Bronco Type XXIII in 1/35th scale

[Warpatroller]

David, your progress looks great! Am watching from my hotel room.

I believe the deck planking would have been removed from the hull prior to going on patrol, but it works well to disguise your holes.

Don't let the guys needle you about the lack of asymmetrical flood holes in the bow. That may not have applied to ALL boats of this type.

I was on board the Pampanito SS-383 Balao fleet boat, here in San Francisco, today. I took several photos of her and will post them when I return home.

Looking forward to seeing a video of the XXIII!

Steve

[redboat219]

Looking at the last photo with the open life raft container hatch it's begging for one of those tiny keychain cameras.
With the snort/SAS mast, is there still ample space inside the sail to fit one?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Looking at the last photo with the open life raft container hatch it's begging for one of those tiny keychain cameras.
With the snort/SAS mast, is there still ample space inside the sail to fit one?

The trouble is I need to provide a watertight enclosure for the 808 type camera, not enough room for that. However, on second though, the smallest such enclosure I have is one Andy Lawrence provided me, the perfect egg shape. Stand-by, I'll see how that works, Romel. You might be onto something here.

David

[Subculture]

It's possible to go a lot smaller than the teardrop enclosures I made. They were designed to give the minimum drag when mounted externally and also to allow the attachment of small wideangle lenses, which I've found are not really required with the wide aspect of the newer HD cameras. It also allows the fitting of a larger capacity battery as the standard 2530-250mAh lipos only give about 40minutes recording time on a good day.

However with an oddity like the Type XXIII, and its cartoon like conning tower acting as streamlining, a less optimum shape made up of simple plates of lexan could be constructed, which wouldn't be much bigger than the camera itself. Easy to construct too so long as you can wield a saw and files.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

It's possible to go a lot smaller than the teardrop enclosures I made. They were designed to give the minimum drag when mounted externally and also to allow the attachment of small wideangle lenses, which I've found are not really required with the wide aspect of the newer HD cameras. It also allows the fitting of a larger capacity battery as the standard 2530-250mAh lipos only give about 40minutes recording time on a good day.

However with an oddity like the Type XXIII, and its cartoon like conning tower acting as streamlining, a less optimum shape made up of simple plates of lexan could be constructed, which wouldn't be much bigger than the camera itself. Easy to construct too so long as you can wield a saw and files.

Working into the wee hours I found that your little tear-drop shapped 808 camera enclosure fits just fine within the Bronco Type-23 sail. Pictures later. A great looking product you have there, Andy!

David

[goshawk823]

I've been saying for years that the conning tower of the XXIII could be a great camera platform...(someone just had to make one small enough to fit in there.) I figured the life raft canister cover in front could be made to be removed to leave a lens opening...

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Well, I stand corrected. Romel's suspicion that I can get a video camera into that sail proved correct. I can either get the little 808 key-chain video camera-recorder, or my little Swann video camera-transmitter in there. The 808 takes on-board video and saves it to a little SD card for later playback. The Swann camera-transmitter sends the video signal back to shore where the Driver, wearing a pair of virtual goggles, see's, real-time, what the camera sees. Either system will fit in the Type-23's sail.

Here I'm using Andy Lawrence's very well crafted 'teardrop' watertight enclosure to house the 808 video-recorder unit. As you can see it's a perfect fit within the models sail



The camera-transmitter employs the Caswell-Merriman WTC -- specifically designed for the little Swann camera-transmitter. That kit has provision to run a length of coaxial cable up to a mast atop the sail, that shielded cable terminating in a little 2.4gHz antenna that has to be above water in order to get the camera video and audio signal to the shore-side operator. Within the WTC is the camera-transmitter, 9-volt battery, BEC, and associated wiring.

As you can see, the operator uses a set of virtual goggles through which he see's and hears what the camera see's and hears. The audio is a very useful sense to have: you can hear overhead traffic as will as other submarines in the area, and the servo and motor sounds inform you as to how the boats behaving.



