Update: Firing board issue should be resolved tonight. For the turnigy switch, I verified continuity to ground between the switch and the negative side of the relay control power (one battery set up). I'm using the gear channel on a dx6i, with the throw at +/- 100%, and I verified the channel is good by hooking up a servo to the channel. The switch I have is jumpered to fail off, and it's potted in epoxy. I swapped it out for a switch that is jumpered to Fail on, and it started the pump but also would not change state (wouldn't turn the pump off). Has anyone seen this before?
I am using the Turnigy switch to a relay for my pump switch. I am up to switch number 3. NOT happy with this arrangement. I will be looking for an alternate to the Turnigy switch before the next battle.
The boards that Battlers Connection carries are great. They are easy to hookup and are very solid. I have also used the pololu switches to run pump relays and they are also very good... and very low cost.
Thanks Johnny, as soon as I looked up the pololu switches I realized that I picked up a few a couple of months ago on a servo city order (I think). I wired up one of the switches and got the pump to work on the second try (first try was a fail because I didn't realize the switch interrupted the negative to ground connection vice the positive side). Skotchkote is drying on the replacement firing board and the new pump switch board. For those who haven't checked out the pololu switches, they cost around $7.50 which is probably cheaper than any alternative. Here are some pictures of work over the past few days. Two solenoids for the bow sidemounts, there's an o-ring between them for a compact set up. The gun test switches, small pieces of polycarb to space them out a bit.I got the wiring arrangement from something Chris Pearce wrote up many years ago when the rest of the hobby started using solenoids. I decided to put the test switches on the forward cross member, it was the best option I could think of based on the other constraints (Access to batteries and CO2 tank valve which will go centerline between the batteries). The rats nest complete, easy to follow right? This is my first time with solenoids haha, definitely not pretty. The final picture hot off the press from 30 min ago, with some alligator clips to test out the pump switch. I made up the actual wire I needed right after this. The next steps will be to get a couple more coats of skotchkote on two of the boards, and probably pull everything out to put the CO2 fittings together with sealant and pot the ESC's. From there I might try to do some final epoxy work in the boat (bottle neck holder, battery holders) and start moving towards getting the sides on (ram guard wire and internal armor, then put the wiring back in and clean up the tangled mess a bit).
Haven't updated for a while, work is in progress. I'm having issues with some spartan solenoids, which I hope are operator error! Ok, so they are 12V nominal solenoids, hooked up as shown. The solenoids clicks when the system is depressurized, but won't actuate at 150psi. I have tried it on a few of this style, none work. Ive been using a 4S LiFe zippy pack with a microswitch test set up. Things I have tried 1) Swapping inlet and outlet ports. I think the arrangement as shown is correct, the other direction lets air through 2) Swapping polarity of the leads and the diode, no change 3) At lower pressure - as the bottle was running out of juice the solenoid fired at around 40-80 psi. As a dumb-dumb check, the solenoid says 60PSI on the side, which could be the issue though other spartan solenoids that i have which say 60 psi work at 150. One of the solenoids will fire every 4-5 times, where it lets out a little amount of air the first 3-4 times, then fully actuates. Any suggestions would be great, trying to get this thing finished. Kevin
Does it work with a freshly charged battery? Are these new solenoids or have you used them before and they worked fine in a different boat? Can you test with a 150psi solenoid? Can you open it up and clean the inside, maybe you have some crud in there gumming it up? To me it really sounds like this particular solenoid doesn't like 150 psi. You're using it at almost 300% the rated pressure, just because some CAN work at 150psi doesn't mean that they all WILL work at 150psi, that's the price you might be paying. Manufacturing tolerances and all that. Clippard solenoids had a similar issue a while back, their old 12V solenoids ran fine ok on 6V but then they changed something and while the new ones still worked great at 12V they didn't work at 6V anymore.
My Spartan valves are labled for 200 psi at 12 volts, and work fine. I would be willing to guess that the oriface and coil are sized for 60 psi. They are easy to take apart so you may be able to figure this out just by looking at the parts in the valve bodies.
1. like your troubleshooting. 2. agree w Chris, try another solenoid to be sure. 3. Ditto Carl. I checked and have some 6V and 12V Spartans and all are rated 200 psi. u may have the wrong spec solenoid. sigh.
Thanks for the replys, looks like it's the issue from using a 60 psi solenoid at 150 psi. I'm going to try a little more voltage tomorrow, but I have 4 solenoids that do (for now) work at 150 so the boat could still be operational by this weekend (pending the other work). Based on the Spartan specs their 2.4 mm and smaller versions are rated for 200 psi, while the 3.0 mm orifice is only 60 psi. They are all new solenoids, tested at 13.3ish V. Unfortunately this is my first solenoid boat so I don't have other valves to swap in. Does anyone have a source for solenoids? The Rivadavia is ready and willing to run another weekend I hope. The old MAG throttle servo died in Statesboro, so the boat has an ESC now with a 1.9" kort prop makes it perform significantly better.
