Kevin P answered this earlier, and my boat has a similar technique. Ive attached an image of my NC’s pump. Pardon the looseness of everything; she’s undergoing refit, usually everything is snug. My pump outlet does indeed exit at the U’s opening. Well technically at the side but the way the hose exits when attached to the deck the outlet hose forces the entire pump assembly against the U hold. Checking or swapping out the pump is easy by simply removing the deck and hose from the deck hole. Been in a couple battles with the NC and the pump has never separated from the hold. Ship sank because of clogged pump inlet and me being a novice battler but that’s another story...
Now we are getting somewhere with some real constructive criticism! So here is the predicament I am in, and how I think I will go about solving it. With the pump mount I dont want to drill through the hull. No changing this. I will make small recesses as I have done for the bottle mount. I want the pump outlet to be as short as possible. Which means having it point towards the stern. Having it run towards the bow ends up with a longer tube that loops around itself. To get the motor as far back as possible, the motor has to be right up and in the hard section of the boat. Going with the U shape slide out, with the outlet towards the stern, I would not be able to do so without taking the plate off, since there is no room to slide the motor. If I put the U facing the bow, I am losing the force of the outlet tube pushing the pump back into the plate, to hold the pump in. All of that with the factor of not wanting to work under the hard space of the boat, So with all that said, I will use the standoffs I have. I will have the U shape as well. I will need to make a new plate though. What I will do is just epoxy in the front 2 posts. The back 2 will just support the plate from sagging. Since I am losing the outlet force against the pump, as the U opening will face the bow, I will get 2 springs that will be hooked to the plate and push up against the motor, with a few spares on hand. They will be on the stern posts and the arm will.l naturally want to sit up against the opposite side front post. It wont be hooked to it's just up against it. To remove the motor I will have to pull the springs back and slide the motor out. Shouldnt be too hard to do, nor take to long. I'm hoping with the 2 spring idea that I can just pull the motor against the springs and it just slides out. Getting it back in might take some work, but nothing is being removed. In lieu of the springs, I could also run rubber bands around a stern post, around the motor and to the opposite side front post. That will let me get to one side of the rubber band to be able to take it off, as well as when off, allow the mot I'd like the outlet to point towards the stern as it would be a shorter run instead of a big long U to get back around to the outlet. I can't run the U's opening towards the stern, Kd never get the motor into place as it will be hitting on the ship. If I run the U towards the front, I lose that pressure the hose gives pushing it back into the mount. Also if I was to run the outlet towards the front and had the long U tube to make it to the outlet location, I would lose that force anyways.
Looking at your pics is it possible to make a U-hold further forward? Like 3 inches or so from the current location of the pump. That way you can get the pump in and out without hitting the deck. And can have the outlet hose run towards the stern
I could put it right up by the bottle/battery holder, but I was told to have the pump back as far as possible. I had to dremel out part of the hard section to get the motor up underneath as well
If you moved your pump forward a few inches (or just enough so removing it is possible) your pump would be approximately where my NC’s pump is in proportion to the length of the ship. Slightly more than 1/3 from the stern edge by eyeballing. It should be fine.
So, quickly slapped this together in 48 minutes with a phone call halting progress. I hope it's good enough... The extra cross peice will not be held down, or will have some binder clips on it to just help it stay put. But that whole thing should be easily removable. The outlet does go towards the back as well. I'm thinking once officially approved for duty, I will then waterproof it, and then epoxy (e6000 mayne) in the studs.
Also, the nuts below the plate will come off, those were just there to golt the bolt straight in the plastic peice while the epoxy in there settled. Will have just 1 nut on top of the plate, and them the bar going across slid down as well.
not drilling through the hull is certainly an interesting building quirk. I find it to be the most effective mounting method, and I think I have mitigations for any concern I can think of. I've chopped out whole sections of the bottom of boats and restored as good as new. Fiberglass is a neat material, pretty much any cut you make is reversible. Pump is mainly held down by gravity, friction from the mount, and force from the hose bending upwards. When I first started making that style of pump mount i was worried about ensuring contact with the upper surface of the pump casing, but after a while I realized that it mattered very little. The new mount looks better, I would not recommend spending too much time on springs or some other contraption. Typically things like that get removed after a few battles when the builder identifies that they don't provide much benefit
I'll go get it sprayed. I figured since the pump is going in backwards, that extra peice will help. More so it doesnt jump out, since I will have the outlet tube not working with the mount as well. All the springs and rubber bands were a pre thought to cutting the plate out. Once I had it there, I found that scrap peice and put it on. Also, was quick as I did t take any measurements..I just went off what I had. I do need to get a better sanding drum and sandpaper for my dremel though. They get tore up quickly and I'm fresh out. Had to use my routing bit to get done what I could. I did decide to take off the black little logo thing on the motor though, so the mount is a little loose. The metal ring was oblonged because of the mesh, I put that on underneath and it just didnt go back into place.
