2018-12-02, 08:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 2018-12-02, 08:46 PM by seandepagnier.)
I read somewhere the pelagic actuator is actually bought from china, and upgraded to make it more corrosion resistant, and brackets added to make it easy to mount. I found similar looking actuators on aliexpress, but none had the speed needed, and were not designed for continuous duty. Where did you find the actuator you mention?
I am hopefully going to release 3d printing files to build your own actuator soon using lead screw (from 3d printer is cheap) electric motor and belt. The $50 figure is achievable, and even using a brushless motor would be possible. Further, it would be possible to scale the design and produce whatever size needed.
The motor controller you linked has been mentioned before. It has virtually no protection built into it. I don't mind you try it, I encourage this, but if it burns the raspberry or the motor, I made my warning a lot of times about this. You might be able to isolate the pwm and direction signals, but there would still be no feedback of motor currents and voltages etc... Please make a thread about your experiments and progress if you try.
I intend to release a controller kit in 1-2 months which will be the latest version of my existing controller so have all of the protection, and other features, but it will require soldering (not surface mount though) and it's going to cost a lot less, but more than $7
Currently rudder feedback is only used to prevent end of travel, and report nmea0183 rudder angle. The error in integrating the rudder error is above the normal errors corrected for, but it would be very interesting to implement a pilot that uses absolute rudder position (nested PID filters) and compare it.
Another nice feature would to have it be able to auto-center, but there is also weather helm to consider.
I am hopefully going to release 3d printing files to build your own actuator soon using lead screw (from 3d printer is cheap) electric motor and belt. The $50 figure is achievable, and even using a brushless motor would be possible. Further, it would be possible to scale the design and produce whatever size needed.
The motor controller you linked has been mentioned before. It has virtually no protection built into it. I don't mind you try it, I encourage this, but if it burns the raspberry or the motor, I made my warning a lot of times about this. You might be able to isolate the pwm and direction signals, but there would still be no feedback of motor currents and voltages etc... Please make a thread about your experiments and progress if you try.
I intend to release a controller kit in 1-2 months which will be the latest version of my existing controller so have all of the protection, and other features, but it will require soldering (not surface mount though) and it's going to cost a lot less, but more than $7
Currently rudder feedback is only used to prevent end of travel, and report nmea0183 rudder angle. The error in integrating the rudder error is above the normal errors corrected for, but it would be very interesting to implement a pilot that uses absolute rudder position (nested PID filters) and compare it.
Another nice feature would to have it be able to auto-center, but there is also weather helm to consider.