Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Model Boating => Topic started by: Andy M on July 28, 2019, 09:51:40 pm
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Hi, I based this little project on features from a few boats I like. Still a lot to do, not even decided on radio and motor setup yet, I might try the radio from one of my tiny race cars. Its motor has a gearbox and the transmitter has 5 selectable speed ranges, all fully proportional. My only worry is that I overload something and lose my car.
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Another photo showing my mini vic smeed rorqual beside the cabin cruiser.
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Looking good.
Do you have experience of these small models?
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Hi, the little cabin cruiser is the shortest rc model I have built so far, I have rc'd some plastic models before, revells 1/72 u boat, shell welder tanker and most recently a kgv battleship. The u boat was the hardest to fit all the gear in but managed it ok. I would like to use the radio and motor setup from one of my race cars, but choosing a suitable prop that wont burn anything out is my only worry. I have a small speedboat, shown in left of photo, converted from a £1 toy, it works well, planes nicely, but the motor heats up and slows down after only a few seconds at full speed, but will potter about at low throttle with no problems. The motor is definately not up to the job but will be replaced at some point with a more suitable one. I will conduct tank (bath) tests soon to see if my gear can cope with a prop rather than wheels. Worst comes to worst, the cabin cruiser is small enough to just be a display model.
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Hi Andy M
I just may have a small motor in my junk box that might do, were I used to work we used to get a lot of r/c car's and helicopters that did not work and most of the time it was just a wire broken off, but they all had to go into the scrap bin some just did not go in complete.
Will have a look Tuesday.
Fred
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Hi Fred, thats very kind of you, but as I live in scotland, I cant just pop round and pick it up if you do find one. I do have some options for powering the cruiser that I will be exploring. I think my mini race car set up might cope. Andy
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Hi
I can always post it to you, it would be no trouble just say.
Fred
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Thanks so much for the offer, will try my car set up setup and let you know how I get on. Andy
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I have converted a few small models to RC and where size and weight are critical I have used the Deltang range several of which include an ESC on the Rx board and give a good performance with a 3.7V Lipo stick cell
http://www.micronradiocontrol.co.uk/rx_dt_land_v5.html
If you look in the relevant parts of the Micron website, they have a selection of micro geared motors and servos that would work in your model. The Deans Marine 18mm diameter 3 bladed plastic propeller works well with the geared motors from Micron and this sort of set up will get an Airfix Vosper MTB on the plane. The one thing I did find is that the torque from the prop made some turns quite dramatic with the model heeling quite steeply.
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Hi, thanks for the link, I had a look, bit beyond my finances at the moment, it was interesting to see the gearboxes, the car setup I have is 7mm motor, also runs on 3.7 lipo and comes with a proportional servo as well, all for under 20 quid. I am going to give it a go, will post my results on here.
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Sounds like your car might offer an interesting opportunity for me! Can you give more details on where you can get them nd do they need a dedicated transmitter or do they work on standard RC systems?
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Hi Allnightin,what motor/gearbox did you use for the Airfix MTB . Have prop shop scale props to fit and some slightly smaller ones . Was wondering if i could use my sons scrapped mini helicopter motors for a twin prop setup. Presume you used a single motor ?
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The conversion of the Airfix kit was in March 2017 Model Boats magazine if you can get your hands on a copy but the following is a list of the RC and motor etc:
Deans Marine 18 mm 3 blade plastic propeller 22 – L
Deltang Rx60 DSM2 16V 4 Channel Rx with Bi-Directional ESC (Rx60-3-W) custom wired by Micron for UM type battery connection, 2mm pin to match motor lead and Molex 1.25mm socket for servo (lead lengths and channel programming can be discussed with Micron)
HK 1.7g Micro digital servo 0990702
Parkzone P-51 motor/gearbox PKZ3624 (motor is 8.5mm coreless type)
Hyperion G3 240mAh single cell 3.7V LiPo UM connector
I haven't tried mini helicopter motors in a boat so can't really say about use in the MTB - what diameter are they?
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Lots of good sound advice for doing boats this size here - http://eezebilt.tk/ (http://eezebilt.tk/)
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Hi, I have been there before, and added to my list of boats to build. I spent a while last night and today finishing the radio and motor installation, I will post photos later. I have still to paint it all and add detailing but the radio and motor work perfectly. I hadnt left much space in front of the propshaft but I got around that with some lateral thinking. And some more car and helicopter parts. I think the setup will cope with the small prop, weight at the moment is only a few grams heavier than the donor car was. Still to add paint, windows and detailing but looking promising so far. Andy.
