I just noticed that the high amp motor controller is no longer listed in the store. I tried to access the documentation for it, specifically how to hook up the rudder angle sensor. can anyone help me out here? Trying to get it going in combination with a standard VDO sensor.
i am talking about this unit, it was originally developed by VDO and sold with the rudder angle instruments.
![[Image: VDO_RUDDER_ANGLE.jpg]](https://www.schnaps.fr/img/arduino/VDO_RUDDER_ANGLE.jpg)
Meanwhile I found all the information I need to set this up in this thread here:
https://forum.openmarine.net/archive/ind...-1414.html
Just for my records and maybe others looking into this topic:
I am alternatively looking into using a hall sensor, such as this one:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32422949989.html
Since we will only use part of the 360deg sensing capability I will choose the 0-5 Volt version.
According to the above thread, rudder angle sensing works with a voltage between 0 - 1.1 volts .
So the 0-5Volt Hall sensor should bring me into the right Voltage scope by adjusting the mechanical ratio when connecting it to the rudder.
In other words I want to identify the ideal hall sensor to work with Pypilot, I have not found any other forum thread around this topic. Let me know what you think about the model above.
Quote:seandepagnier
2018-08-17, 01:17 PM
The pump can be prevented from stalling by using current measurement. It will only stall for 1/10th of a second, and doesn't usually cause harm, but it's a good idea to use rudder angle as well. I recommend measuring motor current like this as backup, and to prevent damage if there are other problems. I use a 500uOhm resistor with 50x amplifier.
You can also use end of travel switches to prevent the pump from stalling. This would be a magnetic reed switch at either end, and a magnet to trigger it in most cases, but you could possibly use a switch with a spring as well.
The rudder angle feedback was recently improved, and this change is not in openplotter yet. I recommend you upgrade pypilot from github, as well as the pypilot plugin in opencpn if you are using that.
Once you do, the pypilot_calibration script has buttons for calibrating the rudder. You need to center, and then set the range by moving hard over to starboard, and setting the angle. Once done, the rudder will stay within this range, as well as accurately report rudder angle over nmea0183 port 20220 in a connection to opencpn.
The rudder angle is normally read from adc4. Check the source code to motor.ino you have uploaded.
The rudder angle is normally in the range of 0 - 1.1 volts. You can modify the source code to read from 0 to 5 but this will change all the other adc measurements like voltage and current feedback. Changing the voltage reference for different readings causes other problems.
https://youtu.be/IMqUmcTbQOE