Voltage Data Logger

Here is a picture of the data logger, almost complete. This is based on an Arduino board and SD card shield. The software onboard is able to read the voltage input and write out a CSV file to the SD card, for analysis in Excel. There is some work still necessary to scale the voltage range to 12V, and then I plan to package this up into a box to protect it from the elements.

Auto Pilot

Another project that I have in the works is to figure out why my new autopilot resets itself occasionally. The old pilot that we replaced did this also. This can be a big problem, because when the reset happens, the boat steers off course. Right now, we have a hard time trusting the autopilot, which defeats the purpose of having it.

My suspicion is that there is a voltage fluctuation in the power that feeds the pilot. Now, how to see this happen...? A voltmeter doesn't really help, because you might not be looking at it when the failure occurs. So, I am building a voltage datalogger that I can hook to the power supply leads to the autopilot. This will log the voltage to an SD card 5 times per second, and hopefully this will provide enough data to prove or disprove that voltage dropout is the cause of the problem. Stay tuned for updates on this ongoing project.

Mainsail Furling Motor

My other project is to get the mainsail furler working again. The electric motor failed last season, so we used the manual crank to furl last summer. The first step in the process is to remove the boom from the gooseneck, easily accomplished with some help from my friends. The next step is to remove the 12 screws that attach the gooseneck to the mast. Once those are free, it's just a matter of lifting the gooseneck with the furler motor and gearbox out of the mast slot. Sounds simple, no?

This would have been easy, except for the fact that when the mast was overhauled a couple years back, the riggers used some sort of adhesive on all of the screws to lock them in, and prevent corrosion. With a screwdriver I couldn't get any of the screws to budge without fear of stripping them. With an impact driver I was able to get 7 screws free. Still 5 to go. Trying a heat gun and the impact driver again, still no luck. So, I have asked the crew at the yard to help me with this... hopefully by next weekend I will have the motor on my workbench.

I even think I know what's wrong with the motor: the brushes tend to turn to dust if any water gets in from the top, and this tends to happen every 3-5 years or so. More to come...

Centerboard Repairs

The problem with the centerboard was caused by a sheave which has failed. It turns out that Bristol used two Edson sheaves below the waterline. These sheaves were not really designed for being immersed in saltwater, so they tend to eventually fail. At this point, Silence is 28 years old, so hopefully, the next set of sheaves will last as long! The repair involves cutting open the fiberglass housing around the centerboard trunk, installing new sheaves, and then re-fiberglassing the make the whole mechanism watertight again. This should all happen in the next week or so...