Aluminaut Research Submarine 1/96th Scale

[trout]

I coated the ESCs in liquid electricians tape. I bound them together and let it dry.
The water for the ballast system needs a way in. Took a brass pipe and sliced it so I could reconnect it with an angle and drilled a hole at the bottom of the sub.

Fit the water induction piping (sounds official) through the hole. I am sure I could have used a straight tube, but I wanted the hole to be hidden - it was a personal choice.

I sealed it in with RTV rubber and pushed the ESC package in the space at the aft end of the sub - it FIT! That frees up a lot of space for me.

Sweet, I will let the RTV set overnight then trim the pipe and work on the Lepton 6 receiver fitting in tomorrow - got some friends coming over for the game, not sure how much time I will have.

[Subculture]

Gettin' close to the water now, Buddy!! Looking good!!
planning to machine a piston
out of either nylon or delrin.

Don't use nylon, it absorbs moisture like a sponge and swells up. Acetal is fine.

[crazygary]

Ooo!!

Good call, Subculture!! Scratch the nylon!!

Will go with Delrin!! Good sound material with lots of "natural" lubricity!!

[trout]

Filled around the brass tube with marine epoxy and placed the ESCs back in.

Took the Lepton6 out of its box and coated the bottom with liquid tape. I also painted the cable color guide on the side.

Figured a rough estimate of the piston width and cut it out of the rails.

The RX is fit it into the bow, a little shaving on the bow piece where the RX board is. It did not take much for it to go in, the crystal needed to be bent at an angle other than that, it went well. (cue the music)

It fit in very nicely. (you can see the color code that was painted in)

Attached the piston, nice fit there.

(Now scratch that needle across the record sound)

The pins on the RX bump up against the ballast motor. No room to put the connectors on. Son of a......Did I mention that I do not cuss? Time to go to bed and think about this.

[trout]

There several ways that I can tackle this mis calculation. Since the news of Lepton 6 not going to be made in the 75Mhz, I am reluctant to tear the receiver pins apart, so I am left with flipping the ballast piston around and I can do a off-center install, or create a wiring harness which would run the necessary wires to the servos......then I could buy a cheap GWS RX instead, it is shorter in length, but not as good. I could shelve this until Kevin creates the nano sub atomic circuit board, (he is such an over achiever).

[trout]

There are areas that could be shaved off to make more room. As an example, the tube for the inlet of water could be cut back 4mm and the nipple of the syringe could be trimmed back maybe 3mm possibly more. The counter to that thinking is I would run the risk from the pressure of the piston ejecting water will dislodge the connecting vinyl tube.

In the meantime there are some things that will be needed regardless of the solution, like some additional bracing and supports for tie straps.

There is little room, and more to pack in there like a battery. So, I think a wire harness will make sense as a solution.

A gentleman named Derk from another site recommended a harness, that was on my choices for a fix, but he really went beyond what I was thinking. He mentioned making a common power and ground for all the servos and just run separate signal runs. Brilliant! 6 cables verses the 12 originally planned......I am frequently humbled by you all and thankful for the special group r/c submariners are! So, to all of you Thank You!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Hey, pal! It's a two-way street; we're learning from you as well. This is good stuff!

[MFR1964]

Excellent work on that tiny sub Tom, did the same trick with the cables for running the servo's in the front part of my 212 SD, i got only four wires for running two servo's at seperate channels, keep up the good work.

[trout]

Thank you David and Manfred! I appreciate the kind words.

[trout]

Not much done this weekend, we had a lot of obligations and time flew by.
Went ahead and mounted the RX to the proboscis thingy and tested the fit - we are good.


Then began work on the wire harness. Painted white on it to use for marking channel it will belong to. I got it a little too hot so I melted a section while soldering hence the crooked pins.

Now it brings up the channels and how to set them up. My son got a Polk radio for Christmas and it is a nice radio (I can not say it is better than the wWFly because I have not tested it yet). I like the fact that the radio has selectable channel.

It looks like I will need to mix Channel 1 (Rudder) with Channel 3 (Throttle) together to act like a tank. Anyone know how to do this on a Polk? If not, I will have to read the funny manual (and If I can put in my wish list [If Mike was going to put together his own radio....] it would be this built in channel selector). For my WFly, I bought the HiTech selectable channel pack and that works real nice and it would be nice if a future transmitter had that feature built in. I'm not saying the Mike is building one, I am just saying IF he did I would ask this feature is added. Oh, and a manual that made sense would help too!

[alad61]

Struth Tom. I've been watching quietly in the background but now I just have to say I am impressed and humbled by your work mate. I'm looking forward to seeing a video of this little beauty in action!!

[trout]

Thanks Alec! I really appreciate the kind words. Struth, you do good works too! Fighting the ADHD in me and get side tracked, recently got some great advice about keeping the main thing, the main thing and I am desperately trying to follow it.....Squirrel!
I look forward to seeing this run too! For the underwater filming, looking to purchase an 808 camera (#16 me thinks).

[trout]

Working on the harness (still) and knew the full size connector would not work, so time to trim it back.


It looked like that would work, but not close enough.

Trimmed the female pin way back and solder the harness wire to it. Tried first to solder the side where the original wire went, but the solder and new wire blocked the RX pin from going all the way in. So, soldered again, this time on the back of the female pin.

This was enough to get it to work. The little bit of a gap in the photo below was me juggling the camera and sub. I could not get it held all the way.

Later I will solder the other wires together. A coat of liquid electrical tape will help prevent shorting things out. If the shrink tubing gets here soon, I will go that route until then, I have a plan!

[Scott T]

That squirrel is everywhere. Looking good Tom!

[trout]

Thank you Scott! I need to move to Oklahoma so we can build stuff, plus I liked it there.

Took some time tonight to solder the rest of the pins on the RX side.

I will need to mix either Ch1 and Ch2 together or Ch3 and Ch4. Leaning to use 3 and 4 for Port and Starboard movement and Ch2 for PB (people blender - Ha! I chuckle with that description) or the motor on the deck, Anterior Thruster(?). Does anyone know if mixing those two channels will work the thrusters like a tank?
I ordered some parts for the light bar....I need a scanning electron microscope to take a picture of the parts. So no photos yet. What was I thinking?