ST1000 embedded TinyPilot - Projectlog & Questions

[FMJ]

The original tiller pilots usually place the compass on the opposite end of the tiller pilot from the motor, so I recommend locating them there.   You can run the i2c wires a few feet so the raspberry doesn't need to be, just keep the magnetic sensors away from anything a magnet sticks to or current carrying wires.   This includes the 12->5v switching regulator.

Tnx! Realised that myself also and have been puzzling with it for a while, see my next post for more about that.

---

So now on to realising everything within te original enclosure. Firstly, a picture of the victim, a broken ST1000:

 


Opened up and without the broken pcb it looks like this. Fluxgate in bulge on one side, pcb above it, motor completely on the other side:




Plenty of room for our stuff in there right? Firstly the IMU. When there's such a nice spot layed out for the fluxgate, it makes a lot of sense to keep using that place:

 


But then the puzzling starts. I want to make everything as neat and tidy as possible. Especially because there are a lot of moving parts inside which can become tangled with loose wires, etc. Also reusing the button membranes and the display window is a must. So reusing the original pcb mounts for a basic self-made pcb with at least the buttons and display on it seems to be a good choice.
So I started some mocking up, measuring how much more I can fit up there. The biggest problem seems to be the dimensions of the 5110 display with breakout. There's not much space between te uppermost buttons and the top of the available space for the display. The only viable option seems to mount the display 'upside down' and trim off the second row of connections on the other side. Hopefully that will work out..
But besides of the display there seems to be plenty of space for all the components, only height is an issue. On the upperside you only have 2-3 mm's. The underside is a bit roomier with 5-6 mm's of space. So that's exactly enough for the Pi Zero and other components, but only when you solder the Pi directly to the circuitboard. So no removable headers for this project.

 

This leaves me with two viable options to realise the total package. The first one has the Pi, display and buttons in front and all the motorcontrolling parts in the back. So I have to make to circuitboards then. But with some more puzzling it also seems pretty possible to fit everything on one and the samen circuitboard, a design which I actually like a bit more. The ESC and converter are still over 100mm away from the IMU then, about the same as with the original ST1000, so that will probably be far enough. But I will make the final decision when all the parts have arrived from overseas. Because of the mounting on a circuitboard I will probably switch to an Arduino Pro Mini instead of Nano as well..

Option 1, Pi Zero up front, motorcontroller in the back:
 

Option 2, everything together in the original spot: