Thruster shear pin protection

[stwendl]

Now this is a tongue in cheek suggestion to protect the shear pin on our thrusters. But it has also some informational part that some might find useful

Some of the reasons that the shear pins break are debris trapped in the props or sudden reversal of direction. The power applied to the motor full or nothing, with the full torque available at the flip of the switch.

Ideally, one would like to gradually increase torque/power preferably proportional to the position of the thruster switch with the cabability of the electronics to reduce power if there are obstacles in the tunnel or there is abnormal high current compared to the current rpm.

As it so happens the manufacturer of our side thrusters makes a proportional control unit, the ppc800, which, with a new control stick, allows exactly that control, proportional thrust based on stick deviation with optional hold at selected thrust.

Considering that this luxury piece is about $2k more per thruster, one could argue that this pays for many shear pins and professional replacements.

However, the thought of just applying minimal thrust as needed is still appealing and the fact that no more crawling into tight spaces to perform that task even more so, not to mention the savings on power and battery (ab)use.

I leave it to the community to add comments and offer this subject for debate.

 

[Irish Mist]

I was talking to a salesman from the thruster company, and he said on his sail boat using the thrusters at low speeds they are almost silent and makes it look like magic how his boat moves around in the marinia. There is also a setting on these for docking that allow you to lock them both on low power to hold you against the dock. Your existing thruster motors can get sent in and upgraded to this new style according to him. If you have boat bucks to spare this would be a great addition.