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[Martin (Admin)]

Hi Josse,

 Looking Good!   

[tweety777]

Thanks a lot Martin!

[tweety777]

Hi all,


Considering that power in the boat is crucial programming and testing I decided to unravel the wiring and start working towards finalising the main power supply and computer in the center of the ship. In doing this I found the reason I thought my Step down converter for the Pi was broken, I didn't connect it to the output side of the switch but rather to the LED connector which only gets 3,3V.

A small impression of the mess I started with, including the surrounding components to make it a good looking box.

I started with sorting out the wiring to get the best possible sight at which wire is which.

After quite a bit of fiddling I managed to clean up most of the wiring though lots of it is not fully finished yet, mostly because the still to make wiring for the screen, battery status, multimeter and the circuitry for powering and shutting down the Pi.

This is the new version of the topplate though I'll soon print a new one slightly modified version since some parts don't fit all too well.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,
 

I printed almost a kilo filament into new parts in a week, the printer kept working throughout Christmas as well. One of the results is this engineer mounting housing 2 fire pumps (the second one will be mounted to the rear) and also some electronics.

[tweety777]

Made quite a big decision here. Rather then even trying to skeeze a camera, some servo’s and motors into a 4x4x3cm small ROV and trying to make a cable anywhere near scale size I decided to make a hangar with an actual working ROV (which is much bigger) and for which the size of the wire is not relevant as it’s out of sight anyways. The hangar will have a door entering the moonpool so I don’t need to make all to much modifications.

I still need to modify the feet which are to place the hangar at the intended height and I need to give some thought to waterproofing the connection since the lower part of the hangar will be below the waterline. I also printed a nice support for my self-designed PCB and a motorhat that will control the rotation of the crane atop the drilling tower and the crane to the rear of the dive area.

Power is back online! I tested a relay setup to switch the extra functions (all kinds of lighting, secondary cranes, fire monitors etc) but the switch that controlled the relay for some reason lowered the 12V I put into it to 2,5V which proved not enough to switch the relay. Therefore I got rid of the relay and it’s switches and put in simpler switches that can handle 3A (which I recon is more then enough since where talking to groups here, so 6A in total) so I can save power when I’m not going to use those functions.

I still need to glue the LED’s in place, for which I intent to use hot glue.

Since the servomodule is quite hard to reach with all the wiring going on in front of it I inserted all the needed servo cables which I also labelled to not get confused later on. I also bundles the cables per part (all cables for the same crane combined for example) and routed the cables towards the location of the to be connected component.
 
 The inside of the superstructure is fully printed now, I only need to glue the parts together and mount all the cabins with their lighting and the electronics. In the rear I included holes for mounting 3 fire main lines (2 fire monitors and 1 for fire extinguishing on the helideck) and a hole for the VGA connector which will pass the power- and signal cables to the superstructure.

The topplate has all it’s components fitted, now I need to connect all the wiring. I tested the multimeter briefly but I don’t trust it’s readings. It indicated 0,3V and 49,2A (it can handle up to 50A), so I probably made a mistake in the connections. I attached the Amp meter on the – side off the load, perhaps that should be the + side. I also don’t understand why the Volt meter still indicates 0,3V when the Volt meter wires are disconnected.
All in all I still have some things to figure out and quite some wiring to fix in an orderly manner but at least the + side of the groups are now finished so the – side of things is still on the to-do list.
 
Greeting Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,



My goal for this year is to get Well Enhancer sailing, so I need to finish installing the thrusters. I've been at it for about a week now with some proper steps made towards actually working thrusters. In this photo I collected all the needed parts, including the PCB's that will end up below the stepper motor in order to register the thruster angle.

I soldered the ribboncable to the PCB off screen but I do need to provide better means off fixing the mounting plate for the PCB then the balsa wood. I designed the plate such that I can align it to the stepper motor.

Coming really close to having the thrusters working! I am going to change the engines back to the old engines that also powered the first version due to poor fitting of the timing pulleys. I will also sort out the wiring a lot more once I tested the thrusters since I think some wires are now not attached anymore.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,



The main propulsion is finished for testing! I switched the engines back from the Johnsons to the Speed 500E's I used on the original Well Enhancer, mostly because the drive shafts of the Johnsons is just too big for the timing pulleys, the Speed 500E's don't have this problem. I drilled a hole and tapped M2,5 thread in the hole to secure it. After fixing all these minor issues and finishing the remaining items to get it all working I also tidied up the wiring for as far as it is now finalised, I stopped where I know the wiring still needs to be sorted out. Off screen I also made a cabletree for the I2C wiring to connect the PWM module (and thus the Pi) to the 16x2 LCD screen and the rest of the ship through the self designed PCB housing the midships multiplexer.




