Revell Gato 1/72 - Newbie no more Part duex

[trout]

What lipogard are you running? The ones I have have a soft/pulse feature that limits the power to the motors so you can get it home and not kill the esc or lipos.

Alec,

This is the one I am using.

[trout]

The midnight run has not happened, yet. Crazy weekend filled with surprises and frustration! Surprise was from David - he shocked the heck out of me, David liked the connectors, more on that later. The frustration is there was more water in my battery compartment. It looks like the bulkhead seal between my dry chamber and ballast tank is the culprit. The o-ring contact surface area gets real thin at the bottom and may be allowing to water to seep in. There is no sign of wetness on the switch, valve, tube between bulkheads, or any sign of trickle down the face of the bulkheads. The debate in my head is tear it apart (and possibly open more areas for leaking) or do a quick fix and get sailing....... Plus the weather was cool and really windy

Anyway the test in the inflatable pool was FUN. I still had another adjustment to make (add a little more weight), but that SNORT really works great! And in the short distance going forward, I could get her to begin the dive! There are trapped air bubbles, need to see what I can do to fix that - what is the minimum size hole that allows air to freely come out? Is there such a thing? Good news - No troubles with the ESC!

The listing was not there this time, but on the initial filling of the ballast tank there is a momentary list - which now that I think about it, might be the torque tube. I have not sealed the end, gotta do that. So far I have not filled he emergency blow tank with Propel - probably should do that before pool trial. That will change the balance a little, yep more testing needed.

In the next couple of days, I will try to get posting pictures and MAYBE a video...... So stinkin' close!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

If you pull the forward ballast bulkhead, remove the o-ring, and tightly wrap anti-sieze tape around and over the o-ring groove, about four turns. Put the O-ring back in, and seat the bulkhead back into the cylinder.

Minimum vent hole size is 1/8". and bevel the hole from the inside and coat the bevel with a smidgion of grease to break surface tension.

Go get 'em, Tiger!

David

[trout]

Thank you for the hole size and tips.

What is anti-sieze tape and where do you get it? Is it the same as teflon tape?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Same..........

[trout]

Since my last posting, I was so hesitant to tear the bulkhead out and thought I could use RTV to seal the edges. That seemed real sloppy and lazy
*/Digression moment
When I was a kid and installed alarm systems, too many installers were silicon crazy. Instead of taking the time to do it right, they would slop silicon to attach a contact and leave a mess.
End of Digression */
so I went ahead removed the screws and pushed the forward ballast bulkhead out. Not so bad. Removed the o-ring, wrapped the channel with four layers of teflon tape and put a new o-ring on, greased up the o-ring, trimmed the tape and pushed it all back in. Fear of removing bulkhead gone. Placed the screws back in being very careful not to over tighten it. Once assembled, did a look over and CR*P the gap is worse!!! Do not panic, I again told myself (seems I tell myself that a lot with this build) and think this through. So pushing around the tube, if I placed my finger over the area with the gap there is a nice seal...... Backed off the neighboring screws. The first screw did not make a difference, but the second screw, when backed off the seal was made and even better than before. I tried a variety of ideas from loosening the opposite screws to shift the entire bulkhead down and tighten the bottom screws to flexing the tube and tighten the screw while holding the tube while good contact was made, all of it failed. The only thing was to back off that one screw. Conclusion, that screw (although lined up) must be flexing the tube possibly by the countersink being crooked. Whatever the reason, it was time to test and see. Here is the offending screw....

As I was assembling the sub, I had a thought, if this fails, I wonder how this will look like as a flying sub. I shuddered and decided to banish that thought!


My son wanted to assist in the testing, and I thought sure. He was thrilled to see it sitting in the water so proud. Looked at me and said “It floats” (like there was any doubt I thought). Time to dive.
As she began to sit low .... there was that list again. Sealing the torque tube did not solve the issue. I also thought that trapped air could cause this and possibly the snort tubes were trapping bubbles. So inspired by David, raised the snort plumbing. This was done prior to this test. So problem not fixed.



There is also the issue with trapped air in the bow and stern, that I have not addressed yet. I could do a Manfred and make the hatches open or raise as the sub submerges, but that would delay the open sea test and I do not want to do that yet. So I will have to ponder more.
I showed Sam the bubbles and he played, err tested, the systems. The emergency ballast did not work, but the releasing of air to dive does, so note, adjustment needed. Snort worked great, but again the Gato would list to one side????? What in the world? The only difference, as far as balance goes, was the filling of the gas saver. We could manually upright her, but each time we surfaced the same thing happened. After a many minutes of testing, time to take the sub out and check things over.

