Great to see you are all making sound progress
Since it's been a couple of weeks since my last post, I thought give you all an update on 'The Mimee'.
I've received a heap of parts I'd been waiting on included the Max488 chips for my duplex comms between the arduino's. I ended up swapping out the land side Arduino Uno, with another Arduino Mega which has also arrived. I haven't conducted any testing yet.
I've now got the couplers (universal joints) for the main thrusters so I can now connect the drive shaft to the motor, all the way through to the new props that have now also arrived. Finally, the whole assembly is sound and I've just got to finish the aluminium casings that I've shown in earlier pics. The only thing I haven't completely decided upon is the shaft seal. I've got some rubber grommets, after reading somewhere that they will do the job just fine (but will require regular replacement). It just doesn't sit well with me though, and so I've ordered some flanged bearings which I might get a decide watertight seal on. Its something I'm excited about experimenting with, knowing full well that if the housing floods, it only contains the motor that can run open anyway. It's still my intention, however, to find a solution for running the thrusters dry and I'll put some honest time and energy into it once I make more progress on the rest of the project.
I've also got an Amp Meter for monitoring during mission, voltage LED display for my test-bed, prototype board for putting everything together neatly, and the servo's also arrived for the tilt/pan for the camera. They are all sitting there waiting for me to roll up my sleeves.
Lastly, the digital compass arrived and i got it set up quickly. I didn't realize, however, that as soon as the ROV is not level, the compass will no longer be accurate. So now I need to set up tilt compensation, and have ordered an accelerometer.
So I was waiting on parts arriving but now I just have to make the time to sit down and make some more progress.
So I believe that I could have added a motor and that would have sorted out the issue, purely because I wouldn't be using the same motor for both forward, reverse, and turning. But I knew I'd made a mistake in the code, and I didn't want to change the whole design of the ROV just because I was making a fundamental mistake in programming. I realised that I needed to stipulate that my neutral condition could only be met if LX & LY were centered. My code was stating that individually, but unfortunately satisfying two conditions at the same time. It seems simple enough now but it had me stumped 