Monitoring on Merrimac

L&S Ecopilot reduces hydraulic autopilot current consumption

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:42:00 +0200

I just installed an Ecopilot device made by Lecomble et Schmitt from France. Let me tell you what this does and how much of a difference it makes to our power consumption.

Our autopilot uses a reversible pump that sends hydraulic fluid backwards and forwards through a rather stout cylinder. It has ample power to steer the boat, much more than I have certainly!

CANBoat Design part III - Choosing the server hardware

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 22:32:00 +0200

The server that CANBoat runs on was always designed to run 24 by 7. This means that it must be reliable and use little power. Power usage adds up over longer periods. Something that uses 3W will use 6 Ah @ 12 V per day. So every Watt counts!

CANBoat Design Part II - why a website, and why TCP and JSON

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:13:00 +0200

One of the first things that people ask me when I show them my app on the iPhone or iPad is where they can download it from in the App Store. My answer is simple: you can’t. Nor do you need to. It would be bad design if you had to!

CANBoat Design part I - A simple data viewer and boat remote control

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:51:00 +0200

Today I’d like to tell you a little more about the hardware/software stack that I have developed to control and navigate a small to medium pleasure boat. The basic idea is to re-use the mobile devices that most boaters will have, such as their smart phones, tablets, laptops or computers.