So working on some other aspects of the boat, I decided to take out the bottle holder way up in the bow, and going to try and fit it into the center of the ship. New one to fit is layed out, I realized after a few attempts with different tools I just dont have the right tools to cut a straight line. I should be able to stick my lipos on each side of the bottle as well. I do have some 1/16" abs sheets that I am thinking I can form into a box without a top to slide the batteries into, to hold them in place, and give them some extra protection. Also need to work on the pump mount and placement. Right now I have a 550 sized motor, but it's a bit tall for where it set up to go, even after dremeling out some room. I could move it forward, or get a shorter motor, I'd assume brushless for that. As for the mount, not sure what I'm going to do there. Where it is suppose to sit is in a bit of a tight spot too, so I'm thinking of taking a peice of my 1/4 plywood and cutting a 1 3/8 hole, sand that to just fit over the motor, and have 2 bolts in opposite corners. Still do the same thing if I move it forward.
New bottle holder is cut. going to add some gussets to give it some extra strength, then get it installed. Still need to do the pump mount. For that I was thinking of getting some threaded rod and drilling a hole into what is already there, thread it in, then add some more epoxy around it. I was able to get a bigger hole into the gearbox I had, so I will be ordering the parts for the new propshaft and prop, and new rudders soon, hopefully Thursday. one of these day's I'm going to solder up the batteries with their connectors. 7 to do, 6 for the boat. I need to get a chair first though. I'm hoping by the end of next month I'll be where I have everything for the ship, and just need to install the guns.
Slowly working on it. I know others can get a lot more done over a few days, but I have been working on this after work and before my daily nap(s). Third shift life has me all messed up. I did spray on a lot of thin coats of the spar varnish, so it should last. Im going to try to get my pump farther back than this picture, that's the next step. Also will open it up more since it won't sit s far back as it was intended to, without a lot of cutting I'd rather not do. Also want to do something for the batteries to keep them in place. Maybe I'll change out the sides on the bottle mount to a square instead of a triangle, and put a zip tie or velcro around them attsching them to the holder. I would rather have something to just slide them in, idk yet what the plan is for that. Ordered today the 5mm rod and the Bushings and tube for a 2" prop, which I also ordered with 2" rudders and 1/8" rod for those. I think I'll end up changing the steering setup while I'm messing about in the stern; right now the boat uses arms to turn the rudder. Being I'm putting in a new shaft, I should look at removing the servo mount while I'm there to make that easier, and then going with a different system. I know it's a bit late to be doing a major overhaul of a boat that doesnt even have all the parts for it ready to go, but it is what it is. I want to get all the stuff I want done with it done before taking it out on the water and tuning it, and luckily it's all veteran approved changed, like going from the 1.5" 40 degree prop to a 2". Slow and steady win the race. Instead of rushing to get a boat out on the water for this year's first battle, I'll take my time and make sure it's got what it takes, and it's bench tested a lot before it hits the water (then tested more before being battled)
What's preventing you from moving the pump farther aft? Ideally you want it as close to the drive motor as possible, on dual shaft boats a lot of builders try to get the pump in between the drive motors. Looks like you've got the space, unless I'm missing something. For your batteries, I'd remove the triangle piece and then just epoxy a plywood box into the hull using that triangle-piece-replacement as one of the walls. Something like this: Cut a little notch for the wires to come out, presto. Have very similar pieces on most of my boats. If you are worried about batteries falling "up" if the boat decides to turn turtle, you can slot the wooden walls (the long sides) and use a velcro wire tie to make sure they stay in there but I'm not sure if it's necessary. As @Kevin P. has made a habit of reinforcing to me in his own friendly way, making sure the boat actually works is priority. But also don't get stuck in the build -> revise -> build -> revise loop forever. Chasing perfection is always a losing battle. Make it work to your satisfaction and get out there, driving the boat is also part of the hobby. It's weird, I know.
You'd be surprised at how well just a couple pieces of 1/4"x1/4" stick wood placed around the batteries will keep them in place.
I'm gonna a knock off the triangle and make some boxes for the bats. I'll cut some slots for some velco. E6000 those in, then e6000 the holder to the boxes. For the pump, that section of the boat doesnt come off. It's solid until after the superfiring turret there. I suppose I can wait to see where the drive motor and servo end up, and put it behind that superfiring turret. Ill.go take some better pictures here soon. I did dremel some out, but without taking out a lot of material, it still wont fit, and I'd have to take out more than I'd want, and still have to fiddle with stuff underneath the solid section if I need to get to it
Here is around the C turret area. I'd rather not have to deal with trying g to get something in there to hold the pump down, or make something extend out from under to make it easily removable. I'm going to work on the bottle mount battery holders tomorrow. I have 1/8 stuff I think I'll try for the inside wall, and use the 1/4 stuff on the outside and front/back. Was thinking if I make it tall enough, a simple bolt and nut through the wood would suffice to hold the battery in. I'll put the triangle on the opposite side of the battery boxes too, even more support I'll probably also look at putting a shelf off of that to gold the BC board or something
So haven't worked on the Baden at all. I did just go cut some 1/4" and 1/8" ply to get sprayed down with waterproofing stuff, to start on the battery boxes. I'll need to get the bottle holder in and them in before I make the sidewalls, but the long sections are cut. Just winging it on cutting assembling them, so hopefully I will have something together sometime this week. I did rescue a doggo yesterday from the shelter. They were having an adoption event and they were able to adopt out 36 animals, including Clarence, my good boy. He thinks he's a lap dog sometimes though, lol. He needs some house training, but is a very good boy otherwise.
