1:75 diving support vessel Well Enhancer

[tweety777]

Hello all,


I got my first birthday gift in the shape of an Airfix giftset 1:72 Westland Sea King. This will be put on the helodeck when the flying helo is not around. Since this ship is not build to sail with her own helicopter I will make the model in a ready to start configuration, with instruments and interior lid up, but engines turned off to save fuel.

The nice thing about hanging around with photographers is that tends to be 1 available when one decides to go for a sea trial to check the latest adjustments in the steering.

The sea trial was a great success! Up to the point where the gears fell off of the servo's (because why bother screwing them on the servo...), the battery went pretty much flat in about an hour and eventually even pulling an entire water plant into the propeller. Sailing went great with really good manoeuvrability and proper control over the course which used to be a great issue. The bow thrusters turned out to be useful even at some speed and the proved powerful enough to move the large superstructure even in the wind conditions today.








https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8--mzrQIf4


With the sea trial a good success I mastered the courage to make the 2 remaining joysticks fit properly in the add on for the transmitter.

I found the courage to continue with the transmitter also because I sent the files for the new throttles, along with the new thrusters, to a friend who will print these parts in resin. I upgraded the throttles will designing the new version by adding backlighting so I can see in the dark what I'm doing. While typing this I realise this might also be a good idea to do with the rudder indicators and perhaps I can even mount some LED's such that they provide some lighting on the joysticks.

This is an impressive row of controls. The middle stick will control the retractable bow thruster.

The base plate for the throttles will be too big to fit through the existing holes while also leaving room for the push button. I will add a plate on the inside as well to make sure the throttle is properly aligned.

The potentiometer will be push against the back wall of the throttle quadrant en fixed in place by a small plate.

This is the test version printed with my FDM printer. This is a poor type of printer for making proper angle markings like I designed here. The silver cylinder is a slip ring to fully eliminate restrictions on the amount of rotations I can make. The LED which will provide the backlighting is also visible here.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,

Today I sailed all day with my modelling club, ran a full battery flat because I hardly took a break from sailing because I was enjoying myself so much.









The drone itself is hard to see, it's rotorwash is clear though. Would I've had the helodeck ready it would've basically been landing on the deck here.







https://youtu.be/EHB85an_Nhc
https://youtu.be/0ucsQX1cdxg
https://youtu.be/wIpAAF3Hfp4
https://youtu.be/F7uZRC7CF6c

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


The new throttle levers have arrived. I do need to modify the lever so it will fit on the shaft of the potmeter which turned out not to work quite so well due to printing difficulties.

This is a big step towards completing the transmitter, though there is still a lot of programming to do.

There will be a new, deeper version of the extension because this is quite impractical and there is not much room for mounting the potmeter for raising and lowering the retractable bow thruster. In the new version the electronics will be mounted vertical to leave as much room as possible.


The new thrusters have arrived as well. The smaller set is for a club member who is building a firefighting vessel.

The new thrusters will most likely be much more quiet then the Graupner units I've had for pretty much 17 years now. The propeller is a lot better as well.



Considering the possibility of night sailing with the modelling club I decided to add some lighting so I can see the model in the dark. All lights are placed and connected temporarily and can easily be removed and the lights which are fixed in place are fixed on place which are yet to be replaced.

Greetings Josse

[Neptune]

She's looking great on the water Josse. Quite a milestone in this build, so you can continue building her with confidence.

[tweety777]

Hi Neptune,

Thanks for the compliment. This sure gives new courage to keep on going, hoping to get the new hull sailing next season.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Filling the hull is now fully on it's way.





After having optimised the design I printed the new bowthrusters so I can now start assembling them. I do need to shorten the drive shafts before I can fully assemble the bowthrusters.

After an attempt with a 9V battery which is indicated to have 28000mAh, but in reality turns out to be a much more reasonable 280 mAh which is far to little for my power hungry transmitter I now upgraded to a proper battery being a 14,8V 10000mAh which should be enough for running the transmitter the entire day. There will be a battery status display which is yet to be delivered. The new battery is now fully attached (apart from the status display) and has proven to be more then capable of powering the entire transmitter and the problems with the screen have vanished because it now gets enough power.