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The radio I am using is from the capri shown in a photo above, I had a spare gearbox that will live in the boat, the radio section can go back in capri when required. I am going to get some connectors for easy swapping. It will do fine just now. The capri is too fast for my track even on minimum speed range, it got a quadcopter motor upgrade which was actually a bit much, wheelspinning too easily, still fun though if you keep it smooth.
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I forgot to answer allnightin's questions from earlier, I was actually going to do a kind of how to feature showing how to convert it to a racing car, and also now, its usefulness as a boat system. They come with their own transmitter and have a range which is nearly out of sight for a 5 inch approx. car. Probably much further but I thought that was plenty for test purposes. I will try and get some photos on later.
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"I haven't tried mini helicopter motors in a boat so can't really say about use in the MTB - what diameter are they?"
Hi Allnightin,
these particular motors are 8mm diameter - look to be about 20mm long - gearing at least 10 to 1 - very difficult to count the number of teeth - Might be better for the Revell Sun tug .........
Thanks for the other information - would have to source from UK - bit difficult
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I was actually going to do a kind of how to feature showing how to convert it to a racing car, and also now, its usefulness as a boat system.
That would be really useful and I look forward to seeing it.
Vosper MTB is single prop
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Here are some photos of the car internals mounted in the boat. As I was not sure how long the stuff would be in there, I used hot glue for fixing stuff in place. Heated on end of a kebab stick, it is quick, can be moved a bit before it sets and copes with odd shapes well, and picks off easily if you change your mind. Anyway, I used gears from another donor car, which turned the direction of the motor to what was required for my prop, and also shortened my drivetrain. I show the gearbox of my capri, beside the hot glue encased one in the boat, to show its actual shape.
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Here is the car I used for both my mini race cars and the cabin cruiser. It is a Wltoys L939. It has proportional throttle on each of 5 speed levels, selected by a switch on top, going up one speed each time it is pressed or you can have full power allthe time if you select it on switch under power switch. As standard, the cars are fast and roll over easily, once converted to race car, I have never seen one roll over. On my track, we can really only use the first speed range, any more and they wheelspin everywhere. Using them on the first setting and at racing speed, we get about 20 mins, I have regularly had 24 minute runs. All this from a 100mah 3.7v battery! The transmitter has a charging plug for the car, under a flap on the bottom. One final thing on the transmitter, it has a knob for steering adjustment. I have seen some adverts that say L939, but are actually its non proportional, bang bang steering brother, the L929, its transmitter does not have the adjustment knob. If you buy one and it doesnt have the knob, its the wrong one. I know because my friend and I bought one each at the same time, not noticing. Ah well. Anyway back to the car. Removing the body reveals four screws to remove, 2 on bumper first, then servo cover. My phone maxed out on memory so I will put next set of stripdown photos on tomorrow.
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As promised, here are the rest of the car stripdown photos. Next is to remove 2 screws at the back of the radio cover, and one under where the servo sat. I have shown a picture of the steering centering spring, although the car servo is proportional, it still has this spring, to assist centering maybe, dont know. This spring leaps out when you are not looking and loses itself, also be ready to lift off the 2 rear suspension springs as well. The battery is stuck to underside of radio board, 3.7v 100mah, I will report on battery life as a boat in due course. There is a charging socket, accomplished with usb or transmitter, usb charger comes with the car, and a set of cones for practice driving, they are between £15-20 and have provided me with some of the best rc car fun I have had. I am confident it will work well in my little cruiser. I have put on a photo of it with its new engine cover (steering servo cover) still a lot to do but got first 2 coats of paint on my hull yesterday and today. Hopefully have all my paint and detailing done by next week, our local river is too wild just now anyway after flash floods yesterday.
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Progress so far. 3 coats yellow enamel on the hull, leftover from my full size boat projects, 2 coats matt varnish on topsides and unsure about adding more yellow, or a different colour? Or none. I find that sometimes the hardest bit of a project is choosing a colour scheme to suit the model unless it is a scale ship/boat/vessel where the colour scheme is a definate. I stumbled into difficulties with this as well, when vessels had different colour schemes throughout their careers.
