May 2, 2011

During the week I focused on trying to solve the mysteries of my ancient and orphaned Neco autopilot drive and controller. Thanks to the technological miracle of the Internet and the kindness of strangers, I was able to crack the case. By searching through several sailing and cruising forums, I found an email address for one Derek Coventry (in England of course), who it turns out, is the unofficial surviving custodian of the Neco autopilot archive. He was kind enough to send me electronic copies of the block and wiring diagrams for my autopilot as well as confirm the type and model. No charge! Thanks Derek!
Also helpful was a paper I found by Daniel Fua, who I think may be in Spain. He has acquired significant experience and expertise in modifying the old Neco to accept direction from contemporary autopilot computers. He is also generous about sharing what he has learned. Finally, I had a pleasant and enlightening conversation with Wil Hamm of WH Autopilots. As many who have dealt with him will testify, he is extremely helpful and generous with his time. He also makes what is probably the most reliable autopilot available. Equally important, he has been around long enough to be very familiar with the old style controllers such as the one in the Neco. He strongly advocated junking the old relay-driven controller because they are troublesome, even if it still works. He indicated that his controller could drive the Neco motor, although I was uncertain that I could figure out how to connect the two. Wil indicated that the motor would have either two or four leads, but the circuit diagram I had seemed to show six. It took about an hour of very intense and meticulous analysis of the diagram for me to unravel the situation. For all the electrical engineers reading this, the motor has a shunt coil and another coil in series with the armature rather than permanent magnets. While it appears at first glance in the diagram that the armature and series coil each have their own circuit, careful tracing of the whole circuit revealed that they are indeed in series on the same circuit. Since I am an electronics ignoramus, it took me quite a while to figure that out. What it means for us lay persons, is that the motor in effect has four leads, not six, and what Wil said made sense. However, the issue is complicated by the need to reverse the current flow in the coils while maintaining a consistent direction in armature. I still haven't figured out how this is done. Maybe Wil Hamm knows....

Of course all this new-found knowledge and analysis will be irrelevant if the motor is no good. So, now that I had at least some idea of how the motor/controller was wired, I might be able to figure out how to connect it to 12 volts to test it. Testing the motor would be the most important task for the weekend. If it tested satisfactorily, I would most likely pull it and bring it back to the shop dismantle and rewire it, since doing so in the cramped and unaccommodating confines of the lazarette would be hellish.

I also found time during the week to cut some 1/8 inch mahogany plywood (also known as door skin) into inch-wide strips to use for making a template for the doghouse ceiling. I cut half a dozen long strips for the straight edges and a bunch of short pieces with pointed ends to capture the curves.

Most of Saturday was spent clearing out "stuff" in the house and packing boxes. While prepping the house for sale is not directly part of the Circadian saga, I can't cut the docklines if they're still attached to the house.

I also managed to stop at REI to pick up a roll-up camping table that I thought might be handy to set up as a cockpit table and on the aft deck in the right conditions. It was a lot cheaper than anything that says "marine" on it and stows very compactly.

Sunday was a beautiful clear spring day, with Mount Diablo easily seen in the distance on my way to Hidden Harbor in the Delta. At Hidden Harbor, it was the wisteria that was in full bloom this week.

I made my first task of the day the most painful one: testing the autopilot motor in the confines of the aft lazarette. That required humping around the heavy battery and the usual contortions. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring the complete wiring diagram and had to make do with a partial for guidance. I gave it my best shot and made some connections to what I thought were the right controller wires. When I applied current, I got either no response or what appeared to be a short. Either there was a problem with the controller or I had made the wrong connections.

In either case, the thing to do was pull the motor, which I would need to do eventually anyway. Pulling it now would allow me to gut the controller and get down to the six motor connection wires in the shop where I could work comfortably and have access to the full wiring diagram. While requiring even more bending and folding of my aching body, I removed the motor without any other problems.

At that point I was ready for a little break of the non-back-breaking variety, so I tried out my new roll-up table. It fit great, but is very light, so would be usable only in calm conditions.

Next I made a paper pattern for cutting out new plywood pieces to replace the rotten sections I had removed from the doghouse side panel last week.

I then made a pattern for the forward part of the doghouse ceiling. This section would be used for mounting instruments, so I also had to measure the spaces where I would need to glass in backing panels thick enough for securely mounting them. I used the 1-inch thin plywood strips I had cut during the week. They are easily snapped to length and assembled using hot melt glue, so it didn't take long. The front curve was gentle enough that the long strip bent right around it, and I didn't need to mark multiple points with the short pointed pieces I had made.