The new addition has been designed and printed. The entire transmitter has become quite a large unit, zo most likely I'll be putting it on a camping table for ease of transport wherever possible and have the neck strap as back-up for where the camping table can't stand, in my neighbourhood the waters have fairly steep patches of grass making the closest place for the camping table the middle of the road.

The colours on the buttons is the wrong way around here (it's been corrected by now) but the general idea will be clear. 1 of the major reasons for making the new addition was to create room for the potentiometer, which has now been placed.

Most of the electronics are now put in place, all that remains to be done is connect the potentiometer and the LED's for the backlighting.

The bigger addition does leave a lot of room for upgrades should the need arise.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,

Behind the scenes I'm working on assembling the thrusters and bowthrusters, this is not yet going fully according to plan, quite possibly due to the shafts being just shy of the needed 4mm that a proper propshaft would be. In any case, moving the drive shaft by hand doesn't yet result in a constantly rotating propeller.


Since the superstructure will not be replaced but rather be moved to the new hull when the time comes I can continue the work on the superstructure so I started adding the platforms.

In this photo it would appear the upper deck is not 100% flat, I'll be checking that.

Starts to look more and more like a ship now.


The indicators for the throttles have been glued in place, now I only need to add the cut-outs for the locking system on the throttles so I can start to mount them permanently.

Considering the I2C cable from the Pi often comes loose I permanently placed the multiplexer PCB and put a drop of hot glue on the pesky connector for good measure. Using hot glue makes it easy enough to remove the connector if need be but make sure it won't happen without human interference.

Quite an important step is being able to connect the main part of the transmitter to the addition so after having corrected the holes I now glued the connectors (each with a strong magnet besides it) in place. Originally I had used a a mold to determine the position of the holes but I placed that to the wrong reference point.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Recently I found some 1,5" LCD screens at Ali which appeared perfect for rudder indicators, also providing myself a chance to fix the awkward position for the rudder indicators, they seem quite useless when the side of my hand is resting atop the rudder indicator. The first screen has now been placed and I made a nice cover for all the electronics.


Now the plug is fully covered with epoxy filler the sanding can start in earnest!

Sanding will be quite a lot of work since I had a lot of trouble trying to make the filler go where I wanted it to go, especially on all the curves.


Earlier tonight I went night sailing with the modelling club, which was quite a different experience compared to sailing at daylight. Fortunately I had put some lights on the model so I could see where I was sailing. It's going to be quite a challenge the keep the amount of light in check considering the model is already very well lit (though not blinding to bystanders and the captain) but now only 15 of more then 100 floodlights are fitted, also because these lights are temporarily put in place with a bit of tape.














Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Since I decided to use WiFi for the communication between transmitter and boat I now needed a WiFi router in the field. I found a nicely tiny and very efficient router and now needed to place it somewhere. It seems logical to put it on the water in a high place considering that this will increase the coverage of the network (along with the WiFi repeaters in both the transmitter and the boat), but this requires something to put it on. A lighthouse like the Fastnet Lighthouse south of Ireland is a perfect solution as it provides some 60cm of height above the water for the router, gives light during the night (off course the light will be working and rotating) and by adding an anchor winch which is remote controlled via an ESP32 board I can tow it to any location I want and not need to worry about water depth as well.

It took me 5 minutes to design anchor winch and 40 minutes later the 3D printer had finished it as well. The engine and drum turned out to fit perfectly as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHktUdYSRrM
The winch works well and it powerful enough.

This will be the anchor making sure the lighthouse can not drift off by the wind. I made room for 2 layers of 4 blocks of lead meant for balancing car wheels. In the middle on the bottom I put a M4 threaded insert in which I will screw an eyebolt to connect the anchor chain or rope. By putting the threaded insert on the bottom it cannot be pulled out.


I made quite some headway with filling and sanding.

The bulbous bow requires quite some attention since it's not yet symmetrical.



The stern is a lot more symmetrical.

Took a pencil and a host of different types of rulers to check how close I am to the desired result, which turned out to be not as close as I thought.



After finalizing the design I printed the new power supply box. This is a lot better then what is currently in the old hull. The top plate housing a new 20x4 LCD screen and the plate holding the Raspberry Pi and it's attributes and a plate to hold all the removable plates straight are currently being printed. All plates will remain removable for maintaince purposes.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


While the filling and sanding continues behind the scenes I decided to shift some attention to the power supply box, also because I had a spark on inspiration on how to properly design it. The power supply will be completely redone in the new hull and the power supply box seems like a good place to start working on that. The middle row will be fully - connections for ease of connecting, the remaining connectors will be divided along 5 fuses, since the first of 6 fuses is used as a main fuse to the last 3 fuses. From this point I will run wiring throughout the boat, adding the same kind of connectors at tactical connection point in the hull.

