So far I have cut out the hull long panels and butt blocks and am in the process of drilling the stitch holes before I glue the panels together.
I think I will pre-coat the panels with epoxy before I put the on the frames and apply the fibreglass dry so I can ensure that I get good penetration into the plywood and no dry spots on the fibre glass. (This also allows me to take my time fibre glassing rather than rushing and stuffing things up.)
The next part is to cut out the frames and construct the building jig, but I have a cold (and it’s nearly the start of summer here) and feel absolutely crap so that has put the brakes on a bit (I really don’t think it will take too long to have it built though)
I thought I would give you a run down on my goals and plans for the boat in the next part, feel free to give me any suggestions and thoughts, or not read it.
As the primary users with be me and my wife, I will be changing the boat a little to suit our needs, forward controls instead of tiller and a little shelter from the elements in the form of two very thin and stream line separate consoles with windscreens just in front of the middle bench seat.
To implement this I will use a picaxe or arduino microcontroller to perform the required functions.
Because it is a small boat and putting in remote steering usually takes up a lot of space I have started designing my own steering, throttle and gear shift controls. These will all be electrically controlled and actuated and will take up significantly less space and will be extremely easy to route the wiring instead of trying to install cabling that can’t be bent around tight curves . I am hoping to achieve a very professional finish and usability.
I picked up a steering wheel a couple of days ago, an old computer game wheel, and have stripped it down ready for testing and installation later. I’ve also order some parts, linear actuator, control board and servos. Originally I was going to program my own controller but the one I have sourced is cheap and does more than I could have a hope of implementing. I will have to make up some mounting brackets to attach the actuator to the steering tube but I will have to wait until I have an engine before I start that.
here is a pic of the linear actuator, it has 50kg of force plently for <20hp
Water and electrics don’t mix, especially salt. So devising a way to beat the environment and still have a natural feel to the throttle control is still taking a bit. My first thought was to put together a mechanical switching device very similar to the normal control box, but that defeats the purpose of what I’m trying to achieve. Next I thought that a sliding potentiometer would give you a small foot-print and visual cue of the throttle setting and a smooth throttle transition, but any water would be highly problematic. A little research uncovered a great device that it a waterproof, touch sensitive potentiometer that is wafer thin.
The only down side is that visual gauge of throttle setting is not apparent. Possibly I could use and LCD screen to indicate the throttle.
The gear selector and throttle being electronically controlled will allow me to program in-gear start protection, correct automatic throttle position for starting and automatic choke if the engine requires it.
And since I’m going to the trouble of programming a microcontroller I can put in some cool gadgets too. Ideas are to put in a big LCD screen to display fuel level, rpm, throttle position, gear selector indicator, fuel flow, speed, engine temp (egt or cylinder head), cooling water temp and flow indicator. This is just a wish list at the moment, and none are necessary to get me out on the water but if I’m going to invest the time in building a boat that I can be proud of why not?
Sorry for the long post but for those who made it through I hope it was a bit interesting, any thoughts you have that I could incorporate put them up.
. One thing, which you may have have thought of already, is that a boat steering wheel sometimes has to hold tremendous force; in some conditions the forces the driver puts on the wheel to simply hold himself in place can be greater than even his own weight, so structurally the wheel/shaft/ mounting has to very strong, besides it's normal function of steering the boat. Please keep posting, very interesting!
I like the out of the box thinking. You sound like you know what you are doing, most all of the computer talk was all gibberish, but still interesting, to me. Hope you can get all the bugs worked out. I'll be following this one closely.