I am thinking about designing a proper mount for the 9DOF positionsensor in order to ensure any anomilies in the readout cannot be from the sensor moving all about the place.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,



Currently I'm running into communication problems in the programming so I decided to let it rest hoping to find a solution later and instead pick up work on the superstructure by glueing the 2 sides and the front together.

The remaining gap in the top layer will be filled up with a resin printed and fully detailed part.



This morning I found on Vesselfinder that Well Enhancer is in The Netherlands today so I grapped my camera and went out there and took quite a lot of close up photo's for as well as I could get to. The close-ups (My Nikon 200-500mm lens was worth every penny today) revealed answers  to some questions while also revealing that I missed i few functions that I should make working like 2 fire monitors atop the Dive-area, a personel lift at the back of the drilling tower and a hoisting derrick also to the rear of the drilling tower.






Greetings Josse

[ballastanksian]

Brilliant work Josse! Would it be fair to say that you could play catch up forever with a vessel that is in service? I assume that parts get fitted and removed all the time thus making life difficult if you fitted things to your model that the owners then removed later for what ever reason 

[tweety777]

Thanks Ballast!
Haha, with these kind of ships being in port means modifying things, especially on the rear deck. She moved to drydock this morning so no doubt things will be different when she gets back out though she was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint all over the ship. Of the functions added I'm quite sure some were from the time between the end of my internship at the yard and delivery by the way, while some (some fire monitors for example) appear to be added later, but would seem to be quite logical add-ons.


I do intend to fix some point in time or perhaps several. Should I be allowed on board at some point that day will most likely be the day I'll stick with, otherwise I'll most likely opt for a hybrid that I think looks great to tell the story of this ship. Maybe I could have a few features that can easily be swapped when so desired but I'm certainly not going to play catch-up.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,

It's been a while, haven't got around working on the model a lot lately though I did get some important break throughs in the background. I decided that having the deck surrounding the dive area and housing some davits for lifeboats fixed to the hull creates all kinds of problems when it comes to making the davits work so I will make the deck with a bit of the walls below it removable so I can use the large open space in the removable section of the dive area for electronics and servo's without inferfering with the main computer and the battery. I have now also made some software reservations for the dive bell so should I decide to make it working as well I only need to add some working works.

Yesterday I uploaded my first video to YouTube where I want to keep track of the build process like I do here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVQar8oVR84&t=85s


Project Flying Helicopter is GO! This helicopter is to land on the helicopter deck, though I do intent to try and make it look like a Sea King or Super Puma used by some offshore company, preferably with a bit of cockpit interior if the battery there allows it.


The size fits well for the helicopter deck, though that is yet to be build. My focus is currently on other, more important parts of the ship.


The main computer proved to big to get access to electronics once the main deck is fixed in place so I designed and printed a smaller version which I now started to rebuild to.


By now the fuse box is moved to the new main computer, I still need to design and print the electronics rack to fit in here.


Still a lot to be done! I got a new PCB which acts as a computer like power supply for the Pi and I also replaced my first self made PCB's by a new version to get rid of the short circuits in the old design.

Lastly I updated the list of functions and mostly the corresponding commands and decided to add 2 more PWM modules, 1 in the drilling tower and 1 in the dive area so I can keep the number of wires going through connectors as low as possible.

Greeting, Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Today I managed to fix the issues I found earlier this week by cutting through a solder lane on the PCB and attaching 2 wires because I had 1 adress pin connected to GND and the other to the + but both needed to be connected to GND and turned out to need to actually be connected to GND (that was blocked by switches thinking I needed to short it in order to get the default adress. Also, the Reset pin turned out to need 3,3V in order for the chip to boot.

This test set-up I used to get to eleminate the problems with my self-designed PCB, though I cheated a bit by using a similar but slightly different chip (functionality is the same, pin layout is slightly diferent though the functions of the several pins are same, just in a different place) because I ran out of the correct chip. I tried removing 1 from a faulty PCB but I couldn't get it loose, that made me decide to not solder the chip directly in place anymore but rather have an IC holder in place and put the chip in it.

