I've been distracted by all the inprocessing training for the new job, so I have done fekk-all on Minerva this week... But I will get some done over this long weekend! Good testing by you is helping me plan what I'm going to try once I get sailing.
Alas, it seems one of my servos has died. I'm not sure what specifically is wrong. The circuitboard is still working, since is quiet when centered and noisy/straining when not, and I can control where the quiet point is by moving the control stick. But the servo has lost almost all of its torque, to the point that it can no longer move. Ordinarily I would simply pop the servo out and have a look inside, but the Moby Duck's servos were locked in place when I poured expanding foam into the hull. I am wondering if there is a way to dissolve the expanding foam without endangering the plastic hull, so I can repair/replace the servo.
I did that to my servo but first wrapped in plastic.. However you can take a long blade and slide it along all the sides and then wiggle it out. If you damage the foam you can always re-pour it.. just wrap your servo in plastic wrap and you will be able to remove and replace it. You can also dig it out with a 'gouge'. Xacto makes them I think for this purpose. I bought some for making my foam water channeling and it makes easy work. The larger circles is best its about 1/2 wide. Then just scrape it out and re-pour. I was able to do alot of contouring with the gouge.
Moby Duck was not built as a combat ship, thus repairs were not a priority when I built her. I expected my standard-size servos to be overkill, given that other RC sailors run ships twice as big with micro servos. The expanding foam was poured into the area beneath the gun-deck, enclosing both the servos and their leads. The leads themselves travel several inches through the foam to another exit. The gun-deck prevents me from cutting away the foam or using a wire brush, and the foam prevents me from removing the gun-deck. My choice is to either destroy the gun-deck to remove the servo, or destroy the servo to remove the servo. I rather like my gun-deck, so on Saturday Mr. 1/2" HSS End-Mill will have a little "chat" with Mr. S3003 Servo and "convince" him to make room for a better servo. I've got a couple of HS-422 servos that will work fine, or maybe I should get something better. If I cannot replace the servo, I will just have to re-rig the ship to do without, and focus on finishing my Mikasa so I can start my own 1:48 scale Constitution-class ship. Double each dimension, four times the sail area, and eight times the displacement. It should handle sooo much better... I can't wait!
Wow it's been a while since I've posted here, but a lot has happened. First of all, I replaced the stripped servo and the other sail servo with a pair of Hitec metal-geared servos. My shopmaster had a 2_1/2" blade exacto, which was able to slice the old servos out without needing a mill. The new servos are working great, and I am very happy with them. I re-did my rigging a little bit, but most importantly I replaced my 12" long x 8" deep wooden keel (with round "river" weights glued to the bottom) with a 6" long x 8" deep acrylic keel with a single torpedo weight on the bottom. This improved my turning dramatically, and the torpedo weight somewhat increased my speed. Very nice. At the battle last month, I sailed the Moby Duck around in between sorties. In a good wind I was able to chase down a 28-knot pocket battleship, until he pointed straight upwind. Boo, coward... I also raced against a 1-meter competition sloop, and was soundly trounced. The sloop's skipper was kind enough to let me sail it, and I discovered that sailing a sloop is absolutely nothing like sailing a square-rigger. Nothing at all. Tugboat, you'll probably have fun with the little footie you started, but it will not be good practice for sailing a full-rigged ship. Just this weekend, the San Francisco Model Yacht Club held a "Grey Day" R/C warships show at Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park. The USS Constitution (flying American colors once more) sailed with a host of other warships, from PT boats and WWI dreadnoughts to modern destroyers and frigates. The WWCC also attended with a dozen fighting ships in various states of repair and construction. Part of the show was a maneuvering course: sailing around buoys, zig-zagging between icebergs, and navigating a minefield to "extract a spy from hostile shores". Points were awarded for each time you touch an obstacle, with the lowest score winning, and ties broken by speed through the course. Skippers in attendance were quite impressed when I entered the Constitution in the competition. They were even more impressed when I completed the entire course without touching a single obstacle, despite running into inconstant, shifting winds in the minefield. A few people actually cheered when the Constitution finally reached the buoy marking the "spy in need of extraction." She didn't set any speed records, but she also didn't take much longer to complete the course than the slowest electric boats. Also in attendance were a number of tugs, which had a field day pushing parked battleships around, and a few live steam motor-launches. I saw one tugboat corral two battleships and a cruiser and push all three of them into a dock. We ended the day with all the WWCC ships attempting to sail in formation. I took my destroyer Z-25 out to escort the capital ships, and followed the USS Juneau and DKM Z-32 as we paralleled the HMS Lion, DKM Lutzow, USS Salt Lake City, and DKM H-39. Alas I still have not replaced my previous camera lost at sea, so I will have to wait for other skippers in attendance to post photos. I will link to them once they are up.
After I got into some serious sailing research, I came to the same conclusion you did, and the Footie is sitting on the shelf, waiting for future glory as I plank Minerva. Sounds like a great time, and I'm very happy (quite elated, actually) that you showed the electric skippers what Old Ironsides could do I'll try to take some pics of Minerva for posting.
