My first RC sub... The Moebius Seaview

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

That went way, way too smoothly, Alec. Likely your next move will result in the Atmospher catching fire, killing us all horribly. Gee ... thanks!

David

[alad61]

That went way, way too smoothly, Alec. Likely your next move will result in the Atmospher catching fire, killing us all horribly. Gee ... thanks!

David

Nah... my Seaview will fire off a missile, extinquish the fire and save us all..! ;)

[alad61]

That went way, way too smoothly, Alec. Likely your next move will result in the Atmospher catching fire, killing us all horribly. Gee ... thanks!

David

Well not so smoothly...And at least the sky never caught fire...

On Saturday it threw a drive shaft again and I am still having to plug in the adf after the tx and rx are switched on so I took it out of the system all together and reset the fail-safe on the rx unit for the ballast emergency gas... But on the plus side both motors ran well. So on Saturday arvo and into the night I rebuilt the pump jet shafts to take out again on Sunday. Oh and I should also mention that having the lipos fully charged at a reduced capacity still sent the motors into overdrive with or without the remote. Once they fell below 8v they were fine??.

Now as for Sunday. Sandy went to rehearsals and left me to my own devises so after doing another complete check on the sd and model it was off to the local lake/pond. Neglecting our dog, Jack, who I was supposed to take for a walk. I know I got over it as I have to say it was a successful couple of hours in the water. My first run was a bit dodgy on my diving attempts and I did have to add some extra foam in the fs bay but with the new pump jet shafts and motors I had a blast and I didn't have to get wet either!! Though my piloting skills with the remote are still a bit shaky, so there was still the odd unladylike broach of fin & rudder. I am thinking I may need to increase the forward planes rise angle a bit more to stop her nosing in as much. I certainly know it doesn't need much on the plane to drive her down. Even with the bow and sail planes on full rise she still wants to drive the bow down when under 3/4 to full throttle. The other thing I did that helped me with control was wind back the epa on the throttle stick for forward and reverse. These I'll increase as I gain more experience on the stick with it. I also took my little camera up with me and set it up on a tripod for convenience, out of the hour and a half of footage I was able to get about 5-10 minutes of some useful stuff that I edited down to this that I put on my you-tube channel.

http://youtu.be/6OJwk_Zg2Lo

I'm pleased to say the only sign of moisture in the sd dry areas was some condensation at the motor bulk head end after the first hour play time. I am guessing this is normal but I will monitor it anyway. I also found that even with the ballast vent fully open it doesn't want to dive down but if I roll it over and flood the tank manually and then run it as I do in the video she glides under smoothly and at times steeply!! I would really like to run it in clear water so I could see how it works and responds. Not to mention help my learning curve on the tx too.

So I can now officially say that I have achieved a successful assembly of the model along with fulfilling a child hood dream. Thanks to Caswells and David for designing the rc running kit & sd.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

But, I did detect a slight flicker in the Van Allen belt about the time you put to sea. You're ****ing off the Gods of charged particles, Alec. Stop it!

Watched both of your recent videos and must comment how much Mike, I and the other suppliers are that you've made the effort and spent the time to identify sources of goods and assistance. Attribution is an important element in any group game. Thank you for that...

... And it's Merriman, not Merryman DAMIT! The name's gay enough without your help, pal! (What the hell were my ancestor's thinking, anyway?!). Any idea how fun it was, at morning muster, to answer to that name for over twenty *** years!? DO YOU!!??????

What's that about the motors running away? Explain further, please. What kind of receiver you got in there, by the way? And using the end-point-adjustment on a computer radio is a god-send to us. I typically set the throttle, ahead and astern, to 50% each.

What luck are you having getting that ADF up and working properly? A vital piece of gear -- as you well know now that you've driven a model submarine submerged without any form of autonomous control of the vehicles pitch-angle.

