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[tweety777]

Hey guys,



This week I continued the work on the propulsion. I designed and printed the first parts for a belt tensioner/ RPM meter. I will place a spring on here so I can tension the belt while measuring the RPM through the encoder/ encoder wheel.

This is what it will probably look like in the end, now make myself a shaft for this so I can finish this small project.

Most likely I will put the encoder wheel below the gearwheel rather than like I showed here. That has everything to do with the height the encoder needs.

I added the inserts on the transmitter so I can now mount all the electronics.

Made some room in the bow for the front positioning sensor (9-DOF). Also prepared the wiring (0,1mm thick wire) for the Suezlight that will be decorating the bow and licht the way ahead really very good as well.


Greetings Josse

[derekwarner]

Very tidy Josse......


regards
Derek

[Hande]

Wow ... I mean wow in many different senses!
For some reason, I have been missing your thread all these years.


You are persistent - going on even longer than I.
I'm sad about your budgie! I hope my two amazon parrots will outlive my project.
So you are quite serious about your build   
I mean - control is one thing. But how are you going to fit dozens and dozens of servos and step motors is beyond me.
As a computer professional, I appload your outside the box approach. That's the way to go: Total freedom 
I went for OpenTx, almost fully programmable traditional RC, ONE servo, two motors  . It is, after all, my first build.


I admire your working stamina, persistence and ambition. And the smile on your face in every photo

Regards, Hande

[tweety777]

Thanks for the kind words!


How I will fit all steppers and servo's into this project is good question. That is a challenge that still lies ahead of me though it floats through my head from time to time. It does help this is quite a big model and servo's aren't so big anymore.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hey guys,


I started building the final board computer. I still need to determine which PCB will be where and place the holes accordingly. I began by making room for the wiring to pass through. The new fuse box will most likely end up being placed in front of the new board computer rather then attached to it.

While I was trying the program the transmitter I ran into possible wiring issues so I decided to go ahead and finish building the final transmitter, where the first step was to fill and paint the transmitter. So I did just that.

I also mounted the joysticks. The wiring in the background is still wrapped up to prevent accidental painting through the holes for the joysticks. Currently I'm still trying to find a good solution for protecting the joysticks PCB from the elements.

This starts to look like a real transmitter. A few more buttons and a rotary encoder are still to be added though. According to my planning I now got to 34% of making the transmitter, most of the remaining 66% comes down to programming.

Measuring is knowing is a Dutch saying, I screwed it up a bit here. First of all I discovered that my PLM 3D printer is not capable of creating M2,5 thread reliably enough to be usable, which I can fix with threaded inserts. I measured the width between the holes but got them wrong in 1 direction. I fixed this now so I can start printing the new versions.

Quite useful to have 3D software since it gives insight in what you're doing so much easier and faster.

Greetings Josse

[Hande]

It's elegant and effetive, Josse 
I don't know, but for no reason, I was expecting to see a keyboard and other aspects of general purpose computing.
How easy is it to repurpose the knobs and switches?
And most of all, I wonder, how did you end up with this exact number of them? Are there spares to be programmed for a different vessel?
Are you making provisions for controlling a number of different models - at the same time, or at least one at a time?

I'm intrigued by your software approach and the way it is embedded in your system
Good job!
Hande

[tweety777]

Hi Hande,


I can understand your reasoning about the keyboard, I did try to use a laptop as transmitter (Arduino Uno with the same 2,4GHz transceiver I have now attached to a USB port) but couldn't get it to work.
The big problem with a keyboard for control is the need to memorize all the key combinations, so using these joysticks in combination with the switches that are to be programmed into the touchscreen is much more intuitive, which is quite important for controlling so much functions.


How I came at the number? I anticipate a maximum of 3 bow thrusters for any 1 project, so that gives the 3 middle joysticks. The other 12 was a bit of guesswork for what would practicaly fit in a transmitter this size. The commands I generate from this are build up out ot 2 digits and a value. The first digit represents the currently selected function group (for all propulsion inputs this is fixed to 0, the non-propulsion functions have A-Z), followed by a digit unique to each axis of a joystick. The function group is selected from the touchscreen, where I also have a bar indicating what joystick has what function. This gives room for 648 analogue functions.


