Yes, two serial ports will be needed (one for each Torqeedo motor). The autopilot’s USB port could be used to connect it to the companion computer I think. Another idea would be to move the GPS/Compass to CAN to free up a serial port. I don’t know if holybro sells a CAN GPS (they probably do) but in any case, any ArduPilot compatible CAN GPS should work.
We already design a pcb board based on ESP32 that controls 2 torqeedo motors. It receive SBUS data from Ardupilot (on Pixhawk 4) using channels 3 and 4 (Channel 5 act as ARM channel for that board). We are looking a solution to manage 2 different telemetry data (one from each motor)
Torqeedo Interface Board, has 2 TTL to RS485 converters, SBUS input, SBUS output, Neopixel leds to indicate status, I2C port to control an external GPIO interface. And a OLED I2C Screen to display data from motors and sbus data
We even design a torqeedo motor simulator software, just to be able to develop without having motors beside.
Must of torqeedo class software was based on the excelent work of @rmackay9
Our boat is a catamaran of 3.5 meters in length and 2.1 meters in beam and it turned out to be very manoeuvrable with the differential control of the two torqeedo motors.
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Greetings Randy (@rmackay9) …any updates regarding support and use of 2 Torqeedo motors with a pixhawk? We have a potential project in the works that could use the power of these motors. Thanks for all you do!
Re supporting two Torqeedos, I think about it often but sadly it hasn’t reached the top of my to-do list yet. I’m pretty sure it’ll only take a day or so to get it working though so if you or someone needs it for a particular date just tell me and I’ll try and re-prioritise things.
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Thanks Randy! We do not need it at the moment, but are investigating using 2 Torqueedos for a large USV for Mining remediation on hazardous pit lakes and tailings ponds. We have been using dual 1.5 HP trolling motors on a 2.5 m pontoon boat for bathymetry, but will need a large boat for a sub-bottom profiler and a remotely deployed Niskin ring to collect water samples at various locations in the pit. We were planning on using a single Torqueedo with a rudder or steering, but I do like the simplicity of a skid-steer USV. I’ll keep in touch, thanks again for all your help and support.
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I too have a project that would benefit from dual Torqueedos, so count this as another vote!
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Thanks Randy your support ti config. N.2 torqueedo Is welcome. Thanks to all work
Alfonso
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Hey @rmackay9, may i ask that the ardupilot has supported two torqeedo for differential steering? Thanks for your great work!
Hello @rmackay9
Thanks for your reply. Would it be added to support recently? We have a research project to use 2 torqeedo motors. Thanks for your great work.
Howard
Thanks for the continued support
I would like to ask if the feature of two Torquedo engines has been added. We have a project and we would like to use Torquedo engines. Do you have any suggestions for us for any alternative solutions?
thanx
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I’m getting closer to this. I need to get Rover autotune working first but after that I hope to add dual Torqeedo support and support for the higher powere torqeedo motors too.
Hi Mahamoud did you already solved your requirement?
Hello ! Actually no we still searching for that , if you Can please i saw your project and its so interested please can you share your email . Thanks
Hi there are you interested in publishing your findings or selling your adaptors? Cheers
Really sorry about the delay on this. I’ve started again on trying to add multi-torqeedo support. I hope it won’t take me too long.
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@andrewjamez (and anyone else interested),
I’ve completed the “frontend/backend split” that was required to support multiple Torqeedo motors (see PR here).
I’ve tested it in SITL and I’m fairly confident that it will work but it needs testing on real hardware now. I’d do it myself but my boat is not readily accessible to me at the moment so does anyone else have a vehicle they could test with? Ideally that would be a boat with two Torqeedo motors but even just a single motor would be good enough I think.
Please tell me which autopilot you’re using and I can provide a Rover-4.6.0-dev firmware.
Thanks!
Hi Randy, Thanks so much for your looking at this again. We would be happy to try out the firmware.
The boat currently has an old pre cube Pixhawk. We have yet to acquire the RS485 converters but Im pretty sure I can source all the parts locally and have a pair soldered together in a reasonably short time frame. I do like the cleanliness of the board you designed but the Japan Drones website throws all kinds of security warnings at us… or is it ok to ignore those?
Regards, Andrew
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Hi @andrewjamez,
I don’t know about the japandrones.com security warnings (I don’t see them) but you could just email info@japandrones.com if you’d like to order them without going through the store (which is probably all Japanese and wouldn’t let you enter an address outside of Japan). My little company provides the boards mostly as a service and I think you may struggle to make DIY boards. I could be wrong of course but in my limited experience supporting the Torqeedo motors users normally struggle because of some impossible-to-diagnose issue with their DIY adapter boards.
In any case, here is a Rover-4.6.0-dev binary for the Pixhawk1 with the multi-Torqeedo support added