That is amazing. I had pulled apart my old SFT Shocker, my Pneu-Mag, and my wifes V1 Mini for inspiration. And my first version had a VERY automag style valve but lacking a proper lathe it wasnt quite feasible. So it evolved into more of a FASR than proper spool valve. Hoping to use the air pressure and volume to propel it rather than needing the added pressure from a stiff spring to up the pressure. Also was thinking of cobbling together some old Timmy lowers for a valve assembly. Or using some old Cocker rams for a valve piston.
So just ordered a bunch of 1/4" balsa to finish the hull. Now, to buy supplies to make the traditional canons while prototyping continues.. Ive heard BlackHawk Supply for sourcing the fittings and McMaster for the rivets and tubing? Also: I assume I will want 2 battery packs? I am running the brushed 1060 ESC with 550 sized motor in direct drive. Might be a TOUCH over powered but I can gear it down if needed (beauty of printed parts.. custom gears and petg is pretty sturdy) https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy...450&indexName=hbk_live_magento_en_us_products
Probably the one Beaver is in out of Maryland. IRCWCC. I havent sent in a membership application. Dont want to do that until I have a boat thats sea worthy. Also, the 1/4" balsa is for the hard bottom to 1" below the waterline. I understand the ruleset states 1/32" for the armor
Can I ask what 3D printer you are using for your deck and superstructure? Quality looks to be very good.
Thank you! It is honestly a straight out of the box Ender 2 Pro. No upgrades, no testing, no tuning. Using the default Ender 2 Simplify3D profile.
That's pretty awesome, since it's a pretty inexpensive printer. I use an Ultimaker 2 at work and it works great. It's just too expensive for a personal hobby though. Great to see even the cheaper printers can turn out some good stuff.
Honestly I have a dozen printers and this thing has been flawless and hands down the best printer Ive used. Even against my home builts it is a great and stupidly reliable printer.
IRCWCC membership rates are pretty cheap, it's something you'd need to battle with us. You would also need to become a NAMBA member to battle http://member.namba.com/ For drive, that'd be rather underpowered - I'd recommend a 700 size motor, either high RPM geared or low RPM direct drive - 2" prop. Might be pushing it on a 1060, I haven't tested out a 700 series motor on that ESC. For my big boats with brushed motors I use the Spark ESC https://www.revrobotics.com/rev-11-1200/ With those batteries i'd have maybe 4 on board at a time in parallel, pumps draw a lot of current. That'd probably be enough for both sorties of a battle (one brushed pump yes, one brushless pump maybe, two pump no). I like a bit more of a buffer (and run hotter pumps) so I would use 6 of those packs at a time. For reference, my Kongo consumes about 15 Ah at 13.2V for one battle with moderate damage (using brushless pump). Then you need to consider batteries for a whole day (typically 2-3 battles, or 4 - 6 sorties). You can recharge from your car's battery, or some sites have power available (not guarantee).
Don't be discouraged, it's better to learn this stuff now vs when the boat is 100% built and now it requires major rework to get it to perform. I am with @Kevin P. On all his suggestions. 4 batteries of your selected type at minimum in that size boat. That's really only 20AH. For comparison I run 16AH at 11.1v in my smaller battleships like Courbet or Iron Duke. For a bigger ship like my Jean Bart I run 4x8000mah packs, so 32AH @11.1v. You'd need 4 batteries in the boat and at least another 4 to swap to, to actually battle. Then you can try to charge the first 4 while running on the second but as Kevin said power lakeside isn't always a sure thing. You can always try the 1060 + a 750 or 775 motor and just monitor amp draw. Plan for needing a 1080 or a Rev Spark and make it so you can drop it in if you notice you are regularly getting close to the the 1060's peak power.
It is discouraging to have looked up as much as you can, dug through decades old posts of other builds, and think you’re on the right track buying the right things only to be told its all wrong plus needing at least $300 in batteries. How can that not be discouraging? I appreciate the advice but really it just killed my motivation to finish it. This is turning into an actual military build with budgets being over run and no end in sight. Heck, I know I’m never ordering from BalsaUSA or McMaster again. It’s 2021, if a site can’t add in shipping costs to the purchase before completing the order, not sure how they still get business. I can honestly say Ive never been billed after an order is complete for shipping costs. Ive ordered a lot of stuff from a lot of different places.
