Ahoy... Great looking prototype!

[ET1Veg]

Hi @antevens
I stumbled across your project from a "Made With KiCad" page.
How did the prototype perform?
Did you leave the in a good place for others to step in (last push was 3-yo)? I would be concerned about any 60A landmines if you are aware of any... but I'm thinking the bones look good and you put a lot of effort into the build! I would love to integrate something similar in my 1988 C-36 (Papa's Hoose needs a complete rewire anyway).
What where your next thoughts about the project? Did you get it built, aboard, and running? Is there a project page out there with your logbook and real world findings?
Fair winds & following seas...

[antevens]

Hi @ET1Veg,

Thanks for the message.

I made the PCB, minimum quantity was 5 but due to the thickness of the copper they were expensive.

The only critical bug was that I swapped two of the pins on the monostable latches (if memory serves me right), the way that I dealt with it was just ordering the SMD version and making adapters that had the same footprint with the pins flipped. See the tiny white PCBs in this picture:
https://github.com/antevens/boatcontrol/blob/master/images/prototype.jpg

There was also one jumper wire required for the StepUp/Down logic, should be easy to fix.
With those switched everything else works as designed and I have one installed in my boat.

For a full list of issues and my thoughts see.
https://github.com/antevens/boatcontrol/issues

If I was doing the project over again I might be tempted to use digital fuses instead of the thermal ones and I'd probably add ampmeters for each fuse to be able to monitor the power usage. I'd also try to separate the logic from the current into another PCB and might also be tempted to use a copper bus soldered on a PCB after or something like that to reduce the production cost.

Cheers and let me know if you have any other questions!

[ET1Veg]

Excellent! Thank you for the detailed & honest response!! Now I'm psyched... I've been playing with the idea of controlling sensors and navionics (using an rPi) through a NMEA 2K backbone for "Papa's Hoose" and with all the upgrades needed for that (currently wired c1980's and barely networked 0183) your project just seems like a logical next step toward that goal. I can't tell the color code of a single installed conductor on board, why not gut it all?! Of course, I won't qualify for the next OGR race, but the nerd in me doesn't think that's a bad thing... I certainly won't be running in any of the Rolex series either, so I truly appreciate your last comment:
I'd also try to separate the logic from the current into another PCB and might also be tempted to use a copper bus soldered on a PCB after or something like that to reduce the production cost.
Now it's time to dig in!!
Fair winds, and thanks again... this is GREAT work :)

[antevens]

Thanks