Hello All, I've only made a handful of posts and have been lurking for the most part. After noticing several newcomers try and gather information about this hobby I wanted to post my building and battling experience over the past year or so. If one were to look at my meager post history you would find that I've been dabbling in this hobby for a while but have never been to a sanctioned event with a legal boat. Due to my recent move to Las Vegas I learned (thanks to this website) about a group in Southern California that was within driving distance. After getting in contact with some of their members I got a set of rules and started on a fresh build that would become HMS Invincible. Another purpose of this post is to thank the many members of this forum that share their knowledge and insight. Despite some perhaps headstrong newcomers, there are many of us that still get so much from this forum and I hope you continue to share your advice, even if it feels repetitive to do so. I chose the Invincible for several reasons. I liked the way she looked, she is not overly long (sheeting is my least favorite part) and she is a class 4 which allows for some sidemount fun. One of the biggest pieces of advice that I took to heart was reliability. If I was going to drive 8 hours roundtrip almost monthly to SoCal I wanted to try my best to be fully operational as possible. Having that in mind during my build I tried to mostly stick with systems I understood. That being said, some of the systems on this boat may be considered outdated. But they work, and I know how to maintain them. So, here are some stats on the completed Invincible: 6V DC Electrical system provided by a 6V 12aH SLA battery Standard 550 motors with Traxxas Gear boxes to 1.5" Props BC Large Bilge Pump powered by a standard 550 motor BC XT Bilge Pump Switch Standard Poppet Valves pushed by Traxxas mini waterproof servos 5oz BC C02 bottle 2BC Straight mag cannons, 1 BC coil mag cannon Flysky FS-I6X Rx and Tx So how has my Invincible done so far? Some more stats: Completed sorties: 11 of 11 Total damage received: 183 Above, 22 On, 10 Below Sinks: 1 Hopefully I am not jinxing myself but so far the only failures have been minor: -Neglected to put a screw in the servo horn for the gun servos. One horn fell off during a sortie resulting in the loss of two guns for the remainder of that sortie. -During one sortie the coil mag gun wouldn't feed bbs for some reason. Of course the second I called "5" they started feeding and the gun worked with no issues. Although I had the one sink I made sure no bbs sat in the gun after said sink so I'm not sure what caused the feed issue. During the subsequent sortie the gun operated with no problems. -Perhaps not a failure but I did shorten the barrels on some of the guns from the manufactured 5" so as not to get tangled with opposing ships. After my first battle I worked on collecting spares for Invincible so when a failure does occur I can hopefully keep up the good fight. Currently in the toolbox: -Spare bilge motor wired and ready to go. Will need to disassemble pump housing to replace motor however. -1 spare drive motor wired and ready to go. Will need to have to take pinion gear off failed motor if a swap is necessary. I practiced once and I should be able to make the swap in 10 minutes or less. -A spare waterproofed Rx pre-bound to my Tx in the #2 model slot with an exact copy of servo and throttle curve settings. -1 spare gun servo -2 spare rudder servos (HK $5 waterproof) Eventually I plan on getting some spare propellers and nylon drive gears. I don't have a spare BC pump switch but if it fails I can bypass it and connect the pump directly to the power bus via their respective XT-60 connectors. I think this initial post has rambled on enough but Ill add more to my thread as the season continues. I hope this reaches any prospective newbies and provides some motivation. And once again to the veterans, thank you for all the experience you pass along! Oh, and here is a parting beauty shot:
What a beautiful build! I would love to see some interior shots showing hardware layout. I still have Strike Models' first production Invicible hull sitting on my shelf, and dream of the day when I can finish it as a loaner.
Wow, She looks great! welcome to the battling community Hope to see you on the water.... Hey check with Randy, maybe the two of you can come to Nats together Craig
Great job! There are people in Reno NV. and Denver Co. that attend our NATS events. My first boat was an Invincible. You can see her battle on our GLAS site and on Ice Breaker site videos Invincible - GREAT BOAT!! By the way, this boat has poppets also!
