User:Wsnyder0080/ENES-100/project IWCC/CDIO page

Problem Statement
continue fabrication on boat, disassemble RC tank, install parts from RC tank into boat, begin testing.

RC tank
the RC tank is made up of three distinct parts, the lower chassis, the upper shell, and the turret assembly

Disassembling the Tank
the lowers chassis is attached to the upper shell with 5 screws. one in each corner of the chassis and one under a sticker in the battery compartment. During dissassembly the screw in the battery compartment took a long time to find

Fabrication
to attach the turret to the cover plate a hole had to be cut in the cover plate so that the turret ring could sit in it and then attach to the turret a hole was rough cut with a dremel tool then sanded with coarse sandpaper to achieve a good fit with the turret ring

Initial Testing

 * After the turret assembly had been mounted to the cover plate. tests were run to determine the stability, speed, and handling of the boat with the extra weight. Also test were conducted to determine the range, accuracy, and power of the airsoft gun. here is a link to the videos of testing.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmbm1lOo1o8&feature=youtu.be

testing showed that the gun has a maximum range of 50 feet with the ability to hit a boat sized target at that range.

Problems
Problems were encountered when testing the boats speed. the boat would not respond to any command given by the controller. the motors would not spin at all. the problem was narrowed down to either the circuit board or the antenna. it was initially thought that due to chafing of the wire at the base of the antenna, the boat couldn't receive commands from the controller.

after soldering the antenna wire back together the boat would still not respond. it is believed that there is a problem somewhere in the circuit board. while attempting to locate the problem, it was discovered that touching certain parts of the circuit board caused either one or both of the motors to spin. however it could not be determined what parts had to be touched and the results were wildly inconsistant

Fabrication
after failing to fix the problem with the boats original circuit board it was cut out and the RC tank's circuit board was swapped in. Since the boat steers in the exact same way that the tank does,(by stopping one motor) very little modification was needed to transplant the new circuit board into the boat. all that had to be done was cut the wires leading to the tanks drive motors and then connect the boats drive motors to those wires.

Further testing
after the new circuit board had been successfully transplanted into the boat it was tested in a small pond to determine its range, speed, and handling. here is a link to videos of testing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okOxl6iVp4w&feature=youtu.be testing revealed that the boat was turning left when no turn signal was given. this was found to be the left propeller was spinning backwards. this was solved after switching the positive and negative wires to the left motor. after the problem with the pot motor was solved another propulsion test was conducted here is the link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Tw7uQNXXE&feature=youtu.be testing showed that the max range of the tanks transmitter is 34 feet with it becoming unreliable at 30 feet. It also showed that the boat is significantly slower than previously. the problem is most likely due to increased resistance in the new circuit board. also the Transmitter is unreliable with it mysteriously stop working then after a period of time, it works again.

Next Steps
A lot of important key points were accomplished during this process. The next steps include:
 * attach the traversing motor to the cover plate
 * find the source of resistance in the new circuit board
 * put different propellers on to see if they have a positive effect on speed
 * find a way to increase the range and reliability of the new transmitter
 * extend the lip on the cover plate so that the turret will be able to rotate to its full extent without impedement
 * retest the boat after modifications have been made
 * modify the turret so it can accept the laser module
 * paint the boat a new color