Yo. spent the weekend doing minor work, like lubing the stuffing tubes, sanding the forward and aft ribs to give a larger bearing surface for gluing, and cleaning up the edges of the hull's glasswork to make sheeting easier. Had a question come up regarding ballast. I already ballast-filled the hull, but might need some more weight than I currently have once things get finished. Thinking about putting some lead bars on as bilge keels and glassing them in once I get an understanding of their field performance. But, meh I dunno, depending on how heavy my batteries are, it may not be a problem. I may have to use something stupid for a battery since Alaska is Apparently not America, and only America has cool guy batteries. Or I'll just have my buddy build be an absurd LiPo and encase it in the midships in like fifteen pounds of cast lead
LOL Just remembered we have a battery store, and sure enough, looks like I am going to just go and get a pile of SLA batteries and use them as the ballast and roll around with like a million amphours in the hull.
Johnny, we love you, you're so cute when you get mad .. hey! Guess what? Dr. Lide and I are car pooling from FW! Wandy
Thanks, but I'm HAZMAT-sensitive since it was part of what I did in the Army. I thought about shipping it to my buddy in Wisconsin and having him mail them to me, but I really don't want to be doing something like that to an aircrew. all of our mail gets flown up and if I were in a situation where my bird was carrying unmarked HAZMAT, I wouldn't be pleased. besides, I needed the ballast. Got two 6V 12aH cells I'll be running in parallel, and it gave me 8 pounds of mass low in the core of the boat. though I am now understanding why John and the rest of the guys in GA switched to little 3 pound destroyers--this thing is hefty! Here's some pics of them in the hull. I positioned them so that the center of gravity is about 3/4 of an inch aft of Frame 9. that way the additional weight of the CO2 bottle will get me really close to perfect right off the bat. (also, going to rip out that screen material soon and replace it with something more sturdy.
Word. Anything else you need jut let me know. I have a Texas to build as well and would love to help you where I can. I’m stationed in San Diego. Would be happy to support.
Thanks, I should be good to go. The only issue with shipping is HAZMAT stuff. Everything else is quirky, but attainable. How is your TX coming btw?
Just cranked out the battery wiring harness this week, ordered the Taranis X7 radio, and got a wake-up call from Wisconsin yesterday. looks like I'll be coming to Lower America and joining the Polar Bear folks. On the subject of electrical, I'm thinking of putting a 90 amp fuse between the battery harness and the BC battle board (rated to 90 Amps, so I figure that's a good place to hold it). I'm also looking at putting a 40 amp fuse between the ESC and the battle board (ESC rating is 40), and possibly a fuse on the pump. Any tips, suggestions, etc?
You will be in good hands with the PPB folks, they do actually battle (be sure to ask them how much), tons of experience There are a lot of different opinions out there about fuses. The only place I would consider using them is for the drive motors, if your props get tangled with something and the motors are strong enough you can exceed current limits. I used to use fuses, don't anymore, I saw them as another failure point that reduced reliability.
alrighty. I'm cool with having a few just to reduce the chance of engineering casualties, and will likely put a fuse between the ESC and the motors then.
Just got some 0.030 Polycarbonate and stripped that screening out. Once I get the armor situated, I'm going to skin this beast and painting it up. Still waiting on the guns. I found out that I'll be going down to GLAS/PPB territory in the next few months, so hopefully I'll be able to have her done sans armament by the time I head down. then I'll pester all of the people in PPB with in-person barrages of questions. Transmitter etc should arrive in the next ten days or so.
Then Port Polar Bear will have a member who has dealt with wild polar bears..... they're scary. scarier than Brown Bears, and I've dealt with Kodiaks at close range.
I call it Tamahaac. I cut the barrel down to the minimum Canadian Barrel length and throw african safari-grade ammo. The six-foot flame cone has set foliage around me on fire in previous hunts. I haven't used it on a bear yet, but it'll blow through about eight feet of wet phone books and make a confetti-hole the size of a softball.
We shoot at each other and expel deadly CO2 gas into the atmosphere if anyone has a problem with a pic of a firearm....now if it was a finger gun we have to boot you