Finally got around to soldering batteries. Just soldered up the Zeee batteries, and swapped out power poles to XT60s on 2 of the multi stars
bottle/ battery/bc multiboard holder is coming together. however, I have an out of waterproofing stuff. I ordered more yesterday. Speaking of BC multiboards, what does everyone do to hold them in? I was just going to run a zip tie around it and a ledge that it sits on, but if there is something better, I'll do that. I think even after I get this together I might see if someone can replicate it (and improve on it) and 3d print it for me. I currently do not have anything to cut straight lines with, so it's all hand fitted and not perfectly square like it could be. if there is a board mount, that could be added instead of the shelf
For NATS you need two sets of batteries for the two battles per day. At soon regionals we do three battles a day. You can change batteries every sortie so that’s 4 or 6 sorties you would need a set for. At a minimum I’d put 20 amp hours in that ship. Then change after a sortie if it was a long one and you pumped pretty hard. With 30 you don’t have to change.
so 24 batteries is what you are saying? 4 per sortie for 6 sorties. I am running 3 cell Lipos btw, not 6v LiFe. Watt hours seems to be the best way to compare things, since it's voltage x amp hours. a 6v 20ah setup is 120wh. 2 of my 3s lipos (11.1v 5.2ah) have 115wh I was thinking of running 3 of the batteries though, for 173wh. i'd still be short 8 batteries if I need 3 for 6 sorties (18 total, have 10). going to 3 per sortie and 4 sorties I'm only down 2 batteries. 4 per sortie and 4 sorties, I'm down 6. I do have a lot of other stuff to get done on the ship first before getting more batteries. But the bow will pretty much be empty other than a solenoid and a gun for the bow sidemount, which i need to decide if that's going to go in the A or B turret still.
My BC multi-board is in a small 3d-printed box, potted in epoxy for waterproofing, then velcroed to a small elevated platform. Easy to remove if I need to get into that area, but holds just fine under normal use.
I tried velcro, some 3m double loop stuff, and it didnt really want to hold once water got to it. But if it was dry, the velcro was pretty strong and was a pain to remove the board without bending the board slightly.
You have 5ah batteries (+/-) so three in parallel would give you 15ah. Keep in mind they would be discharged at approximately 85%, so you have about 12.75ah to play with. With a single pump and light damage you might be able to run them for a battle but I would change them anyway so that the charge time would be shorter. I think the most I used was 3ah based on the chargers output. I had 8 total packs all identical and had 2 on each side of the bottle for balance and weight distribution reasons. If you plan to mix packs you may run into issues, and even when all packs were the same I had one pack with a higher resistance and so it was the last to discharge and last to finish charging, effectively making a 3 pack setup. Parallel batteries should be matched as much as possible to voltage, capacity, and resistance, which you can measure when charging. so as long as power is available then batteries for two sorties is good, if not then you may need a set for each battle or a set per sortie. I burned up a set (x4) because we had a third battle and ran them 3 sorties with two pumps effectively to zero volts....all swelled and never took a charge after that. I thought I had not pumped that much in the previous battle, and was only working with 3 packs as the fourth was high resistance. you have to leave headroom in life/lipo packs if you don’t have a low voltage cut-off. So I tracked how much charge the batteries took after a high damage sortie and adjusted my battery changes. Therefore... change each sortie and run 4 packs per sortie, buy what you need to do so and have 1 extra pack to replace the ones that don’t cooperate.
This is what I use for multi board, I use a 6-32 screw up through the bottom of the boat as a mounting post, no Velcro to worry about. With LiPos you can charge mid-day either off site power or your car’s battery. If you change batts between sorties you can charge the first sortie’s batts during the second sortie in time of the next battle. Keeping discharge % low is good for batt life and will be beneficial as battery capacity degrades over time
I basically do the same thing @Kevin P. does for the BC boards. No good pic, sorry. My potting trays have little bosses off the sides for screws. As for battery capacity, you're right in that Wh is a better way to compare vs just amp hours but it's not that cut and dry. Your two battery plan, compared to my own lipo experience and other captains using similar stuff, should be fine. For your first few times out, be more conservative and change them more often. Every sortie if possible. Keep track of how much you put back into them at the hotel or if you charge over lunch, etc. You'll figure out where your limits are. I started Bart off with 5 8AH lipos, quickly realized I could run 2 battles on just 4 and have plenty of safety margin in terms of leftover power. While it was a very lightweight regional event, the GA battle showed me 2 8AH 3s packs in my Courbet is a bit overkill, after the first day I only plugged 1 of the 2 in and then swapped at lunch. Brought 20~ batteries with me and they stayed in the truck just in case, ran on the same 2 all weekend just charging at the hotel. Right now, with 2 packs per sortie (which is overkill, IMO) you are good for 5 sorties. If you topped off Sortie 1's packs at lunch, you'd be battling 3 times a day. If you could pick up 2 more batteries you'd be golden, but you are also fine as it is, 3 battles a day is the exception normally not the rule.
I'll need to come up with something like that then. Without a 3d printer, and my board being e6000d, I might just goop some onto some wood or something. I did buy 1/16 abs sheets I was going to use to give the batteries some extra protection, but changed plans. Still might add it if I do manage to get the bottle and battery holder replicated into a 3d print. But anyways, I could cut and form up a box like that with the abs and glue it to it, and screw it down.
I mean, Baden might end up pumping a little more than the Australia did, and has 1 extra gun and some extra weight, but it does have 1 less drive motor and is slower. 2 of the 5200mah batteries were good enough for a sortie on that ship, why not the Baden? Baden is also going to be gear driven instead of direct drive like the Australia was, not sure how that would affect the ship battery usage wise.
