Starting with the obvious but easily overlooked, is there any chance you've created a short with your soldering? It's all too easy to do, worth checking with an ohmeter, and/or inspecting your work with a magnifying glass.
Otherwise it is quite possible the length of cable may fool the unit. If it's digital then the switch connections will be sampled with high-frequency signals, and the capacitance of a long lead can look like a connection.
In which case it will have to be plan B. You do have a plan B? :-)
—
Rick Jones (Treasurer), former 26X & 19 owner, Isle of Wight
Unfortunately I changed the two variables at once (ie length of wire and careful soldering). The good news is that it works properly now so I'll solder the other 10 leads carefully and hope that the planned 2 metres of cable will be long enough.
—
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
First thing to mention. I've changed the thread title as I'm now fairly sure that it's possible to install a very cheap but functional autopilot, below decks, on the M, and I'm sure some aspects will translate well to some of the other variants.
My plan is to use the thread for asking for help during the planning and installation stage and then, when it's up and running ok, to organise all the pics that I'll take into a hopefully coherent guide, or at least, memoir.
Anyway, my current issue, as mentioned above, is the hard-wired remote control. I'm not 100% sure I want to persevere with this, firstly because of the issues surrounding it but also since Madamanmarine.com have a push button wireless fob remote available for £150. However, funds for this won't be available until the winter so I'll crack on since it would be a pity to install the AP unit over the next couple of months but not be able to use it.
Of course I could simply operate it from the luxury of the aft berth but I don't think I'm that confident with it at present. Having said that, it is good to know that if my hard-wired version comes off then I'll be able to operate the AP from both the cockpit AND the saloon.
Ok, I've digressed. Having had a little success with Rick's suggestions, I then proceeded to wire up the remaining 5 buttons. See pic to get some idea. Problem is that the issue mentioned previously has reappeared. It looks definitely like the wiring running side by side that's causing the problems as I've been very careful to make sure none of my soldering was contaminating the PCB.
My question now is, how do I proceed?
i need to run 2 metres of wiring from the AP's control buttons, up the binnacle without them triggering the circuits that they are only meant to trigger when I actually press the button.
Wiring something like this is going to be tricky, whatever.
The first thing I would look at is making sure there's minimum crosstalk between each pair. This is usually best done with twisted-pair cable, such as phone or networking cable. Standard network cable contains 4 pairs and is better than phone cable, if you get cat5e or cat6, these cables are designed for gigabit networking with minimum loss and crosstalk. With 6 buttons you'll obviously need two lengths of cable.
To minimise potential damage to the board by repeated soldering of different cables, I would install one or more multi-pin sockets attached (or close) to the AP, wired to the board, and tested so you know in itself it doesn't create problems. Personally I'd be inclined to fix a row of connectors to a piece of Veroboard, such as the ones in the pic, and attach this board to the AP with your existing wires soldered to the board tracks to link up with the connectors.. You could then plug extension cables in individually to see what did and maybe didn't work. If you are successful with the extensions, you can then secure the cables appropriately to provided strain relief so you don't damage the connectors.
I'm intrigued to find out if you can get away with this! I'm sure you'll let us know how it goes.
I think I've got a few Cat5 or 6 cables knocking about from when we moved in, will have a look.
My next plan was to use two multicores of 6 individually screened/shielded? cores. How does one need to terminate the shields? Do they even need terminating.
—
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
The idea of twisted-pair cables is that the EM fields from the currents in the pair of wires cancel each other out (at any instant, the current going up one wire equals the current coming down the other one). You thus get minimum interference between pairs, even though the pairs are bunched together. It has a similar effect to shielding, but is a lot cheaper, and also presents a lower capacitance.
If you wanted to use individual shielded wires you could connect the shield to one side of a button and the core to the other. This is only really advisable if one side of the button is ground (which it may well be), but if both sides are floating then twisted-pair is probably a better bet.
—
Rick Jones (Treasurer), former 26X & 19 owner, Isle of Wight
Thanks Rick, I heard this idea of cancelling interference with audio cables where we refer to balanced lines but I thought it needed some form of decoding or summing.
With the Ethernet cables, as far as I can see, although the pairs are twisted, they remain separate, both in the cable and at the connectors.
To my lay mind this implies that there must be some decoding device employed at some point to remove any interfering influence, eg EM.
Or am I missing the point? Is it simply that by being a twisted pair they just don't have any influence on their neighbouring pairs?
Anyway, in the meantime, I've shortened my 2 x 2m (3 x 2 pairs) to around 9" (enough to facilitate your scheme).
