Cutting out the ship parts

Ship parts, spread out Finally I mustered the courage to cut out the ship parts. I was concerned especially about the bow and stern parts, which required some thinking and math to figure out the measurements.

Ship parts (that's the plan!) To my delight, it all fits nicely together. Next step: Sanding the edges of the bow and stern parts (all 16 of them, plus the 4 connecting edges) into shape so that they fit without a gap.

That prooved to be tedious work, even with a band sander: the last millimeter has to be done by hand since the sander is big, heavy, and takes of lots of wood in little time.

Let there be light

LED arrays Just to get started again with the ship I built the "lighting subsystems", three small boards with LEDs. I started with the mast. An Actimel bottle will provide cover for the electronic compass, three white LEDs (lighting for left, right, and aft), and three blue LEDs (purely decorational for the front, mid, and aft sections of the ship). A round plywood disk keeps the cut-off bottle in shape. Then I created a tiny array of three white LEDs for the turret cam (serving as front lighting), pointing dead ahead and slightly to the left and right.

Underwater cam I began building a mounting for the underwater cam, essentially three wooden struts which suspend the cam board over the plexiglass window. I soldered three white LEDs in a triangle, and cut a round opening in the board for the lense.

Unterwater cam with lightingThen I cut some foam pieces to isolate the LED board from the web cam board, to keep the three LEDs in position, to optically insulate the LEDs and the lense, and to provide a cushion/spacer between the cam/lighting assembly. I'll have to see whether the light from the LEDs will interfere with the cam.

Basic Stamp board, v2

Basic Stamp board v2 Redid the Basic Stamp board. Since it took me 4 hours I first regretted doing it, but seeing the result (and the hardware work) convinced me I did the right thing.

Basic Stamp board v2, rear Through better placement of components I got rid of a number of cables while providing socket connections for the LCD, Ping, compass, and (later) tilt sensor modules (including a +5V/GND power rail), plus socket connections for 4 power driver connections (including a +5V/+12V power rail for LEDs). 3 more power driver connections are available if needed. I added a mainboard buzzer connected to a power driver, too, to have minimum sound capabilities.