Overview

Where do I get it?   What is it?   Why did I do this?   When did this happen?   How does it work?

What is it?

Several years ago I first built a cruise control for my boat. It automatically holds a heading while I'm getting lines in the water, baiting up or just goofing off.

It does this by controlling the Electro-Steer I use to steer my kicker (trolling motor, a small outboard).

Over time I've steadily improved my cruise control's functionality and appearance. It works well, is something I think others would like to have on their boats, and is pretty easy and inexpensive to build using off the shelf high level components.

The purpose of this web site is to help others build, operate and enjoy one of their own! Wanna help? Here's some cards to stick up!

Above is a picture of the cruise control installed in my boat. The two button control on the left is the Electro-Steer remote, which now plugs into my cruise control in one of the two connectors at the bottom of the picture. The other connector at the bottom connects my cruise control back to the Electro-Steer relays. The small wire on the right is power for my cruise control, going to a standard 12v plug on my boat's dash board.

Below, some pictures of the 'guts' of my cruise control.

The three blue blocks at the bottom of the first picture are mounted on my main pcb and connect the Electro-Steer remote and relays and the power. Above the blue blocks you see the Acroname 'Moto' board that plugs into my main pcb, and the side pcb that plugs into the main pcb and the Moto board.


 

The next picture again shows the 'Moto' board plugged onto my main pcb. Also note the horizontal compass peeking out from under the Moto on the right side of the picture. The vertical compass is right above it, mounted on the side pcb that plugs into the main pcb and the Moto board.


 

Here's a front view of the showing how the vertical compass is mounted to the side pcb.



 

Another view showing the back of the side pcb with the vertical compass.



 

This is a case I've made to protect the pcb set when it's installed in the boat and a couple of decals I applied. I'd expected decals to be short lived on a boat but actually once they're well dried they're pretty durable.





Copyright © Mike Noel, 2005, 2006, 2007; last updated 5/16/2007