The good news is the all is working fine. I just have to use a method, hopefully your Ethernet cable extension idea, that won't simply reintroduce the "button press where there is no button pressed" effect.
Incidentally, I was horrified to realise that, when I wired up all 6 buttons (with these 2m cables) I had not simply "switched on" 6 circuits permanently, I had also probably created an additional 24 circuits; by virtue of the array of potential interconnections that probably occurred.
I'm amazed it still works:)
—
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
Ok, anyway I clearly can only use the option of connecting each of the four pairs so they hopefully benefit from their close, if twisted, relationship.
I guess my next step is to put an Ethernet female connector (or 3); maybe I'll just use one for the test stage, onto my 9" wiring and try out my various cat cables.
Can you please let me know what are the best female connectors to use; bearing in mind I'm not using Ethernet cable and also I'll need to connect one wire from my autopilot to two contacts on the Ethernet socket.
Many thanks!
—
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
RJ45 sockets are mostly either naked PCB mount, or have IDC (insulation displacement connector) terminals. The latter require an insertion tool (you can get cheap plastic ones) but only work with the correct size non-stranded wire - i.e. network cable! But if you hunt around you should be able to find ones with screw terminals, these would probably be best for your purposes.
The terminals are usually colour-coded to show the pairs, each pair is a colour plus colour/white. So you'll see blue + blue/white, green + green/white, etc. The colours are blue, green, orange, brown. If you have a socket with only pin numbers, then be aware that the arrangement of pairs in a standard network cable is a bit wacky. The pairs are on pins 1/2, 3/6, 5/4, 7/8. There's arcane historical reasons for it that all goes back to USA telephone wiring.
I'm not sure why you say you need to connect one wire to two terminals. If you've got a pair of wires for each button then each wire goes to one terminal. You obviously need two RJ45s to provide the 6 pairs (giving you two pairs spare).
—
Rick Jones (Treasurer), former 26X & 19 owner, Isle of Wight
Hi Mike
Starting with the obvious but easily overlooked, is there any chance you've created a short with your soldering? It's all too easy to do, worth checking with an ohmeter, and/or inspecting your work with a magnifying glass.
Otherwise it is quite possible the length of cable may fool the unit. If it's digital then the switch connections will be sampled with high-frequency signals, and the capacitance of a long lead can look like a connection.
In which case it will have to be plan B. You do have a plan B? :-)
Rick Jones (Treasurer), former 26X & 19 owner, Isle of Wight
Thanks Rick, that makes sense.
Unfortunately I changed the two variables at once (ie length of wire and careful soldering). The good news is that it works properly now so I'll solder the other 10 leads carefully and hope that the planned 2 metres of cable will be long enough.
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
First thing to mention. I've changed the thread title as I'm now fairly sure that it's possible to install a very cheap but functional autopilot, below decks, on the M, and I'm sure some aspects will translate well to some of the other variants.
My plan is to use the thread for asking for help during the planning and installation stage and then, when it's up and running ok, to organise all the pics that I'll take into a hopefully coherent guide, or at least, memoir.
Anyway, my current issue, as mentioned above, is the hard-wired remote control. I'm not 100% sure I want to persevere with this, firstly because of the issues surrounding it but also since Madamanmarine.com have a push button wireless fob remote available for £150. However, funds for this won't be available until the winter so I'll crack on since it would be a pity to install the AP unit over the next couple of months but not be able to use it.
Of course I could simply operate it from the luxury of the aft berth but I don't think I'm that confident with it at present. Having said that, it is good to know that if my hard-wired version comes off then I'll be able to operate the AP from both the cockpit AND the saloon.
Ok, I've digressed. Having had a little success with Rick's suggestions, I then proceeded to wire up the remaining 5 buttons. See pic to get some idea. Problem is that the issue mentioned previously has reappeared. It looks definitely like the wiring running side by side that's causing the problems as I've been very careful to make sure none of my soldering was contaminating the PCB.
My question now is, how do I proceed?
i need to run 2 metres of wiring from the AP's control buttons, up the binnacle without them triggering the circuits that they are only meant to trigger when I actually press the button.
Any suggestions?
image
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
Wiring something like this is going to be tricky, whatever.
The first thing I would look at is making sure there's minimum crosstalk between each pair. This is usually best done with twisted-pair cable, such as phone or networking cable. Standard network cable contains 4 pairs and is better than phone cable, if you get cat5e or cat6, these cables are designed for gigabit networking with minimum loss and crosstalk. With 6 buttons you'll obviously need two lengths of cable.
