XB-X Build, Brunswick Base of Operations, and Blogging About Blogging

Howdy!

It's been a weird 2-3 weeks... I have a ton of projects almost done but nothing actually done. Anyone who knows or works with me knows I'm incredibly familiar with this phenomenon. My constant struggle to focus and finish anything is significant insecurity of mine. Because of this, I tend to hesitate with sharing/writing/presenting projects until they're done and polished. I've been "in hiding" recently because I haven't managed to finish anything since I last wrote (which is the whole point of the blog, to stay accountable for updates, regardless of how minor!).

That all said, there's been substantial progress on some fronts, and roadblocks on many others. Here's what's new:

XB-X Build

State of the Build

I owe Coastal Measures and Love Point Oysters 5 XB-X environmental monitoring buoys. Stoked to have their support and grateful for their consistent patience because I am embarrassingly behind and I feel an immense amount of guilt about that. Delays stem from fallout in my personal life and moving several hundred miles pretty much overnight. This led to a logistical nightmare trying to fabricate things while living hours from my shop... But at this point I have more than exhausted any leeway that may have granted. The update: there is now a path to delivery for the first week of October.

I've completely lost track of time, and have no idea what day or time it is, but I think I've worked every single day since Labor Day, several of which were 23 hour days traveling Brunswick <-> Boston round trip to get fabrication time in. To anyone wondering if this is feasible, I assure you it is not. I don't say this for pity, or to brag, or to pretend that I'm the hardest working person out there (I know I'm not even close). I'm just saying it because my brain has turned to mush and I need a break.

For months, my to-do list on the XB-X build has been a mile long with engineering, design and fabrication tasks that need doing. For the first time in a while, I have nothing to do. Until this time next week, I am waiting on other people, I am waiting on deliveries, I am waiting on suppliers.

This coming weekend, I will be able to actually catch my breath, rest and reset. When deliveries show up next week, it's game on and I'm gonna finish this last sprint and put this nightmare behind me.

I can't do this again, it's no way to live or be. So when this all wraps, the first thing to do is prevent this from happening again.

With the existential dread over with, we can move to more exciting updates!

Electrical

Circuit boards are out for fabrication! This is probably the biggest update, and most substantial hurdle I've overcome. By training, I'm a mechanical engineer so designing and fabricating all the hulls, housing and bulkheads is straightforward. I still get into hot water sometimes, but at least I know how to swim.

The electronics in all the buoys so far have been cobbled together development boards. When you want to make a circuit that does something (take a measurement, make a calculation on that measurement, or communicate that calculation) you usually find a specific integrated circuit (IC) to do that. Each one of these ICs needs a bunch of supporting components, think resistors, capacitors and transistors, in order to achieve its purpose and usually these end up being pretty specific to your application. Dev boards are designed and fabricated by suppliers like Adafruit and SparkFun, and they combine the base IC, with all the supporting components you need to make it function plus usually a standard interface and some other creature comforts. This does two really cool things:

1. it drastically lowers the barrier to entry, so wider age ranges and skillsets can tinker with electronics
2. it makes prototyping and development easier, faster and cheaper for everyone

When you build a commercial product, like the XB-X for example, you generally want to graduate from these cobbled together Dev boards because:

• It's not a very good look - easy to ignore early on, but you have to get it together at some point
• They get expensive quickly - a dev board may retail for $15 but is only made up of $2.78 worth of components (cheap for prototyping 1 or 2, expensive to make 5 to 10)
• It's really annoying to mechanically integrate 15 unique circuit boards into a housing
• A lot of errors/bugs stem from interfaces and connections - minimizing them increases reliability in the wild

I probably could've gotten away with distributing another round of buoys made from a handful of dev boards, but if I was already gonna be super late, I'd rather be late with a more professional looking and drastically higher functioning product. So, I set sail and learned how to make my own printed circuit boards!

With a lot of help from YouTube and a friend of mine we like to call Santa Clause, I have two sets circuit boards being fabricated right now. I ordered the boards from JLCPCB, and I ordered all the individual ICs and components from DigiKey. When those all arrive, I can sit down with a soldering iron and place all the individual components on each board!

After everything arrives, I populate the boards, test everything and it all works, I'll write a whole update dedicated to it. For now, the boards are ordered and that's a huge victory.

