What was happening was that the rod was flexing and I was not getting much throw. Something else I could do that did not occur to me until just now is I could cut the radio box that came with my ship down to size, and make a rudder box out of it, then just make a second servo arm. That way there is no worry about whether or not the servo made it after sinking.
yes, then you just get to worry about the rudder box leaking. I operate under the assumption that all things will eventually leak, it serves me fairly well. O-ring maintenances, I would guess at: ensure proper seating, no cuts, keeping chemicals away that would degrade it, and possibly treating with a chemically friendly treatment to maintain the conditioning of the o-ring. For those flex linkages the outer sleeve has to be tacked in place in several locations to prevent it from flexing. they're really annoying and in our boats tend to be more hassle than they're worth.
On other o-ring-sealed products, I have seen a certain grease designed for o-rings recommended. I wonder if petroleum jelly would work almost as good. To me, the most important thing about "waterproof" servos is that they have a high-quality, precision-manufactured o-ring seal around the output shaft. All the other seals are secondary, since I can just throw a couple layers of skotchkote over them and get better results. But the precision-made o-ring seal on the output shaft is critical, and I have never seen one of those screwed up. @Keri, yes I have notified Stephen of the problem. I am not hugely concerned, however, since they have never screwed up on the important seal. All the others are secondary in importance, since they can be protected in other ways.
Technically, you don't really need an O-ring. A little grease works wonders. Petroleum jelly works unless it gets hot out then it gets runny and then it tends to ooze out of position. All I do is scotchkote or tool dip the outside and grease the top every time I take the horn off. Never had a problem but I have switched to traxxis servos just for an added layer of protection. It is hard to argue against overkill when it comes to waterproofing.
Seven habits of highly effective pirates, rule # 37: "there is no such thing as OVERKILL. There is only OPEN FIRE and TIME TO RELOAD."
slightly OT: Howard retcon'd that into 'The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries' after getting a c&d letter from FranklinCovey. much more of a mouthful now.
As far as I'm concerned, Han Solo shot first. It'll always be the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates" to me
First off I'm just going to waterproof the rudder servo and mount the servo gear on that. Too waterproof it, I'm going to open up the bottom of the servo, fill it with some marine epoxy. Then open up the top (where the gears are) and fill it with some grease. And finally I'll coat it with some Plasti Dip. Does that sound good? Yes? No? Now I have quite a few questions I was hoping you guys could answer. For the throttle do I use the MAG type set up that came the my hardware kit? Or do I upgrade a speed controller? Is it worth it thou to spend an extra 50-60 bucks on a speed controller as o posse to using the MAG throttle set up? And when it comes to powering my servos and receiver, Should I power them off the main battery, or use my receiver battery? I was thinking about using the receiver battery so that if there is some sort of main battery problem, at least I could still use the pump and cannons. But I figured I would ask first and see if that's the best. The receiver battery I would be using is the Spektrum NICD pack. Is that one of those that will "violently explode" when it comes into contact with a little aqua? And should I waterproof the receiver for just in case the WT leaks? If so how do I go about doing that? Thanks!!!
If you can afford it, ESCs are totally worth it, but buy a good one, ESCs arent something to cheap out on. Go with a Mtroniks Viper Marine. RX batteries are just one more connection to fail, one more thing to forget, one more thing to not remember to put on the charger. My personal preference is to get a good ESC that can supply the RX power and keep it simple that way. If you're running an RX battery and you lose your main battery, youll lose your pump too (you wont wire that off your RX battery, you'd flatten it in no time). Yes, skotchkote your RX, even if it is going in a WT box. Also throw one or two of those Do Not Eat silica gel packets in your WT box to take care of some of the relative humidty that may be trapped in the box when its sealed up. On your servo, make sure you don't epoxy the servo motor... It might be easier to skotchkote it, or to just buy some spares... You don't have to pack the gears with grease, they dont care about the water. Goal is primarily to keep the water out of the servo motor and off the servo's controller board. Some guys have drilled holes top and bottom in their servo cases and just rinse them out with alcohol when they come off the water.
Yep. There's a lot to be said for an "alcohol rinse-out" servo. Properly treated, you don't even really need to rinse it with alcohol: just dump the water out of your boat and it's good to go. Drill a few strategically placed holes in the case to drain it completely, and then thoroughly skotchkote the circuitboard. You'll have to replace your servos once per year during the off-season, but that's better than sitting out a battle or two per year because a few drops of water got into your servos. The method you described for sealing servos is old and unreliable. And you left out the most important part, the o-ring around the output spline. Modern servos are available with precision o-ring seals, that work much better. You'll still want to slather skotchkote around the case, but at least you won't have to worry about the seal on the output spline failing. As far as ESCs, they've come a LONG way from when they were first introduced. Buy one. Buy a good one. You won't regret it. Mtroniks makes the best, and Strike Models carries Mtroniks.
Could someone post some pics of HMS Invincible's superstructure? I have no problem in placing the main superstructure blocks, smock stacks, Or turrets. But I can't seem to figure out where the smaller foam blocks and secondary turrets go.
Our local Invincible doesn't seem to have secondaries. I'm looking for a decent picture that shows her super though in hope that it may help you with your other blocks. Can you post a picture of what you have so far vs remaining and maybe we can cook up some answers?
There are lots of good looking models on this site: http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/bb/bb-index.html I always copy a few pics of the ship i am working on to my computer so i can see what the SS looks like.
If you paint shark teeth on your Invincible nobody notices the superstructure. Just saying... I don't know how much detail came with your kit but this picture might help. There is a ton of variation in the line drawings for the I-class, since they were experimental ships they went through a lot of modification. I wouldn't worry about getting it that close. Ron Hunt
We're gonna need a bigger boat... I've found that people dont care too much about where you put launches, gigs, secondaries, etc - the're usually far too busy trying to figure out how to shoot them off.
Go to Users\E-J\jch72\Invincible\ and download everything there. I did a dump of everything I have on the computer that I think you might find useful for the superstructure, only one or two extra pictures in there right now. I may delete a lot of it in a month or so.