To minimise potential damage to the board by repeated soldering of different cables, I would install one or more multi-pin sockets attached (or close) to the AP, wired to the board, and tested so you know in itself it doesn't create problems. Personally I'd be inclined to fix a row of connectors to a piece of Veroboard, such as the ones in the pic, and attach this board to the AP with your existing wires soldered to the board tracks to link up with the connectors.. You could then plug extension cables in individually to see what did and maybe didn't work. If you are successful with the extensions, you can then secure the cables appropriately to provided strain relief so you don't damage the connectors.
I'm intrigued to find out if you can get away with this! I'm sure you'll let us know how it goes.
51141810ce395f4d7e000007
Rick Jones (Treasurer), former 26X & 19 owner, Isle of Wight
Brilliant idea Rick, I love it, thank you!
I think I've got a few Cat5 or 6 cables knocking about from when we moved in, will have a look.
My next plan was to use two multicores of 6 individually screened/shielded? cores. How does one need to terminate the shields? Do they even need terminating.
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
Looks like I have a 3m cat7 cable, 3m cat6, 3m cat5E, and 2m cat5E.
I don't think there's any shielding involved, does it help by having each "wire" made up of two wires in parallel?
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
The idea of twisted-pair cables is that the EM fields from the currents in the pair of wires cancel each other out (at any instant, the current going up one wire equals the current coming down the other one). You thus get minimum interference between pairs, even though the pairs are bunched together. It has a similar effect to shielding, but is a lot cheaper, and also presents a lower capacitance.
If you wanted to use individual shielded wires you could connect the shield to one side of a button and the core to the other. This is only really advisable if one side of the button is ground (which it may well be), but if both sides are floating then twisted-pair is probably a better bet.
Rick Jones (Treasurer), former 26X & 19 owner, Isle of Wight
Thanks Rick, I heard this idea of cancelling interference with audio cables where we refer to balanced lines but I thought it needed some form of decoding or summing.
With the Ethernet cables, as far as I can see, although the pairs are twisted, they remain separate, both in the cable and at the connectors.
To my lay mind this implies that there must be some decoding device employed at some point to remove any interfering influence, eg EM.
Or am I missing the point? Is it simply that by being a twisted pair they just don't have any influence on their neighbouring pairs?
Anyway, in the meantime, I've shortened my 2 x 2m (3 x 2 pairs) to around 9" (enough to facilitate your scheme).
The good news is the all is working fine. I just have to use a method, hopefully your Ethernet cable extension idea, that won't simply reintroduce the "button press where there is no button pressed" effect.
Incidentally, I was horrified to realise that, when I wired up all 6 buttons (with these 2m cables) I had not simply "switched on" 6 circuits permanently, I had also probably created an additional 24 circuits; by virtue of the array of potential interconnections that probably occurred.
I'm amazed it still works:)
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
Ok, anyway I clearly can only use the option of connecting each of the four pairs so they hopefully benefit from their close, if twisted, relationship.
I guess my next step is to put an Ethernet female connector (or 3); maybe I'll just use one for the test stage, onto my 9" wiring and try out my various cat cables.
Can you please let me know what are the best female connectors to use; bearing in mind I'm not using Ethernet cable and also I'll need to connect one wire from my autopilot to two contacts on the Ethernet socket.
Many thanks!
MacGregor 26M 2009 - Sky's the Limit - Suzuki DF50
RJ45 sockets are mostly either naked PCB mount, or have IDC (insulation displacement connector) terminals. The latter require an insertion tool (you can get cheap plastic ones) but only work with the correct size non-stranded wire - i.e. network cable! But if you hunt around you should be able to find ones with screw terminals, these would probably be best for your purposes.
The terminals are usually colour-coded to show the pairs, each pair is a colour plus colour/white. So you'll see blue + blue/white, green + green/white, etc. The colours are blue, green, orange, brown. If you have a socket with only pin numbers, then be aware that the arrangement of pairs in a standard network cable is a bit wacky. The pairs are on pins 1/2, 3/6, 5/4, 7/8. There's arcane historical reasons for it that all goes back to USA telephone wiring.
I'm not sure why you say you need to connect one wire to two terminals. If you've got a pair of wires for each button then each wire goes to one terminal. You obviously need two RJ45s to provide the 6 pairs (giving you two pairs spare).
Rick Jones (Treasurer), former 26X & 19 owner, Isle of Wight
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