Same one I use for the Iron Duke, it was the factor that led me to doing this ship (ease of charging batteries). It's the same charger that Dave and Don use (and others).
Just be sure to be careful when doing the SS SS will be completely done out of expanded foam. Did this on my Aoba build with great success. I will just replace pieces as they get shot off. The Key is that the deck is sealed, so shooting off the super will mean that I lose weight as I battle, no downside that I can see. Speaking of the SS, that is this weeks work as I need to wait for the batteries to get here before laying out all the internals. I did place the motors so that they do not interfere with the guns, just need to figure out where to place the solenoids.
No plans with the boat, and the guys are at NATS right now. Anyone have dimensions they can send me (bowmost gun to bow measurement, sternmost gun to stern measurement). I want to make sure the SS that came with it is reasonably close.
Let me get home and I'll look at my plans. Unless someone else can chime in before 6PM, which would be good. I just wanted to make sure you had a LiFE charger... no need to give something new a chance to smoke
Thanks Clark, what I might do is leave on the current SS and work on the foam version after Nats this year. Here is the charger I have used for the Iron Duke: http://www.batteryspace.com/Smart-Charger-6.0A-for-3.2V-1cells-LiFePO4-Battery-Pack-100-240VAC-CE.aspx
Lou, I'm sending you the plans I have of Juneau (Atlanta class). Hope they help. One does a reasonably nice breakdown of the SS. I also typed in (before I thought to send the plans) the distances for the turrets.
I only have the pictures of it as it was sent to me when I bought it, and its stuffed in the garage, somewhere. I have two super structures with mine, one made out of styrene which looks really nice, and the other is made out of low density foam, which looks like s*** but it doesn't make the boat top heavy. I have it setup to use a 3.5oz co2 bottle with a palmer's pursuit stabilizer (0-300psi). There is a traxxas mini servo on the rudder with one arm (good thing you don't like it, because it doesn't work that well, I would suggest trying gears, or gears & chain). I use a single 40A proboat ESC to drive two 380 motors, which in turn, drive two 1" 4b low pitch props. I believe there was a bc pump in it with a 380 motor, also driven by a 40A proboat ESC. A single traxxas servo is used to hit the poppet which fired the 75bb cannon.
This is a shot of the current state of the boat. Decks are on and primed. In this shot you can see how the three decks work together for a water tight seal. The subdeck is constructed as any normal deck, I use two pieces of 1/32 decking to set the level relative to the top of the hull. Then the second deck is cut (using scissors) so that one side has a 1/4 inch side and the other is 1/2 inch. The top deck is then cut the opposite, this way the one side has a "lip" (you can see it in the picture as the red lip. The other side is held on by the magnets, which will get hidden by deck superstructure. The deck installed on the ship, note the tight tolerance. Blast shield made out of lightweight lexan, the cloudy look is from the protective covering. This will be removed later. Had to think about this for a long time, how to attach the shield to the hull so that the mounting points will not get shot off and how to keep the bb's from going through the ship. Finally settled on brass inserts and 4/40 ss screws that are fiber glassed into the subdeck and cap rail. There is one every other rib to keep down on weight. I will drill through the lexan and leave a little "play" so that the energy from the bb can be absorbed, at the bottom of the shield I will place a few blocks to keep the bb from going underneath. Still have to clean it up from this picture, wanted to show a shot of the process. In the extreme bow I put a 1/32 fiberglass board that is epoxied to prevent through and through shots. The blast shield will also cover this area, but more is good in this case.
Clark, thanks for the information. It just further proves that I need to get a set of plans of the Atlanta (I like the wing turrets), I believe the current SS is off. Checking the web now for sources.
Plans are on order from the Floating Drydock. Clark, did find this picture that shows a difference in turret height compared to the plans you were able to send, so there were differences in this class of ship.
Installed the blast shields, just had to add two more mounting points where the material overlapped. Now I need to wait for the batteries to get here on Friday so I can layout the internals and get the boat balanced. I did a preliminary weighing and I look to be around 8 pounds. That gives me 1 pound to play with, better if I can keep it around 8.5. UPS brought me a new radio, the receiver is tiny and perfect for this ship. Debating on a WTC (water tight cylinder) like the submarine guys use, or pot it in epoxy. This will be decided after I weight everything this weekend.
I epoxy-pot all my receivers, since that ugly incident in 2004 where it got wet and then fried, when the WT box failed. Of course, that was in the same deep pond that we had the 2006 Nats at. Mercifully, the water was crystal clear for that battle But especially with my fetish for small craft, I've potted the receivers because I don't have room for WTBs or cylinders.
As I am watching weight on this build, the inside is done except for hold downs for the internals. Applied silkspan and sheeted both sides of the hull, will paint tomorrow night in the dark blue color. Superstructure will be the cool mottled look when she was lost. Question, what is the lightest weight regulator that is available to us? I currently have the strike adjustable model.
I believe that the Palmer's rock the boat is slightly lighter than the Strike adjustable, but the same as the old style Strike fixed. Either way it is a matter of a few grams I think.
I've been using the Clippard mouse valves (rated to 300psi), but they require 12V to fire reliably at 140# (in my testing). So for your application probably not the best, since you'd have the weight of a small 12V battery added in. Although with LiPO, that would be fractions of ounces.