Since I didn't have a lot of luck with the autopilot motor/controller, I hit the road early so I could try dismantling the controller in the shop. Back in the shop, I was able to eventually dig down far enough to find and identify the six motor leads. Because I knew I would not use the old controller regardless of the outcome of motor testing, I just cut wires and removed old components quickly and crudely, being careful only when I got to the motor leads. By the time I had isolated and carefully labelled the six motor leads, I was pooped. Besides, I still wasn't sure about how to connect the test voltage and didn't have a 12v source handy. So I called it quits for the day.

Perhaps during the week, after a bit more head-scratching, I'll try testing the motor again. Next weekend I'll be taking a little mini-holiday to visit Carol. :)

April 25, 2011

Last Tuesday I brought my helm pump parts into Hydraulic Power Sales, a local place that specializes in you-know-what. They seemed to know their stuff and thought they could replace all the seals, including the o-ring, shaft seal, and machine screw seals. They are a bit backed up now, so it will be a week or two before I know if they've succeeded. Keep your fingers crossed! I'm just happy I've found someone locally who is comfortable dealing with an old, probably orphaned, British helm pump.

During spare moments during the week, I finished polishing and lacquering the brass oil lamps from Circadian. It makes a big difference in how they look, and it's something I can do while relaxing and watching a movie.

Bringing the dog into the vet, house work and tai chi practice took most of the day on Saturday. But I did manage to pick up some more teflon tape and some fittings so I could finish up the plumbing work for the forward head sink and sump drain.

Rain was in the forecast for Sunday, but I headed out to Hidden Harbor anyway, bringing along a list of projects that could be done in the rain. It blew hard and drizzled all morning, but turned into a pretty nice day by the afternoon. With so many flowers in full bloom, it was a nice day all-in-all.

The first task of the day was to examine and document what was left of the original autopilot system with the idea of seeing if it would be possible to salvage some of the rugged old below-decks electric and hydraulic components and mate them to modern replacements for the long-gone helm electronics. It was a tougher job than it sounds because I had to climb down into the aft lazarette and bend, spindle and mutilate myself to get everything done.

I also wanted to try to test the motor to see if it still worked. To do that, I humped a 75lb battery into the hole. Once the investigation got a little further, however, I realized I had wasted my effort lugging around the heavy battery. While my earlier cursory look at the old system led me to think there were only five wires coming out of the motor controller, it turned out that each wire was actually a cable with multiple conductors. While some had only two or three wires each, a couple had eight wires each. Two of these cables went to a junction box where the wires were further scrambled. Even with a total of just, say, 20 wires, there would be 400 possible ways of connecting them. Opening up the cover on the controller just confirmed how hopeless it would be to try to sort things out without a wiring diagram.

It might be possible to just tear out all the innards from the controller to try to determine the power leads for the motor. If I were able to that, then I might be able to sort them out and mate them to a modern controller. It might also be possible to connect a new motor/controller to the existing pump shaft. However, it would need to have the same size shaft as the old gearing output and have a similar gear reduction to work. Not very likely. The third possibility would be to use new motor, controller and pump and plumb it into the old plumbing. Messy and expensive, but definitely feasible. Of course I also need all the 'front end' pieces for the helm, including the compass and computer. I sent photos and the diagram below to Wil Hamm of WH Autopilots to see what he thought. I'd love to use his stuff if I can afford it. If it's way out of reach, my fall-back would be a CPT wheel autopilot like the one on ebay that I recently bid on and missed. It's a far cry from the integrated below-decks hydraulic system, but at least it's simple, rugged and reliable older technology.

In the last few weeks I noticed a section of the plywood liner in the doghouse was exhibiting tell-tale signs of possible rot: cracked paint and mold growing in the cracks. It felt a bit soft, and this weekend 'the screwdriver test' confirmed the worst.

Rot is like cancer: to cure it, you have to cut it all out. The "easy fix" of drilling holes and pouring in low viscosity epoxy simply doesn't work. At best, it masks the real problem until it gets even bigger. You can guess how I know.... So, for the next two hours I chipped, chiseled, pulled and pried until I reached clean solid wood. Because the plywood was backed on the outside with pretty thin fiberglass, the technique required was an odd blend of finesse and brute force. Sharp new chisels and a 4 lb sledge hammer got the job done. Eventually. It will take a while to make patterns and cut new filler panels, but at least the rot is gone.

