Rudder box with gears

By Dermot Tynan, over 10 years ago.

This photograph is of the new rudder box with a NEMA17 stepper (underneath) and the two gears. The smaller gear is on the stepper and the larger, quarter gear will be clamped to the rudder shaft. It's a 4:1 ratio and the rudder gear is 90 degrees so one complete turn of the stepper will bring the rudder from end to end. That's plus or minus 100 steps.

• October 2, 2013
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Rudder with filler.

By Dermot Tynan, over 10 years ago.

This is a quick photograph of the rudder stock once it was filled with a mixture of West System 405 microfibres and West System epoxy. I formed a basic mould out of wood, added "shrink wrap" to prevent the filler from sticking to the mould, dropped in the rudder stock frame (see below) and then poured in the filler. It took around a week to fully harden, and I will sand and paint the finished product.

• September 23, 2013
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Good morning, Mother!

By Dermot Tynan, over 10 years ago.

As of about an hour ago, Igor and Mother exchanged communication. It was awkward, stilted communication, like a first date, but they talked! One of the issues with the RS232 stream is that the kernel is chatty. I've suppressed a lot of the boot-up messages, but there are still all those /etc/rc startup messages. As the ALIX board only has one serial port, those messages are sent to Igor. To avoid sending Igor into a tail-spin, or more importantly, sending the boat into a tail-spin, Igor ignores all RS232 output when Mother boots, until the magic word is sent over the wire. The magic word is XYZZY. Anyone want to try and figure out where that comes from?

• August 21, 2013
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Bath-time!

By Dermot Tynan, over 10 years ago.

There are four power supplies on board the boat. The main voltage rail is 12 volts, give or take. The solar panels feed into that via two separate DC to DC converters. Ideally, they would provide a 13.7v "float" voltage to the main rail. That voltage is the ideal float voltage for a sealed lead-acid battery at 20 degrees C.

• August 19, 2013
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Work continues, slowly but surely.

By Dermot Tynan, over 10 years ago.

It's been pretty quiet here on the blog front for a couple of months due to work and life pressures, but efforts on the hull and keel have continued unabated.

Much to report since the last post, including two transatlantic attempts (neither of which have succeeded, yet).

• August 12, 2013
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