Test-rigging electrics, material tests with gel coat

I drilled a couple of holes into a piece of plywould covered with gel coat. Found that wood bits cut smoother holes than metal bits, which tend to "rattle" when cutting into the top layer, while the wood bits cut into the resin cleanly.

Currently it's way too warm to work with resin: above 30°C the gel coat hardened in half the normal time, and gluing in the drive shaft with epoxy glue almost ended in desaster when the stuff thickened rapidly after mixing resin and hardener. So I test-rigged the electrics and electronics, and, boy, it does get crowded inside.

Test-rigging electrics. In order to get a away from free floating components I cut out a small board which now holds in place the three power controllers and the servo controller, and will be placed on top of the two 6V lead acid batteries. Much better, but still too many loose cables. A nuisance: the rather large ferrite bits at both ends of USB cables. The Basic Stamp and its components will need a similar board which would sit on top of the 12V battery.

Fired up Loihi (the board computer), and successfully tried out the servo controller. I first could not remember how servo power is provided, but this is conveniently done by the main power controller (and now I remember why I disabled power supply by the two thruster controllers). I could communicate with the Basic Stamp; looks like a loose COM cable. Some decent connection system is needed, and that applies to every connection on board.

Main engine mounting. At some time during this week I finished the main engine mounting, cut a hole into the stern (using the 3D model I created with SketchUp as a guide), and glued in the drive shaft. At 30°C the epoxy resin gellied after 3min!