I started applying a colour coding for the connections.

The power supply box got quite big, this is in part because it provides much more room for proper wiring and the Pi also becomes much more accessible for maintenance. I do need to find a place for the battery status display which I almost forgot about.

The new power supply box fits well, though it will end up on the bottom rather then on the old box.


I started getting a feeling that it might proof difficult to pace winches inside the drilling tower so I spent like 5 minutes in FreeCAD so I could see whether it actually will be a problem or not.

There is now better way of determining whether or not something will fit then to make it and try it out, so I did. I will use 3mm styrene sheet for basic construction of the tower (2 aluminium angle bars will provide more strength) so I won't have issues with a bending tower when all winches are lifting whatever load I may come across. At the moment the 3D printer is printing the second of 5 winches.


Both bottoms (1 will be fitted to the island, the other will be glued inside the PVC pipe that will make the lighthouse), the 2 plateaus, the roof and the mounting plate for the WiFi router. The mounting plate for the router has an additional hole for the wiring of the lighting in the top of the lighthouse.


The joysticks are now ready to be placed permanently, though I need to be careful not to forget placing the magnets otherwise there will be no angles indicated.

I finished the wiring, now I need to place the remaining 2 screens.

The right joystick is mirrored for convenience in use. Now it all comes down to detailing!

Booting the transmitters goes quite well. Today I added a battery status display so I'll know when to shut the transmitter down.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Now that the power supply box is coming along nicely and more preparations for controlling the entire model are made I decided it's time to start working on the design of the middle sized crane so I can start figuring out how to make it work while maintaining view on the electronics atop the power supply box and without creating issues with the controls. The nice thing about having a filament 3D printer is that this kind of prototyping is very easy and quick to do and this makes it very easy to track down any potential problems before making all to permanent parts. I have already discovered 2 important difficulties, the first is that there appears to be very little room for a proper bend for the lower cilinder braking cable. The second is that the braking cable for the knuckle only starts to overcome the internal friction once it has the room to extend outwards, though this could also be considered a safety feature.

The 9G servo's look big compared to the crane. The braking cable is clearly visible running through the arm, it will go through the bottom of the crane about halfway and into the cilinder it will move.

In order to get a proper picture on how I can arrange the servo's and steering motor for the crane, right above the power supply box, I decided to cut the piece of deck the crane is mounted to loose from the remaining, temporary, deck so I see below with the crane in place. I also made a quick and easy support for the crane which will later be replaced by a proper scale version, possible to be permanently fixed to the superstructure below rather then to the removable deck since the crane will also be fixed to the superstructure itself.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


In the add-on of the transmitter I appeared to have a faulty connector so I replaced it. The result is that the ad-on electronics are now connected to the Pi.

The backlighting works! But not for long, for some reason it now only gets 0,8V so another issue to figure out.


Still last year I filled the thrusters with grease and then glued them together so now their ready to be placed in the new hull.

This week I finished the bowthrusters. Due to problems with the main engines I have decided to replace the brushed motors by much smaller brushless motors. The first is now on it's way to me and will be fitted atop the bowthruster so I can test whether these (2212 1000KV) are powerful enough for Well Enhancer. The power output is nearly 50% bigger so considering that brushless motors are more efficient I might well need to limit the speed in the programming with these motors.

I also encountered problems in the shape of a poor wire connector close to the Pi in the I2C (communication) wiring making the boat uncontrollable at the moment. To prevent this in the future I will create a second I2C network from a MCP2221A chip connected via USB to the Pi to control the secondary functions, which will be connected the same way it is now. The main I2C line from the Pi will be used for the propulsion and this will only have connectors for the electronics that are actually connected to reduce the chances of wiring malfunctions.