For as far as controlling several models at the same time, this is partly the case, the lifeboats will be controlled from the transmitter at the same time as the ship. To be more precise, the commands for the lifeboat go through the ship, probably to the Bluetooth module of the Pi and then to the lifeboats. Controlling several larger models I do not intent to have any provisions since that would require paying attention to models that can be on different sides of the pont which makes it quite difficult. The lifeboats will have very limited time to sail and therefore stay close to the ship.


My intent is that the transmitter is a simple command spitting device, the boat receives the commands and distributes these to the correct PCB or PCB's. Some functions (mainly some controlled from the touchscreen) start a sub program like random turning on 48 groups of LED's, some of which controlled by a relay because of the amount of LED's and some having only 1 LED with some glass fibres attached to it. There will also be a sub program that uses the 9-DOF sensors to control the propulsion in such a way that the boat can hold position, optionaly with possibilities for holding position relative to a an object or other model. This program will be the icing on the cake, most likely coming at the end of the project.


Greetings Josse

[Hande]

Thank you for taking time for the description!
I understand much better now how it is going to work.
It will be a true wonder-on-the-waves!!
What awes me is the sheer processing speed of your brain that is required to actually operate the vessel
I tend to get lost with my two sticks and four switches...


In the Netherlands, do you have peers, mentors, fellow modelers that share your ambition anywhere close to yours ?

[Hande]

Are these vessels related to your Well Enhancer in any way?


Nord Stream 2018 Gulf of Finland


cheers, Hande

[tweety777]

Hi Hande,


The Nord Stream vessels are indeed the same kind as Well Enhancer.


For the sheer amount of functions it really helps to have (digital) labels showing what does what. The on/off functions are simply toggled by pressing on the name (for example "Navigation lights") In the bottom of the screen I'll have labels for every axis of the joysticks indicating the current function of that axis. That way there's no need to memorize everything since all will be straightforward anyways. In reality I'll never be able to control all the joysticks at the same time since I have only 10 fingers and a total of 17 joysticks (including the 2 on the extension, one of my future projects will even have a 3rd on it's extension), though 1 of the 3 bowthruster joysticks is not in use in this project. Speaking of which, thanks for this conversation. I'm currently in the proces of wiring and almost forgot that I want the bowthruster joysticks from the front of the transmitter to the back, meaning the not in use joystick is closest to the touchscreen so I don't need to reach over the other 2 to control it. I almost had this wired the other way around...


My father is my mentor for programming since he programs for a living and is quite skilled in the datamanagement side of Python, the programming language I use for programming the functions and he also knows CodeTyphon which I use for the touchscreen interface. For modelbuilding I used to have a good mentor I knew back in the day I was a member of a shipmodel club but I haven't been in touch with him for a couple of years. In terms of building it's me and the internet. I am educated for desinging ships so I have some knowledge on the subject. On the subject of a club, it appears there is no such club near where I live so joining such a club will be difficult in the near future.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hey guys,

Currently I'm focused on getting the final transmitter working.

Pretty much all of the electronics are now in place and I started wiring so I can start testing and programming.

The most difficult part was the center part. This is the most crowded part, firstly because of the extra joystick here but also because of the powerbank (I have a 27000mAh powerbank) that will be installed on top of this.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hey guys,


Today I made another big step towards finishing the transmitter. The joysticks now only need a power connection and then I can start testing. I still need to design a mounting for holding the powerbank in such a way that i can also help to keep the electronics in place.

Here is where I keep track of all the electrical connections and status of wiring and all related items. This list also includes all the functions inside the boat in the same format.

As you can see, building the transmitter as going fast towards its end right now. I'm quite happy with this planning since it gives so much more insight and helps think several steps ahead as well.

This planning I started last year for creating some sense on where I am and what I need to do and also to be used as a sort of notepad for things I thought about. There are several tabs behind this where all the different tasks are written down with estimates on time to spend and time already spend. Please note that nothing that was done before I made this planning is included so the 11,7% overall is not really representative since building the hull is not included in this.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello everyone,

Today I continued the work on the transmitter. As things are going now I'm hoping to be able to finish the wiring ans electronics next week. I only just start to realise what that actually means after having been thinking about how to control my boat for 14 years now!

Now that the joysticks are nearly ready I decided to put some attention to the rear of the transmitter. I attached the reset button (activating this will cut the power entirely instantly, hopefully I don't need to use this at all) and placed a rotary encoder and also started wiring this. The rotary encoder can be used to manually select a channel for the transceiver. When I have these parts sorted out I got quite some cleaning up to do with regards to the wiring...

