homemade autopilot

[Fanie]

It can be done rather easy - same as a fishing reel clutch.

You need a shaft with thread on the end with a flat surface on the motor and the shaft protrudes through the flat surface.

Another flat surface on the sprocket with a center hole.
Add one or two friction disks also with center holes that goes between the two flat surfaces.

Washers with nylock to set the friction you need for slippage.

The left orange washer is attached to the shaft
Then 3 clutches,
then an orange washer attached to the big blue sprocket,
the two washers
and a nylock.

[breezetrees]

Hi everyone,
I've enjoyed this thread. I made an autopilot for my boat too, here's a link to the page that describes it:

http://www.holdentechnology.com/component/content/article/65-frankenpilot-homemade-autopilot

It uses an inertial measurement unit/rate gyro/compass that I got from some old consulting work, an atmel 8 bit processor (programmed in C), a drive unit from a broken autopilot, and a motor controller designed for hobby robotics.

I housed the electronics in an old LORAN unit case because it is waterproof and has an LCD and keypad. The control law is full state feedback but with the states I have it's very similar to PID. I have a background in autonomous systems but this was a fun project.

I recently added a datalogger, there is some data on the website, if anyone has something to compare I'd love to see it. I think I can get some improvements but it's working good so far.

-Mike

[frasco]

Wow, that's awesome! I also have an old Plastimo lying around (with a broken compass unit) and I intend to use it in my project. Though I'm still not too eager to start building yet as there are many months of snow and ice ahead but this will surely be of great motivation and help in springtime!