Right from the start I wanted to have the battery capacity for 8 hours of sailing. The INA260 power sensor proved that will not be possible with 1 12V 12A battery so after trying 5A and 7A batteries I decided to use my old and by now not quite 12A battery. It took some redesigning in the midship section and I managed to get it in by making the main deck around the dive area removable along with the dive area itself and fixing the problem with starting the program by adding say 1m wires to the connector so I can have the dive area connected while being able to check the screen atop the power supply box and running the full program. By having so much more deck removable I can fit and access the electronics closer to the hull itself (part of the reason for building the new hull in the first place) and thus put the 2 large batteries amidship. By replacing the large 8 relay module by 2 smaller 4 relay modules I create the remaining required room.

To make sure the heavy batteries (3,7kg each, the second is nearly half the weight I expect to save on the new hull) won't sack through the bottom I designed and built a tray for the batteries. The tray will be glued in place with thickened epoxy and I will add a layer of 80gr fibreglass with epoxy over it to secure it really well to the hull. I will also add at least 1 frame here which, among the other frames, will be glassed over as well to make the hull really sturdy and stiff.


Recently I was thinking about how to make the cranes work considering the ability to rotate limitless (unless cables get twisted or a structure get's in the way) I needed to figure out a way to keep all the steel cables which actuate the cylinders and the hoisting cable from getting twisted. I though about this issue for my next project Seven Atlantic at first, but quickly turned to implement this on Well Enhancer for the crane atop the drilling tower which really needs this kind of solution with it's work area 360 degrees around. The carrousel itself will be made with gear on top so it will actually turn the crane as well while not having the turning and height movement interfere with one another. There will only be 3 things passing from outside the carrousel into the crane: the cable for extending the arm, the hoisting cable in PTFE tubing and the wiring for the aircraft warning light. By using the PTFE tube I can allow for some entanglement without reducing any abilities of the crane and using PTFE tubes I can also prevent getting a mess of hoisting cables from the 7 winches inside the tower, 3 of which are passing passed the gearwheel of the carrousel making the PTFE tubes a requirement here.

This will be the carrousel though it will only have 2 rather then 3 2,1G servo's. Bigger servo's will not fit.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,








Last week I received the first 2212 1000KV brushless motor which I want to use for the entire propulsion of the ship. I quickly fitted the motor on a bowthruster because that has already room for mounting an engine and started testing. The motor came alive, at first with the propeller and water started moving. The moving of the propeller and the water stopped quickly whilst the motor kept spinning faster and faster. After consulting the modelling club and trying to break the gearbox open I found that the glue had not held on the remains of the grease and thus the gearbox opened itself up under the power delivered by the motor. There was now nothing else to be done but to make a test rig so I can accurately measure the required distances for the gears and I'm considering modifying the design so I can have it printed in stainless steel at JLC3D in Hong Kong. The design of the test rig needed to leave room for water to reach the propeller though it's clearly not ideal. The result is clearly visible in the video below:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpMd0VwbEw8
On the flow of water I can clearly tell that the supply of water is far from ideal which I knew before the test. The water is now sprayed more to 1 side than it would normally do due to the lack of water being pulled into the higher parts of the propeller. The engine suddenly stops at very high revs but at that point there is a considerably bigger stream of water coming from the propeller then the current propulsion ever managed to do so in terms of power I seem to be good. Still, it would be nice to see if I can fix the cutting of the power, could that be due to the ESC getting to warm? Is it a high voltage on the motor (designed for 11,1V but is powered at 12V lead battery)?

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,

Some updates are small, yet have a big impact. This is such an update.

Now that I have all the new brushless motors and esc's and the hull is crawling towards making the mold I figured it's high time I started preparing the electronics and programming to make sure that won't be an after thought anymore. I took the Pi out of the boat and connected the power supply hub to prepare the lot for programming. I decided that I could best leave the miscellaneous functions for until the hull is ready for placing them since there is enouth challenge to get the propulsion up and running for now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WAkM9am1Cg
As can be seen in the video the propulsion in the bow is up and running, the morning after filming this the stern propulsion also worked after switching yet another PWM module.

Then the big news which I currently can't properly show in a photo or video. THERE IS CONNECTION BETWEEN THE TRANSMITTER AND THE BOAT!!!! My apologie for the caps-lock but after working 18 years to get to this point this comes with a lot of good emotions. Currently the connection means that I can type a command in the transmitter which is then send to the boat which simply replies back with the command. I'm in the process of merging the 2 programs but this is running into some issues which I'm trying to resolve at the moment. When those issues are solved I'll be at 90% of the programming needed to be able to sail the model!!! The remaining 10% is teaching the transmitter how to read the joysticks and make a command out of it and creating a tab on the touchscreen to allow for adjustments for inaccuracies in mounting the AS5600 angle sensors so I can properly align the schottels with the sticks on the transmitter.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


I made good progress with sanding and filling the hull. The stern section is now getting close to being able to making the mold.