As for drilling holes I didnt like how the Australia turned out, and the Baden already has some nice water channeling installed. Infigured epoxy should hold plenty enough, goop it on the bottom of the posts and set it in. Once the wood is good to go in, I'll cut the posts down to make it easier to get it in there
In case you have any more reservation on drilling through the hull for mounting. This is after several years and no leaks at all. I never knew it was there. Literally just found it. I did not build this or I would have known it was there saving me some head scratching. Lol.
If you want the height of drilling holes in the bottom of your boat, Fluegel used to put a window in the hull under his pump so that it was easy to do a visual inspection of the pump bottom without removing the pump
So was going to get the propshaft installed this weekend, but with my car being in the shop (looking like $2000 out of my pocket to fix it) and also my dad being medically required coronavirus quarantined, that wont be happening. While the pump mount is drying, I came up with this, an electronics slab as I'm calling it. I will rework it if it doesn't fit with the pump mount. All I did was rough cut it to the width of the bottle/battery, rough cut it down on length, and then drilled the holes for it to go on the battery mount studs, and then used my dremel cutting wheel to open the slots up for zip ties. If if doesnt work with my pump mount, I'll go vertical somehow, instead of flat like this. If this works though, or just barely gets caught up, I can always make some spacers to make it taller and stay out of the water.
fits fine. gonna thin it down a bit lengthwise though, and add some pads on the back to level it out, maybe some spacers to raise it up as much as possible. I think for the ESC though I might figure something else out. I would probably cut that 1/8 pvc i have and e6000 some side to it, so the zip tie would hold on those, not the heatsync. still thinking the same for the multiboard as well.
Been doing mine like that for over 35 years. Never had an issue. Different strokes for different folks. I think it will be interesting to see how Weston's version is going to work. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here, just rearranging things to fit some different components in. I got the ship with all the wiring, the drive system, pump firing boards and pump control. No solenoids or gun system. I'm using less battery, more co2, and just moving things to make it all fit better.
The pump should be towards the stern, when you drive forward all the water will rush to the back and weigh down the entire stern of the ship. If you did not do a good job with the stern deck hatch and deck seal you will take on more water every-time the stern dips and if you keep panning for gold in that manner... you will sink. An ideal location is just in front of the Haymaker or perhaps just behind it. That way gravity will feed the pump and if you build you water channel right, the water in the stern will be directed to forward to the pump as well. Once I installed my rudder servo I poured the 2-part foam and shaped it with gouges much like the corners of a swimming pool so that water was directed there. I shaped the foam in a down-grade so that water would be directed over a baffle into the pump reservoir under the motors. The half inch baffle kept the water from splashing back into the stern and kept the pumps 'fed'. The larger the pump resovoir.. the more water it takes to prime the pump and as such the more weight you drive around with in your ship.. harder to maneuver etc. Baffles are important to help contain the water where you want it.. so that once it is in the resovoir it will not slosh back to bow or stern. Before I did this when battling in Springfield MO, Chris Au was using Jedi mind tricks, moving his ship in such a way as to cause me to move back and forth. This caused ALL the water slosh back and forth and I asked what he was doing as he did not attack. He said he was trying to get me to sink myself by driving it... baffles and new water channel went in on the next winter refit. damage control is not just about merely 'having' a pump... its an over-all system and it must all be 'tuned' to its best performance. The best pump motor combo in the world is worthless if the pump reservoir is empty. Johnny Jabber
Only jabber when a post isn't helpful. As for the pump, it's going to be just in front of the haymaker. I dremeled out some of the cross brace hard area to get the motor as far back as possible. I didn't go all the way to the barbette though as I didnt want to start chewing up the pvc barbette, or eat away what is holding it in place, but it's in there. With the drop in crosspiece (that will just slide off to allow the pump to slide out) I can put it in that far back and still be able to slide it out. The problem with the single U design was that, as how I understand it, the forces used to hold the pump is the outlet tube pushing it back into the U, and gravity holding it down. Putting it in with the U so the outlet pushes back into it, it doesnt let me slide the pump put without being too far forward. The cross peice creates that U and is quickly removable. I have yet to do any work in the stern. I still have to put the new propshaft, gearbox motor mount, rudders and servo mount in, and have 3 solenoids that need to go in back there as well. I'm aiming for the rear guns to load in from the center section, so I only have to remove that peice to load the guns, swap batteries and co2. Bow gun will be a coil loaded from under the turret cap. The stern, bow and center are held down with magnets. However I'm aiming to only need to remove a turret cap flex the bow gun and the center deck between sorites. If I can accomplish that, the solenoids can be mounted on the deck peices, and those can be changed over to a bolt and nut or even screws, and add something underneath to make it sealed up well. Once all that is done, I'm going to add a lot of water channeling to the stern area. The bottle/battery holder is where I am going to add some weights to, just e6000 them on the outside of it. That will take up some of the extra width and hopefully act as a baffle that way. I'll also increase the height of the water channeling on the bow side as well, and have the stern raised up when I do that to make the pump sit deeper.
