Definitely more than one. I go with two with the varnish I have, but if yours says three, why not do three?
One good coat seals the wood (doesnt have to be thick). The extra coats are for normal uses such as a deck, a spar, or a door. Those need more protections as they are exposed to much larger amounts of abrasion and UV damage. So within reason more is better but not really needed here. I usually do two coats in case the first missed an area and call it good.
I re-read the can, and it says two coats for a good seal and 3 if desired. I just put the first coat on tonight. It was a little more thick than I wanted it, but I think it will be fine. My can also says to sand the first layer lightly before the second coat, is that required, especially where I'm putting it.
Put the second coat of varnish on yesterday. Soon time to start blocking foam in between the ribs. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to cut the foam. Seems to me that it will be hard to cut the foam where the rib starts to curve up to the sub-deck. Any suggestions?
Radio came today. What fun!!! Took me a little while to get it to bind, but I finally got it done. I'm having a little trouble programing the drive ESC through. I must not be getting everything hooked up right because the programing card won't turn on. Any ideas on whats going on? I have the ESC hooked up to the battery, then I have the three wire cord going over to the card, but the card never lights up. I have the white wire on the S prong, the red on the positive, and the black on the negative. It's the same way on the programing card. Is that how it's supposed to be hooked up?
ESC: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=11742 Card: http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__9550__Hobby_King_Programming_Card_for_Car_ESC.html The ESC did this even before I waterproofed it.
I have the 60A version, which is pretty much the same, and the same programming card. Played around with it for a bit, the only way I could get the red light flashing is when I did not have the plug for the RX plugged into anything. Normally to use the programming card, you would hook the ESC's RX plug into the programming card, plug a battery into the ESC, then switch the ESC to "ON". The programming card would then read your ESCs settings, and then give you the option of changing them. If that does not happen I would suspect that the plugs in the ESC are not plugged in properly, or the ESC itself is defective.
I have everything plugged in just like you described, and the ESC still blinks and the card won't turn on. I tried it with a different battery, and still no luck. The only time I remember getting the card to work was shortly after I got all the electronics from HK. The card flashed on, and I was trying to mess around with it, but my battery came undone and I lost power. After that, it wouldn't come on again. I tried Googling this problem, but people say the blinking is from low battery power. It can't be that because the battery I was using was just freshly charged. Is it possibly the programing card?
Its not getting a signal that is why the light is flashing. Have you checked to make sure the wires are plugged in correctly (right pins? Right polarity) on the ESC?
Not getting a signal from what? I believe I have the wires in the right pins. I'll post a picture of my setup later today. I didn't get any instructions with the ESC so I don't really know if the wiring is correct or not.
The RX or the programming card. Does the ESC flash a red light even when it is hooked up to the RX and your TX is on?
Yes, it still flashes. Here are some photos of my setup. Here is the setup as a whole. Here is the switch and the wire going to the card. And here is the wire on the card.
You can download the manual from the Hobby King website. Go to the product page and scroll down to where the discussions and review tabs are. Right beside those is a tab called "files" and the manual is located there. See if you can complete any of the programing steps using the radio. Or just toss it and get a new one. I've had decent luck with the Trackstar 1/18 ESC.
You should grab a multimeter and verify that the pins for the RX/Card connection are supposed to Be Signal (+) (-) and not (-) (+) Signal. The ESC case shows the first, but the manual shows the latter, one of the two has to be wrong, and im my experience with some of this stuff, its just as likely to be the ESC as the manual...