All in all I got a couple of great break throughs! The party isn't yet complete though, since the Pi in the transmitter only accepts connection for a couple of minutes before freezing totally and the Pi in the boat refuses to pick up the the I2C devices for some still unknown reason. I did get to test the NRF24 transceiver and that seems to work though it is difficult to know that for sure without another transceiver to communicate with.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,


This week I received the improved PCB's (10 in total) and quickly found out why putting text next to connectors showing the purpose of each pin is so important. Now it was easily visible that the + and - wires are at least multiple times connected the wrong way around. I already started fixing a few connectors but I still have a long way to go to check all the connectors and fix them all.

I put all the new PCB's where the will end up, though I still need to solder the resistors for selecting the I2C adress. Since I keep using the 2 modified somewhat older PCB's as well I'll have 2 spare PCB's now.

The new version PCB along the 2 now obselete PCB's which will be replaced by relais modules along with the new version PCB. This solution is both cheaper and more practical in terms of room and flexibilty of placement.

Greetings Josse

[Stavros!]

having just caught up with this WOW you dont half some serious tyiding up on the wiring on this levithan how on earth do you know what each wire is and what exactly it does lord knows obviously you must have some logic in what you are doing but what on earth do you need all these functions for.


I do not mean to be critical in the least but you seem to have been building this for years !!!!
Personally speaking suerly wouldnt is be prudent to actually finish the superstructure and the hull of it before getting invlolved with all the electronics of her just my thoughts




Stav

[Martin (Admin)]

Hi Josse,
This project has really taken on a life of it own!   

[tweety777]

having just caught up with this WOW you dont half some serious tyiding up on the wiring on this levithan how on earth do you know what each wire is and what exactly it does lord knows obviously you must have some logic in what you are doing but what on earth do you need all these functions for.


I do not mean to be critical in the least but you seem to have been building this for years !!!!
Personally speaking suerly wouldnt is be prudent to actually finish the superstructure and the hull of it before getting invlolved with all the electronics of her just my thoughts

Stav

Hello Stav,


Most of the wiring is I2C and the rest is 12V power, for each I use a different wire so that makes things easier. Still, I certainly need to improve on wire coding for sure with this kind of complex build. Must of the logic is actually on the computer in an Excel sheet where all electronics and there pinouts are registered.
Saying it is a mess is currently the trueth, there's nothing critical on that.


With regards to prioritizing, I understand your reasoning but currently I'm at the point where most of the work needs to happen on the computer, both 3D design and programming. Add to that, that there is only so much that can be done to all the decks and superstructure before the need to glue it in place. When I do that I make it hard to reach the electronics. If I don't yet know for sure (not like 98% where I'm now but absolutely 100% certain) that all the electronics will be enough and will do there job I don't want to close anything yet. It would have been better to setup the electronics outside the boat, test it there until everything works properly and then install the whole system in the boat. This has been brought to my attention but only now do I understand why the pro's do it that way as well.


Why all these electronics (6 16channel PWM modules, 8 16 channel I/O controllers, those new PCB's, 4 I2C controlled motordrivers controlling 4 DC motors or 2 steppers or 1 stepper and 2 DC motors)? Well, I really much like the ship to look and work like the real ship. Simple fact is that this ship offers plenty of challenge in that regard, and making it all work gives me great pleasure, especially  when the day finally arrives that it all works as intended. That day in terms of electronics might well be closer then I realize right now, since most of the pieces are already found, now they need to fall in there places in the puzzle. That is also why I decided to prioritize the electronics, because I feel like the moment that I've been waiting for for nearly 16 years now (next month it'll be 16 years ago that I started my internship at the yard where Well Enhancer was being build at the time) and I can really use the motivation that reaching that goal will give me.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,
In the past couple of weeks I have been focusing on getting the Well Enhancer sailing before the end of this season but after running into a multitude of problems, mostly regarding the wiring, I decided to go back to the drawing board.

I chose the literal drawing board as well, since I painted school board paint on the wooden shelf so I can easily make notes and remove them just as easily. I will paint a couple of lines to make things more organised. In the background the new main I2C cable is visible, this has 5 connectors to which a second cable is connected with 1 point where I will solder all the needed wires and there is a spare connector for just in case I find some more needed devices connected there. I will also use wire numbers to make things clearly recognisable.