Still I'm not fully there yet.

Here is still some work to be done, especially the bulbous bow and the point where the bulb transfers into the bow still give me troubles and have been extensively modified after several measurements in the last weeks.



The joysticks turned out to be broken (giving poor and wildly varying resistance values) so I'm in the proces of replacing these with PS4 replacement sticks which have hall effect sensors rather then potmeters with the added bonus of more comfortable thumbsticks as well.

The transmitter is not small in any terms but it's just about doable.

The new joysticks do not fit in the PCB's of the old ones (these combine the + and - for both potmeters and maken connecting a bit easier) so I will 3D print new mounting plates.
De nieuwe joysticks blijken net niet op de printplaten van de oude te passen (die maken vooral aansluiten en en verbinden makkelijker door bijvoorbeeld de + en - van beide sensoren met elkaar te verbinden) dus daar ga ik op korte termijn houders voor 3D printen.

Since thursday I picked up working on the UI (user interface), starting from scratch based on a design I made in the past. Here I'm checking whether or not the texts are large enough to be readable and if everything works out alright. Now I need to check in sunlight and in the dark how it will look. For sailing in the dark I will add to LED's on either side of the screen pointed down to the joysticks to illuminate only the joysticks like I have backlighting in the add-on for the main propulsion joysticks.

When the program has started, you'll be greeted with this screen. At this moment there is now functionality behind it, that I will program in the coming time. I'm quite happy with the lay-out since the multitude of information is displayed in an orderly fassion, with the eye being drawn straight to the most important information while the deviders work perfectly to make it easy to find what you're looking for. The fog horn (scheepshoorn) is currently added twice so I can go figure out which way is the best for controlling the foghorn and the best will end up in the row of checkboxes.

Here I will include the live videofeeds from the model, choosing which be selecting the sub tab.
The labels in the lower part of the screen will indicate the current function of the joysticks and will be changed along with the Joystick Function Selector.

Here are the required settings for accurately controlling the propulsion. At this point I've forgotten to add the trim section for in the boat. This is absolutely essential because the direction in which both the PCB and the magnet are placed determins which angle will be displayed. The direction of the PCB can be checked visibly, that cannot be said about the magnet. With these settings I can come as close as possible to having the angle of the joysticks, the command and the thrusters match. I might also add the settings for the cranes to this tab due to available space. For each crane I will have a startvalue (for it's resting position), a minimum and maximum value and if I really feel up to it I might even add a speed limiter so the cranes can move with realistic speeds.

With things progressing as they do now I maintain having hope that I can actually finally sail this model the way I wanted for 17,5 years now.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


While measuring all around the boat I found there where quite a few spots with several mm's too much material. Since the final hull will be about 1mm thick that will cause a huge issue, so I started removing material but starting yesterday I decided to take a step back and look for a solution which takes the least amount of time and material to get to a proper result. After considering to remove all but the bottom plate in the middle section and make a new MDF box construction which would help remove some of the problems I've been having, I settled with making 4 molds from the best part being half the length I need. These sections are symetrical and can therefore be used for both port and starboard. I will also use the fact that a lot of the height over most of the length will later be removed anyway so the middle section doesn't need to be as high as the rest. This also applies for the stern though making that part lower would mean making a plate that fairly closely matches the stern which costs a lot of wood which I don't have much supply of while I do have enough fibreglass and more then enough epoxy.
The stern on this side is basically ready to make the mold thanks to the decision to go for 8 mold parts and therefore not needing to worry about everything above the bulwarks since this will have no impact on the end result.

This side of the bow was not yet following the correct longitudinal cross section so I added some epoxy filler to deal with this once and for all. I also found that the bottom was a few mm's too high so I removed the material leaving a large surface that needs filling again. I intend to start working on this today or tomorrow using thickened epoxy which has the added benefit of being fluid enough to self level somewhat.





