Okay, so I’ve been tinkering with this boat project for a while now, wanted something a bit more interesting than just your standard RC boat. Decided to make it sort of ‘high tech’, you know?
Getting Started
First thing, I needed a base. Found this old fiberglass hull someone was practically giving away. Perfect. It needed some patching up, nothing major, just some sanding and sealing. Then I got a basic brushless motor and ESC combo. Hooked that up with a standard radio controller. Got it running on the water pretty quick. It was okay, but honestly, kinda boring after a few runs. That’s when I thought, let’s make this thing smarter.
Adding the Brains
The first real ‘tech’ bit I added was GPS. I wanted it to know where it was, maybe even follow a route later. Got one of those little GPS modules you can hook up to an Arduino. Man, the wiring was fiddly. Had to figure out the right pins, get the communication protocol talking. Took me a whole weekend just to get reliable coordinates showing up on my laptop connected via a long USB cable. Not very practical yet, but it was a start!
Then came the power issue. Running GPS, a microcontroller, potentially other sensors… the standard battery wasn’t going to cut it for long runs.
- Solar panel idea! Seemed cool.
- Found a flexible panel that could fit the deck.
- Hooked it up to a charge controller and a separate battery just for the electronics.
- Figuring out the power draw vs charging rate? That was guesswork mostly. Still not sure it’s perfectly balanced.
More Gadgets and Headaches
Next, I wanted some basic autonomy. Not full self-driving, but maybe waypoint navigation. This meant upgrading the control system. Ditched the simple RC receiver for a Raspberry Pi. Why a Pi? Well, I had one lying around, and figured it could handle the GPS input, control the steering servo, and the throttle. Interfacing the Pi with the motor controller (ESC) and the steering servo wasn’t plug-and-play. Lots of searching online forums, trying different code libraries. Python scripts everywhere!
Also added a cheap USB camera looking forward. Thought it would be cool to get a first-person view streamed back. Getting the streaming working reliably over wifi back to my phone was another challenge. Sometimes it works great, other times the lag is terrible, or it just drops out. Still working on that bit.
Testing and What Went Wrong
First real test with the GPS and Pi controlling things… didn’t go great. Went out to the local pond. It followed the first waypoint okay, then just… stopped responding. Motor dead, steering stuck. Had to row out in an inflatable dinghy to rescue it. Embarrassing.
Turns out, I’d overloaded the power circuit for the servos and Pi. The voltage dropped too low, crashing the Pi. Added a dedicated power regulator (a BEC, I think they call it?) just for the electronics. That seemed to fix that specific problem. Another time, the GPS module just refused to get a lock for ages. No idea why. Moved it higher up on a little mast, seemed to help? Maybe? It’s temperamental.
Where It’s At Now
So now, I’ve got this boat that can technically navigate to GPS coordinates I punch in. It has a solar panel helping charge the onboard electronics battery. I can get a choppy video feed back sometimes. It’s definitely ‘high tech’ compared to where it started. Is it reliable? Ehhh, mostly. It’s still a project, always something to tweak or fix. Maybe add sonar next? Or improve the remote link? We’ll see. It’s been fun messing with it, even when it’s frustrating.