This image gives some idea of what I'm going to. At this moment I still need to remove a lot of stuff out of the boat (including the main computer, still in progress of building up the new version) and still have some stuff to buy as well. I now really want to see everything working, including all servo's and motors though for LED's I'll use some test setups because of the practical reason of having the LED's pretty much all mounted on the other side of walls or decks.
Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,
5 months ago I was quite busy arranging and still finishing a dormer which was placed on my house. In the meantime I have been working on a model of the work I do nowadays which will be used to sell the products I work on at expo's. Encouraged by these results I decided to pick up my own project as well.

I mounted the entire plate on drawer slides to make everything more accessible without hitting the roof with my head. Since I needed to clear everything off the plate for mounting the slides I also decided to clear things up a a bit and start working on the power supply and it's wiring. Even though this is not a small plate, it's still quite small to fit all the electronics of Well Enhancer.

Using some Tie-wraps to tie the servo's and electronics down this looks like a decent enough testing setup, especially with the servo horns now put atop the servo's. Next up is preparing the power supply wiring and connecting all the wiring. I will also upgrade this to a fully equipped with a PC power supply powered labsupply and storage for spare wiring and spare electronics parts as well as some tools needed for working with the wiring and electronics, alongside upgrading my spraybooth with some proper ventilation and lighting.

3 months ago I continued the work on programming and working towards a finished test setup. This feels like a process of 1 step ahead, 3 steps back. Considering that it used to feel like 1 step ahead and then 5 back I am making progress, also when considering that 1 set back doesn't take me a year to solve any more. By this time I have arrived at the point where I can actually start making all things come together quite quickly when the last pieces of the puzzle start falling in place. For that matter it would help not to create a short circuit through the address pin on a port expander, destroying a Pi, a motorhat and 3-4 PWM modules in the process. The port expander already was to be replaced by a different chip so that loss is not much a problem, the Pi and motorhat are big problems, though they will end up in the transmitter, where the motorhat will control the helm indicators.

After trying MOSFETS to control the winch motors resulting in blowing the MOSFETS up, I ordered some 40 continuous servo PCB's leaving me a couple for the life boats. When testing these on the PWM modules I got no stop and also no reverse, but using the servo tester these work fine, also for the lifeboats, which I tested seperately.

Got myself a couple of new pumps which will be the cooling water pumps and for flushing the anchors. The new pumps are so much smaller then what I originally got myself which is a great benefit. These pumps don't need to pump large amounts of water so these seem fine.

Sometimes a change of scenery helps to keep going. Therefore I decided to glue all the outer walls of the superstructure together.

The whole ship looks a lot better too, so I'm very happy about this progress. The newly painted crew (still work in progress though) also adds to the improvements.

Oh dear, oh dear, what did I just do?? Now being 16,5 years into this project having never ever even considered making the retractable schottel fully working (even though making the 2 in future project Seven Atlantic working was never in doubt) I decided I had to make it working, even if only to try it out before the Seven Atlantic. Considering I really want to try to have Well Enhancer sail this sailing season this was about as late as I could still afort making such a design and make it happen as well. Therefore I picked up my multitool and started making the needed cuts in the hull. Next to the hull I hold the final pocket in which the retractable schottel will be kept with all the components needed to attach 3 guiding shafts and 1 M4 thread which will move the entire assembly up and down. Before printing this final version I printed a version without any holes just to see if I can make it watertight, which proved a resounding succes.

Designing the schottel is coming along nicely, the schottel design itself is almost finished though I still need to come up with a proper solution for making the connection between the mounting plate that makes the schottel up and down as well as holding the needed motors and there sensors because the schottel needs to turn, have it's removable gear atop (5mm high) and I need to keep the height as low as possible. The entire schottel need to be removable so I can even replace it if need be.

This gives some indication for how the assembly will come together, though this schottel is still printed in PLA rather then resin just to check the design for proper fitting and whether it will work the way I want it to. The final version will be shorter then what is shown here to optimize the available space and the vertical gear didn't fit as well as it needs to so driving the propshaft wasn't going to happen in this version.

