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Remote controlled narrowboat


Pen n Ink

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Please just run with me on this. I don't sleep - and when I'm busy not sleeping it's random ideas that keep me sane(ish) and plotting and planning for my future escape.

 

Here goes - with apologies to Bizzard and Heath Robinson for stealing their thunder...

 

When it's cold, wet and raining, you can't stop because you've got places to go and people to see, and the skipper needs a cup of tea, First Mate (Small but Fierce) is clearly of most value making said cup of tea. On our (fictional, planned) pair, we have the solution - a natty little joystick which activates remote controlled steering on the butty. This is done by electrical control on an umbilical, and here is the question. How to activate the steering?

 

1. A hydraulic pump controlling a ram attached to a below-deck "tiller"? If so how do you detach it for normal use?

2. An electric motor with a worm drive acting on a quadrant gear; this could be coupled to a dummy plate permanently attached to the rudder post simply by dropping a couple of pins through - but you'd need a fairly elaborate "stepper motor" type control for this

3. Some sort of rope / pulley / wheel / motor arrangement that I didn't quite get sorted out before I finally fell asleep?

 

Or has anyone got any other ideas? Or should I just take stronger tablets?

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Please just run with me on this. I don't sleep - and when I'm busy not sleeping it's random ideas that keep me sane(ish) and plotting and planning for my future escape.

 

Here goes - with apologies to Bizzard and Heath Robinson for stealing their thunder...

 

When it's cold, wet and raining, you can't stop because you've got places to go and people to see, and the skipper needs a cup of tea, First Mate (Small but Fierce) is clearly of most value making said cup of tea. On our (fictional, planned) pair, we have the solution - a natty little joystick which activates remote controlled steering on the butty. This is done by electrical control on an umbilical, and here is the question. How to activate the steering?

 

1. A hydraulic pump controlling a ram attached to a below-deck "tiller"? If so how do you detach it for normal use?

2. An electric motor with a worm drive acting on a quadrant gear; this could be coupled to a dummy plate permanently attached to the rudder post simply by dropping a couple of pins through - but you'd need a fairly elaborate "stepper motor" type control for this

3. Some sort of rope / pulley / wheel / motor arrangement that I didn't quite get sorted out before I finally fell asleep?

 

Or has anyone got any other ideas? Or should I just take stronger tablets?

Wireless remote control would be good, A receiver and electric servo working the Butties rudder controlled by a proportional transmitter from the motor boat, like model aircraft.

You could put the butty on cross ropes and lash its tiller straight ahead whilst making tea it will follow quite well but if its loaded it will try to jacknife the motorboat on bends.

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Wireless remote control would be good, A receiver and electric servo working the Butties rudder controlled by a proportional transmitter from the motor boat, like model aircraft.

 

 

Aah, but I spent about three hours last night trying to work out how to calculate the force needed to actually move the rudder when we're under way... Helluva big model aircaft servo, methinks!

 

And... Daft - moi? :blush:

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Aah, but I spent about three hours last night trying to work out how to calculate the force needed to actually move the rudder when we're under way... Helluva big model aircaft servo, methinks!

 

And... Daft - moi? :blush:

 

Not all remote controlled aeroplanes are small

 

queen_bee_500.jpg

 

de Haviland Queen Bee

 

Richard

Edited by RLWP
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Aah, but I spent about three hours last night trying to work out how to calculate the force needed to actually move the rudder when we're under way... Helluva big model aircaft servo, methinks!

 

And... Daft - moi? :blush:

Real ones then from an airliner scrapyard.

 

Real ones then from an airliner scrapyard.

A wide cross beam fixed across both boats rudder heads and connect by two long lines, if kept taught the butties rudder should mimic the motors.

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We once saw a partly remote controlled boat at Dallow lock on the Trent & Mersey. Throttle and forward/reverse only not tiller though. I asked the guy about it and from memory he'd adapted a model aircraft remote control as he wanted to be in control of the speed while his wife just had steer and not worry about the throttle.

 

It worked quite well where minimal steering was required into and out of the narrow locks, not sure of the benefit (or why his wife wasn't deemed competent) but it was a clever install.

Edited by The Dog House
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I think that you should have a GPS device on both boats and the butty follow the boat's track with a delay of say 6 seconds.

 

If the rudder has a small hinged flap with position control (trim tab) then you can drive the trim tab easily with a small servo and that will force the rudder to adopt the required position.