The stern turned out to be 4mm off on 1 side so the heavy sanding gear was used to rectify this problem. Now I need to fill and sand this.


There was a fraction too much friction in the steering, well, quite a bit more then a fraction. I have solved this using a file and some sandpaper and now they run smooth enough. The middle gearwheel also got pushed out of alignment by all the forces which can cause the steering to break down from the software side of things as well since this gear will hold the magnet which which the rudder sensor determines the angle of the thruster which uses that to determine what command to send to the servo.

Here the working side of making the middle gear removable and in proper alignment is clearly visible. I only need to remove the screw from the gearwheel so I can actually replace it.

And a video where I'm testing the modifications I had loosened the propeller so I can remove it for painting the entire unit in the near future. It did cause the propeller to spin quite a bit less then the shaft does.
https://youtu.be/nAb0t8oNYnk

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hello all,


Apparently LED's and electronics need power to work. It turns out that I failed to provide power to half the components in the add-on. That has been solved now. For sailing at night I'm considering a translucent black Plexiglas panel to take out the peak brightness of the screen to keep night vision in tact.

I connected the neck strap though I should find a way to lengthen it to make it more comfortable. As it is now I'll only be able to handle it like an hour at most due to the forces on my neck.

All time is a good time for coffee, especially when you've got a mug like the captain of the real ship could have himself.

Then I've got some bigger news, after having the sanding machine in overdrive for the last couple of days/ weeks I have today reached the point that the first part of the hull is ready for making the mold!! Not only that but the rest of the model is following close by now, needing a little bit of filler here and there. One piece of advice, apply epoxy with a roller, not a brush. This gives a smooth result straight away. For now the final hull is over 15 days away at least since every time I make a mold it needs to cure 3 days and 1 part of the model will serve to make 4 molds, hence 12 days for making the mold and another 3 for making the hull. When that comes out of the mold I'll first put some frames, a keel and deck construction in place and then mount the propulsion and electronics. For making the hull I'd thought to use 3 layers of standard 200grams fibreglass, but now that I'm applying it to the lighthouse island I see that is not strong enough. I will use 5 layers 200grams fibreglass instead of 2 for the molds but I will use 1 layer 200grams and 2 layer 600grams rover fabric fibreglass for the hull, thereby increasing the thickness from 1mm to 2,35mm and the weight from just under 3kg to 5,7kg, only counting the fibreglass and epoxy.

There is yet more big news, the last few days I've been programming the transmitter and the boat. The problems in the boat appear to be pretty much tackled and when that has been solved I can start controlling the propulsion from the transmitter!! The news continues there, I managed to solve some wiring issues so I can now read the 2 bowthruster joysticks, the port throttle angle sensor and all the potmeters (including the 1 for retracting the retractable bowthruster) After having achieved that significant step I managed to translate this into a command which the program for some reason yet refuses to send. When it does, I'm just about able to control the model the way I wanted for all those years (coming up to 18 years now)!!!!! Currently controlling the model means setting the servo to a speed rather then an angle, I still need to incorporate the readings from the AS5600 sensor into a command to the servo so right now I scale the values from the AS5600 for 0-180 rather then the final 0-3599. All of sudden something that has felt like a dream, the stuff of legend, is almost here!!

Greetings, a very satisfied Josse!

[tweety777]

Hello all,

Sometimes things develop quickly, in this case thanks to the customer service from Adafruit and ChatGPT. Yesterday I mentioned nearly being able to control the model from the transmitter, today I have controlled the model from the transmitter!!!!!! Commands come through really quickly and stable at a range of 4m leaving plenty of room to lower the bandwidth if needed to increase workable range. There are yet a few components that are not yet working properly, I suspect I've failed to provide power as of yet so it might be a very easy fix. This is yet another huge step in the right direction!! I also managed to send commands straight out of the User Interface from my PC, I still need to try and run it on the transmitter though. All in all, the programming side of the project is now developing very fast! See the video with a demonstration of the working transmitter below:
https://youtu.be/GRvxds7qC1s

What still needs to be done so I can sail:
->Fix the remaining issues with not working electronics (no power?)
->Adjust the program so it will read the AS5600 angle sensors and use that to control the servo
->Incorporate trim and correction values into the program
->Finish the new hull, install framing and propulsion
->Put electronics in the new hull
->Test the electronica and propulsion

Greetings Josse