After a bit of a break for beer and lunch, I went to work on the remaining plumbing issues in the forward head. I finally had all the pieces and supplies to finish the job. I was able to put everything together, but even with lubrication and lengthy immersion in boiling water, the sink drain hose was singularly difficult to get over the pipe barb. Once everything was put together, it had to be tested, of course. Everything worked fine: the sink drained and the shower sump pump worked and drained the sump. Unfortunately, the new sump drain fitting leaked despite my tightening the plastic collar as much as I dared. So, I took it apart and applied a thick bead of LifeCaulk around the collar and reassembled it. I'll test it again next week when it's fully cured. Wish me luck!

By this time, the sun was getting low and my limbs were getting heavy, so it was time to clean up, pack up, and head home.

April 18, 2011

Didn't do much during the week except get my surplus gear cleaned up and ready for the swap meet in Alameda on Saturday. I put a couple of ads on craigslist.com to try to generate some interest.

On Saturday morning I was up at 3 am and on the road before 4 am to get to Alameda by 6 am for the swap meet. It was a bit surprising how much company I had at that hour. Fortunately, I had a nearly full moon as a guiding light for my bleary eyes and foggy brain.

I eventually found the Yacht Club and got set up.

By noon I had sold most everything and made some $600. In addition to plain old luck, the key was pricing the stuff so low that anyone with any interest at all in an item couldn't pass up the deal. Once I had made up my mind that the goal was to get rid of stuff I wouldn't use rather than making as much money as possible, it was pretty easy. It also helped that most of the other vendors had pretty junkie stuff. All-in-all, it was a fun morning, with lots of people coming by just to tell stories and B.S.

After the long drive home, I still had a couple of errands to run before I could take a bit of a nap. Even though I tried getting to bed early, I still didn't get much sleep. One of my neighbors decided to do a noisy project in their garage and didn't quit until midnight. I had to get up before 6 again on Sunday morning in order to give my dog his meds and bid on an autopilot I wanted on ebay. Despite my careful bidding strategy, I was outbid at literally the last second. It was okay though, because the price was then beyond my limit.

Although I was still spacie from lack of sleep and a loused up Circadian rhythm, I headed out to the boat to work on the next item on "the list" as well as some minor plumbing issues. The main purpose was to partially dismantle the hydraulic helm pump to see what it might require to cure the slow leak.

It came apart pretty easily. The main o-ring seemed a bit flattened, so that might be the culprit. It could also be the shaft seal and/or the seals around the machine screws that hold it all together. I'll have to do some research this week to see what the local resources are and decide how to approach a fix.

I went back to working on the newly rebuilt Skipper head in the main cabin to cure the little leak around the pump handle shaft. Adding an additional ring of packing left over from the rebuild did the trick. While it was a bit of work and occasionally a little tricky, it went pretty quickly thanks to the knowledge I had acquired by rebuilding it in the first place. I also replaced a loose mounting screw with a larger one to firmly secure the beast.

With the main head now in perfect working order, I turned to finishing up the back-up head, the portapottie in the aft cabin. I had gotten some new mounting brackets for it on ebay for 1/3 of the cursed Worst Marine price. After filling the old head mounting holes with epoxy putty, I marked and drilled the four required holes and screwed down the brackets. That's all there was to it. Ah, the joy of simplicity!

Next, I went to work again on the forward head sink and shower sump drains. Work on the sink drain assembly was stopped short when I ran out of teflon tape. With the new multi-million-dollar ferry out of commission again, I couldn't make a quick run into town to get more, so that was that. I grubbed around in the bilge a bit and removed the drain assembly from the shower sump. No wonder it had fallen apart: the P.O. had Mickey-Moused a connection with nothing but stretchy rubber tubing. During the week I'll pick up the proper fittings.

Well, even though I had an hour or two of daylight left, I was still sleep-deprived, so I headed home. With a front coming in, I was treated to a sky full of clouds.

April 11, 2011

During the week I spent a lot of time slogging through the paperwork and bureaucratic steps necessary for retiring. I also managed to fabricate and lacquer three aluminum trim strips for the three front windows in the doghouse, two of which leak. The idea is that by adding these three strips to the bottom of the inside window frames, sealed with butyl tape, the seepage will flow back out to the outside rather than inside. This would be the quick fix I mentioned earlier. Hopefully it will work, because the alternatives are all big and/or expensive jobs. If it works but the lacquer doesn't prevent corrosion, it would be worth getting them anodized later.

