Frank I have been thinking about (and playing around with) your idea of using just 3 reed relays and a magnet to get some positive confirmation on actual rudder position. So I put together a digital decoder (implemented in hardware), based on the following criteria: The magnet would either active one or two relay(s) at any one moment, and the legal combination (values) is: Full Port [100] Half Port [110] Midships [010] Half Starboard [011] Full Starboard [001] The following values are illegal: [101], [111], [000]. Basically, the circuit has 5 LEDs (RED, RED, ORANGE, GREEN, GREEN) plus one blinking red LED to indicate any of the three illegal conditions as ERROR, ref attached image to this mail, as well as... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXplMZygImo http://traktoria.org/sub/reed-relay_assembly.jpg Best regards, Jens Laland PS. My previous version of this message was obviously to large due to attachments, sorry about that.
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