[PSUBS-MAILIST] Speed controllers

Sat May 7 22:30:28 EDT 2016

Oh wow, Pete, you put way too much effort into that! Actually I have yet
another evolution of this if I haven't tired you all yet. I like the
joystick concept but its hard to implement satisfactorily without any
signal processing. I also like the "tractor control" paradigm for the stern
thrusters, but not so much for the side ones. Regarding the issue of spring
return, I think that is intuitive for a joystick but the opposite is true
for the "dual throttle" method. The latter is exactly like double
throttling any boat - who would want to have to hold the throttles the
whole time? So here's the new variant...

The rear thrusters will be controlled using tractor control using two pot
handles coming out the sides of the box as mentioned earlier, but for the
side thrusters we have two controls on the box surface. One is a speed
control (knob, thumb-wheel, whatever) that controls the speed of *both*
side thrusters. They will always run at equal speed, as they did on Snoopy.
Next to it is a three position toggle switch. The center position is
labeled "normal" and in that setting both side thrusters pull the same way.
The left position on the toggle is labelled "Crab L" and what it does is
reverse the polarity of one thruster, causing the boat to crab left.
Likewise the right position is for crabbing right. Ninety percent of the
time the toggle will live in normal mode and the controls are reduced to a
bare minimum - two throttles for steering in a horizontal plane plus the
"depth knob". It passes the test of being drive-able by a 5 year old. But
the crabbing function is still there if you need it, for instance, for
maneuvering onto the trailer. With this, finally, I think there is
something that is just as easy to use as a joystick, yet also adheres to
the KISS design philosophy of the boat.

Thanks,

Alec

On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 7:14 PM, Pete Niedermayr via Personal_Submersibles <
personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

> What about something like this.
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> *To:* Personal Submersibles General Discussion <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> *Sent:* Friday, May 6, 2016 10:43 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Speed controllers
>
>
> I'm a proponent of spring return joysticks also.  I considered
> non-return ones early on but rejected them just on a perceived need
> (real or not) to have them quickly return to a dead zone instead of
> fumbling to find that dead zone if I was in a hurry to stop propulsion.
> Assuming there's no throttle feedback to indicate where center is,
> you'll need a relatively large dead band (or zone) to not overshoot the
> center position.  I've never been a fan of Z-axis though because I
> personally do not find them comfortable or user-friendly even with a
> large joystick for a computer.  There's something about twisting motion
> that is fatiguing and this would be especially true on a small diameter
> joystick.
>
> The degrees of joystick movement is not as important as the
> potentiometer value controlling the signal to the controller.  You can
> find joysticks with different potentiometer values to get the fine
> control you need.  The more expensive joysticks use hall sensors (I
> believe) to get past this issue.  One problem I see with a mechanical
> KISS approach for components is that the UI ultimately begins to
> suffer.  Instead of one or two joysticks, extreme KISS requires four to
> accomplish tractoring and crabbing which means both hands on controls.
> I think potentiometers in this configuration are going to be less
> intuitive and more complex to operate, relatively speaking, than
> joysticks.  Think Etch-a-Sketch, and I was never good at that.
> Mechanical KISS ultimately equates to more buttons/levers/switches than
> a fly-by-wire design.  Yes, at a component level mechanical KISS has the
> benefit of being able to target a single switch for replacement but
> nothing is free and the UI becomes more complex because the user has to
> control multiple components simultaneously to perform a certain task.
>
> Back to the Z-axis, I think if I were to use one I would give up
> crabbing and use the Z-axis simply for vertical movement.  Twist left
> for down, right for up.  I'm not sure there is a lot of use for crabbing
> in something that is not a Deep-Worker type vessel, but I do plan on
> implementing it for my sub.
>
> Jon
>
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