1:75 diving support vessel Well Enhancer

[Richard J OMalley]

Coming along nicely .What type of helo is it ?

[tweety777]

I now have a Merlin, but the maximum weight of that helo is some 2 tons to much for the deck.
I also have a less good Sea King which can also be used.
Both are already fitted with lights.

Greetings Josse

[boatman]

HI josse could we see some pics of the helo lit up ?
chris

[tweety777]

Update:

The Arduino Mega serving as communication Arduino has arrived and has been connected.

Antenna came in so I also connected that to the Arduino.
Now all I need to do is program the Arduino's and build an interface.

This lot will be connected to my laptop.

Arduino Nano indeed is small compared to the Arduino Mega which will serve here as communication Arduino.

Bought a new flash gun which also comes with a incandescent light filter with which one can create the lighting of a sun set.

The new flash gun can work remotely, here I put it on my try pod standing at the side of my bed.

Now some pics of the Maasboulevard party:





As long as the wind kept quite it was nice sailing with Well Enhancer.
About lunch time a heavy rain fell causing me to get Well Enhancer out of the water, after that the wind kept being to strong to sail in such narrow water with a beast like this so she staid out of the water.



Well Enhancer had some competition, though the competition is far less modern then Well Enhancer.

This is the competition.

Last but not least a movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_AAuxl ... e=youtu.be

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Hi Boatman,

For now it will be tough to light up the helo, I don't like having 2 open wires near a brass deck powering the helo.
I read your message in a hurry causing me to think you wanted to see the helo on it's deck.
Fixing the problem of powering the helo without having the deck causing a short circuit is on my list of things to think about though that list is very long.
It might well take over a year to get to the point of lighting up the helo on it's deck.
While I'm writing this message a possible solution comes up in my mind though it will be a vulnerable solution in rain.
The thought is to put a thin layer of plastic as insulation on the brass deck and then add 2 brass pieces above that.
The 2 brass pieces are to be separated by some more plastic.
The problem is that heavy rain can cause this method to short circuit though it does give lots of room for placing both helo's (got a Merlin and a Sea King which are fighting for a place aboard this vessel, the other one will be placed aboard Seven Atlantic) pretty much anywhere around the deck.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Thought it would be nice to show what the interface which will control this beast within a not so long while.

This is the first part of the interface as it will contain the only functions currently working: the propulsion.
In a later stage there will be more functions that can be controlled from this screen like the navigation lights (also those in the mast), anchors, fog horn, dynamic positioning and some more functions that can be controlled from here on the real ship as well.

From this view all the functions that are visible will be controlled.
Every screen will have some means of controlling the propulsion as the propulsion is way too important not to be able to control.

Same applies to this photo.
There will be more screens but these 3 are the most important ones and the only screens that are ready for use.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Sunset photo didn't really work out the way I wanted it to do so I tried it again with better luck.

If I would photoshop a sea and landscape into the photo it will look like the real thing at a sunset...

See, a real sunset...

Placed the stand-in helo on the deck.
This is the kind of helo that will regularly land on Well Enhancers helodeck.

Put the Merlin back on the deck.
The Merlin is the helo of choice for my flagship (meaning Seven Atlantic will probably get it on her helodeck when she has here helodeck) as the kit is better quality and I like the looks more then that of the Sea King.

First platform and some vents have been placed.

Still looks quite mighty from this angle.

I now also started the work on the electronics that will be connected to my laptop.

A bit of a preview of what it will look like when the interface is ready and the Arduino's are programmed.

Captain doesn't like it that he has to give the controls to some-one who isn't even aboard the ship.

This will be the layout of the box.
I couldn't find a smaller box and didn't like to build 1 myself so now I have plenty of room for the sticks which are still to be mounted somewhere out here.
The USB cable is blocking the way of the top part making it impossible to fully open it.

Placed the second platform as well.

Greetings Josse

[Richard J OMalley]

I see you have been buisy .I like the photo's of the real ship .With all that electronics be sure to check the weather forcast before you go sailing !

[tweety777]

Hi Richard,

I'll first of all be sure to seal all the hatches properly and I try to keep the electronics away from the hatches as much as possible.
Where that is not possible I'll place a roof of some kind above it to have the water fall to the bottom of the boat where no electronics will be placed.
I want to be able to keep sailing in heavy weather, partly because it's not quite easy to get her out of the water (add to that that the roofs will be designed to keep water away when the hatch is closed so when ballast is removed to make it possible to get her out of the water on my own) and partly because I like these ships most because of their sophistication and the mighty look of getting a huge wave over the bow.
Fortunately the bow is the most watertight part of the model...

BTW, the amount of electronics could had been for greater then it is using Arduino.
At first I had idea's for Seven Atlantic with some sort of tower full of servos and switches to control all the functions.
I'm really glad that that idea was replaced by Arduino.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Today I started working the interface (with some help from my father) with the image above as result.
All the functions that are already working aboard the model can be controlled with this interface.
The interface still needs to be connected to Arduino to make it communicate with the boat though I turned out to have received a bad copy of the Arduino which was to be connected to my laptop and getting a new 1 takes 10 days (it's already on it's way).
All propulsion controls work by clicking the mouse on the bar and towing it around and by key short cuts.
The bow thruster and throttle controls have a dedicated "stop" button but for the rudder I still need to find 1 as the key's for the throttle are blocking the logical key's.

