Net does not necessarily endorse nor share the view of each individual post.
When making potentially dangerous or financial decisions, always employ and consult appropriate professionals. Your circumstances or experience may be different.