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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