Anyway, back to the little cruiser, I tested it earlier in the bath, floats pretty much on the chine line, its pretty light. Next was to try motor, speed one, moves ok, quite slow though, next speed, slightly better, tried next speeds till I got to speed 5 (which with the original wltoys l939 is about 15mph) it was slower than I had hoped but still what I would call brisk, certainly not at planing speed but not too far away, maybe a prop fettle, its a bit basic looking. I restricted myself a bit for prop choice by making the propshaft angle as shallow as I could get with that prop. Could always fabricate a nice brass x type racing prop at some point. Will try it in open water soon. I would say that overall, the car motor, battery,receiver board, transmitter and servo are amazing value as a radio for small boat projects. I imagine it would power a battleship or similar of about 24 inches. I think it would go fast in my next project, an even smaller build. The cruiser is pretty wide really. Something narrower should be faster. I would say that this setup is the cheapest way of radio controlling a model boat.
I might manage to design a smaller boat to use this gear, it looked lost in even the 23cm cruiser. A smaller one is next.
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A small update on the cruiser, I heated the blades and gave them more pitch, this has made a noticeable difference, I also reduced the height of the rudder, it extended to 12 mm or so below the prop, causing more drag than it needs to. I have still to see what difference this makes, probably more than adjusting the prop, all helps tho. Will report back after testing, our local river is close to bursting its banks so not good for a 9 inch boat.
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I would say that this setup is the cheapest way of radio controlling a model boat.
Nope. Grandson #4 (age 6) has it cracked. It's £Nil. How?
- Tell your Mum that you'd like your own boat so that you can go sailing with Grandad.
- Mum tells Grandad.
- Graupner Pollux 2 + Planet 2+2 radio + MTroniks 10A Micro ESC immediately purchased from Gradad's hobby fund...
It's easy when you've got eyes as wide as saucers and a smile that would melt a heart of granite.
Dave M
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Ha ha, you are right, thats definately cheaper.
We have had lots of rain here so not getting much chance to try my cruiser in open water yet, our local river is a bit high and fast for my tiny boat. I have been working on my other boats tho, rorqual is ready for radio gear and motor, suzie Q needs more paint and its radio etc fitted too. My blue/yellow speed boat has the proper motor in it now, bath testing suggests its going to be a wee rocket. Will update after I get a chance to try them.
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As I have already shown a picture of my yellow and blue £1 toy speedboat, I thought I should update on it too, it had motor heating issues caused by using a 4.5 v motor with 7.4 lipo. It performed well, but not for long. I can now happily report that I have solved the issue by using the motor from the car that the radio gear came from. I had hoped to recycle a motor from something else, but its only 3 screws. I used same method of gearing as I used on cabin cruiser, to eliminate having to buy a coupling for 1.8mm propshaft to 2.1 motor shaft, if you can get them? I looked for a while. Anyway the gearing works perfectly. And the little speedboat now has even faster performance than a 4.5v motor on 7.4v, and for as long as bsttery lasts, without getting more than warm. Last motor heated up till hotglue motor mount was getting sticky. I 3d printed the rudder, for the green 3d printed hull but ended up using it on speedboat, I did wonder if it would be strong enough but its still there after catching a rock so hard it flipped the boat upside down,so I think it passed the test. The donor car I used for this was £27, and can go back to being a car in about 20mins. The car is wltoys A232. Four wheel drive,fully proportional and very fast as a car, its even fast in a boat. My friend took video of the speedboat, so I might manage to get aome screenshots up soon.
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Here are some photos of speedboat with wltoys a232 car speed controller and 2x 500mah 7.4v lipos. The first motor I used didnt like more than a few seconds of full throttle, so it was swapped for the car motor shown, I used an old hs 80 servo for steering as it was in my box and didnt need to be removed from anything. The transformation was amazing, full throttle for ages with no sign of getting more than warm. The receiver/speed controller has proved to be small, reliable and with its motor, pretty fast in a boat. Very happy with results. The cars have gone up a bit since I got mine, but they stll seem good value for the money. The best fun I had with it as a car was at a skateboard park, which it survived well, only popping off a balljoint after numerous crashes. They flipped over from the smallest of stones though, as a boat, you tend not to get that. My setup is staying in the boat for now.
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For any of you that might fancy making a boat from a car, well, parts of it anyway, here is the wltoys a232, the motor is on other side from battery. I havent looked at prices recently, but I would recommend it, I dont think my boat is even stressing the motor in any way but its still quick. I may try a bigger boat for this setup. The 23 cm cabin cruiser has turned out good considering its a 7 or 8mm motor. But its no speed demon, which is good fun too, even if I have to chase it downstream.
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I was looking just out of interest on the bus on way to work this morning. About £85 seemed a regular price accross a dozen or so web sites, which left me a tad shocked. At that price I personally wouldnt be stripping apart and butchering. Each to their own though.
