Dual Independent Motor Controller

This project was designed to be able to control 2 independent motors (an anchor winch and a capstan winch on a tug boat) from one channel in a fully proportional manner. This was done by initially splitting the stick position into 4 segments with a neutral point in the centre. If the stick was moved to the right it controlled the anchor winch, the left controlled the capstan winch. If the stick was moved, say, fully to the right, then the anchor winch would start to lower the anchor. At this point the speed of lowering could be controlled by moving the stick position anywhere between fully right (max speed) to almost neutral (min speed). After 1 second with the stick at neutral, the selection was reset. To then raise the anchor, from neutral the stick was moved slightly right until 'anchor up' was selected and then positioned anywhere between neutral and fully right to control the speed. The exact same procedure was used left of centre for the capstan winch allowing very sensitive control of the winch speed for scale like performance or minute adjustment.