I love the idea of an announcer to introduce the ships and for narration of the ongoing battle. For identification, I'm building both my ships with "flagpoles" to hang red or green or other colour flags on to identify which side they are on for the battle. I'm just getting started and having some problems identifying enemy (or friendly) ships on the pond sometimes. I think having flags flying to identify the combat sides would really help newbies, like me, and spectators for the battles. Thats why teams have uniforms, eh?
For identification at the Maker Faire I used some of the red and blue irrigation flags from the hardware store and cut them down to 1"x1.5" and handed them out to each skipper depending on their team. People then taped them to their masts. Since the flag pole is 1/16" steel wire, I have built a small pipe into each of my boats to hold the flag. This makes it easy to switch out if my team changes between sorties (the WWCC rebalances teams for each sortie). In regular battles the allies are required to have blue flags but axis don't have to have anything, so I sometimes decorate flags of various colors: crimson scourge"/>Visit this site, smiley face"/>Visit this site, firebolt"/>Visit this site. I'd volunteer to be an announcer at the Maker Faire, but I'd rather be fighting if I finish my VU in time. Last year, Rob was the announcer and he did a great job introducing the ships and competitors beforehand, but he wasn't able to talk much during the battle because there was so much going on. The announcer will have a tough time if there are lots of ships on the water.
, firebolt"/>Visit this site. I'd volunteer to be an announcer at the Maker Faire, but I'd rather be fighting if I finish my VU in time. Last year, Rob was the announcer and he did a great job introducing the ships and competitors beforehand, but he wasn't able to talk much during the battle because there was so much going on. The announcer will have a tough time if there are lots of ships on the water. Come on Gascan you do not have the voice that would bellow out. I on the other hand have always be considered a loud mouth.
I was thinking today about this topic and how much it relates to the RTR. Based on my personal limited experience I would say that RTR captains would certainly battle with no building experience. However in my case (if I had an rtr)I could have been battling during the time I was learning to build. Odds are that I would have wanted a different ship and started building one right away. Thats how I am. But the key point is that I would be BATTLING and having fun and having a GOOD REASON to stay and build a new ship, not just because I wanted to build a model. I built models as a kid and I havent built a model since the 80's (I am sure for a reason). With this in mind we go back to the RTR ship. I think one of the hardest things for me to learn was the wiring. I spent most of my time making something and then changing it, over and over and over and over and over and over again. I really feel that this is an area we could all work on for standardization. I wish somone would make and offer a little rack that would hold the servos/micro switches. That took me over 40 hours to figure out not even counting the hours I just thought on what to do. I should have just bought an ESC it would have been cheaper. Once we standarize on connectors and such then drop-in harnesses can be made that you just lay into the ship and you are done. I designed my wiring in the tirpitz with just this in mind. I took Rob's idea on his watertight box and added my connectors (I prefer anderson powerpoles for certain things) and now I can swap the box between ships. I would have gladly paid for a quality harness that I could just drop in and would KNOW it would work. Then as a rookie if I had a problem I could just drop in a new harness and send the other out for repair rather than ending the weekend. So far my main failures have been deans ultra-plugs not working for no apparant reason. I feel the ships wiring is a very big area of the RTR or ARTR ship and is possibly overlooked as a critical component. Once we solve this I think we are on our way.
Options such as using one motor through a gearbox to power two shafts, and ESCs to run them, makes the wiring much less complex.
Another story. Blast from the past. A South Dakota was built with an impressive nylon chain drive in it for its prop drive. Two problems with it. When water got in the hull the four chain threw the water all over the inside of the model. There were no bushings. The shafts came directly out of the wood.So much for superior engineering. Remember my motto. The more they advance the plumbing,the easier it is to stuff up the drain.
Agreed, this is the worst part of any build for new people(me included). A few different wiring harnesses made for specific ship classes would be great. Standardizing the wiring and comming up with a harness would save alot of people money and get them on the water with a operational boat so much easier. Id say more often than not if theres a problem with someones ship its in the wiring. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq3n4iJAY-U&feature=channel_page good example right there..
One of the big problems with standardizing on the wiring is that different people, using different equipment, need different sets of wiring. A person with two motors will need different wiring from a person with one motor, and changing around the battery configuration or other components changes the requirements as well. I've always considered wiring to be one of the more basic parts of building a ship. You've got one positive line, and one negative line. Everything else needs to hook into those. Connect the dots with wire and a soldering gun. What's so difficult about that? Unless you're talking about a wiring harness that's just the right length, easy to tuck neatly away, pre-soldered, and loaded with nifty connectors for every possible machinery layout...
I agree, but then on the other hand why do so many people have problems with wiring? I wired up my Graf Spee without a problem. Although it may not be the best way it works. But i also believe i would have a harder time myself if i was building a small gun boat using solenoids to fire the guns. Im not an electrician, and im sure you dont have to be one to wire up a ship. But these skills dont exactly come second nature to everyone solets face facts, not everyone is willing to learn how to do all the work it takes to make one of these things work. I myself have enjoyed learning how to solder and take the mess of other parts and turn it into a functioning warship. But others just simply arnt. There has to be a better way to get people on the water with less work involved. Like people have said before, the world is changing and people want instant satisfaction. Many of the older guys in this hobby dont care about building because there were never any RTR's when they were younger. They had to build with there hands what they wanted. And its sad to say but they wont be around forever. So what will happen when the younger upcoming generation is to lazy to spend hundreds of hours working on a warship to battle a few times out of the year when they can just go to the store and buy a game to slip into there xbox in there spare time from school and work? The hobby will die out.. Now i may be way out in left field but then again ive slept 5 hours since friday.. Going to bed now.
Perhaps when the rtr ship is made, it could have some basic wiring requirements. Receiver, motors, esc and rudder could all be made standard very easily with a positive and negative buss for the rest.
With all the talk about standard wiring harnesses and such, I'm surprised that I didn't notice anyone mentioning busbars for their power system. I'm putting two long busbars into both my new ships, 1 positive and 1 negative down opposite sides of the bottom of the hull. Then I can just clip power off anywhere I want throughout the ship. The small additional weight of the two bars will be easily offset by my much shorter power cables. I just haven't decided yet if I'll be attaching the pickoffs with clips or screw down lugs.
thats how the electrical system is setup in my yamato, I think there's a picture of it in the file manager
Hey Mark, that looks pretty sweet! (took me a few minutes to find the file folder as I kept looking for just "Mark") I see you went with two terminal boards which allow for fast and simple attaching of lugs. That's my plan "B", with plan "A" using just a pair of copper strips (think thick ribbons) and attaching the pickoffs using alligator clips. Your use of terminal lugs and screws make it much stronger and locks in the contacts at the sake of minor loss of speed in redoing connections. If I go with the plain busbars and alligator clips, the connections come on or off in a second but leaves them open to the possibility of getting knocked loose during combat, depending on how hard the ship gets tossed around. I'm trying both ways to see which I prefer, speed or increased reliability. Hhmm...."increased reliability"....right out of my own mouth too, LOL. Makes me wonder why I even considered busbars and clips in the first place. Doh!!
