I see that I need to add a capacitor to the motor on my pump from BC. do I also have to do the same for my drive motors/ what does the capacitor(s) do for the pump motor?
The caps do nothing for the motors,they are there to help prevent radio interference. Yes, you generally should fit them to your drive motors too, as even if your ship isn't suffering from interference, another nearby ship might.
When you apply the voltage to the motor, the brushes in the motor will put electrical noise onto the motor leads, this noise is grounded by the caps, so that it does not get back into your receiver.
I have seen ships disabled by RF noise. My first ship, a Scharnhorst, originally had an air compressor in it instead of a CO2 bottle. I put several capacitors on it, but source of noise was elsewhere in the wiring. Scharnhorst first fought in the infamous WWCC Campaign Battle 2004, the largest recorded fleet battle in WWCC history. Several seconds after "commence fire" was called, I powered up my air compressor. The compressor kicked on and charged up the guns, but the current draw fried the power switch, which started sparking and sent out loads of RF, and overloaded my receiver. Scharnhorst's radio shut down, and even worse, the battleship Baden (only a few feet away) was also shut down by the noise. The two ships drifted out of port and were stomped on by the Allied fleet. Baden went down with catastrophic pump failures, and Scharnhorst drifted across the entire pond before I could regain control and sail home. When I returned nearly an hour later, I found that a recovery float marking the Baden's position had entangled the Hindenburg, which was also sunk, and the Hindenburg's emergency float had entangled a sister ship, which also had been sunk. Three friendly battlewagons under because I powered up my air compressor. That's ECM for you. Maybe I should add those to my kills count, because after all the Allied battleships only sped them on their way The 2004 Campaign Battle is one of the most memorable battles in recent history. A superior number of Axis warships were blockaded in a small 100ft by 100ft area just outside the Axis port by a handful of Allied battleships. The Axis fleet was completely shattered, losing three battleships and (more importantly) every single transport in the fleet, and their ability to repair and reload. The Allied ships reloaded several times each and fired over 10,000 large-diameter rounds that day, while the Axis fleet never reloaded and carried less than 3,000 shots to start. It was such a one-sided battle that the Axis admiral surrendered after the first hour.
Actually, they still don't know. The skipper of the ship I accidentally disabled still thinks that was due to an improperly charged receiver battery and faulty wiring. The only reason I even say I did it is because both my ship and his went haywire at exactly the same moment I activated the air compressor, and his ship was the only one in close proximity to mine.
Non-polarized, definitely. Avoid polyester, since they can explode spectacularly if they get too much voltage applied (which shouldn't happen, but...). I prefer tantalum, but there are other materials that work fine & they're easy to get/cheap. 0.1 µF is most common, & what I use, but that's not chiseled in stone anywhere. Make sure voltage is rated with plenty of headroom. I use 35-50V for my 6V systems. Hook up 1 across the motor terminals + 1 from each terminal "grounded" to the motor case (3 total). I always drill & tap a #2-56 hole in the motor case & use a short screw to attach the caps there. I've never been able to get leads to stay stuck 100% to the case with solder. JM