 

Use the angle of the tow rope to position the rudder

 

Have a sea anchor to stop the butty overtaking you.

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The electrical engineering is fairly straight forward. You'd probably use zigbee or one of the short range RF systems.

 

Where the problems would occur is in ensuring that the system is safe and would fail safe and in a predictable way - and you'd need to do this and demonstrate compliance to get insurance cover. You now enter the fun/nightmare (delete as applicable) world of ISO 26262, fault tolerant design, safety cases, monte carlo analysis, hazard analysis, circuit analysis, FMEA, Design verification plans and testing etc. Any software would have to be written to tightly defined specifications and tested against them using specs written by a separate team (based on the original spec), then tested by a 3rd team etc. The hardware may be multiple redundant with majority voting, hardware guard bands & watchdogs etc.

 

A flask of tea/coffee and a cycle cape that covers the hatch so most of you stays dry and warm are a lot easier!

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The electrical engineering is fairly straight forward. You'd probably use zigbee or one of the short range RF systems.

 

Where the problems would occur is in ensuring that the system is safe and would fail safe and in a predictable way - and you'd need to do this and demonstrate compliance to get insurance cover. You now enter the fun/nightmare (delete as applicable) world of ISO 26262, fault tolerant design, safety cases, monte carlo analysis, hazard analysis, circuit analysis, FMEA, Design verification plans and testing etc. Any software would have to be written to tightly defined specifications and tested against them using specs written by a separate team (based on the original spec), then tested by a 3rd team etc. The hardware may be multiple redundant with majority voting, hardware guard bands & watchdogs etc.

 

A flask of tea/coffee and a cycle cape that covers the hatch so most of you stays dry and warm are a lot easier!

 

aaah. Now you see all we're doing here is harking back to one of my past lives... software and systems engineering and testing I can cope with - it's just the invention I have problems with!

 

A cape might be cheaper and more failsafe but I don't quite see how I steer the butty with one?

 

And all these clever inventions other people have already come up with are just spoiling my fun! Isn't there ANYTHING that someone on CW hasn't seen / invented / heard about?

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A friend of mine Owens a small tug and equally small butty, you could get them both in a narrow lock. While on cross straps I have steered the tug with the butty down the south Oxford. My friend was on the tug but when he realised what was happening he let go of the tiller.it worked quite well. Years ago lots of pairs, ( not canal) were steered using the butty as a rudder. There is a photo. Taken in St Ives by Frith http://www.francisfrith.com/st-ives,cambridgeshire/photos/old-river-1914_66958/

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When it's cold, wet and raining, you can't stop because you've got places to go and people to see, and the skipper needs a cup of tea, First Mate (Small but Fierce) is clearly of most value making said cup of tea. On our (fictional, planned) pair, we have the solution - a natty little joystick which activates remote controlled steering on the butty. This is done by electrical control on an umbilical, and here is the question. How to activate the steering?

 

1. A hydraulic pump controlling a ram attached to a below-deck "tiller"? If so how do you detach it for normal use?

Friend of ours built one, all the controls were hydralic and he used to demonstrate by standing on the bank and turning it round!

People did get a little upset by the moorings pins though, he had to remove them in case they injured someone!

I think he was using digital RF for the remote?

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  • 6 years later...

Actually their is a Remote Controlled Narrowboat called Tin Slug which I spotted passing through Swing Bridge No.12 in Maghull on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. I noticed it reversed and steered itself and the enginer and rudder we're remotly operated from 50ft away by the owner.    The reason why the owner Built this boat so he could operate a swing bridge single handidly.  If anyone knows the swing bridge at the Running Horses between Lydiate and Maghull they would tell you the controls are on wrong side of Canal.  So very handy and a very clever chap.

 

https://twitter.com/CanalPirate/status/1159085988649623552?s=20

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I haven't heard anything about Waterways changing their mind about the acceptability of remote control for boats. 

They certainly weren't approving ten years ago, citing all sorts of objections like: -

Battery failure in the transmitter

Transmitter failure per se. 

Receiver failure

Insurance invalid

Frightening the horses

All craft underway must have someone on board.

 

If they've changed their minds and it's now ok, just think of the fun?

You won't have to get out of bed, just stick a web cam on the front, have a stretch and a scratch while you poddle off down the cut.

In fact if the transmitter is good enough you wouldn't even have to leave home and go down the boat.

Just joystick your way down the BCN from the comfort of your own home.

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