This is the definitive design for the schottel itself, the vertical gear now fits properly and there is enough room for maintenance. The final version will be printed in resin so I only need to paint it and assemble the entire assembly to make it work as intended. Because of the choice for resin I will add a resin ring to act as a seal in the pocket housing the schottel because this ring can be made watertight with the pocket with as much material as can be reasonable for the application without needing to worry about fixing things that should be able to turn and move.

Now back to now, I only need to fill up the gaps with greenstuff and I most likely will poor some epoxy resin in there after that to make sure all is really watertight.

I started sawing the hole a little small hoping to make the hole as precise as possible with regard to keeping it all watertight. In the end precise turned out a little difficult under these circumstances. The piece of bottom I cut out is laying atop the hull.

I wasn't done just yet making holes in my hull, there were 2 more to go for the dive bells. The moonpools that will be fitted in these holes have yet been 3D designed and printed with some supports to fit the moonpool to the frame (the battery will fit directly between the 2 moonpools) and also some support for adding the winch later on.
About a month ago Well Enhancer was undergoing maintenance at Damen Shiprepair in Amsterdam. where Seven Atlantic (a future project for me, I walked on her while she was only a double bottom) was laying 2 piers further after having docked for a new paint job. It made quite a picture for me:


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,


At the moment I've waterproofed the hull again and am now in the process of filling and sanding the new edges so the fit nicely, then have the paintwork patched up again, at least on the bottom so I don't need to turn the hull on it's side anymore. In this process I will also finish the inside of the main moonpool because there will be 1 more watertight connection so I can open and close the lower moonpool door. When this is done, I will start with making the power wiring throughout the boat, which should've been what I've started with on the test setup in the first place. Now nowing what I learned from making the setup I will now start putting everything back in the boat, power first, then communication and after that the electronics and all devices, all with proper cable management. This saves me having it to do it twice and currently I'm confident that all I have works as intended.



Perhaps the moonpools for the dive bells aren't as big as they should be but no-one will ever see them in a way to be able to spot this.

Here is 1 nice job finishing the inside of the moonpool with only 1 photo as reference.

The styrene sheet didn't fit quite as well as I hoped, apparently I hadn't taken off the material smooth and far enough. I'm going to rectify this mistake now.

I didn't glue the deck in place, I'm only checking how it all fits and what needs to be done to improve the fit for when the time comes.

Nice overview, I'll need to check some measurements because I recall being able to walk with 2 people side by side through the corridor where the crewmember stands, but as the lines indicate, that will not fit here.

Also added some supports to the ROV hangar so it isn't hanging off of the moonpool anymore.

Printed some nice supports to mount to the frames for holding the electronics.

I prepared the fuses for both the 3,3V and 5V regulators.

Printed a new foundation for the 8-way relay module with room for a 3,3V regulator, a 5V regulator and a MCP23017 port expander.

Still need to modify the lower end of the new moonpools so the battery can sit flush on the bottom again, or make a support so the battery will no longer rest on the moonpools.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

 Hello all,
 
Yesterday I made a big step in the direction of being able to sail the boat, which I hope to achieve on juli 13th when my new club has a model sailing competition. The next step will be to transfer to inputting the commands and having them end up controlling the steppers and main engines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClzWigQk960
 

Someone in my new club somewhat jokingly suggested that some water detection would be a good idea, so I got going on a very simple version of detecting water (simple cutting a wire in 2, glue both ends to the bottom at a small separation) and then I made these drawings indicating where the water is actually detected. This is not really a luxury on this model since the bottom will most likely be completely or almost completely covered by electronics making it very hard to actually find leak water. Now I need to remember when adding all the electronics to also leave room for a hose so I can also get the water out as well.

Put the LED's in firmly and made sure they don't leak any light.

Connected all the - wires, at this point thinking I would use wires rather then a PCB to connect the LED's. Added downside of this approach, and benefit for a PCB is not needing more wiring but bringing it all together in 1 central place and handling the connections there.

I started working on the detection grid, the first 2 frames are wired now. I put the first panel at a possible location to how things will work out, though the PCB still needs to be added here.

Indicating a leak in frame 28, with bear eyes the number is perfectly readable, it's the lack of contrast in the camera that is not showing it in the image. The LED's have already got a resistor fitted for powering straight out of the 12V battery.

