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Auto-Helm for Boat Design Help Needed

cbrooks999

Sep 30, 2013
4
Joined
Sep 30, 2013
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Hi All;

I'd like to design an Auto-Helm for our boat. What it would do is take a reading from a GPS chip and send a signal to a motor controller to adjust the position of the helm to stay on course.

The input would simply be to mark the current direction as the required heading. So simply push a button and the circuitry would keep that heading.

Other adjustments would be the tolerance of how far off course is permitted before the motor is engaged and how long the motor runs for but this can be adjusted in the software as once it is set, there is no need to adjust.

I have a decent background/understanding of making simple circuits and general electronics as well as basic programming such as QB64.

What I haven't done before is to make an interface to a laptop (option 1) or programming an external micro-controller. I thought this would be a fun first project.

I'm open to any suggestions if it's better to use a laptop where I can program in QB which is easy for me, or if it's better to program an external micro-controller.

So what do I need to get started? I assume I need to become familiar with programming in C? Any suggestions are appreciated. Perhaps someone has a programmable motor controller schematic and software already done that I could use?

Many thanks!!
 
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