Update of progress from over the weekend. Aft guns are in, I will have to work harder to get the rotate to pivot the way I want it. I will also need to get creative to get the down angle desired without modifying the turrets significantly. It will probably need a little more clearance to get over the aft turret A few more shot of the sterns in position. And the mounts. Pretty simple, i've never been happy with how I mount the guns but in general they typically work fine Here is a shot of under the aft deck. Space is tight on the underside of the deck as the pump sits between the sprockets for the rotate. The pump outlet ends up going outboard of the rotate chain (which I did today), it will be tight but should work I decided to make a mold for fiberglass turrets, here is the plug (turrets from strike) And mold And end result. These turrets came out a lot cleaner than my previous ones on the Rivadavia, I think it was due to using West Systems epoxy vice polyester resin. I also put the bow guns together. I decided to try out the elbow-less model for down angle and removing the 90 degree turn for the bb. I made a gun like this on the Rivadavia and it didn't seem to fire as hard as my other guns, but they will still probably shoot hard enough. I will probably end up using the chrono once the boat is done to figure out if they will stay this way or get replaced. I would support a rule change to give the boat 7.5 units, I think a portion of the IRC would agree I also worked on the lowest level of the superstructure. The plan is to have 1/8" ply as the sides of the first layer, make the rest using the Strike foam stuff, and use it as a float. Pieces for the middle deck. I decided to number them since i would probably lose track A shipment from mcmaster came in, so I put the pump outlet together. The outlet is a convergent-divergent nozzle I machined from aluminum in college which I found to increase flow by 40% at that time. I bought the 1/4" nominal copper elbow (one end male, one female) which required drilling out the pump casing slightly but should give good flow, and finally I put sleeves on the outlet so it would fit in the vertical piece of copper pipe I think it will work, pump motor is the popular 12T Titan, which will run on 2S LiFe I also went overboard on pistons and made up some different designs. Most of the bodies are stainless steel, with a brass or SS washer as a base. I will probably put a 3/32" brass tube in the middle to make the hole 1/16" diameter vice 3/32" based on testing I did 5 years ago. They will be tested and I'll see which ones work Goal is to be at sea trials within 2ish weeks, I still need to buy the brushless drive setup and change out the motor mounts, I should move to internals shortly.
Sarcasm doesn't come through well via the internet. I was commenting on the number of guns on board the boat (6.5 - 7 units), and referencing some of the more radical rule proposals which were discussed before Nats in the IRC. I like the unit rules the way they are, the current layout will give me battle configuration options, and all guns would only be armed for ring of death
Work is still progressing, though I have been less productive recently than before NATS. I decided to make the accumulator tanks with direct 1/8npt connections to the solenoids (Spartans). I think it should work out. Here is the stern layout, the middle stern gun shares the accumulator with the haymaker. Battery plan is 2x zippy 4s 4200 mah packs for drive (one per motor) and 2x 20Ah bricks for the pump, CO2 bottle in the middle for turning. I shifted to an electrical box based on the internal layout, and the otter box-like object not fitting. I double waterproof the important stuff, so the receiver is ported in epoxy and will then go in the box I'm waiting for the brush less gear to show up, I ordered two 790kv turnigy out runners. What do people use for gearboxes for brush less motors? I have $$ 32 pitch gears and 3/16 drive shafts to install, I'll probably have to cut the bottom of the boat out to fit the gears.
My Bismarck has a AL gearbox that I hogged out of a chunk of AL, Carl achieved more or less the same result from a piece of AL Angle. If you are using 550 sized motors (brushed or brushless) I'm a big fan of the BC gearbox (GB500), I think you can get it without the gears (you used to be able to so I imagine you still can) and use the 32p gears you already have.