The PCB has now arrived, I hope I chose the right diodes, these appear to have a fairly high resistance, but then it needs to deliver a maximum of 3,3V to an input pin on an IO multiplexer.

A PCB cannot get any simpler than this. This is a practical solution for powering all devices connected to an I2C multiplexer, which is why I designed this PCB.
 
Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

 Hello all,


In the past couple of weeks I made great progress in getting Well Enhancer ready to sail!! First of the big steps is questioning the idea of using stepper motors along the magnetic angle sensors (AS5600) to turn the azimuths. This because a reduction motor with the same sensor can do the exact same thing. This proofed a great step forwards for rotating the cranes but because I had always planned to sent the actual angle for the azimuth from the transmitter using a 360 degree rotatable joystick. While giving this more thought I realised that dropping the fancy joysticks which also gave my headaches in the design stage in favour of standard joysticks of which I already have 15 in the main section of the transmitter, I could then drop the motorhats which are still proving somewhat more difficult to program, and use PWM modules instead, then having a speed control based steering rather then an angle based control. This means that the rudder angle indicators are now back since I otherwise don't have much to see in which direction my azimuths are facing and now I got plenty of motorhats and stepper motors to make them work, which was 1 reason to drop the at first.


Why is the above such a step towards sailing? That is because I already have a working program controlling all the PWM functions that where already planned, so adding 2 more for the additional functions is a matter of copy/ paste and then modifying a couple of parameters, which has already been done. At this point in time, all I need to do is program the incoming commands from the transceiver into the main program, then make sure the hull is watertight and then program the transmitter. This has now also become more easy since I don't need to program the AS5600 magnetic angle sensors anymore and have now basically 3 different electronics that I need to work with. The new front section of the transmitter is being printed right now so starting this weekend I can continue the work on the transmitter as well.
 

I replaced the 6V bow thruster motors bij 12V motors with new pedals, that turned out to be a great choice because while I was adding a final layer of epoxy and glass fibre some epoxy ended up in the forward bow thruster and there it glued the motor permanently in place, making it impossible to replace only the motor. I had decided to reuse 1 6V motor to power the new retractable azimuth but this motor only runs occasionally when at full power, like at most half of the time so a replacement motor is on it's way.

Thinking 1 step ahead (that would be finishing the interior of the hull and placing the deck) I got myself a 5m LED-strip providing real proper light inside the hull. The idea is to have some more or less intelligent switch (2 wires placed at a small distance connecting with a piece of coper tape underneath the deck works just fine too) so the lights will only come on where the deck is actually open, not where it is closed.

I made sure the base for the deck is perfectly flush, which it now is.

When I'm far enough, now mostly with the transmitter, I'll need the transceiver to start receiving commands, so I connected it again using a new wire just to be sure and since some wires had broken. I also replaced the several Dupont connectors by 1 2x20 connector to remove any doubt about how to connect should a connector come loose.

After some debate surrounding the mistake in the shape of the moonpool and thus the lack of room for the lower moonpool door I now decided that I would replace precisely what I need to and nothing more. Thus removing 1 sidewall and replacing it by this new wall, shown here with a test version of the door dry fitted in place. The shaft holding the door in place on this side of the door will not protrude into the original front wall of the moonpool, thus keeping the amount of holes in the hull to a minimum and making sure that the risk of leaks is kept to a minimum as a consequence.

On this side the tube extends to make sure that when I glue it in place using epoxy, the epoxy can't finds it's way into the tube thus making it useless.





I need to align the shaft a little better, but nothing that a file can't solve.
 
Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Now that I've started working with the transceivers I also glanced at making the lifeboats work. Here I just received the 4 channel receiver which I will use to control the lifeboat, 5 more are on there way. Just underneath the lifeboat is it's main engine and I'm still looking for lighter and smaller servo's.
The retractable azimuth is ready to be build into the boat! I tested the driveshaft using my power screwdriver and it runs quite smooth and quite. Now I need to modify the design of the engine plate and put it all together.

I put the test engine plate in place to see how things will come together and what room that will give me. The through hull was originally precisely the correct size but after somewhat forcing it in place it apparently got just that tiny bit smaller making a perfect fit a barely fit. Nothing a bit of sandpaper can't solve though.

The last of the electronics has now been connected.

