Just a thought on power distribution in ships. I have noticed that most of my ships end up with cable bundles that are always routed in less than optimal manners throughout my ships. I happened across some of the self adhesive copper foils that are solderable... What I am considering is bonding a copper foil into the bottom of the hull to provide a uniform set of power/return busses that one can tap off of with relative ease where the connections need to be made for powering various devices. The flat foil would keep me from having to deal with as much wire routing, and would be less intrusive than the heavier gauge wire I run for drive... I was thinking about 0.005 inch thick by 1/2" wide copper strips. The only thing I was leery of was routing the signal line for the servos due to the possible capacitive load by doing this but I can not find enough information to know for certain if this is even an issue. with water as close as this to the copper. If done properly, this would seem to make a really slick power distribution system in the ship... Anyone have any thoughts?
Brian K and I did a less-extensive version of this using copper tubing as the bus bars... As far as capacitance, As long as you separate them widely, I wouldn't think that at our power levels it would be significant, especially with 1/2" wide strips. I'd want them a hair thicker, though, as cross-sectional area matters a great deal, and at .005", you'll have effectively 2 heating elements rather than bus bars In our test ship, the bus bars were mounted on opposite sides of the ship near the subdeck (inside the safety of the armor), to make them easier to access for in-battle repairs. Something else to think about: coating the bars with clear lacquer that can be scraped away in spots when you want to tap in... some ponds have anti-algae chemicals in them that won't short out our equipment, but will react chemically to make nasty mess stuff (we think it was CuSO4 but didn't do any analyses).
like this http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=315&sku=43029 signal line for the servos and this for power http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=315&sku=43028
Interesting. As far as the corrosion issues, I use copper wire anyways... For the currents I run, 0.005 would be sufficient... but width could be added as necessary. Keep in mind, that 0.005 is ~4oz copper and we routinely run 40 amps through 4oz copper, 1/2" wide on the circuit boards at work. They get warm, but not excessively so.
That is neat stuff, but far more expensive than what I could make myself... and a bit more professional than I need. Thanks!
Greg, do you use the concrete sealant as water channel that many guys seem to be switching over to? I was thinking it might be interesting to try pre-placing your wiring, then pouring in the water channel over the top of it, so your wires would actually be embedded in your water channel and completely out of the way. Perhaps your copper idea would work in there too.
I have not yet... we will see, as it looks like a good way to do it. I need to gut and re-setup my karlsruhe. Another advantage to this would be that the wire weight would be down in the bottom of the hull... a definate advantage in smaller ships...
In my next boat that is what I plan on doing, embedding the wiring into the water channeling, it should make for a clean install. If I ever get the plug done that is.
David, did you see one of the older Bismarcks at Nats? The wood-hulled one that has the wiring placed in routered channels on the underside of the keel board? Very spiffy.
That's the one! He left the bottom of the keelboard unpainted so you can see the wires encased in epoxy
My grand idea was to install a pair of bus bars - one carrying main power & the other the return - just under the cap rail. The idea was to tap into either one wherever needed. I never got around to actually building anything like that. Most of my projects end up being "incremental" jobs, where my "standard" construction process is used except for 1 or 2 changes to try something new. Maybe some future new ship, or refitting of an older ship (all of my ships have been refit numerous times) will get something like it. I don't really like the idea of embedding wires. Now, an embedded conduit, through which wires are passed, might be another matter. As noted above, my ships tend to get refitted several times over their lives, & I can just imagine having to rip out a bunch of wiring that's embedded in epoxy, etc. Here's an idea that comes straight from my telecom days: Use a "signal bus" to extend control (i.e. servo) signals where needed. Instead of a tangle of servo extensions going out from the receiver (I try to keep mine neat by clipping them to the underside of the cap rail), a single bus can be tapped into where needed. Implementation might be something like a small ribbon cable, with "access points" (APs) at strategic places. Servos, ESCs, motors, etc. could get needed signals from the nearest AP, & get power from the nearest points on the bus bars. APs would only need to be about the size of a postage stamp or smaller, just enough space to hold a pair of AMP connectors & a 3x8 array of headers. The basic AP might look something like this: A collection of APs, connected by a ribbon cable signal bus, might look something like this: A general schematic of how it all works in a ship might look like this: Multiple voltages would require multiple +V bus bars. Also, I like to keep "dirty" (i.e. motors, solenoids, etc.) power isolated from "clean" (i.e. receiver, other electronics, etc.) power & this would require another bus to keep them separate. JM
