Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Controller/Display

On 4 April 2012 07:47, Jon Wallace <jonw@psubs.org> wrote:

I found a photo that pretty that much looks like what I want to create in terms of a remote motor controller and sensor display. The photo labeled controller-1 was designed for a robot and so had four thumb-joysticks and many more switches than would be necessary for a submarine.

I will be looking to use two joysticks, one on the left for up/down, one on the right for forward/reverse/left/right. They will both be two axis joysticks even though only one axis is necessary for the up/down thrusters. The photo marked joystick-1 is what I have selected to start off with. The thumb-joysticks shown in the robot controller are cheap, and work, but they don't appear to have the resolution that I think I want for the thrusters based upon what I've seen in various youtube videos of other projects. It's not clear to me that the joysticks I have selected have adequate resolution either, but they appear to be better than the thumb-joysticks and at only $25 (us) each I'm willing to take a chance on them. Industrial joysticks look like they cost anywhere between $600-$1000.

For the display, I'll be using a 20x4 Red LCD (4 lines of 20 characters each) and will cycle through various menus since not all the sensor information will fit on four lines. Currently planning on depth, vertical-rate, water pressure, cabin pressure, water temp, cabin temp, and also thinking about having a data logger to save all the sensor information during the dive.

I was going to also include a luminosity sensor (thanks Jens for the ebay pointer) but the cheap LDR's are apparently not very consistent so I'm going to wait on it and add one later.

Still looking for a 50amp motor controller that can handle 36vdc before I seek out Alec's friend to design one. I'm not quite sure what the barrier is but I notice most reasonably priced motor controllers that handle large current seem to have a limit of 30vdc.

Jon