Now the test setup is finished it's time to put everything back in the boat. This could only be done in 1 go since far too many components where connected to each other like a spider web. Next time I'll make connectors on the I2C wiring and put a connector for the 12V right beside it for ease of maintenance and putting everything in the boat. Now I'm trying to fix as much as possible what I should've done in the first place.

It seemed to be a good idea to start with finishing the central computer/ power supply. Recently I got myself some new USB ports intended for the top of the central computer but this proved to completely fill the computer with USB cable and not to be able to make the bend needed to close the computer. Therefore I opted to make the USB ports on the Pi accessible at all times (luckily the Pi sits just to port besides the battery) and also bring a short HDMI cable there for attaching the touchscreen for troubleshooting.

Another lesson learned: because I started without a really clear vision of the end result it's now hardly possible to arrange the central computer nice and tidy, thus, this'll have to do. I can make sense of this when I need to thanks to some proper documentation on my computer. Currently the usefulness of the relais for powering the secondary functions is being questioned, mostly because of a concern of the program crashing when an I2C device is not connected (not sure if this is true or not) and also because I have intended to not have any secondary function working, so also no cooling water and sound. The power consumption at the moment with the Pi powered from the battery comes out at 12,5V @ 600-700mA so 1 12V 12A battery will run me for most of the day if I add 1A atop the 700mA for the motors.

After that I started working my way aft from the central computer, organising the wiring and working towards a general idea on which components need to go where. I also made sure the all connectors can actually fully disconnect an entire section of components, thereby also reducing the amount of wiring to organise.

Then I continued in the stern, focusing on the propulsion. A couple of components, mostly the 2 PWM modules, have been placed permanently now.

All in all there still is quite a lot of work to be done but I've got quite far over the last week alone. It does help a lot to get some idea of which component should come where, I should've taken that more into account when I was working on the test setup. I have also learned a lot more in the process as well and yet the time to have her sail the lakes is closing in fast!!!

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Since I start to get really close to setting sail now it's time to fix the propulsion in place for as far as I haven't already. Here 1 attempt for a fitting mount for the retractable azimuth. By now I have a properly fitting mount where the magnet glued to the gearwheel is barely touching the chip. Now I need to check if the chip is registering properly, proving proper alignment.
I made the stern steering engines the same way though with the extra needed room for the thicker and also bigger gears

Setting sail with a boat which is not watertight sounds like asking for trouble so I need to make the moonpool watertight as soon as possible. I forgot to think ahead and glued the garage and it's connecting piece in place instead of first placing the tubes for waterproofing the drive shafts for the doors first when I had the room. Here I use the remaining piece of 2x3mm tube and a hammer to gently but firmly get the first tube in place. Then I put a couple drops of glue around it to fix it in place once and for all, but the glue found it's way underneath the garage to the other tube where it stopped me from mirroring the steps I had just made. I just managed to avoid having the tube glued in the wrong place after which I decided the garage had to come out. I managed to do just that with some pain and broken PLA, but by now all is ready for placing the doors and lower moonpool door.

If you look closely you can see the remainder of the infill PLA which has broken away from the garage proving the holding power of the glue. Both tubes are now place correctly.

Since I managed to remove the garage I used the opportunity to mount the servo's, which are connected through a Y-cable so the doors will open simultaneously. I made myself some nice servo mounts and then complemented those with a version for floor mounting.

Added the LED strip for lighting inside the hull for once the deck is in place. I continued organising the wiring which starts to come along nicely.

Placing the LED strip around the deck edge seems to provide plenty of light. Concerning the power of the LED strip: the somewhat lighter flooring in the background is fully lit by daylight.

I turned my attention to the bow. Some electronics have placed permanently and the wiring has been sorted out.

The time had come to put the connectors in place in such a way that the electronics can be connected even with the deck in place, starting with the connector for the drilling tower. Since the drilling tower holds 5 working winches and a crane it feels appropriate to have a firm foundation preventing the drilling tower from tipping over. Should water leak past the side of the tower, the connector is protected against water getting in by means of an edge around it and a drainage hole in the bottom of the holder.

De connector can now be used, even with the deck in place, though it will take quite some time before the deck will be glued in place for good. There is still too much to be done inside the hull.

Finisht the construction for the lower moonpool door and both garage doors. I still need to work out how I will control the top moonpool door, I currently have a servo connected reserved for this, though that might just as well be switched with a reduction motor with threaded rod.

