Hansa Dinghy near Castres

= Equipment for a Hansa/Access 303 Dinghy =



This equipment was built for the association called "Voile-Handi-Valide" near Castres in France.

Guy Lassalle modified the seat of this boat to become orientable by an electric ram. This seat will help people having difficulties to stabilize their position.

An small electronic joystick and an electrical ram will replace the original big, mechanical, sheet pulling lever, that controls the rudder on a standard boat.

System overview


The electric system is a modular, programmable CAN bus system built using opensource hard and software. For the moment, there are the following modules:
 * joystick
 * rudder ram
 * seat ram
 * a CAN bus concentrator and battery box
 * a battery charger

All the electronics are enclosed in waterproof boxes, and the materials are chosen to resist salt-water.

Power modules


The two rams for the rudder and the seat are driven by H-bridges with current sensors. This power cricuit is controlled by an Arduino compatible CANinterfacer, which makes it accessible by the other bus modules. In the case of this boat, the joystick controls the movements of the rams using one of these interface for each.

The seat ram made by Lenco is one normally destined to motor boat trim tabs. It's a good ram for this application because it's powerful, because of the waterproof construction, and the ball-screw which free-wheels at the ends.

A modified tiller-pilot controls the rudder. The H-bridge in the interface connects directly to the tiller-pilot's DC-motor.

CAN concetrator/battery box
This ist the battery box with fuses and connectors for all modules. The connectors have all the exact same pinout. The bigger ones connect modules containing power electronics, to allow for bigger currents.