On the left of this photo I made the power connections for the PCF analogue/digital converters so now all the wiring in this section is finished. I also started to clean up the wiring a bit.

I started this morning with just a thought in my head, but thanks to the power of 3D printers the glue is already drying. Here it was very important not to forget the hole for the USB cables. Fortunetaly I made the hole bigger then I thought I needed by measuring the powerbank, if I hadn't, the cables wouldn't have fitted through.

I like the ribbon cables since those greatly help to keep things clear and recognizable.

Below the powerbank I attach each mounting with a single screw since I need a lot of room for the wiring and since these mountings will rest on the bottom plate when that is screwed in place this isn't going anywhere anyways.

Greetings Josse

[hama]

This is way above my knowledge but I truly like to see your work, and I'm following this with great interest!
Hama

[tweety777]

Thanks for your interest and following me Hama. I'm still learning about pretty much everything I'm doing here because I'm also not the most educated person both with regards to building, mostly with the electronics and programming but I'm still to really finish my first working model. I got close once with a Billing Boats Banckert some 20 years ago but that didn't look nearly as good as Well Enhancer is now shaping up to be.

Hi everyone,

The lost couple of months I barely got any work done on Well Enhancer. This is mostly due to the arrival of our newest spouse now 9 weeks ago! 

I have been working on several ideas for both new tools and how to continue the build and working those ideas out in 3D CAD. First of all I had the idea of upgrading my Ender 3 S1 with a laser engraver module, though I quicky realised that the 3D printer is too small for the kind of parts I'd like to make laser cut (first and foremost the superstructure and if this works out good, also more styrene work and quite possibly even frames for future models when the time arrives) so I decided to a friend of mine who has a suitable laser engraver. Since I made this decision I started drafting the superstructure in 3D CAD as can be seen below. In this process I decided to completly replace the second deck that is now nicely painted on the boat because the walls are too high and the deck is quite short requiring a seem which I need to make invisible at some point.


I have also been busy solving the problems with the beld tensioner. This problem is now nearly solved though I do need to design the new holder for the sensor. It has now become a moving arm with a gearbox mounted on it making it possible to accurately measure the RPM while the tensioner is free to move at will. I had decided to print the gears and shafts with the resin printer (a Creality Halot One), however, this printer is refusing it's call for duty for some strange reason. At this point I've basically decided to replace it in the future by an Elegoo Mars 4 Max. This is as big on the outside as the Halot One but has almost twice the screen diagonal making it possible to print the wheelhouse in 4 parts rather then 6 to 8 whilst the Elegoo is also more accurate. In the meantime I build a fixed closet with room for both printers (with air purifiers and lighting) so they are nicely out of the way with all needed equipment and supplies close by.

A little while ago I stumbled upon a YouTube video showing AS5600 Hall Effect angle sensors. These are accurate to 0,05 degree's (far more then the angle for half a step from the stepper motors) whilst also not having any friction at all. Right now I'm planning the modifications I need to make to house these PCB's both for the angle and for the throttle. Since these PCB's communicate through I2C I need to add an I2C multiplexer in order to have the same adresses in all versions of the add-on for the transmitter (this in light of wanting to be able to make an add-on specifically for each model I will build in the future) but this is only a very minor bump on the road. This does mean that I can forget sailing her this year already, perhaps next year will be the year..


I did put the boat in the water again, this showed there is a leak on the rear bowthruster and it proved that the inlet for the rear cooling water pump is blocked.


For fathersday my sons gave me a nice little sideproject that will be of huge benefit for practicing painting with the airbrush, mostly also for weathering.

This is PT 109, painted in the colours in which she was commanded by the later US president John F Kennedy.

Apparently this kit can float as well.

Also trying out the putty if I'm practicing anyways.

So far I'm quite pleased with the result with the airbrush though I have found some things I need to improve on.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


I also started designing the main crane, perticularly the part inside the hull so I make sure I have the room there. I will need to cut into the 2 longitudenal girders here to make room for the crane, and I need to find a proper way to have the crane rest on the deck. The main design challenge here is how to properly connect the wiring because the videocable makes it impossible to use an off the shelf slip ring. I will therefore make the crane itself into a slip ring by applying 5 lanes of copper tape around the crane and having an endstop with a metal roller as means of end sensing electrified rolling against the copper tape. This allows for a not fully smooth surface (for example where the wire is connected to the copper tape) and I already checked that there is no resistance between the arm and the surface of the roller itself. This week I expect to receive the copper tape so I can start proving the concept.

