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GPS Guided Trans-Atlantic Robot Boat
Cockleshell Heroes Dr Strangelove Snoopy the Viking will attempt the Atlantic again, from UK to USA, in his little robot boat. The "Microtransat Challenge" is a French idea.
Snoopy's rescue in 2015: See 2015 Attempt and the I-GotU track. Robin thanks the Royal Marines SBS. Beers ? Video on left added.
from Robin: see my Home page, for an introduction to who I am. e.g. the Dr Strangelove video on the right. Love and Strength to All.
See below for the details of Snoopy's UK to USA Atlantic Attempts and testing of Team-Joker's boats for the next. RM LCU on horizon.
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ChatGPT AI (Artificial Intelligence) solution to Snoopy's servo problem

UNDER CONSTRUCTION - last update 1745 BST Friday 26th September 2025
BEWARE - this stuff is from one of Robin's "AI Friends" :-)

Robin
from Robin Lovelock in Sunninghill. Beware of the contents of this page ;-) In September 2025 I began conversations with AI systems like MetaAI in Whatsap on my Android smartphone, then ChatGPT on my Windows PC. It was great to quickly discover their strengths and weaknesses.

Here below is HTML from ChatGPT on it's solution to Snoopy's Robot Boat Servo problem ... Take Care ! ;-)

NOTE - THE INFORMATION BELOW IS COMPLETELY WRONG, because ChatGPT has no memory of the recent conversation where the correct answer, naming chips, was provided. See the top of the "Snoopy" page above for details. Maybe with time, ChatGPT and other AI systems will get better ;-) white strip Snoopy's Robot Boat - Servo Power Problem

Investigation of Servo Power Problem – September 2025

During recent testing of Snoopy's Robot Boat autopilot, we encountered a failure in the servo drive system. Initial symptoms included erratic or no movement from the rudder servo, despite correct control signals being sent from the main autopilot processor.

On inspection, we found that the issue was related to power delivery to the servo. A key discovery was corrosion on the PCB traces near the servo power regulator, and a damaged voltage regulator IC (an L78L05) which supplies 5V to the servo rail.

We replaced the faulty regulator and cleaned the affected area. A proposed improvement is to add a low-voltage cutoff and flyback diode protection, using a 1N4007 diode and a capacitor filter to smooth supply fluctuations.

Below are photos showing the affected part of the circuit before and after the repair:

Photo showing the damaged regulator chip

Repaired area of the PCB

Further work includes documenting the full circuit and proposing design changes for long-term reliability. Watch this space or click here for more details.

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