Hey Tugboat, I just bought some digital plans for USS Constitution and I am scaling them up to 1:48 scale for printing. Looking at the ship, however, I realize I made a few oversights in the construction rules especially for penetrability. 1) when you calculated your penetrable area, what length did you use for your ship? Overall hull, overall length (including bowsprit), or waterline length? Did you include the keel, rudder, cutwater, and figurehead? 2) when laying out your bow and stern impenetrable, did you include the keel, rudder, cutwater, and figurehead? 3) On many later ships, the bow area between the main hull and the cutwater/figurehead was enclosed to protect sailors using the "seat of ease" from weather. Earlier ships usually had this area open, with lots of decorative woodwork. Was this area enclosed on your ship, and if so, did you plan to make it penetrable?
1) and 2) I only used from the back of the captain's cabin to the tip of the 'keel part' of the bow. i.e. I did not include the figurehead nor the bowspirit in the length. Really, I didn't plan to make the stern and bow be impenetrable areas, rather just enough to attach the balsa to. This may be a bad idea in the bow (more pressure on it when sailing), but the idea for me was to discourage letting someone cross your T If the bow and stern are impenetrable, there aren't any consequences. I'm making the area around the rudder plus an inch or so solid area, so that there is sufficient strength at all times for the torque to be absorbed. Below the 45 degree line, it's all solid in any case. At the front, I'd say maybe an inch of solid area, tops, to allow balsa to be attached firmly to the bow. Honestly, I didn't originally 'calculate' my solid area as regards ribs; I used the ones on the plans, and made them from 1/4" ply, which gives me 19 ribs (counting the frame for the captain's cabin that overhangs the rudder), for a total of 4.75" solid apart from the bow and what's around the rudder. Above the rudder it's penetrable all the way back to the quarterlight frame.
Carl, what strength servos are you using for the sails? I've got some 10kg metal-geared servos that I'm going to try. Also bought a 9-channel radio for Minerva from Hobby King ($50) that was well worth the extra $25 over the other 6-ch that I got from them; it's programmable without a PC and has multiple model memories. And 9 channels!! I guess I should do a review for the site; I've been driving Badenlicious around the pool with it and it's great (the boat and the radio).
Turnigy 9-channel Mode 1. In the menus, you can even change what channel is slaved to which stick motion, on the fly. Obviously, lots of other functions, too. I had Badenlicious driving around on the pool and realized once again that I had the rudder slaved to the right stick (hate it!) and going the wrong way (port when I push for stbd), so I changed the stick assignment and reversed the rudder servo with the boat sitting there in the middle of the pool, in about 20 seconds. Maybe less. I was giggling pretty hard over how well the Baden hull turns with the rudders I carved for Grey Wolf to cast. Yes, Region 3 Allies, there are TWO crazy-good-turning Badens in the water now!
I predict that you will be happy with it I haven't tried binding other receivers to it yet, but thus far I'm happy. You do need to download the manual, as it does not ship with a paper copy, apparently to save the weight in shipping.
I used standard-sized servos with metal gears. They just happened to be super-torque, but what I needed was the metal gears. I am planning to use Strike Models sail winch servos in my next ship, so I can hopefully put the control lines further out along the yards in order to get better control. That will also allow me to place the servos side-by-side, and save precious internal space on the centerline. The nice thing about square sails is that they require very little torque to turn; the sail area on one side of the mast almost completely counterbalances the sail area on the other side. One thing I would recommend is that you program a mix for your two sail-control channels, like I did. With the mix enabled, I can control all three masts as one, using just the aileron input on my radio. With the mix disabled, the foremast is separate from the main and mizzen, allowing greater maneuverability if you know how to use it. And of course, mechanically link your jibs to your foremast controls, and your spanker and staysails to your main and mizzen controls, for ease of operation.
I don't think it's a matter of 'if you can' The foresails need to beable to be run independently for tacking, so that makes it a necessity in my book. Figuring out how to do it on the radio, however... I need to get into the manual
I've got the square sails set on the right stick of my radio. Foremast is the aileron control, and main/mizzen is elevator. With my mix disabled, the stick basically travels from corner to corner. When enabled, the aileron control moves both servos. I can actually tack well enough with both servos linked, as long as I remember to not swing the yards around too early. Where the independent control really helps in in wearing. To turn downwind, you brace the foremast and square the main and mizzen. The braced foremast applies sideways force to help spin the ship away from the wind, and by squaring the main and mizzen, you remove their balancing force. Once the downwind turn is complete, you square the foremast and brace the main and mizzen, shifting the turning force aft to point your bow upwind. I expect such a maneuver will be very important in battle, as an upwind attacker heads downwind to reach its target, fires a few broadsides, then turns back upwind to maintain the weather gauge. I hope to go sailing again tomorrow, and pay extra close attention to how I use the independent control. I've got one more meeting with my recruiter before I take the physical exam, and the battle pond is less than five minutes from the recruiting station
Nuke EM I hope! If you and Eric can get stationed in King's Bay, you're in the middle of Region 3 MWC