The image in the background is not the image I showed and actually doesn't even show any part of the Well Enhancer but it's bigger brother the Seven Atlantic.
The reason for this is that I couldn't live with such a fancy interface with such a poor image which appeared to have been altered by a baby...
Finding any photo's of the real ship at all becomes increasingly difficult as Google finds ever more photo's of my model rather then photo's of the real ship and there never were quite much photo's of her so I'm glad I have taken quite a few my self.

I also added another platform and glued the USB cable in it's casing using PUR glue.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Today I continued working on the interface with the image above as result.
I added some buttons which are to turn the lights on for certain situations.
There isn't any protection for contradictions like passing on SB is allowed whilst passing on SB is NOT allowed is also on.
I also added an Autopilot and a DP button which also needs to be protected against use at the same time as DP is designed to maintain position whilst Autopilot is to maintain course and speed.

Lazarus (the software I use to build the interface) is a very easy tool as it's basically a matter of towing the mouse around the place where you want a function, give it a name and an event and you got yourself a working function.
Making the interface talk an understandable language for Arduino to have Arduino do whatever I want it to do is quite a bit more difficult so I haven't yet been able to get that working but I'll see what I can achieve tomorrow.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Testing the systems.

USB cable has been fixed with PUR glue.

As I wanted to sail with Well Enhancer (if the weather will turn for the good) I moved her downstairs and started testing the systems after my friend gave me some clue as to why Arduino didn't respond earlier.
As I parked her right next to Tweety's cage Tweety soon came to check out what huge kind of thing was blocking her airstrip...



"Boss, I thought this window needed to be bigger, I'll fix it in a minute!!"

Hull being checked on smoothness.

Now some footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuchhtIT ... e=youtu.be
As you can hear in this footage the engines now respond to input from the laptop though only the main engines and the bow thruster work as it should be (if you ignore the fact that the midpoint is not correct) but the steering servos don't yet respond though giving them some electricity would most likely fix that problem.
This still is the first SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Greetings Josse

[Richard J OMalley]

Josse
It's nice to see tweedy again .

[tweety777]

Finally continued the work!!
First I bought myself a proper car which will be my transport device for some 30.000km a year.
It's a Ford Fiesta of 3,5 years of age and with quite some luxery extra's.

Now on to the model:

The first door has been made!!!

Placed some platforms.
The top one has later been moved to the other side as I turned out to have mounted it upside down...
The platform on this side has been modified in some change order.

Placed the first door!!

Fixed the helodeck somewhat.

Made some pins to keep the helodeck in place good enough to be able to sail with it.

This is the current status.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

As my current employer closes it's office for over a week starting tomorrow I can finally blow some dust off of this topic by saying "IT'S HOLIDAY!!!!!"
Not that I don't like my job...
On the way home I stopped at some local stores for supplies and then started working:

I decided to continu the work on the helodeck, though I decided to drop the idea of having a brass deck.
This decision unables the deck to handle landing helos but I can live with that.

The edge of the helodeck on it's way to the correct shape.

Placed some more supports.

Made sure that the angle would be good using some lines on the desk.

1 very wide helodeck...

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

1 finished edge for a helodeck.

The edge on the plate off which the deck will be made.
The deck will be 1mm thick making it strong enough.

The new deck carries the helo perfectly, much better then I actually thought it would do.
While I was showing the deck downstairs Tweety landed on the deck (with a little push in the right direction by me) and she walked there much longer then she once did on the previous brass deck.

The deck is now being glued onto the underlaying construction.
The first of at least 4 T-bars has been added to reinforce the fit.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Helodeck with helo.

This view looks more powerful now...

Crew busy preparing the helo for a flight.

Though the Sea King is the more realistic helo for this ship it will most likely be the Merlin that will be placed on the helodeck, until the helodeck on Seven Atlantic is finished probebly...

As the crane foundation has been finished far enough to keep the crane in place while sailing I decided to add some parts to the crane support to make sure the crane arm will also stay in place whilst sailing.

I also continued the work on the lifeboat.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

First door with window has been made, primered and placed.

Also continued the work on the interior of the wheelhouse.

I added some more panels next to the couch to work around the corner.

For better view of what is up ahead one can better go outside on this ship...



The helodeck is really very big whilst the superstructure already isn't small be any means...

The crane foundation has been permanently placed.
It is not quite well visible here but I also added some major construction to the larhge platform in the background.

Over view of todays (dooms-)day progress on the aft deck

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Yesterday I decide to read my build log from the start and discovered that I haven't started quite well (or actually, I had a rubish start on this build, not that that is completely new to me, just never noticed I screwed up this much...).
I will certainly take these lessons into account when I start building the Seven Atlantic, though I allready had quite some points of improvement for Seven Atlantic.

Update:

Applied the second layer of paint on the helodeck which I sure hope will be the last layer but the rain which I didn't notice might make me decide to apply another layer.
If this is the last layer I'll start painting the marking tomorrow.

Interior in the workshop with the crew learning to know the ship.

Thanks to the very short drying time of Revell glue panels are being added at a high pace now.

Greetings Josse

[tweety777]

Update:

Painted the first markings on the helodeck.

In this photo the big H can be seen better.

On the black bar I will paint the ships name.
As I, at first, wasn't aware of the black bar I had allready cut out all the needed letters.

Greetings Josse