“Hello, and welcome to my instructable. This project is to make a scaled prototype for an active control system to eliminate boat-roll caused by waves.
This project was originally designed by myself, Kaden Werner, and my project partner, Alex Morin, for a college course in Electrical Engineering Technology. The goal of the course was to design, construct and program some form of control system related to process control and automation. Together, we decided to use the angular momentum of a spinning flywheel to apply torque to a model ship’s body in response to offset in the roll axis to control the oscillations of the model as it returned to center.
This project is inspired by the commercially available product, the Seakeeper, and a project video posted by James Bruton on Youtube.
Our goal was to design this project to use commonly available components as well as 3D printed components, designed with Fusion 360, included in this instructable.
Please note that this instructable is being submitted to the Electronics contest here on Instructables, so please consider voting for this project here if you find this project interesting, and thank you for your support.
This project will explore using and integrating the Arduino Uno micro-controller, servo motors, brushless DC motors, inertial measurement units, and PID control.
Project Components and materials:
- Arduino Uno R3
- Arduino Uno proto-shield
- MPU-6050 Inertial Measurement unit
- Brushless DC motor
- Electronic Speed Controller (ESC)
- Servo motor
- 12 V battery (We used a small 12V Lead-Acid battery as it was on-hand and capable of supplying sufficient current to the motor)
- 5mm bearing
- <1kg PLA filament
- 25A circuit breaker (optional protection / means of switching power)
- steal ball bearings
- 3/4” NPT plumbing flange (used as the flywheel)
- 8mm M5 nylon locking nut
- assorted electrical connectors
- assorted wire
- assorted nuts / bolts
Tools used in this project:
- Labists ET4 3D printer
- 3D pen
- Soldering iron / solder
- wire cutters / strippers
- assorted hand tools”