You don't have to go overboard on the batteries, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money on capacity that you never use. My Bis ran 4S 20Ah LiFePO4 cells (~13.2V nominal) and typically used 9-11AH over an entire day (4 total sorties). There are a lot of factors that go into battery sizing which makes it pretty hard to do without having a boat on the water, it can be a bit of a chicken v egg thing, so typically recommended to oversize. Since amp draw is highly dependent on your exact setup it may be best to buy/borrow a small battery first, do some testing and then when do spend the real money on all the batteries you need you can make a more informed decision. Or just oversize it, it's your time/money. McMaster-Carr is an industrial supply business, I can't imagine they really care about us schmucks buying from them, sure it's annoying but they also have a great selection and a super functional website. For a lot of people the ease and convenience of finding stuff and having sooo much is worth the extra hassle of shipping being added later, YMMV. On the plus side I dont recall ever having completely unreasonable shipping charges from them, just more in line with US retail shipping costs vs what you get on Amazon or China post thru ebay/banggood/etc. Serious I can buy stuff and have it shipped FROM China to the US and the cost including shipping is less than $5, that's wild.
If you want to go old school, we used to run Bismarcks on two of these for the entire day, Because we weren't allowed to swap batteries between sorties: View: https://www.amazon.com/Sentry-PM6360-Replacement-Battery-Terminal/dp/B01MCTRACH So, SLA is easy to use, reasonably reliable, you can get on the water for ~150 in batteries, and be good for all day. But there's a catch. SLA has a bit of a discharge curve, and voltage will drop at the end of the second sortie. So, back when we all used SLA, it wasn't a big deal. Nowadays, you're looking at running about a second slower than all the other ships at the end of the second sortie. Or you could buy two and swap every sortie. And you're back to $300. So, what does that leave? Well, you could go NiMH, but that's not exactly cheap, and assembling battery packs with enough voltage is a hassle. Or, you could go LiFePO, which is what I'd recommend for large ships. Looking on the Ebay, you could (at minimum) power your Bismarck on two packs of these, as long as your electrics are efficient: https://www.ebay.com/itm/8-Pack-Hea...600925?hash=item44681e6e5d:g:NKMAAOSwiX1eUIf7 If you split that into two packs of four batteries each, that's 6V@30AH, or 12V@15AH. Either is sufficient for two sorties, as long as your systems are efficient. Mind you, my Bismarck runs on those batteries, and I've never put more than ~12AH back into them after a battle. My Bismarck has a 700 size drive motor and two Titan pumps. Anyway, you're still stuck at $300. Sadly, it is what it is. Large battleships are not known for being cheap. You're really looking at $1200-2000 to get a good class 6 battleship on the water. On the other hand, if you want to go cheaper, for example, my Seydlitz runs on these: https://www.batteryspace.com/lifemnpo4-prismatic-module-3-2v-20ah-64wh-3c-rate---un38-3-passed.aspx So, a pair of those will get you through a battle easily, so you're looking at $140 for a day's worth of fun with a Seydlitz (or similar small battlecruiser). Keeping in mind what I mentioned about power consumption, you could probably get away with running a Bismarck on these, but it would be more of a roll of the dice in terms of having sufficient battery capacity. The other thing is ... $300 is a drop in the bucket compared to what you'll pay to travel to an event. Hotel/food/transportation adds up. Anyway, sorry if this is a bit long-winded, I just wanted to show you some alternatives. And do keep in mind, that we want you to have fun, and to have fun with you. Part of that is we want you to have a ship that is capable and effective on the water. Best of luck to you
Beaver and I were just talking about it and I think we have a good plan for that. We actually talked about the pros and cons of using an SLA. Found some batteries with twice the Ah for the same price which would cut down on the number needed, etc. The issue is when there is a budget for the build with the things that youve seen from other similar builds and then get told basically what is budgeted and in some cases already bought isnt right. And then get conflicting posts and PM’s from others which aligns more with what was budgeted. When you are expecting about $100 in batteries from what youve seen and someone with more experience says ‘nah you’re going to need at least $300 in batteries and the motor and esc will be another $100’ And then get a bunch of PM’s saying ‘yeah $100-150 for batteries and that motor/esc will be ok’ or ‘I use that set up in my similar size ship and its just fine’ Travel is not the same. I am fortunate with where I live. Most events seem to be a day trip away for me. Plus there are lodging options.