Nice job and well done,sir. HMS Invincible was the first boat I built to share with my son when I entered the hobby in 2000. Nothing wrong with those components either. starting with gear you understand is wise. Thoughts: I would lose the SLA in favor of ANY of the newer chemistries. 2 cell LiPO car hard case packs are impressively small, light, and protected. I also have used NiMH packs, often in nunchuck configuration to get weight low with excellent results. having a completely ready spare pump is a good idea when budget allows. Have fun, Nate
So here is an interior tour starting near the bow looking aft and focused on the starboard side: Items of note in the above picture: -Pet screen internal armor which has been working great at keeping the internals protected -BC lightweight regulator and 5oz bottle. -3D printed gun servo mount and poppet valve Now looking forward and with a focus on the port side: Above you can see the other gun servo. I added little bumpers to reduce the throw required to depress the poppet valve. Forward of this gun servo is the E6000 coated RX. It's also nice and high so as long as I don't sink it won't get wet (it's still waterproofed anyway). Next up are a few shots of amidships. One with the battery installed, another with it removed. I used the self leveling concrete sealer to create the water channel. Several magnets are located within the water channel to collect bbs. Hard to see, but located under the drive motors are the Hobbywing 60 amp ESC (forgot to mention I have a spare one of these) and the BC pump switch. Below is a view of the stern components. Eventually I'm going to switch the rudder system to gears but so far this setup has been working fine and has plenty of throw. One last photo for this post. Although there is a lot going on in this picture you can see a spool in the foreground which is my float. It runs a line up through the superstructure the center stack. After my one sink so far it successfully deployed so hopefully it keeps doing so. One of the protected straight mags can also be seen. So one last thing about the power source. I know batteries have been a hot topic on here lately. Here is why I chose the 6v SLA: -Cheap -Weight wasn't an issue for this boat. Even after the concrete sealant I needed a lot of ballast. -Ease of use -I already have to limit my throttle output to 60% to make speed -I don't know if this is the case for other rule sets but for us any boat utilizing SLAs (regardless of class) can swap out for a new SLA every sortie. So I have 4 SLAs, 12aH fresh every sortie. All that being said...is there an advantage I'm missing out on by using another type of battery?
Very nice! George and Fifi look ready for a great season of Battling!!! The advantage of newer Batt chemistries is the greater power to weight Ratio so you can pack in more amp hours at less weight. Then you can run hotter pump motors(stingers, Titans Etc.). They also have a more constant discharge curve so your voltage remains more consistant, This can help with solenoid firing and motor speeds remain consistant so you are not going slower due to having used up your batteries. If they are working for you you do not need to fix what isn't broken. Hope to see you on the pond Craig
Very nice! I'd put some zip ties on your hose connections though. You don't want them to come off. Honestly, if the SLAs are working for you, stick with them. You're just getting started and can dive into the newer battery tech later but for now you want a boat that WORKS so you can battle whenever you want.
Nice looking model. I'm working on her bigger sister Indefatigable and will be using the same gun arrangement, and the same 'old tech' internal systems.
well they're fantastic. all the more reason for me to look into getting a printer, and getting better at fusion 360
I used Google SketchUp to make them. My printer only does PLA so I can’t make anything that is subject to higher temperatures but it’s good for little mounts such as these.
I made it down to SoCal for the June battle with SCRAP. I think 9 or 10 boats made it out although a few had mechanical issues before we got started. 2 battles of 2 sorties each were scheduled for the day although we were able to squeeze a third sortie into the afternoon battle. Invincible made a good showing of hesrself with only one mechanical discrepancy in the afternoon that I caught before putting her in the water. The end of the morning battle left Invincible with 30 above, 1 on, and 0 below. In the afternoon I had a learning moment that then led to a sink in the third sortie. An enemy vessel was close to shore and I tried moving in for a shot. I got too close to the shore with the stern and ended up becoming entangled in some moss (turned out to be a plastic bag turned green by the pond scum). I called my 30 second moss and an enemy cruiser was quick to back down on my unprotected port bow. This is the result: I got the plastic bag cleared. Unfortunately since I had the stern a little out of the water to clear the bag the water started pouring in the bow. I gave her a little nudge away from the shore and she immediately started settling and the pump just couldn’t catch up. The tally at the end of the second battle was 60 aboves, 2 on, and 1 below. So I will be avoiding the mossy shore in the future, especially with the stern. Back to that mechanical discrepancy. For whatever reason, the Hobbywing ESC stopped providing power to the motors. But it hadn’t completely failed because it powers my RX and all servos were still working. I swapped in my spare and everything was operational again. I sprayed some corrosion X on all the connections and once I got the failed ESC home and it had time to dry a little it worked fine. So my only guess was some corrosion somewhere. Anyways, I had a great time. I’ll try to post some more pictures from the event once I get them uploaded.
My Hobby King ESC kept taking a vacation during battle in the last battle at SE regionals, but it would come back!
Having played with these esc's myself I am almost positive they are going into a thermal shut down. The Chinese lie to sell you there products. I was running 24 amps max and a control rate for 60 amps could not handle it. It was absolutely set for the correct battery chemistry.
I dont think they like the lower voltages, 6 and 7.2. When I started using 10 volts, had no more issues.