The transceiver has now been placed permanently. There will be a second transceiver for controlling the lifeboats in the rear of the main superstructure in between all the fire mains and electrical connections to the superstructure.

Even the dive area will be quite full of electronics, though I do need to keep room in the middle since I need to be able to reach the power switch and rotary encoder for starting up the Pi. Since the program will run into errors if not all I2C devices are connected the dive area with it's electronics need to be in place for the Pi to be able to start and run the program, a hatch will provide access with the dive area in place.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,
The last few weeks work has continued quite quickly, I got myself a 6 channel radio so I could get Well Enhancer sailing even quicker without feeling any need to rush finishing my transmitter. The only reason the boat is not ready to sail yet is because the steering motors (N20 reduction motors) turned out not to be able to turn the azimuths.
After having ordered some more powerful motors I then decided to add the deck around the dive area. From there things made a turn south, or perhaps better north. I came to the conclusion that there are too many minor issues with the current hull to continue with this hull and I've now decided I will replace the hull with a new GRP hull. I'll first state what issues made me make this change and then how I will go about this.
Why?In short there is a long list of minor items that in and on itself are not worthy of such a big change, but combined together it does add up.-The bulwark on the bow is far to low and there are various alignment issues with the rear bulwarks, mostly related to the deck-The base for the rear deck is not quite flat and has me doubting whether the stern is straight or not, this issue comes back in the how section.-Bilges keels are quite flimsy -The wiring is in quite a bad place, it would best be placed as close to the hull as possible, making room in front of, but still somewhat under the deck, for the electronics providing tons more room for the electronics and putting the wiring away nice and tidy.-The latest moonpools for the dive bells have been placed on the wrong side of the frame I glued them onto, taking away awfully much of the already quite limited room for the electronics.-The propulsion now takes up quite a lot of room, which could be much less if done properly.-The power supply unit is overcrowded due to poor design and the choice to solder all wiring together. It makes it quite hard to find any problems, let alone fixing them,-The water inlets for the pumps now collect too much air and the pumps can't suck it out. -This project is meant to be as much a prototype for future projects as it is a project all on it's own. I already know I'm going to lay out the wiring for both power supply and communication rather differently (also benefitting the GRP hulls I already wanted to make). The only way I can achieve this is by making a GRP hull for this model first.
How am I going to do it?-For the moment I'll build the new steering motors into the current hull so I can sail with that hull until the time comes to move the electronics to the new hull.-Today I got myself a sheet of wood which I will use with some foam to make the new plug, I don't use the current hull because it's more work and even more expensive to transform the current hull into a proper plug. Besides the bulwark issues I'd also need to close all the holes for portholes and propulsion. And then there is the doubt about whether or not the stern is actually really straight or not which will continue to be a doubt in the GRP hull if I don't make a new plug for the mold.-The mold will be made in 4 sections and I will use what would be the keel to separate the port and starboard parts of the mold, taking away the need for a very close fit around the keel and moving the separator after making the first 2 parts with all risks involved there. At half the length of the ship I will also put in a sheet of wood to separate the forward and stern mold sections, this will help with removing the mold from the plug and the hull from the mold, and will also aid in being able to store the mold should I need it again in the future.-While laying the glass for the hull, I will put some PVC wiring tubes in, fixed in place with an extra layer of fibreglass to both make the wiring as much out of the way as possible while also using the tubes to somewhat strengthen the hull.-I will make a new power supply unit with terminal blocks for connecting the wires, making the wiring more tidy and also more maintainable. The new unit will also be higher because of the issues with the programming when an I2C device is not connected, making the controls more reachable and providing more room where it matters the most.-The I2C wiring and the power wires will be replaced, making some changes in the connections to make it all more tidy and also more compact.-The stern azimuths and the bow thrusters will be replaced by own designs based on the retractable azimuth design. This proves to be cheaper but also allows the use of brass propellers rather then scoops and plastic propellers.
Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


THE SHIP SAILS!!!! I couldn't get both azimuths to turn, for the starboard azimuth the gears got trapped in the new steering engine foundation. This proved to be tough, also because I have no way of seeing what position the azimuths are actually in. The issue has now been resolved by printing a new, but lower gearwheel.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oofpNZ4zYHc
The sea trial!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwyrILezzrA
The modified controls and steering mechanism.

Greetings Josse