Are you trapping air in the superstructure and sail or are you failing to get all the air/gas out of the SD's ballast tank with the vent valve open? With the former, punch more holes into the styrene . If the later, spray some Pam or other spray lubricant onto the inside top of the tank through one of the open holes in the bottom of SD. Also, put a drop of oil atop the rubber element of the vent valve each time you have the opportunity. Holes less than 1/8" diameter are useless, by the way, when they get wet. Bevel them from the inside to reduce the area of the hole around its perimeter, and grease around the hole from the inside to break surface-tension.

An inherent problem with the SEAVIEW is her want to plow under. It's that shovel-shaped bow! Did you put that set of auxiliary vanes in the ass-end of the propulsion tubes to vector some of the thrust to 'rise'? Not an option on this boat, it's a must!

Any fogging (no water droplets, just fog) is bad. Just a very low value of 'bad'. Wa-wa is a no-no and demands a complete examination, identification of source, and fix. But, a little fogging, as you described it, Alec is OK ... just as long as you perform the post-mission checks and operations at the end of the day, all is good. Never put a SD to bed with the motor bulkhead and forward bulkhead made up to the cylinder -- the moisture in there will eat things alive!

All kidding aside, Alec. Your video and WIP thread has been instructive to me, Mike and all who are interested and have followed your exploits. Thanks for that, pal. And a well assembled, painted, and detailed model kit you got there. Very good work.

When you got home, did Jack leave you a 'gift'?

David,

[MFR1964]

Alec,

Nice vid and concratulations on your run, you will learn in time to tame the beast, one step at the time, keep up the good work.

Greetings Manfred.

[alad61]

Thanks gentlemen. Firstly David I am sincerely sorry for not picking that up at the beginning. Talk about being a dumb-ass. Short of deleting and redoing the videos I posted a comment on each one apologizing for the mistake. I would like to run it with the adf but I'm more worried about the glitch it has happening when it's on patrol rather than having to plug it onto the receiver each time. Besides I reckon learning to drive the sub effectively without it for me is like getting your license learning on a manual stick shift. You may end up driving automatics but at least you know how to drive a manual if you have too.

There were no droplets in the engine space just a foggy condensation which I think is just from the heat of the motors reacting with the cooler air in the sd from the surrounding water in the sub. All I did was open it up dry it out and let the motors cool as I ran my target on the pond for a bit before loading up the second battery for another run.

[trout]

Very good video and editing, and the sub looked great! congratulations!

[alad61]

David regarding the receiver it's a corona 36mhz synthesized unit. The thing is though that the same thing happened with the JR receiver I have as well.

As the video shows the transmitter is on sitting there and the motors are at full throttle...
Here is what happens when I run a full lipo charged to capacity...
1/ the lipo guard light stays on rather than flash the No of cells
2/ the motors kick in and ramp up very quickly
3/ It only shows a very very brief reduction in the motors when try to use the transmitter
4 the motors will run independently of the transmitter.
As a double check, I recharged the lipo pack at full capacity and then using the charger discharged them down to 7.99v, plugged it into the sd and everything worked as it should. Also just to be sure I plugged in a 6pk of AA 1.2 Nimh 2450mah in each cell and every thing seemed ok. I know lipos are the new tech in batteries but I may yet fall back on the AA rechargeable pack and re trim the boat.

this a picture of the condensation and it's location. I checked over the sd at home on the bench and it all looked good. In fact the area I thought I would have issues with re leaks was as dry as a desert.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

OK. Good summation. Stuff I can get my teeth into.

I suspect that your Corona receiver is not selective enough to reject motor noise and such and is getting into a regenerative noise response-build situation. It's that or the receiver is misbehaving in concert with the next likely problem:

Your ESC has to be re-set to your transmitter, channel-3 end-points. Go through the ESC set-up protocol again and see if that solves the motor over-speed problem.

I know you can't use the Sombra Lab's receivers -- too bad, the SD system was designed around the attributes of the Sombra receivers; they permit the tight packaging of all devices on and around the motor bulkhead. You may have to arrange things in there to put the receiver up against the after ballast bulkhead. As signal attenuation is a function of the inverse/square law, just a bit of distancing of the receiver from the motors and such will greatly reduce the 'noise' the receiver is subject too.

