<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4344"><span>Alec,</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4346" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4352">some joy sticks have the " click to center" option, where it doesn't spring to </span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4364" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4363">center but clicks into a slot & requires more force to move it out.</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4345" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4365">This was one of the configurable options Apem offered </span><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4366">from memory.</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4382" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4389"> I would have thought a potentiometer type joystick would be as easy to </span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4422" dir="ltr"><span>implement as any other control. What sort of input does the Minnkota controller</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4538" dir="ltr"><span>require?</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4537" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4433"> I am not 100% following you, but if you are having controls out the side of the</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4472" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4471">box, you could have two joysticks with X&Y axis out either side, & you would then </span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4479" dir="ltr"><span>turn </span><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4484">the sub like </span><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4469">turning the handlebars on a bike & push the other axis up to go up </span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4492" dir="ltr"><span>& down for </span><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4485">(you guessed it) down. Crabbing you just lift up on one side & down on the other. </span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4526" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4553">Cheers Alan</span></div><div class="qtdSeparateBR" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4276"><br><br></div><div class="yahoo_quoted" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4386" style="display: block;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4385" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4384" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4383" dir="ltr"> <font id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4387" face="Arial" size="2"> <hr size="1" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4388"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Alec Smyth via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles@psubs.org> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sunday, May 8, 2016 2:30 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Speed controllers<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4397"><br><div id="yiv9063004028"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4396"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4395" dir="ltr">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. <span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4398" style="font-size: 12.8px;">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...</span><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4399"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br clear="none"></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4412"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4411" style="font-size: 12.8px;">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 <u>both</u> 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. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br clear="none"></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br clear="none"></span></div><div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Thanks,</span><br clear="none"></div><div style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br clear="none">Alec</div></div></div><div class="yiv9063004028gmail_extra" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4562"><br clear="none"><div class="yiv9063004028gmail_quote" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4561">On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 7:14 PM, Pete Niedermayr via Personal_Submersibles <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org">personal_submersibles@psubs.org</a>></span> wrote:<br clear="none"><blockquote class="yiv9063004028gmail_quote" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4560" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid;"><div class="yiv9063004028yqt5102414423" id="yiv9063004028yqt39650"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4559"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4558" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What about something like this.<br clear="none"><div><span></span></div><div><br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4557" style="display: block;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4556" style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4555" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4554" dir="ltr"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> </font><hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles <<a href="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org">personal_submersibles@psubs.org</a>><span class="yiv9063004028"><br clear="none"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Personal Submersibles General Discussion <<a href="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org">personal_submersibles@psubs.org</a>> <br clear="none"> </span><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Friday, May 6, 2016 10:43 PM<span class="yiv9063004028"><br clear="none"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Speed controllers<br clear="none"> </span> </div> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4565"><br clear="none"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4564"><div class="yiv9063004028h5" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4563"><br clear="none">I'm a proponent of spring return joysticks also. I considered <br clear="none">non-return ones early on but rejected them just on a perceived need <br clear="none">(real or not) to have them quickly return to a dead zone instead of <br clear="none">fumbling to find that dead zone if I was in a hurry to stop propulsion. <br clear="none">Assuming there's no throttle feedback to indicate where center is, <br clear="none">you'll need a relatively large dead band (or zone) to not overshoot the <br clear="none">center position. I've never been a fan of Z-axis though because I <br clear="none">personally do not find them comfortable or user-friendly even with a <br clear="none">large joystick for a computer. There's something about twisting motion <br clear="none">that is fatiguing and this would be especially true on a small diameter <br clear="none">joystick.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">The degrees of joystick movement is not as important as the <br clear="none">potentiometer value controlling the signal to the controller. You can <br clear="none">find joysticks with different potentiometer values to get the fine <br clear="none">control you need. The more expensive joysticks use hall sensors (I <br clear="none">believe) to get past this issue. One problem I see with a mechanical <br clear="none">KISS approach for components is that the UI ultimately begins to <br clear="none">suffer. Instead of one or two joysticks, extreme KISS requires four to <br clear="none">accomplish tractoring and crabbing which means both hands on controls. <br clear="none">I think potentiometers in this configuration are going to be less <br clear="none">intuitive and more complex to operate, relatively speaking, than <br clear="none">joysticks. Think Etch-a-Sketch, and I was never good at that. <br clear="none">Mechanical KISS ultimately equates to more buttons/levers/switches than <br clear="none">a fly-by-wire design. Yes, at a component level mechanical KISS has the <br clear="none">benefit of being able to target a single switch for replacement but <br clear="none">nothing is free and the UI becomes more complex because the user has to <br clear="none">control multiple components simultaneously to perform a certain task.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Back to the Z-axis, I think if I were to use one I would give up <br clear="none">crabbing and use the Z-axis simply for vertical movement. Twist left <br clear="none">for down, right for up. I'm not sure there is a lot of use for crabbing <br clear="none">in something that is not a Deep-Worker type vessel, but I do plan on <br clear="none">implementing it for my sub.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Jon<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1462675869247_4566"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">Personal_Submersibles mailing list<br clear="none"><a href="mailto:Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org">Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org</a><br clear="none"><a href="http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect">http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles</a><br clear="none"></div><br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div></div></div> </div> </div> </div></div></div></div><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">
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