A day in The Cave

[trout]

Please, sir, I want some more!

[greenman407]

NOW THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!! YEAH THAT!!!!! I need one of those things with a rudder on it. Ah.... waiter....check please.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I hate production work!!!! But ... it pays the bills around here.


Mike told me to develop a line of simple, cheap, easy to operate dynamic type SubDrivers. He (master of ad-copy that he is) is advertising them as, "EZ SD's" Well ... duh! So, when the Caswell empire yells 'jump!'. I answer: 'How high?'.

This is our two and single shaft EZ SD's. No ballast tank. Yuck!

M

[redboat219]

Are those 2.5 inchers?

[Von Hilde]

If I were to use one of those as the primary wtc and utilised segregated, saddle balast tanks built into the hull, port and stbd, would there be much more to add as far as sincro/servo to operate static? I mean besides the obvious pump, plumbing and servos to operate the system. I was thinking some sort of leveler to keep the bubble trim in the tanks. Also an E blow system , snort or small air bottle. Im not to concerned about any recovery failsafes, as I find a B B in a mud pit in Fairbanks in the spring. My other concern tho is how many atmospheres are the seals good for? I have about 20 ft of water at my dock. Visibility is usually very good, and water temp is no issue all year round. I can see a quarter sitting on the bottom. Cant tell if its heads or tails, but thats just old age. Mike has put a nice price on them and its a great idea, that you can easily upgrade the cylinder when you get tired of running periscope depth. While I am thinking about it, has anyone operated a sub in a large aquarium with a viewing window. Would the signal transmit thru the glass at close range. I was thinking of the angle of refraction of the transmitted signal on the surface, is the main culpret, water density weakens what signal get below the surface, but with a more powerful transmitter and a direct signal to the boat, ?? I still am trying to track down how the radio com works on the rebreathers SOCOM has now. I know they are 5 w transcievers and diver to diver and divers-to surface command and a tad expensive. Tacticle to Practicle's Hunter Ellis says, "The DOD pays for the research of that "hundred dollar hammer", but you can go out and buy the civilian version for a buck ninety eight now. I would love to just sit on the bottom with the fishes and controler and burn up a tank of air and a battery on a sunday morning.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

If I were to use one of those as the primary wtc and utilised segregated, saddle balast tanks built into the hull, port and stbd, would there be much more to add as far as sincro/servo to operate static? I mean besides the obvious pump, plumbing and servos to operate the system. I was thinking some sort of leveler to keep the bubble trim, in the tanks. Also an E blow system , snort or small air bottle. Im not to concerned about any recovery failsafes, as I find a B B in a mud pit in Fairbanks in the spring. My other concern tho is how many atmospheres are the seals good for? I have about 20 ft of water at my dock. Visibility is usually very good, and water temp is no issue all year round. I can see a quarter sitting on the bottom. Cant tell if its heads or tails, but thats just old age. Mike has put a nice price on them and its a great idea, that you can easily upgrade the cylinder when you get tired of running periscope depth. While I am thinking about it, has anyone operated a sub in a large aquarium with a viewing window. Would the signal transmit thru the glass at close range. I was thinking of the angle of refraction of the transmitted signal on the surface, is the main culpret, water density weakens what signal get below the surface, but with a more powerful transmitter and a direct signal to the boat, ??

To answer Romel first: 2.5"

Von: Not much to add as the EZ SD is a complete unit less the ballast sub-system -- so, if you come up with your own ballast sub-system, that would surround the EZ SD (your saddle tanks), all you would need is a mechanical linkage between the after face of the motor-bulkhead and your blow-vent mechanism.

Seals are good to 30'. One atmosphere, gauge.

Pitch trim tanks slaved to an angle-keeper is a fools errand. KISS!

Yeah, 75mHz punches through glass and Lexan with no problem.

The EZ SD has provision (and seals already installed) for as many as four servo pushrods.

[redboat219]

How come the single shaft is off center?
Also, does the EZ SD come in a standard length or do you cut it to order?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

How come the single shaft is off center?
Also, does the EZ SD come in a standard length or do you cut it to order?

It was easier to make that way.

Standard -- you cut to length.

M

[Von Hilde]

Dave, you think they would let you video some of your boats over at the Va Beach aquarium for a commercial. You could really get some good shots thru the viewing windows. I know they use to let divers in the tanks for various reasons other than usual maintainance. Ive seen Mermaids in there. A better place would be Paradice Island in the Bahamas tho, they have plenty places to play and hot and cold running mermaids, too

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Dave, you think they would let you video some of your boats over at the Va Beach aquarium for a commercial. You could really get some good shots thru the viewing windows. I know they use to let divers in the tanks for various reasons other than usual maintainance. Ive seen Mermaids in there. A better place would be Paradice Island in the Bahamas tho, they have plenty places to play and hot and cold running mermaids, too

Ellie would have me killed.