Things are starting to take shape, though I need somewhat bigger margins for the stepper motor. Currently my Ender 3 3D printer is printing a mold for drilling the mounting holes for these components. The Pi Zero seen on the longitudenal girder will have 2 camera's attached (1 of which placed in the crane house) and will serve as a WiFi server sending the video footage back to the transmitter in real time. For this purpose I intend to build bouys with build in WiFi repeaters to boost the range at which I can have first person view from either of the 6 on board camera's, not counting the camera's on the ROV's for which I still need to find a proper solution.

In the meantime I'm also working on finalizing the design off the joystick, for which a few test prints are used here to show where things are going. The disc behind the slip ring is an older version where the hole for the slip ring turned out to be too small, which is clearly fixed now. The new version hasn't printed fully yet, but also incorporates new features such as a means of keeping the throttle lever in position (friction based) and room for the wiring of the PCB to the slip ring.

The inner workings off the joystick, though I just relealized that I haven't taken the thickness of the slip ring and the plate showing the angle of the joystick.

This is what it all will look like.

Greetings Josse

[MartinC]

Amazing to see how things are coming together Jose.


It really is great to see how you are working things out and adapting to different results. 


Thank you for sharing your journey


Martin

[tweety777]

Thanks for your kind words Martin!


I hope to be an inspiration for others who are thinking about going outside the box and their comfort zone, but more importantly, I hope I can learn from this and that others can learn from the mistakes I made. To me seeing a build log where all the good things are shown are nice to see but I personally like the ones where the mistakes are shown as well more of an inspiration.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hey guys,


In the past couple of weeks If made the first steps towards working camera's on board, starting with the first 1. I will use 6 Pi Zero's with WiFi and each with 1 camera (mostly 160 degree field of view camera's) with MotionEyeOS as operating system installed making it a wireless camera.

Apparantly resin for 3D printers has a limited lifespan so I decided to start working on the wheelhouse since I already have the resin in the needed colour. Due to the size of my resin 3D printers and the need to put windows in their frames I'm building the wheelhouse out of 12 pieces. That is the reason why the windows are not closed at the top. These 4 pieces are still far from finished since all interior connected to the floor will also be included in here including all the dials and lighted instrument panels, so most of the work is still to come.

It's been 15 years in the making now but my original intend is starting to take real shape now, albeit mostly digital at the moment.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,


Not much happened lately, though what I did has a great impact for the future.

Finally I managed to get my resin 3D printer to work as intended!! The result is 2 new throttle handle disks. This also gives the green light for more resin 3D printing.

This is the full rear half off the wheelhouse prepared to be printed. I took great advantage of the fact the second half is precisely mirrored from the other not counting the interior.

I also managed to get the crane foundation in the correct shape so I can continue the work on the design of the crane too.


With this result my planning tells me I now got to 15% completion, counting since last summer.


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,

The first results for the wheelhouse are in!

Though not really what I hoped for. Since the supports that connected to the window frames are much thicker then the window frames it proved impossible not to break the window frames (no poop Sherlock) so I'll manually place the supports for the next attempt so as to not have any supports on the window frames. I also found that the floor needs to be much thicker to stay straight which has now been corrected in de model, tomorrow I'll try again with the modified version. I discovered this problem after having started the print containing the front half of the wheelhouse and the crane foundation so I stopped this print, leaving me with some small pieces on both ends. The detailing that I put into these pieces turned out to be really good so I'm really happy with that.

It's quite hard to tell but at the captains feet the tracks for the helmsmans chair can be seen. This way the helmsman can sit behind every part of the main instrumentpanel without the risk of his chair flying around the wheelhouse in a breeze. Unfortunately the 2 chairs here can only be fixed in place since this is still behind the superstructure and thus I can not use tracks like I do with the forward chairs. These tracks are 0,2mm thick at it's thickest so they're really tiny. I also made a slot for putting the 0,1mm thick wire for the instrument panel lighting which actually passes underneath the track for the chair at it's very latest. For the lighting the + wire will pass through either on starboard or port, the - on the wire, thus making good use of the fact that both rear quarters are pretty much mirror image from 1 another, except for the track for the charis which runs further to portside as the instrument panel is slightly offset to portside.

If you look close enough you can see the joints in the ceiling plates. I really love the level of detail these resin printers can achieve.