Tip on McMC - you can put in a note asking them to call you w\ a shipping quote before they charge & ship. I generally avoid buying from them because I don't like the vagueness of their system and I generally have other options available to me, but as SnipeHunter points out, it isn't designed for us retail normies.
Without ruffling any feathers of anyone here on the forum, what you have described right here is why the forum is a bit of a mixed blessing. There are lots of great captains here who battle their butts off and build awesome ships. There are also some who either haven't battled in quite some time and who's knowledge is 10~ years out of date, and others who participate in alternative warship combat clubs like Big Gun or Treaty Combat where their construction advice doesn't really apply. All of this information gets shotgunned at new people who are left to figure out what is good advice and what isn't. Build for the club that is local to you, in this case, you are in A++ prime location for IRCWCC. Big Gun basically doesn't exist on the east coast. The advice you were given about $100 in batteries and a single 550 can drive motor in a Bismarck sounds like big gun. Compared to fast gun, their ships are much slower with pumps that pump 1/10th the amount of water, they use much less battery power than fastgun. As for builds for you to check out that are very comparable to Bismarck in size and cost/complexity/etc My Jean Bart (while being VERY different) is of similar size/weight/speed/combat units, @Kevin P. has many build threads with his different ships including his Missouri, @SnipeHunter has his Bismarck posted in the "Warships in Detail" area of the forum for you to check out with lots of great pictures. @Commodore has his own little website with build information and pictures for 30+ years worth of time in the hobby. SLA batteries are old tech. You are still going to need 4~ of the small-medium (computer UPS, 7-12AH) sized batteries in a Bismarck. You are still going to need to swap them at lunch time (meaning 8 total batteries), and even then the boat will start to get sluggish by the end of the second sortie first battle. I would rather see you buy 1 set of the Turnigy LiPO batteries you showed and then show up to a battle and beg/borrow/steal what you need to get through the whole weekend. As a group, 99% of people in this hobby would give you the shirt off of their back if it meant you got your boat in the water vs sitting on the bench. When a new person asks how much their first boat is going to cost, I immediately say $1200. Some of that figure is shock value, see if they're committed. Some of that figure is the reality of that "military cost overruns" budget you were talking about. A lot of that cost though does get amortized as you spend time in the hobby. You can run multiple boats on the same 8 batteries. You can bind 4 boats to 1 radio and just select which one you want to drive. You don't need 10 battery chargers. Etc, etc. But especially for a bigger boat like Bismarck, $900-1200 is about accurate. Solenoids: 5x$40 = $200 Regulator = $40 Guns (Pre-built) 5x$32 = 160 OR (Guns, DIY) 5x$8 = 40 775 Motor = $10 REV Spark ESC = $40 Pump= $30 BC AiO Board = $55 Shaft/Stuffing Tube = $15 Nice 2" Kort Prop = $75 Misc Wiring/XT connectors/Heat Shrink (Stuff that you stock up on) = $60 Misc Wooden bits/hardware/fiberglass/epoxy/goop = $150 FS-i6 Radio: $50 At least a dual charger setup: $60-100 8x Turnigy 5AH Lipos @ $25 each= $200 We're up to about $1150 and I'm sure I'm forgetting something somewhere. We haven't even factored in the cost of the hull, baltic plywood for the decks/subdeck, etc. Fiberglass hull would be $150~ and then baltic birch plywood for decks and subdecks would be another $50-60. I'm sorry you were potentially mislead about the budget, but here is where we set you on the straight path. There are ways to make this cheaper. Like building guns vs buying guns. Finding deals on used components. Heck I'm pretty sure I've got an older Turnigy 9x radio laying around that I'm not going to use since swapping to the FS-i6. Sorry for the novel length post.
I am newer to the hobby and I can 100% vouch for this statement I had about 4 people helping me rewire my ship and install new cannons for my ship last year out in PA. I was offered batteries at NATs when mine decided to die die on me. The guys are great I was offered a ship to drive due to mine being down and out for the day (electrical problems). Trust me we all want to see everyone on the water and we don’t want anyone to sit out if they don’t have to. I do a lot of vintage car racing and I helped a guy change his trans so he could race I missed my qualifying run but if it meant he could race and have fun so be it. This hobby is meant to be fun and a lot of people are willing to help. All you have to do is ask.
