I want to buy a trolling motor for my boat and connect an ardupilot to do spotlock anchor.
Is it possible to do it,and if i can do it can you help how to do it?
Its just called loiter, once you get a servo on the steer and speed control sorted its just a case of switching to loiter and it will hold position
What do i need from materials?
I dont know enough from electronics
Start here Rover
You will need a Flight Controller, a GPS Module, a large servo and mechanism to steer the trolling Motor and a Motor Controller Trolling Motor
With just a steerable trolling motor Loiter will not work that well. The loiter area will be relatively large. The best arrangement to hold position is with 2 thrusters/motors. Use Search here for “buoy” and you will see some concepts.
If im right these thrusters are a little bit expensive,i want to make something cheap otherwise i can buy a minnkota gps anchor:rofl:
OK, it’s possible. Not sure if it will be much cheaper than a commercially available system. Some reference material for this type of “frame”:
Arduboat
I see Minn kota claims a 5ft radius hold. Not bad but they have a continuous rotation servo.
Where there is already a commercial solution it will already be cheaper… its to do with economy of scale.
ardupilot is open source for flexibility and creating solutions where something doesn’t already exist…
A dji mavic for example, is far better camera gps drone and more sorted out of the box than anything ardupilot for the same money.
Could you please clarify that “but”. It sounds as a continuous rotation servo is something bad. I am on planning (dreaming?) stage and I was thinking about using a continuous rotation servo for steering. Is it a bad idea?
Not bad but I’m not sure it’s supported in ArduRover for that use case.
I’m using a 30 lbs trolling motor on a kayak. Loiter works really well. Especially in windy conditions. When there’s no wind it kinda bounces me around the anchor point. I have not spent much tuning so in auto mode it’s pretty bad but loiter works well.
Can you provide some more details on the hardware in use? What kind of servo drives the steering?
Off the shelf solutions look like they are $1k-$4k. I can picture designing one to use ArduPilot that would cost somewhere near the low end of that, but I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble.
The cheapest one is the motor guide xi3 $1300 pretty popular in the kayak scene.
First I made it RC. Rc transmitter and receiver for rc car, big waterproof servo, and brushed motor esc about $100. Then I got a pixhawk 6 mini with gps and power module, and Sik radio about $250.
I also had to get a Sbus/PPM encoder because the rc car radio is pwm $50. The motor used $50, new $150. The tricky part is the mount for the servo to steer. I designed and 3D printed my own $? My friend printed it for me. I also bought a cheap android phone to use with MP $50.
It’s cheaper than off the self trolling motor with gps but not that much cheaper and definitely not convenient. For me I like that I made my own instead of buying one but I also spent a lot of time on it so it’s really not worth it if you actually only want the anchor mode just easier to buy it. I went with the pixhawk because it’s my first autonomous anything it seemed to have a lot of documentation. Next time I’m buying a cheaper one I been looking at the speedy bee 405.
FC+GPS+power module Pixhawk 6C Mini – Holybro Store
ESC for brushed motor specs are good for trolling motor. Trolling motor pulls about 25 amps at full speed QUICRUN WP 880 Dual Brushed ESC (2-4S) - HOBBYWING North America
Rc tx and rx. Joystick makes it easy to throttle and steer one handed. Also have “cruise control” with one button to lock in the speed level very useful in manual mode and steering mode. Also have 6 channels leaving 4 channels left for auto modes. https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805186162243.html?src=google&src=google&albch=shopping&acnt=708-803-3821&slnk=&plac=&mtctp=&albbt=Google_7_shopping&gclsrc=aw.ds&albagn=888888&ds_e_adid=&ds_e_matchtype=&ds_e_device=m&ds_e_network=x&ds_e_product_group_id=&ds_e_product_id=en3256805186162243&ds_e_product_merchant_id=705563860&ds_e_product_country=US&ds_e_product_language=en&ds_e_product_channel=online&ds_e_product19678427463&albag=&isSmbAutoCall=false&needSmbHouyi=false&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD6I-hG4xCutABgjaJ4in6-YvOEUE&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiOy1BhDCARIsADGvQnDei0oT356u8vbJG50ZEiW_IRLqnwv5RxjuXBQz3RXtv2m3Rts_m4IaAi0-EALw_wcB&aff_fcid=afc65f10169f4069a3735c5d4a7f294e-1723555510287-08874-UneMJZVf&aff_fsk=UneMJZVf&aff_platform=aaf&sk=UneMJZVf&aff_trace_key=afc65f10169f4069a3735c5d4a7f294e-1723555510287-08874-UneMJZVf&terminal_id=9973e0eb8cb446e7b07be8b1a0f76361&afSmartRedirect=n&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa
Waterproof servo. Been using a similar one i think 60 kg but it’s way strong than you need. 40 should fine. https://www.amazon.com/ZOSKAY-Servo-Motor-Digital-Degree/dp/B0B844GJXF/ref=mp_s_a_1_6_sspa?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.usDUirxtaJa3ZG3ozfBB-ozaJ__7AHABY1ZUgJ_NDn7SX2uUXhA6u6UPQ1B9xA1lQPBF1wJAXP9-_wuw9T_nCTotgvTp6ev2hFJx6xG78ERtA5RMYFszumBDDFAsBwK6-fEEmdwufMdxFDMm2sePEjep1yHKOYoBBuXLc8YUWxR9uy1X6mLv8cM4YwBp2rZYKrw2khg9uDWmMfLj3JQhmg.xVmvwzmT4zG_n27qJzht_PvqYkkfOlbYFYKJCdYJ06M&dib_tag=se&keywords=waterproof+servo&qid=1723555737&sr=8-6-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfbXRm&psc=1
I find it hard to believe that crappy servo gets it done. I’d probably make very different hardware choices, but you’ve done a good job keeping the price low.
Believe it or not I been using that servo for a good two years while it was only RC and my buddy got the same one no issues. Actually I was abusing it for a good bit there because normally I was using the esc’s BEC but when I integrated the pixhawk the servo for some reason it didn’t like that, so as a quick solution I powered directly from the battery 13V. Fixed the issue and left it like that for a while and used it a bunch of times before i eventually put a voltage and current buck converter lol. I would definitely take any suggestions on the hardware so I can upgrade in the future! I feel like the only quality item I have there is the pixhawk.
If you’re using a Holybro GPS, it’s likely just fine for the application.
I’ve used Hobbywing ESCs a bit, and they seem to be decent - no need to change that unless it fails.
As for the servo, a bunch of the mower crowd use these Hitec servos. I used them for a while but updated to use 12V servos from AGFRC (which have been performing well for me, but they seem to have a quality control issue, and I’ve seen a few DOA during others’ projects). I do like the 12V power, as I don’t need an additional converter.
I strongly dislike the kludge that an SBus/PPM encoder creates. I much prefer ExpressLRS hardware, and I use a Radiomaster TX16S. However, I suspect that’s the least of your worries, as you don’t need a ton of RC features.
Yes the ESC is small but it’s the standard tons of people use it for RC kayak. My next step is to try QuickTune and learn to log a bin log to get help tuning. My crappy tuning is good enough for loiter amazingly but I’m not going to satisfied until it can do a mission well. After that probably going to upgrade the servo.
Hi El Tigre. Is your motor mounted in the bow or stern? I am working on a similar project on my jon boat with a stern mounted trolling motor with very similar set up. I am having a hard time with the tuning as well. I can’t seem to track a straight line no matter what settings i use. Huge s turns all the way to the destination is the best i can get. I am thinking about moving the motor to the bow to see if that helps.