gato class submarine 12 foot long 1/25 scale

[john robinson]

this is my entry in to the competition

[john robinson]

here is two pics of the hull after it had been made 24 years ago




here is a shot of the bow after having the torpedo holes cut to shape




this picture is of the coning tower that i made from scratch with plastic card sorry adout the picture quality as is a very old photo its as old as my son




here is a picture of the sub with the coning tower on the beck and the beck on the sub notice all of the holes have been done and the spraying and railngs need doing still




this picture shows me starting to put rails on the boat eg on the back of the coning tower and also finishing the decking





here is the deck cannon that was made out of brass aswell as stainless steel and it fires .22 blanks this is a picture be for it got sprayed and fitted to the sub !




and in this pic you have guess it the cannon is on the sub :wink:






here is the frount hydroplanes on the sub they have just been made at this point and are awaiting to be sprayed





this is the hydro planes sprayed fitted and fully working




this pic i have tuck the deck of the boat it has been fully sprayed and all of the railings and all the little extras that add detail to it are all finished




here is a pic of one of the haches there are three all together i have put links to youtube at the bottem if people are intrested in seeing how the beast works





this video you can see the full detail that has gone into the sub here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Cx2wZ38zk

and the other two links are all the electronic parts of the boat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmPEnRv5wWM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhMnBbQYSnE

happy viewing people Scuba Diving

[Anuci]

Hello John,

In my opinion, your Gato submarine which you had started 24 years ago, and from my understanding have continued to build onto is definitely a work of genius. Your abilities as a craftsman and the ingenuity placed into the build is second to none. You certainly have made this competition all that more interesting, and I'm simply happy to see you have taken the time to share your photo's of yester-year with us all .

Best Regards
Al,

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

So, John: What have you done recently on this work-in-progress?

David

[john robinson]

HI Al
I would like to say thank you very much for the compliments on the sub its nice when some body appreciates it, the sub has spent 18 years in a trailer and didn't bothered with it the last time that i took it out local students was throwing stones at it and i said i would never take it out again but i hope to take it out next year
All the best John Robinson in the UK

[john robinson]

HI David
You asked what work was in progress well where do i start first when i took the sub out of the trailer it had been in there for 18 years and never touched. When i took hatches off the sub all the gel type battery's had split and through acid every where what a mess it was. So i have spent the last year and half redesigning quite a bit of the electronics in side of the sub .
Now to the good bits one of the units that is to go inside of the sub is what the call a OSD unit standing for on screen display and what this unit does when you have live video picture coming back from the sub it super imposes on to the video picture one of the things is compass heading, real time info, also displays voltage of battery's temps inside of sub, depth of sub in the water, this unit can also be linked to auto pilot which has got to be built yet which means you will be able to set way points so it will do a presset course sub can be programmed to what depth you won't it to be at
Just put in a few weeks ago software controlled differential throttle control and has also got tank steering for better turning on the surface
Have been working on radio links for under water where as TX Ariel is in the water as most of the loses of RF signal happen when going through air to water radio waves skip off the water. The 27MHZ for contolling the sub the TX Ariel is in the water have been testing system and with TX and RX Ariels in the water distance was about 500ft was receiving very strong signal on reviver and distance could have been doubled that and was knocking out low RF in to water. Also have been working on low frequency for under water have got that all working just need to do range test under water. Have been designing low frequency video link for under water, as you have probably guest that i worked in RF electronics for many years ALL THE BEST JOHN

[john robinson]

here are a couple of picture of a auto antenna tuner software controlled for the radio link to the boat









also this other picture is of the swr - power meter for checking atu matching of the antenna for the sub

[john robinson]

Gato's torpedoes...at over 12" in length and packed full of nasty stuff that goes bang, you don't want to get in the way of these... torpedoes run on electric motors and will be fired out with compressed air hope to have them fitted later in the new year

[john robinson]

this pictures are of the low frequency radio link for the sub with a power meter to the right hand side of the pic giving out adout 15 watts of RF because it is lf the range under water will be greater than that of a higher frequency plus the tx areil will be in the water ariels have taken a long time to design

[Scott T]

You mentioned that most radio signal is lost bouncing off surface of water. Would signal
strength benifit from a signal booster that floats in the water, recieves the air bound
signal and re-transmitts it out on a underwater transmitter?

Scott

Also your work on the submarine is very impressive!

[Subculture]

That's quite a transmitter, matches the scale of the rest of the boat.

[john robinson]

HI Scott, Thanks for comments on sub, problem is with what you are surgesting you would have to set up a thing called a repeater so you could go in at one frequency and come out at another as you can not have the same frequency going in as coming out,the thing is Scott the transmitting Ariel for controlling the sub sits on a float pointing vertical down it does make a lot of difference to range for controlling the sub also has a low frequency video link that i have been doing TX Ariel will be in the water on the sub i can switch between 27MHZ and LF which is low frequency both these systems have a thing called a ATU which is soft ware controlled and brings the Ariel in the water tuned to be in the water. Unit can remember 100's of settings for different ANTENNA'S to be in the water or out of the water
All the best John in UK

[john robinson]

HI SUB CULTURE,
Yes TX unit for sub is quite big even the bits that you saw on the bench you did not see all the gear that plugs into it,
Link that you posted for sub dive-in event the pool looks super and really clear water ideal for videoing subs under water, won't to try and come to some of the shows next year 2012
All the best John

[john robinson]

picture of atenner matcher software controlled






this picture is the otherside of the atu unit





picture of the swr power meter digital

[john robinson]

these are pictures of working torpedoes they explode on impact and are reusable hope to fit these to the sub early next year please please please put all your boats in the water i need target practice The Titanic







these torpedoes are 12 inches long and almost a inch wide