Okay so @greechronicles and I (but mainly me) are working on one of @BigGunJeff's 3D printed boats. We have named it SS Dodge so it can dodge all the BBs thrown at it. Can anyone offer insight? Also, does anyone know how to waterproof a Spektrum AR 410 receiver? I will post pics when I can.
My recommendation: put extension wires on all the channels, cover the whole thing in plasti dip. Otherwise, pop it open and smear epoxy or e6000 on it.
Plastidip is very flexible, it shouldn't cause any problems. Epoxy or E6000 only touches the PCBs and will be nowhere near the buttons.
100% would not recommend. Plasti Dip is not a waterproof sealer. E600, epoxy, or Skotchcoat are the tried and true methods.
Things to avoid: Plasti-dip (fails over time), epoxy (cannot do repairs/replace wires/etc), or liquid electrical tape (fails over time) things to do: skotchkote the board (favorite method of the WWCC, proven in years of service), or coat the board with an acrylic conformal coating (what I'm currently using) Things that work but aren't recommended: drill easy-access holes to spray Corrosion-X into the receiver. This works, but over time it forms a gummy, sticky, oily mess in the bottom of your boat. That's a nice looking little transport there. I would love to see an interior layout. In fact, I'd love to make one myself...
Tool dip (sort of) served it’s purpose up until early 2000’s. Skotchcoat was the method of choice for the next decade and worked pretty well. Nowadays I'd put E6000 at the top of the list - better performance, less mess, lower price than skotchcoat. Conformal coating has been used, I have a hard time trusting it on its own. Potting the whole receiver in epoxy with servo extensions is probably the most robust option, really nothing to break, but cost of servo leads can add up. Most of my receivers are potted in epoxy, with the oldest one still working great over 10 years and many many sinks later. You can also use the $12 receiver BC sells, I've had no issues with 4x of them and there is no significant benefit of spending 4 - 6x the amount for a brand name
I think Potting is probably the easiest way to go about it if you're not sure. Yeah you can't fix/repair anything but I've never needed to repair/replace wires in any of my potted stuff over the years so that seems like a minor issue which is well worth it given the waterproofing performance. Practically speaking the number of people in the hobby with the technical knowledge/skills to say fix a bad RX is tiny so it's not really a concern. For potting good Epoxy is probably the best but there are other things that work too like wax for instance. There can be some thermal stress issues (especially on ESCs) with epoxy potting but those are pretty avoidable. The cost of extra servo leads is a joke, sorry Kevin, you can get 10 for $2-3 from Hobby King so it's hard for me to consider that a meaningful negative. Conformal coating is just fine by itself, but it's really dependent on the product you use to do it. Scotchkote is good (and you can solder through it, just hold your breath), epoxy works fine, E6000, heck I've used superglue in a pinch before and seen people use nail polish which worked fine too, point is tons of stuff works great as a conformal coating. As Kotori said Plastidip and Liquid Electrical tape tend to fail, avoid them. As for keeping the button functionality I'd actually solder in a removable button in parallel and just let the one on the board get potted/covered with the rest of the board, but I acknowledge that sometimes I just do things my way and everyone probably thinks I'm crazy.
Okay we we have selected a watertight box for the receiver. Dodge has two main problems right now 1 weight distribution (easy to solve) 2 leakiness (I used aluminum tape this time, it should be better. If also has a pump so I'm good) When I get my 3D printer, I hope to print some lifeboats
Status report: YAY She works. We accidentally switched the motor forward and reverse but I am prepared to live with it. I've never made a boat float before. Now time to dazzle her up... Also I noticed she is a bit top heavy, will need ballast.
So, I bought a plastic box from tap plastic, and cut a hole. I looks pretty waterproof but im going to cover the box with silicone so it is waterproof and I can rip off the silicone and access the receiver. Is that okay? Then my favorite moment from plastic ship modeling in 1/700 and 1/350... PAINTING
Negative, negative! "watertight" boxes are only good at trapping water around the receiver even after you've pulled it up from the bottom. They work nine times out of ten, but that tenth time consistently results in dead electronics. Stick with component-level waterproofing. It is lighter, more compact, and much easier to work with.