Now as to the fogging. The leak may be in the LPB pump casing or your internal plumbing. Take the external induction and discharge hoses off their respective nipples. Hook up a hose in the test port (after removing the core-valve), dunk the SD in water, blow into the hose, and see if any bubbles come out one or both of the nipple openings. If so, you have a leak somewhere in the LPB sub-system. Fix it.

You used that limber-hole acid-etched panel kit! Neat. And just enough weathering to lend credibility to the display. You're a bit of a model builder, aren't you, Alec!?

[alad61]

Very good video and editing, and the sub looked great! congratulations!

Thanks Tom. You kind of need a lot of footage to edit down to something that resembles entertaining :)

David. As to jack leaving me a presant. The yard is full of gifts by the end of the week... lol

Now there is some things happening on the model front... I brushed some silicone dif oil on the inside of the limber holes & drilled in 2 additional holes at the aft end of the superstructre. Definatly not scale but I'll see how it goes next day out formoving out air. I also added some oil to the rubber as suggested. I'll repeat the process on the next outing. Not sure what "pam" is as a lubricant & I don't want to go spraying a mineral based lubricant on the lexan but I'll head off to one of the auto/engineering shops and check out hat they have.

Ok things I have done...
1: I reset the esc with no change...
2: I tested it with a new lipo gard... no change
3: took out the valve and added the hose then dunked the sd in the tub... the only air I saw coming out under pressure was from the motor shafts on the wet side ot the bulk head. Todayat the LHS I bought a tube of h/duty grease which I will squeeze around the motor shafts as an added measure. I don't really want to pull apart the motors etc from the bulkhead... but I may have to... I also redressed all the wiring so as lttle as possible is near the motors & power leads.

[alad61]

Very good video and editing, and the sub looked great! congratulations!

Thanks Tom. You kind of need a lot of footage to edit down to something that resembles entertaining :)

David. As to jack leaving me a presant. The yard is full of gifts by the end of the week... lol

Now there is some things happening on the model front... I brushed some silicone dif oil on the inside of the limber holes & drilled in 2 additional holes at the aft end of the superstructre. Definatly not scale but I'll see how it goes next day out formoving out air. I also added some oil to the rubber as suggested. I'll repeat the process on the next outing. Not sure what "pam" is as a lubricant & I don't want to go spraying a mineral based lubricant on the lexan but I'll head off to one of the auto/engineering shops and check out hat they have.

Ok things I have done...
1: I reset the esc with no change...
2: I tested it with a new lipo gard... no change
3: took out the valve and added the hose then dunked the sd in the tub... the only air I saw coming out under pressure was from the motor shafts on the wet side ot the bulk head. Todayat the LHS I bought a tube of h/duty grease which I will squeeze around the motor shafts as an added measure. I don't really want to pull apart the motors etc from the bulkhead... but I may have to... I also redressed all the wiring so as lttle as possible is near the motors & power leads.

[greenman407]

Good job on the construction and videos alad61

[alad61]

Thanks Greenman.

Well I got the new ecs installed and redressed everthing in the sd. I decided to run with a 7.2 nimh pack after all the glitches I had with lipos. So with all that done I took it out with the gato on Saturday and she behaved admirably. With a differant battery pack the nose is a bit lighter but as she shovels in under power it worked out well with her handling. In fact it made a huge differance to how it handled under water. I got shallower dives which gave me greater control and longer under water runs. I know lipos are the preffered batteries but the nimh packs gave me more play time than the tx battery. lol

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Excellent. Hey! ... whatever works, Alec!

Now you have two boats in your fleet. Fast work. Enjoy!

I'm working to put one of those tiny key-chain camera behind the clear windows of my Moebius SEAVIEW using a tic-tac case as Oxtrucker showed off a while back.

David