Mechanical

This spring, I rolled out the most major mechanical update to the XB-X platform: nice machined parts; consistent interfaces; a more robust design. It was a huge leap forward, but not all the way across the finish line. Designing something, fabricating it, and servicing it in the field are all completely different things. I learned a huge amount in each of those phases this past spring, and am using that to iterate! Thankfully, the revisions are less drastic this time.

Update 1 - assembly order. In XB-X (Spring 2024 model), the electronics housing top collar, and top cover were all assembled together and would latch to the hull of the buoy. Both the seal and the mechanical latch between the top collar and hull proved more difficult and less reliable than I expected. Furthermore, in order to access the electronics housing, you'd have to completely disassemble the buoy and hull. In the Fall 2024 model, the hull and top collar are permanently bonded together with a marine adhesive/sealant. The electronics housing now bolts and seals together completely independently of the top collar, allowing it to be dropped into and secured to the top collar of the buoy with ease.

Update 2 - sealing interfaces. On the previous top collar, each side had a small groove for an o-ring that would make a face seal with either the electronics housing, or the top cover. These grooves aren't very wide and require a really small end mill to machine. The small end mills are really slow and frequently break. Getting rid of these face seals cuts the machining time from about 45 minutes per top collar to 13 minutes per top collar. Now, the electronics housing is sealed together with a laser cut gasket and when the sealed electronics housing is placed into the top collar, it engages a radial o-ring seal that is much easier to machine.

Update 3 - electronics bulkhead removal. It seems really obvious in hindsight, but I don't know why I ever thought I needed this part. The bulkhead is a machined part that seals against the electronics housing and provides a number of threaded interfaces/ports for cables to pass through. Outside of one very specific fitting I was using several months ago, there's no need for it. All the connectors I use now can just as easily mount through holes the electronics housing itself. As soon as it became really costly to travel to Boston to machine every part, it became obvious the bulkhead was completely unnecessary. In future modular versions of the buoy, people may need a more complicated interface and the bulkhead comes back. For now, the XB-X is completely fine without it! We always rush to design a part that achieves a function, we rarely ask if that function is necessary. Simplicity is key!

Brunswick Base of Operations

With most of my time focused on the XB-X build, it's not high priority or top of mind, but the move to TechPlace is progressing. It's interesting looking at how things have assembled here out of necessity.

Like the Autodesk Technology Center, TechPlace has a handful of shared resources: a machine shop, wood shop, welding booth. It's got a lot going for it, but the Boston Tech Center is completely unmatched. I miss the Precision Machine Shop in Boston every day and it's a huge loss of productivity.

With more time after the XB-X build, I can get certified on the equipment here in Brunswick, and hopefully gain some of that productivity back. Maybe I'll hit the lottery and be able to build out an advanced machine shop of my own, who knows.

I really need to take time to make this space my own, and make it suitable to support Seaport Systems going forward. Right now it's not much more than a storage unit and hotel desk for me.

Blogging About Blogging

Inspiration and Resources

I read a great post yesterday about blogging (on 1 of my 7 hours commuting...)

There are a ton of really great takeaways from this article that I've used already writing today's blog. The most important I think are worth mentioning:

• I think you should use way more headings... Actually, write the headings first
  • Headings make the post more digestable to you, and easier to write for me
• Does the person reading this know what the heck I’m talking about?
  • I ramble, and talk about engineering a lot. I can't expect everyone to always understand my nonsense!
• Basically take any excuse to use a picture/diagram instead of words
  • I try to include as many pictures as I can, but rarely does it add to the content, or let me remove a bunch of writing.
  • Usually it's just a joke or commentary to break up the post.
  • I want to focus on making more graphics. This will help in the blog, and it'll help with sales, pitching and marketing!
• Cut bits out ruthlessly
  • Say less. Literally.

Finding my Style

I find myself describing the Captain's Log to people as "raw" or "unfiltered" which I think it is, for now. It's still in its adolescence, there's plenty of room to experiment with the "voice" the "style" the "format". I just wanted to get it out there, that this is not the final form.

Let's Wrap It Up

Cool cool. In summary: hell of a few weeks; I'm going to sleep and unplug this weekend; XB-X deliveries are coming and will be incredible.

Train Track of the Day

A whole album today!

Greta Van Fleet - From the Fires (Apple Music | Spotify)