New project - Neptune - a fantasy boat project

[DrSchmidt]

And done:

[DrSchmidt]

Found some time during the last weeks to make some moulds......

[greenman407]

So you have a problem with time also, seems Universal. Beautiful work. The WTC looks fantastic! First rate.

[Albion]

Is that the Engel BTS and pressure switch you are using? Where did your final pressure switch come from?

[DrSchmidt]

The electronics is comparable to the Engel BTS but I got it from Norbert Brüggen (http://modelluboot.de/) together with the whole ballast system. The switch I got from a German online electronic vendor called Conrad Electronics, because the Brüggen one was too big for my purposes.

[DrSchmidt]

I haven’t been lazy building, just lazy making photos of the build. Therefore, without many intermediate steps the current status of the Neptun build, my little fantasy boat.

The moulds are done and I laminated the first set of grp parts from the first boat. The rest is a bit of resin and 3D-printed parts. The prop is from the Prop Shop:










Neat little boat. Just the lower rudder is missing in the pictures.

The deck is removable. The WTC ha progresses quite far:



The rear part of the WTC is locked into two horizontal pins, which are glued into a grp bulkhead. Similar but vertical pins lock the deck into place:



The bow section of the WTC is secured with a single M$ screw. Right in the front an additional vertical pin for the deck positioning:


The stern tube was installed within 5 minutes:



1,5 mm thick grp sheets provide additional alignment of the deck. The bulkhead in the bow section will hold the watertight servo for the bow planes:



Thanks to 3d-printed parts from Shapeways the interfaces between the planes and the hull are perfect without the need for filling and grinding:

[DrSchmidt]

Same for the bow planes:



The sail is modern and simple:

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

A good, sound design. And executed with your usual precision and rational. Don't know about the full-flying stern planes -- a bit much, me thinks. And it's been my experience that those 'water-tight' servos ... ain't!

David

[DrSchmidt]

What do you mean about "full flying stern planes"? And with respect to the servo....well, I did some research on the net and found some good feedback on SAVOX servos. So I'll give it an try.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

What do you mean about "full flying stern planes"? And with respect to the servo....well, I did some research on the net and found some good feedback on SAVOX servos. So I'll give it an try.

On full-scale, combat submarines you just don't see entire surfaces dedicated to pitch control (other than X-tails). Convention is a split between fixed stabilizer and movable stern plane. A variation is the Nautilus where you see the fixed horizontal stabilizers integrated into the stern tubes, with the stern planes just aft of the screws.

But, this is a 'fantasy' submarine, so it's your call, Andreas.

David

[DrSchmidt]

You are right. The rough dimensions were taken from this plan: http://www.heiszwolf.com/subs/plans/Preveze_class.jpg
Stern planes with stabilizers.....I guess I went for simplicity here. I also skipped the stabilizer or guard on the lower rudder.

[DrSchmidt]

After a few months break I used the warm weather to put 2 component primer on the boat. Wet grinding with 600 grade sandpaper and now I'm adding weldlines using Archer Fine transfer surface details. I'll also add some scribed lines and hatches.

[DrSchmidt]

Photobucket changed their terms and now don't support 3rd party hosting for free users anymore. I guess, I'm not the only one affected. Nevertheless, all pics can be found here:

http://s1262.photobucket.com/user/MaschinenMusik/library/Neptune?sort=9&page=1

[DrSchmidt]

So after a while I'm back working on this boat. It was pretty much done when I stopped, but looking at it today, I don't like the original ballast system anymore. It's based on a rubber sack that is filled and emptied by a peristaltic pump. When the sack is full the pressure in the feed line rises, triggering a pressure switch which then switches off the pump. Nice system, but well, I don't like the sack.

So I decided to replace the sack by a 3D-printed tank that vents into the wtc. Now how do we switch off the pump? There are two ways and I'm going to try both. First method is to utilize a float switch. There are tiny ones available for little money. I printed a housing for it and installed it behind the motor. When the tank is full, the housing of the float switch is flooded, the switch is toggled and the pump gets shut of. In addition I installed two gold pins that act as a water sensor. Same effect...shuts off the pump. Second method will be to close the tank by one of David Meriman's neat little float valves and again to shut off the pump by a pressure switch.













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[DrSchmidt]

The pressure switch is works differentially - it senses the pressuer difference beween two points, in my case the inside of the wtc and the inside of the tank. When the tank fills, the air moves freely into the wtc and both tank and wtc pressure are the same. When the tank is full, the valve shuts off the tank, but the pump tries to force additional water into the tank. The tank pressure rises above the wtc pressure shutting the pum off. Norbert Bruggens way of doing things....