First, the battery area was dry!!!! Huge relief. Conclusion on listing.... I need to add more weight to the keel and re-trim her. The more weight I put in the keel and foam for balance, my thinking is, the harder it will be for small variances (like the gas saver) to throw her off, the disadvantage is it makes her slower to respond to turns. Please jump in and help me think this through.


I am really pleased with the new connectors.
The old ones would slip (red and blue thingies)

And I was playing with some holders to prevent slipping and disconnect. It was just getting more complicated.
Then I cam up with the new connectors. It fulfilled my two needs quick disconnect and not slip or disconnect in use.
Taking apart and assembly is really easy. The quick disconnect holds and does not separate. Here is a teaser and David has shared with me that he will be writing an article on it.



David has the rights to this idea and is going to incorporate them in upcoming connectors (An assumption on my part - David will have to share that info if he so desires)
(NOTE: The bottom two images are the new connectors I made instead of the red/blue magnets mentioned earlier)

[Anuci]

Your doing a fine job at problem solving, not bad for someone who built up the entire sub-driver from a kit. I'm sure you will have all the loose ends tied up before long now, and will be getting in some quality run time down at the pond.
POI, It may be a good idea to completely fill the bottle with gas as well as the ballast tank prior to making the final trim adjustments, this to help get a better feel for how you want the boat to set in the water. Just a thought!

Good sailing!
Al,

[trout]

Al, thank you so much for the encouraging words. That is a great suggestion about filling the tank completely and I will do that. So stinkin' close....My goal is this weekend the pool - big pool! then if that goes well....... a local pond, all will be filmed YIKES!

[trout]

Today was pool day......
Did a preliminary check.

There was a funny glitch initially, the system would not turn on, after fiddling with it for awhile, it started up......

all systems checked out (or so I thought)
It was time to launch.

She sat in the water with a list again. So I took her for a drive anyways. If I installed hydrofoils, I think I could get her keel off the water. This is fast and the sticks seem a little hot (can that be adjusted on the WFly?If so where?). A small bump and she wants to RUN! Turn radius is not too bad, but what do I know.
Well let's take her down..........down.........I said take her down.......funny she would not do that. So, time to bring her in.

Yep, that is my emergency crew ready to dive just in case there was a need. (Child labor laws? He was paid according to his experience)
Monday will be the next test.
When I opened up the sub there were a lot of red LEDs. So, I am guessing the sub would not dive because it was receiving a low battery alert. I did find one solder joint loose and re-soldered it, but in my tests my LiPo guard still does not show all cells charged (I have talked to Kevin and I need to take some voltage measurements - have not done that yet). The listing was most likely from the battery being on the WTC port side and not centered.
Monday.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Yeah, the WFly-8 transmitter will permit you to program the end-points of all functions. Throttle is channel-3. Set the ahead end-point to 30%, leave the astern end-point at 100%. Try that initially.

David

[trout]

Thank you - I will set that as soon as the batteries are charged. Everything is ready and waiting for batteries to charge. Last night or early this morning I found a solder joint that needed to be re-soldered - it was the very first solder joint I had made while building this sub.
Hopes are high for a successful run.

[trout]

Driving home head hung low.....need more positive ballast and it did the low battery shut down and my brand spanking new LiPo battery has a bulge.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Oh, man! .... I feel for ya, Tom.

We've all been there: the sea-trails that go on forever; the sense that each outing is one step forward, two steps back. Gut-check time, pal!

Pop a brueski, kick the cat, sit down, watch a movie, and leave the smoking heap on the bench for a few days. (But, don't neglect to perform the post-mission checks and steps as soon as you got it home).

Are you shorting that battery through your switch-harness? Is anything in there getting particularly hot? Something in there's sucking the life out of that Lipo battery.

David

[trout]

David,
The adjustment to the throttle was a great suggestion, thank you. I do not think I can take a break. Here is video I put together.....

I gotta figure this out..... Any tips or trouble shooting tips you can offer chime in!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

You still have life in that battery. Charge it up, turn the system on, and put your mitts on everything that passes current. Anything particularly hot?