After tai chi practice Saturday morning, I headed down to the Delta to continue working on the ABI port installation and, if things went well, install the new aluminum strips on the doghouse windows. It was another beautiful spring day on the Delta, sunny warm and delightful.

Unfortunately, I had to work hard to make the progress I wanted. I spent almost two hours repeatedly test fitting the new port and carefully grinding the cutout until the port fit properly. Lifting and manipulating a 25lb port and 8lb grinder over your head dozens of times gets tiring, let me tell ya! By the end of the day I had just enough energy left to mix and apply some epoxy to seal the edges of the plywood liner in the opening. I also filled the cracks and gaps around the edge with epoxy putty.

Sunday I lightly sanded the cured epoxy and drilled the mounting bolt holes for the port. Using a countersinking bit, I made a little bevel around the holes on the outside. That was for a little 'donut' of butyl that would be compressed under a washer to form a good seal around the bolt. Next was putting the butyl tape around the port's mounting flange and securing the port in place with 1/4 inch bronze bolts, nuts and washers. With these larger bolts, pre-compressing the butyl with clamps wasn't necessary. Repeatedly tightening down the bolts worked fine, and the butyl squeezed nicely into all the gaps. The butyl slowly continued to ooz for a couple of hours, so I worked on other projects for a while and came back and snugged things down a bit more.

Those other projects included mounting the boat hook in the doghouse using a couple of plastic clips and installing the new aluminum strips on the three front doghouse windows.

All that went well enough that I also had time to remove the old aft head. I wanted to get that done so that I could take it to the Encinal Yacht Club marine swap meet next weekend and try to sell it (cheap). Rather than go to the trouble of installing a new head and all the required plumbing, I plan on simply mounting a portapottie. They're good for landlubber guests because they are easy to use and impossible to plug up, they're also quiet, and a good back-up for the main head.

By the time I was done and had trimmed away the excess butyl around the port, cleaned up the mess and vacuumed up all the dust covering everything in the main cabin, I was totally exhausted. My arms were so tired it was tough work just holding the steering wheel on the drive home. But, I had gotten a lot done and was a happy, if tired, sailor. The new port brightens the cabin significantly, and it will be nice to be able to look outside while doing the dishes.

April 4, 2011

Much of the week was spent slogging through retirement paperwork and beginning to go through all my accumulated junk so I can prepare the house for sale and get ready to move aboard. I managed to cull out five cartons of old files for shredding and install new wire mesh to cover the crawlspace vents where vermin were getting in.

I also managed to wrap the steering wheel with 3/16 inch nylon cord. It makes a much bigger difference in look and feel than is apparent in the photos.

When the weekend finally arrived, it brought with it weather that was perfect for epoxy and fiberglass work: dry and upper 60's/low 70's. The pear blossoms were in bloom in all the orchards and it was a beautiful.

I was finally able to work on installing a second (starboard side) ABI portlight in the last remaining spot causing a cabin leak. It was the same process I went through when I installed the first one (See December 13, 2010 post.), with a couple of the minor refinements and efficiencies that come with doing a job you've done previously. Once I had the hole cut out, it really brightened up the cabin and allowed nice cross-ventilation in the breeze that had come up on Sunday. The hole even aligned with the porthole on the opposite side. Imagine that! The inside plywood backing of the cabin wall was still wet from earlier leaking around the shabby old caulk around the existing opening, so it will need to dry out before I do the finally grinding for fitting the port and epoxy the exposed edges of the plywood. If the weather gods smile upon me, perhaps next weekend....

I still have a total of five more bronze ports to install, but those can be done as time permits after I've cut loose.

While I waited for epoxy and filler around the portlight to cure, I worked on completing the installation of the cockpit locker/hatch doors that was begun back in February. The port side had been temporarily mounted, but needed to have sealant applied before final installation. The starboard side was complicated by the need to add a fiberglass filler panel (See February 27, March 7 posts). To complete its installation, I needed to sand and fair the joint where the new panel had been added, complete the cutout and mount the door/hatch with the specified silicone sealant. It turned out that the most difficult part of the job was removing a fiberglass plug from the holesaw I needed to make the cutout. It's normally a bit of a hassle, but this one was really stuck. It took a good half hour to get it out and required drilling pilot holes in the plug and driving long screws through it until they forced out the plug by pushing against the bottom of the hole saw. In the end, I was still able to get both sides done.

By the end of the day I was exhausted, but felt I had accomplished a lot. I was actually able to cross one item off the list. Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to eat an elephant, but at least this week I felt like I've taken a good bite out of it.