In the print for the front of the wheelhouse I also included to outer shell of the crane foundation on deck, though here the infill was not yet implemented to give it proper strength for just in case I decide to put some force on it. By now the 3rd attempt for the foundation has been stopped because there was no more resin in the vat... The hole in the foundation is purposely wide since the design of the crane that will pass through has changed since the print visible in blue here. I decided it is a good idea to have the weight of the crane being kept in check by the deck and therefore I widened the crane from deck level onwards. The new version will not be printed before I at least finish the design of the lower crane with the crane house and driving mechanics and Pi Zero so as to not waste more material then needed.


Tomorrow I intent to start the new attempt with some design modifications and corrections such as the overhang behind the rear bulkhead of the superstructure below the wheelhouse and means for wiring for the lighting of the instrument panels and the floodlights that will be mounted at the rear of the wheelhouse. The overhang will certainly have something to do with the wiring for the propulsion as there is a helm station placed on the overhang and since the wiring requires to be doubled up in ways that a fire in 1 room cannot take out both sets of wiring this well finished overhang should have been expected. Further more I'm getting really close to the point that I'm going to have the more shaped walls and walls with windows in the superstructure milled, at the end of this week I hope to know more about this but the first couple of files are ready.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,



After some further design modications I printed the parts for the belt tensioner and rev counter out of resin. Some parts are yet to be printed in the latest design iteration before I can start assembling the hole thing. Speaking about printing with resin, I decided that I will have the arm of the main crane 3D printed out of extra strong resin at a shop in Hong Kong because they can print such objects up to 78cm long, much more then I need but can therefore print it in 1 piece for extra strength. I will print PLA inserts for mounting the winches and there motors becsuse of the threaded inserts that work well in PLA but not in resin.

After that I continued work on the brains and heart of the boat, starting with making a new brain. This ended up working fine with 1 less plate then originally anticipated saving a bit of space for the wiring in the proces.

I also made a new fuse box. In this fuse box the last 3 fuses are fused through the 3rd fuse, 2 of the last 3 are switched by relais (hence the holes in the topplate, the switches will fit through these holes) so I can sail the boat without loosing power on additional functions that are not being used.

The wiring will need quite a bit of attention as it is a mess now. I do need some new switches before I can really clean it all up. The topplate for the fuse box also serves as a support for the main computer topplate.

As can be seen here the end result will look quite neat though I'll have plenty to do to get there. The fuse box still needs to be fixed in place, the main computer has now been fixed though the topplate will need more work to fix in place.




Slowly things are starting to take shape but I still have a long way to go.


Greetings Josse

[steve mahoney]

The rear deck is quite low to the waterline, how will you keep the water away from the electrics?

[tweety777]

Hi Steve,


The rear deck will have proper hatches installed with watertight seals. I can understand that it seems the deck is low to the waterline but in reality it's almost 5cm above the water, the illusion is partly because the styrene sides are actually overlapping the hull by 2cm to ensure a strong attachement to the hull due to previous experience with mostly the forward bulwark. Besides this, this boat is 29,7cm wide and 176cm long, giving quite good handling and much room for water to go before even reaching critical parts. I've sailed the first attempt in higher waves on a windy day with the deck still loose and she barely got any water in, as can be seen in this youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnvUlzYR08I


Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi all,



At the moment the walls for the superstructure are being CNC-ed so I decided to pick up the pace on making the interior construction so I can build up the superstructure when the walls come in. Due to available height the front PCB will protrude a little below the superstructure, but this is not a problem.

I purposely make most of the cabins on a smaller scale then the rest of the boat to creat the illusion that the cabins are full size even though there not because of the electronics in the superstructure. I wanted to print the interior in 2 parts, but that requires quite a lot of support to print properly. Splitting the interior in 4 parts in total fully illimenates the need for support by putting the parts on their sides.

After some more design changes the tensioners are now finished apart from the sensor that will register the RPM of the engines. The mounting for these sensors turned out not to fit quite well yet, though it probably will work fine, so I'll redesign these mountings to make it fit better.

In my previous post the new wheelhouse print was already visible but I forgot to mention it, so let's correct that now.

Here the detail in the ceiling is quite clearly visible, this will be in the entire wheelhouse.

Since this part failed it is a good test subject for trying paint and glue.

This is the newer and better version now painted with the black primer, now I need to get myself some white primer to make the end result as white as possible.


Greetings Josse