Yeah. using the powerpoles, you could try giving them 6s and see if they will function. can't guarantee results obviously. then again, Carl has been using 6v solenoids on 12 v for decades.
Unfortunately battling has gotten in way of the build thread. Since the last full update in August, here's a summary of the progress I've made. Here's the pump mount/hold down. I have never used one of these, but the Titan motor requires restraints. I used the pet-resistant door screen for internal armor The CO2 system going in. I had to sub out the expansion tanks I made because the soldering was poor and they had leaks. I plan to replace the clipboard hose with the thin-wall higher pressure hose from McMaster. For the bow side mounts. Now with the wires installed, but not wire-tied or organized. I sheeted the boat late before the hagerstown battle. Used contact cement. I put it in the water at hagerstown as an initial sea trials. The main issue was that the boat did not turn, to an extent that it was not battle worthy. The boat also cavitated significantly, which was expected based on the way I had to cut into the hull to fit bigger props. Here is a side shot of the props and rudder, which clearly were not close enough together. The plan was to make a new rudder to get the leading edge up against the props I also had to grind away some fiberglass to improve water flow to the props to stop the cavitation. Here you can see how the hull was blanketing the water flow to the props. So it was cut away. I also made the new rudder. Note: if the rudder looks small, vote YES for the rudder rule proposal in the IRC. And underhull shot Still not ideal, but given the size of the props I thought it was the best I could do. I finished the middle deck section after a 2+ month pause. The Strike foam superstructure will sit in there and serve as a float (or so I plan). I got the boat back in the water last weekend. It performed better, still not very good in the turns. And underway. Next I glued magnets and set the T's on the guns. I've found that putting the magnets below the level of the magazine helps stop multi-bb shots. Planning on a lot of work this weekend, the final push!
The boat made it out to battle this past weekend in Tennessee, now its time to catch up on the build thread. Since the last update, the next thing I did was make dummy barrels, finish mounting guns, and then paint the boat. Here is the polycarb I used to aim the stern guns together. It came out rough, and will probably be redone this winter Next task was painting. I decided to spray paint the whole boat, and I was happy with how it came out And the final product, pre water line, with the turrets sitting on the guns I cut out an aluminum angle piece to help aim the stern guns. Generally I try to avoid things like this, but in the end I dont think it looked that bad Now time to route hoses to the guns. My first plan was to route two 1/16" hoses to the guns, one to the breech and one to the tee. This ended up being a lot of hose. After poor initial testing (and due to time constraints) I decided to change the setup to my traditional arrangement, with one 1/16" hose to the tee, and then split the return air from the tee to both the breech and the end of the magazine. This was the best configuration using one 1/16" hose when I tested different arrangements 5 years ago. There are now probably better ways to route hoses to the guns, which I may pursue over the off season. Next I put in the anchors for the float line, by putting small bolts through the hull and subdeck and using a 3/32" line. I always try to sink close to shore, but I feel pretty good with how my float arrangement worked out. At some point I put screen on the pump. I cut small pieces of aluminum to keep the screen from being able to go flush against the inlet hole. I have found that this generally works, though there are some better methods out there to do this. During the debate last week I put together the Strike foam superstructure. I lost a piece at some point over the past few months which is why there is a rough piece in the middle. I spray painted it late that night, as the next morning I was planning to drive to Tennessee. The turrets were also mounted at this point, using a brass tube glued to the inner side of the barbette. Here is the spool I made for the float. The spool is attached to the bottom of the float, and should unravel the line as the float goes to the surface. When the boat sank at the battle, the float did deploy which was pretty cool. And the other side of the foam. This side was then glued to the plastic at the base of the superstructure to hold the whole thing together Now more shots of the boat complete, more or less Living in an apartment building makes loading the car for a battle a bit of a hassle. Here is the boat with the backup, the Rivadavia Now for some shots on the water Unfortunately I had to use the backup boat for the first day, as the 60 psi solenoids that had worked on the bench in 75 degrees temperature didn't work as well outside at around 50 degrees. I swapped them all out for the refrigerator solenoids I picked up from another member at Hagerstown, and those worked much better. I was able to battle the boat on the second day, though I had issues getting all of the guns to fire consistently. At least two of the stern guns will have to be replaced based on the T alignment. The haymaker was the most reliable gun, and sometimes the only gun I had working on the boat. The bow sidemount I ran had issues with tweaking, likely because I did a poor job of milling out the breech for the Foster-style breech. This gun will have to be worked over the winter. I also think I need to pick up new gun o-rings, as the orings I have are about 5 years old and have hardened slightly. The temperatures were significantly lower than normal battling, ranging from low 40's to 60's, so I might try some other o-ring materials. I also had issues with one of the ESC's. About half way through the first day I battled the boat one of the ESC's lost throttle signal (based on the beeping I think that was the issue). I checked the connection to the Y-harness and even soldered the lead to the harness to no avail. The harness itself could be bad, though it is a new harness and hasn't been under stress really. I thought if the ESC failed, it would fail completely, vice just lose signal. Anyways, the result was that I drove around on one prop for some sorties (based on not adequately prepping a spare ESC). Has anyone else seen the Hobbyking 100A brushless car ESC w/ reverse have this issue? And some very nice action shots from the last day of battle. And some tugboat duty It did sink during the last 3-sortie battle we had on Saturday, with 104-19-44. There were some big holes which I think contributed, and I think the boat could probably take more belows if there were no large holes. Overall I think the boat did OK in battle. I will still need to work on turning, maybe to include switching back to slightly smaller props. Hopefully the rudder rule change for the IRC will pass, which should significantly help. Plans for the winter will be to get the guns working reliably, make a new rudder, maybe add some weight to the boat, and get the rotate functional by making a robust pivot mount so it can ride over the aft turret. I am definitely happy with how the boat turned out for initial trials.