M

[Von Hilde]

No problem mon, she goes along and hangs with my woomon an dey be rollin in the cassinoz while we play in da pool. We be dun in an hour or so and hit the pier and go fishin with Bonefish Willie till 1600. We pick up the girls and all the money they won, and take the Cessna back to fort liquordale before dark. They only charge tack time on the plane if you dont keep it overnight, Total flight time round trip is less than 1.5 The girls will pick up the tab for the gas and the rental at the FBO.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

"Four killed in small plane crash ... film at Eleven!"

(otherwise, sounds like a perfect day).

M

[Von Hilde]

"Four killed in small plane crash ... film at Eleven!"

(otherwise, sounds like a perfect day).

M

We take the same vector out as flight 19, the 5 Navy PBMs in 1945 "Another plane lost in the Devils Triangle" ...sorry folks no video except for a few miniature submarines floating amongst the flotsom and jetsom, with a styrofoam cooler and one birkinstok

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Did I mention that I hate production work? But, sometimes, in the middle of the grunt-work, the opportunity presents itself for me to stretch my design and prototype skills a bit.

Such is the case with recent problems I've found with the little low pressure blowers (LPB) we buy from China for use in our 2 and 2.5-inch diameter SubDriver's. Reports from customers in the field complain of intermittent operation of the LPB motor -- sometimes it runs fine, but then it will stop. There's one or more bad lots of these things out there! And some of those bum units got into our hands. Thanks, China! But, putting out good product is my responsibility. Not the Chinese. But, after testing the LPB's in my bin, I could not replicate the stated problem. The LPB stalling was, fortunately, a rare occurrence.

Just got in twenty LPB's from Caswell. And, starting with this batch, all new LPB's will be subject not only to the current functional test during SD SAS certification -- they will also be checked for reliable operation, no matter where the commutator stops under the brushes.

Fortunately (?), not too long ago one of my personal LPB's experienced the same problem -- the LPB stopped working. Paydirt! I took it out of the SD, sat it down on the bench, and spent an evening identifying the problem. First finding was that the motor always stalled (would not run once stopped) with the commutator in one specific position. Only one thing would do that: a dead spot on the commutator; a bald patch that would not conduct current from a brush to the three field poles. Dead motor in that one spot. Turn the motor armature just a degree either way from the bald spot, and the thing would start and run like a champ.

The motor would stall about every ten or so cycles -- a function of chance and bearing grab in that one position. Not good!

Say the submarine that with the bum LPB in it is sitting on the bottom and your un-lucky number comes up as you command the blow and .... NOTHING!!!! Bad Ju-Ju!

I can't put out product like that. So. Tonight I started building up a LPB motor dead-spot checker upper. Yes! ... it's a mechanically driven square-wave pulse generator, and WHY didn't I just put together an electronic pulse generator instead of going through all this mechanical horse-****??

BECAUSE, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I CAN'T FIND ANY 555 CHIP'S IN THIS FRIG'N CITY!!!!!... and if you ask anyone at an electronics supply house for an switching transistor, they look at you like you came from the planet Krypton!

Regardless of how you get the low frequency pulses (and, yes, I know, Andy and Kevin are going to be all over me like white on rice) .... the object of the game is to have a tester that once you hook a LPB motor to it, the tester will send power pulses at a high enough rate to flush out any bald spots on the motor commutator, and do it in a reasonable amount of time (the shorter, the better). All you do is run the thing for thirty-seconds, and if the LPB is still stuttering around, then you are 99.9% sure you don't have any bald spots big enough to mask off the entire face of a brush.

Now, to the building of the LPB motor dead-spot checker upper:

This is as far as I got tonight ... damned cat was starting to stink up the place.

As you can see it's a motor driven multi-lobed cam acting on a limit-switch. The on-off action of the switch, which sends power to the LPB motor, rotates the LPB just a bit at a time. Should there be a bald spot on that LPB's motor commutator, it will eventually find its way under one of the brushes and the circuit will remain open -- the motor will have stalled in that spot. Should the motor be fine, then the thing will keep stuttering along till I'm confident it will not stall. That motor will go into the 'tested' bin, awaiting work-up into a proper LPB ready for installation in a SAS equipped SD.

Study the schematic: a single 6-volt battery powers both the cam motor (an old AstroFlight motor geared a zillion-to-one) and the LPB. A common power switch isolates the two motors from the battery. The motors are wired in parallel. The cam motor runs uninterupted, the LPB motor gets a chain of square-wave pulses through the limit-switch.

Once I had the components in hand I used them to size a piece of brass sheet which was laid-out, marked up, drilled, indented, and bent to specification. This brass foundation would mount most of the components that make up the testing unit. That thing in the upper part of the photo is my universal power-supply thing-a-ma-bob -- I used it to temporarily power the cam motor as I worked out its speed by fiddling with the gear elements.

The foundation bent to shape and ready to receive the cam motor and power switch.

The cam disc was turned from some machine-brass round stock. I bored out a hole to fit the cam motor gear shaft. The cam is has a hub through which I would later install a securing set-screw. I wanted the ability to try different cam geometries should the need arise.

With the aid of an indexed rotary-table I milled out the lobs of the cam.

... damned cat!

And here we are.

To be continued.

M

[redboat219]

"Where does he get those fantastic toys." - The Joker