The arrangement for the Type-23 is very much like what I did for the 1/16 KAIRYU, Moebius SEAVIEW and Scale Shipyard 1/72 SKIPJACK -- With the real-time video straight to my eyes and ears I drive from the perspective of the boat itself. Very neat!

[goshawk823]

that's some cool stuff, David.
way back in the late 90s, Nick Meis and I came up with a scenario where two Type XXIII's in a pool or small clear water pond would use an onboard camera and working torpedos to stalk each other, firing the torpedos when in range, and count a hit (counting coup, as it were) by some method (magnetic touch - front of torpedo to some metal sensors, or something in hull of the model...)
it looks like this rig could make that closer to reality.

[redboat219]

That's great David.

But it seems that with either camera in place if you're going with a SAS you'll need to switch from a vertical snorkel head valve float to a horizontal type and relocate it in the diesel exhaust housing.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

That's great David.

But it seems that with either camera in place if you're going with a SAS you'll need to switch from a vertical snorkel head valve float to a horizontal type and relocate it in the diesel exhaust housing.

I would squash you like a bug, you're such a pain in the ass! However ... for a guy who has yet to get an r/c submarine in the water, you do have a very good grasp of the activity and on more than one occasion have spurred me on to do something I either overlooked, or never dreamed of. So, I let you live ... for the moment.

And your observation about the snorkel getting in the way: Absolutely right, and last night I did exactly like you suggested -- horizontal type snorkel assembly located under the desiel exhaust muffler fairing.

There! Smart guy! Take that!!!!!

David

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

that's some cool stuff, David.
way back in the late 90s, Nick Meis and I came up with a scenario where two Type XXIII's in a pool or small clear water pond would use an onboard camera and working torpedos to stalk each other, firing the torpedos when in range, and count a hit (counting coup, as it were) by some method (magnetic touch - front of torpedo to some metal sensors, or something in hull of the model...)
it looks like this rig could make that closer to reality.

Indeed, Sam. You keep score by smearing lip-stick on the tip of the torpedo after its loaded.

David

[redboat219]

I would squash you like a bug, you're such a pain in the ass! However ... for a guy who has yet to get an r/c submarine in the water, you do have a very good grasp of the activity and on more than one occasion have spurred me on to do something I either overlooked, or never dreamed of. So, I let you live ... for the moment.

And your observation about the snorkel getting in the way: Absolutely right, and last night I did exactly like you suggested -- horizontal type snorkel assembly located under the desiel exhaust muffler fairing.

There! Smart guy! Take that!!!!!

David

Lol, Well sometimes it takes the whimpy guy sitting way back in the row to spot things people in the front seats miss.

Here's something else I noticed. Manfred and you are the only ones doing an RC conversion of the Type XXIII. Nothing on the other sites. Strange...

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Lol, Well sometimes it takes the whimpy guy sitting way back in the row to spot things people in the front seats miss.

Here's something else I noticed. Manfred and you are the only ones doing an RC conversion of the Type XXIII. Nothing on the other sites. Strange...

No. Typical!

David

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

So, deciding to make provision for a removable modified Up-Periscope camera-transmitter video system cylinder, I worked up a foundation.



Of course (as Romel pointed out earlier today ... or was it yesterday morning?) inclusion of the Up-Periscope in the sail meant relocation of the SAS snorkel assembly. This mean moving it from the sail proper and cramming it into the much lower diesel exhaust muffler fairing. And that drove me to make use of the horizontal type snorkel assembly instead of the original vertical type snorkel assembly. Done!



I tightened up the longitudinal and radial seams between upper and lower hull halves by first laying down some two-part filler and sanding that back, followed by some touch-up putty and another sand down, then primer. This is tonight's work:



And the validated prototype Sub-driver for the Bronco 1/35 Type-23 model submarine:

[Kazzer]

And the validated prototype Sub-driver for the Bronco 1/35 Type-23 model submarine:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19517[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]19518[/ATTACH]

Am I to take it we have a new Sub-driver specific to this model?
Doe that mean the 1/96 Generic Sub-driver is no longer relevant? See here