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I think we were extremely lucky to get them for £27. I only stripped it because I knew it could go back in at any time. I wouldnt even have one if they were 80 odd quid. I still have one complete car to use when I want.
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Hi, I feel I have to point out that I never butchered anything, the motor uses the pinion it had in the car, the car comes with spare sets of gears, of which I used one, on my propshaft. Everything else is unscrewed from car and can be put back exactly as before. Its like changing radio between aircraft, you are not damaging it. The motor is on a metal mount so it can be unscrewed easily. It turned out to be a brilliant little boat set up, so I am glad I experimented with it. I may change it back to a car, or might build a larger hull for the gear. It swaps out so easily. I feel another project coming on............
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I forgot to say that I used the same radio setup in a cheap crawler truck that had non proportional steering, I used a standard sized metal geared servo and the small motor that was in the truck already, I ran it for a while until I,made my indoor mini/beetle/capri race track, the gear went back in the original car for a while, then became a boat. More value for money than just being a car all the time. Its a well matched setup with rugby pitch range. Coped with the full size servo with no apparent problems.
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Update on the little cruiser, had it out for maiden voyage on the river, the river is still quite full and fast so I had to stick to the edges to make way up stream. It did well, probably 15 mins and still going strong. I also built a small harbour for it. Lol.
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Myself and 2 friends bought a toyabi T03 each last week, £28 gets you a nicely made boat, proper waterproofing measures that work, proportional servo and speed control/rx sealed with silicone around the wiring, watercooled motor, two batteries and charger and a nice transmitter. We had a lot of fun in our local river which was still in flood, these boats coped well andare fast. My friend's boat dived through a wave and wedged into rocks on the bottom, 2 and a half feet underwater, right in front of me. It stayed wedged for a long 15 seconds then worked loose and bobbed up downstream, the relief on my friends face when he realised he hadnt lost it. all three of our boats went underwater a few times. I had previously followed the well detailed instuctions on how to grease the propshaft using the supplied grease. Mine had no water, at all, I,had been under or upside down for a total of probably 30 seconds, so the hatch seal works. The instructions detail how to right the boat if you flip it over. And thankfully, it works. Awesome little boats at the price, they come with a spare prop and nyloc nut too. I ran my blue yellow speedboat alongside the other guys and mine wasnt that much slower, but my motor got hotter, time to try a cooling coil? I am happy with my blue yellow speedboat, considering the hull was a pound. The radio donor car cost me 27, these have since rocketed in price. In summary, the Toyabi T03 is an excellent little boat for the price, quality build and fast, very fast with tight turns if you want. 2 batteries make it well worth it.
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Toyabi T03
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I have wanted a heng long atlantic yacht for a long time but never bought one. Then, while looking online, I spotted the new 2.4 ghz version. I now have one, and I am very pleased with how it looks and goes. It is good as it is with a 2000 pack as supplied, I ended up trying a 4400mah li ion from a worklamp that had a dead led. I stripped out the charger from the light as well, so the battery has its own dedicated charger. This pack ran for ages, mostly flat out up and down the river, another set of cells from a 'dead' bosch drill battery proved to run ok after charging on a B6
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Forgot the picture
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I ran the Atlantic Yacht alongside my friend's Toyabi T03, pretty even speed, the little speedboat looked faster but the speeds were even. The brushed motors seemed to be getting pretty hot in the atlantic yacht, they have alloy heatsinks but they werent working too well. I added a PC fan, along with its own 11.1v 1000mah supply, this vastly improved the yemperature of the motors, barely warm now, plenty of space in the hull for both fan and battery , extra weight doesnt seem to make much difference but well worth cooling the motors.
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A short video of the 23cm cruiser https://youtu.be/QQyOsjq-Y5k
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Here is a better video, the tiny boat coped well with the moving water, staying towards the edges to work upstream. https://youtu.be/SvTkY6avfMU
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After sitting on my shelf for months, I gave the 23cm cruiser a dust off then decided to fit windows in it. I still want to add some detailing, its pretty basic just now.
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Tried my little cruiser today, nothing happening so I tried charging it, still nothing, fitted a socket on the board to take my e cig cells, 2x 300mah, should be over an hour no problem. Anyway, tried it again, nothing, tried bridging the switch contacts.... It works, so I soldered the contacts together, battery unplugs to switch it off now. Success. Until I tried fitting my cabin back on, the e-cig cells are too big. I soldered a plug on the smaller original cell and it still works so it was just the switch that was faulty.
It all fits back together now. Sorted.