Beginning with Arduboat

Nice build ! I hope we can see some video floating (or sinking) soon !

Very cool! What are you looking to do with it?

It’s a test bed for a larger boat (1.2m / 4ft) I’m working on on and off. I’d like to make some cool time lapses like this ocean tanker but crossing smaller bodies of water. The Gunhilde Maersk - 4K Time Lapse by Toby Smith - YouTube

The larger boat: It has so much buonancy, a standard car battery is needed for weight. (And thus providing a ridiculous amount of wattage)

Edit This is something I can see myself doing: Exploring Underwater with a Head Tracking FPV Camera - YouTube

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Another Matek board is useful for controlling voltage to the servos and limiting draw from the flight controller. It is a 4A BEC with selectable voltage just taking PWM and ground lines from the flight controller.

MTS-06-07-SVPDB-8S
http://www.mateksys.com/?portfolio=svpdb-8s

As far as I can see it is a regulator rather than booster so you won’t get 8.2V if your supply is below that like you would with some of the 1/12th RC car ESCs.

Got everything set up for mobile tracking and testing the follow me mode. Hopefully next weekend maiden and thoroughly testing of my shenanigans. Edit* the phone can be mounted horizontal, im just being lazy for now.

Diamond srh771 antenna and an Ulanzi ST-06S phone bracket. Got the Usb-c to micro usb from AliExpress. The rest is DIY with GoPro mounts/arms.

In a previous preparation to have more range I made a bluetooth repeater with an HC-06, a 18650 battery + charger inside a casing:

It does work but the connection is somewhat unstable read: utter shiiit. So I ordered an active 5 meter USB extension cord. The Sik radio will be mounted on a light stand and thus connected via the usb extension cord to my laptop. Edit* extension usb cable tested & declared amazing

Edit* Note to myself: Here you can find the drivers for Win10 / x64 to get the V5 telemetry modules working Pololu - CP2102 USB-to-Serial Bridge Driver Installation All other options failed (Zadig)

Small update on this blog: Here’s how setting up the voltage & current sensor of the Matek H743 Lite went: Matek H743 Lite - Battery Monitor Settings?

Very nice work Hans! Will be watching for updates! Good luck!

Very first maiden went…mwoah. It was zigzagging like a dogs tail. After some googling I lowered the D value to 0 and… it worked quite well :slight_smile: . The only weird thing is that Mission Planner thinks my boat is …drifting sideways? Although visually it tracks pretty well along the desired route. Perhaps recalibrating the compasses will fix this issue. Edit* Nope, didn’t fix the offset. Weird.

And the deck is apparently not glued well to the hull structure. At some point some (read: a lot) of water came in. Also, the shape of the hull is not the best i think. It pushes water up, instead of sideways. More epoxy is needed :safety_vest:

My Sik radio. Connected via an USB-extension of 5 meters / 15ft. On top of the light stand is a cased 18650 battery + 5v step-up converter for some extra power. It’s not needed for reliable communication but it lowers the load on the USB-port of the laptop.

Much better tracking. I am happy.

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Fixed water leaking in and all is running exceptionally well :smile: I need to adjust the camera lens, it seems it got out of focus somewhere in the past.

Also, the usb input of the telemetry radio to my laptop has intermitted connection problems. Probably took a hit during transport.

Edit* nope, boat is still taking in water via an unknown route. Im gonna need more epoxy.

interesting project… what kind of waterproof prop do you have mount on it?

This combination:



I also did a ‘Follow me’ test today, running Mission Planner on an Android phone & Sik-radio but I got a message something like ‘Flight mode failed’ and the boat didn’t respond whatsoever. I need to dig into the wiki to get this working.

So, another testrun to see where water was coming in the hull. But now, nothing, not a drop entered the boat. Weird.

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And the last (early) run before going back to work.
To do:
More waterproofing before I do longer runs.
Smear more epoxy on the inside to protect the wood when water does enter the hull.

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Great job… with good specs

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Thanks!

Early yesterday morning at around 6:00 AM I took my bigger boat out for a long range maiden. And despite it being terribly tuned, it got home safe after traveling more than 2km. It swerves a lot, and oscillates a lot after a turn. Hopefully I can get a log file while doing some testruns later and see what’s going on. It is a chonker though, 1.2mtr/4ft and heavy. somewhere between 12-14kg I guesstimate.

Simple edit & parts sped up. At around 450mtr/500mtr TBS CRSF Radio connection was lost:

Ground station hide out, Telemetry on a 3mtr lightstand. So far 1km out and no loss of Telemetry signal. My Radiomaster Radio with TBS crsf where it stood on the table and had connection up to around +450mtr:

Almost home:

Back safe on the table at around 6:30AM:

whats with the rudder design? it doesn’t look very effective with holes in it.

It’s a stabilizer (flybar?) from a large RC helicopter, bought in a fire sale at Hobbyking. Although it might look like it has holes in it, it’s closed up with epoxy :slight_smile:

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ok lol that makes more sense, other than that its looking good. have you thought about installing a water sensor and pump in case it starts to leak ?