Topic: Toy "Riva" upgrade (Read 2912 times)

Arjan · « **on:** May 03, 2023, 10:52:34 am »

Some years ago I bought two used Dickie "Bella Luisa" 27 mhz rc toy boats in order to upgrade at least one of them to a viable rc model. This particular toy boat has also been released by other toy manufacturers such as Jamara who christened it "Venezia". Nowadays a 24 mhz version of this rc toy boat is also available but its range probably still leaves a lot to be desired. Apart from the range issue, the lack of a rudder is also not ideal. Personally however, I think the biggest issue of the toy boat is its weight. Bella Luisa weighs in at 672 grams (without batteries) which is simply too much for such a small boat (length 47.5 cm). As can be judged from this video the boat sits far too deep in the water and the way it "plows" through the water doesn't look realistic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c3fat39FS0&t=11s

I exchanged the two original brushed motors for a single brushless one with a single prop shaft instead of two. I also added a homemade rudder and a steering servo. I removed as much redundant plastic as I could and filled in the two prop channels in the bottom of the hull with pieces of 1mm styrene sheet. I also removed a lot of redundant screws as the Dickie toy is ridiculously overengineered and many parts are fixed with screws rather than glue. In the end I managed to bring the boat's weight down to 485 grams (without lipo) instead of its original 672 grams. which I think is quite substantial. I borrowed some pics from this old thread on rcgroups to show what the boat's original twin motor setup looked like :

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2144977-RC-Toy-Bella-Luisa