Brouhaha prep is underway. List of things to do: 1) larger rudder 2) replace 2 stern guns based on preexisting T deficiencies 3) replace faulty ESC 4) potentially replace bow side mount breach 5) replace final solenoid 6) test all guns 7) maybe attempt to get rotate working (pending completion of 1-6) 8) minor superficial prep Should have plenty of time this coming week and next weekend to get it done
Yes, I'll have to get everything set up this coming week but looks like it should be a go. Just singed up (and renewed my NAMBA immediately following)
So I did some things on this boat over the past few months to fix the list of weak areas I found at the battles I used this boat at (bob's method for not sucking). Unfortunately I didn't get a ton of pictures, but I can summarize. But first, a battle damage photo from the Tennessee battle this spring. The chewed up balsa didn't fair well, so that whole panel was blown in. I moved the pump outlet to a through-deck rim style that i used on the Missouri, the goal was to remove the 90 degree elbow I had in the discharge line (the k was huuugggeee for the fluids types), and allow for enough hose after the restrictor to provide a firehose output, while not violating the pump stream angle rule. I cut away a slot in the deck rim, and epoxied a brass tube to guide the hose out, then cut it flush with the deck. Overall pleased with performance, the boat stayed up with 5 rams from dirty axis pig boats at Mings. You can see the outlet in the starboard rail of the deck rim Also in the pic, I changed the pump holder to my U plate style used on Seydlitz and missouri, I had to make one of the arms stumpy to still be able to get the pump out with the motor guards in place, so I added a tether around the motor to hold it in. Overall happy with results, kept the pump hose out of the way I made some wiring mods to standardize my connectors for pump relays, so I can swap between boats at will for pond side repairs I also made barrel holders for all the guns, my guns had been floppy, and no one likes floppy guns. I have generally avoided this in the past, but with the tools I have available it's a pretty decent method to use. Largest improvement was for the triples, I made the two brackets for the barrel rigid and loosened up the up tube mount I had tried to use before. I removed the rotate rig I installed since I did not feel like I could make a reliable system to rotate the haymaker over the aft turret, and it removed some interference when putting the deck on before battle The other main thing I changed was the aft accumulator tank arrangement. Previous arrangement was poor, with only two tanks, without check valves, for the triples (if I use them). The goal was to get 4 tanks, check valves on 3, and make a cleaner set up. I made tanks to get a size to fit in the real estate available, but I had to use an elbow on the gas supply lines in order to not interfere with the ESCs. I decided to stack them, similar to what I did on the Missouri for the bow sidemounts, but I didn't take the time to make a solid mounting plate, and instead opted for easy zip ties with the bottom tank secured via tank holder thing. Following Mings battle, where I had some solenoid issues, I decided to switch to BC solenoids that I had for one of my next projects. I got them installed today. I'm looking forward to testing them out Another view. Much cleaner layout then my first attempts
So. Question time!!! Since I'll be furloughed and such for however long, I'm going to jump in to layout on the Idaho as soon as I am home from vacation. What size prop did you finally settle on? Did you reconfigure your rudder post location when the IRC rudder rules changed? I know you like putting your rudder post close to the middle of the rudder itself, and from the picture it appears your original rudder has the post far forward. Do you happen to have a picture of the new rudder with regard to position, etc? How has the rudder size increase improved maneuver? does the new rudder cover the thrust cone of both props when hard over? Thanks!
