I thought I would finally start my own discussion. The following are pictures of my boat in various stages of the build.
Formers are set on the building board ready for planking. The masking tape on them is to prevent the planks from getting glued to them because they will be removed when the hull is done. Former #3 and #8 are plywood and will be left in for structural reasons.
Hulls are planked and sanded. They are not meant to be water tight. The planking is simple there to give the glass and epoxy its shape and strength.
One of the hulls glassed and ready for sanding.
Picture just showing the beam of the hull. Notice the leftover masking tape in the hull where the formers were.
One hull with deck reinforcements and the other without.
Both hulls are decked and awaiting glass.
Now this is when all the work starts to pay off. Next picture is a float test. She is carrying 6 pounds of LiPo batteries ( 40 Amps ), and a 2 pound weight on the deck. Notice how the bow is not breaking the surface off the water. She is still a bit high in the water. Probably around 25 Amps in each hull will be perfect.
Lets add a measure 33 paint scheme from a CL- 55 class WWII warship.
Another angle.
I have loaded Ardurover 2.45 on the APM 2.5 and all the testing seems to be good except for the thrusters because I don't have them yet. I have cycled through manual, learning, steering, auto, and invoked a RTL according to my ground station. In steering mode if I move the bow to the right the rudders turn to bring the bow back to the left. I don't know if I will use rudder or skid steering at this point. If I use skid steering I still may keep the rudders available on a separate channel in case a thruster was to get fouled. I would be able to get home instead of doing circles in the water. I can also cut the rudders down to about half the length they are now if they prove to be to powerful.
My OSD is not working but I am sure that is a simple error on my part and will look into it later. I'm hoping Blue Robotics doesn't have anymore delays so I can get out on the water.
Any comments, suggestions, or questions are welcome.
Regards,
David R. Boulanger
Replies
That is how it is done!!!!!!
Great to see, really hats off.
45 hours and still ticking. See link if you have a spare 11 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXUV6FHhegg
Regards,
David R. Boulanger
Nice!
50 hrs. now. The APM 2.5 and rover 2.5, the RFD 900, Antenna tracker, Mission planner and the Blue Robotics thruster continue to work flawlessly. See the link below. The Dolphin were not cooperating with me very well so I had to use post production zoom which killed the clarity of them. The weather is getting cooler now in Southwest Florida now and plan on conducting missions that test the limit of my boat and systems.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfW2-JXHa5Q
Regards,
David R. Boulanger
Awesome. I love that you are out in the water and watching it in your living room. That's fantastic.
Beautiful location too.
-Rusty
Rusty,
It beats using my 10" Foxtech monitor ;). Air conditioning is also a bonus down here.
Regards,
David R. Boulanger
Hello everybody,
Just a quick update. 24 Hrs. on the T-100 thrusters and all is good. 3/4 of the time they have been running in salt water.
Regards,
David R. Boulanger
David, that's great! Thanks for the update.
Hello all,
Used a joystick for control today for the first time. Using stock 3DR telemetry and mission planner. The 1/3 of a second latency means nothing when running at 2.5 knots in 2 dimensions. I enjoyed it so much that I am considering upgrading to a RFD 900 system. With that diversity system my range would be much greater. I have a Maestro board laying around the house for an antenna tracker I never built for my helicopter. I get a patch antenna and yagi with a tracker and my playground gets much bigger. I also used a 5.8ghz crosshair antenna for the first time on the FPV system. Huge difference. I hit the 30 hour mark today on the boat and related hardware. The joystick is setup up to use a slider for throttle, lean the stick left or right for rudder, and twist the stick left or right for camera turret movement. The six buttons on the base of the joystick change the various "flight modes". Between the success of the joystick and FPV antenna I still have a smile from ear to ear. Gotta go, my cheeks are cramping.
Regards,
David R. Boulanger
Hi David,
Sweet!
Just keeps on ticking.
Been too hot here in Ft. Lauderdale to do much of anything outside unless it is at the beach:-)
Regards,
Tom C AVD
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