Thanks Chris, unfortunately I don't come across a milling machine too often now a days. I ended up picking up some of the Traxxas villain gearboxes which I think I can make work. I had to cut the bottom of the boat out since I didn't want to redo the drive shafts. The motors will now be about 2 inches further aft which still clears the stern guns They stick out from the bottom a bit, I'll dremel them down tomorrow then cover with a couple of layers of fiberglass. The brushless gear should arrive tomorrow as well
My order from prop shop arrived yesterday, so I will be putting on the highly controversial 1.7" korts. I ordered 1.6" korts as well, but they ended up shipping me an extra 1.7" prop instead of the matching 1.6" one. Here are the 1.7" next to the 1.5." After over an hour of dremel work I decided the gearboxes were faired close enough, then I covered them with a layer of mat and cloth Shipment from hobby king arrived as well, but it turns out that I wasn't paying attention when selecting motors and the motors I purchased had the fixed end on the back, opposite the end with the shaft sticking out. I have since ordered 900kv ntms which will hopefully arrive around Friday. I'm also torn about the water channeling, I made it 3/4" for a large portion of the length, so I'm thinking about grinding it down to 1/4" except in the bow and stern. Any thoughts? In the past, I never was happy with the amount of water needed for the pump to prime which led to making the channel taller, but I'm worried about stability with water on board. How much residual water is typical for a good pump, and what do you do to make it pump all of the water out before it loses suction/flow?
you can pull the motors apart, and turn the shaft around. had to do that for one I ordered the other month. Bit of an oops
Thanks Nick, I'll give the a shot. I fiberglassed over the water channeling today, I decided to leave the 3/4" section after calculating the volume of water to sink the boat, and I can always change it later. And after. I cut the epoxy with MEK since I had a full coat on already, I'll see how it turns out. The red tint is from the solo cup melting into the mix. Good stuff.
Work progressed on getting the new props on and getting the brushless motors in. To get the 1.7" props in I had to shorten the shafts and cut away the hull so they wouldn't interfere with each other. I cut through the hull at one point, so I had to glass it from the inside. I got the motors in place, with gears by the end of the day. I made a post on the propulsion form about the settings for the ESC (hobby king 100a car ESC), so if someone has the settings and wouldn't mind sharing I would appreciate it.
I've made progress on the radio box. I ended up going with a small electrical box due to my internal layout, so things are pretty tight. The box holds the potted receiver, a potted turnigy switch to drive the pump relay, and two strike firing boards which are now skotchkoted. As far as sealing up the wires, I ran them along the side of a box to increase the sealing surface area, it has worked well for me in the past. I didn't really plan the size of the hole out well enough so the wires were pretty jammed, in the past I actually measured before I cut it out instead of cutting for the size of the box. To seal it up I used the fast cure Marine 5200 sealant used on full size boats. I have been happy with it in the past, it is generally permanent but I don't foresee the need to change out any of the wires in the future (knock on wood). I was planning to use silicone this time but I couldn't find the tube when it was go time, and I found the 5200 quicker. I used a piece of polycarb on the outside. I will still drill and install a couple of 10-32 male-to-male fittings that I can install plugs in to allow draining the box if any water gets inside. I also tested out the brushless motors today and got them to spin. I will be potting the ESCs tomorrow if everything goes as planned. The next steps will be doing the remaining wiring, mounting solenoids and running air hoses.
I completed the wiring today, unfortunately only a partial success. The boat has 3 circuits, a 6V nominal circuit for the pump, and two 12V nominal circuits, primarily going to each motor, with one circuit providing control power to pump relay, solenoids, and BEC. I only had a short time to test things out so only minimal troubleshooting was conducted First issue - Turnigy Reciever Controlle Switch (). It is used for control power to the pump relay, no response today. The system uses a single battery (BEC from the ESC), and this was the first time i have tested it. I'm pretty sure the receiver channel is fine, so I'll check the channel first then verify wiring arrangement. Second issue - One of the strike boards for the solenoids appeared to be "stuck on" for one of the solenoids. One signal on the board worked fine, but the other signal was a constant 12V output. I was then a big dumb-dumb and shorted the board checking voltage, so the board will be replaced tomorrow. I need to verify the wiring arrangement as well, I didn't do a great job keeping track of 'inputs' and 'outputs' going through the side. I might have switched the input and output wires to the board which could have been my issue. Needless to say, continuity checks are due tomorrow and will be verified before further testing
on the turnigy switch it requires common ground with your RX. cant tell from your description of your setup if you have that.
