I am about to undertake a MAJOR refurbishment of my model of IOMPSCo’s King Orry, necessitated by the dropping of a 3’ TID tug on the after end of the Orry’s superstructure.
I am using the opportunity to replace the motors, shafts and ESCs (which have been nicked for a more recent build). She sails well on 6v with a couple of generic 380s and Hitec ESCs. 540s were used initially but, though having a huge margin of reserve power for emergency conditions, would not allow a slow start, at least not with the fitted controllers. 385s were woefully underpowered. She currently runs for around 75 mins on a 6v 4AH battery (40-60 minutes with gadgets/lights in operation). There is no spare ballast capacity for heavier batteries.
I would really appreciate any advice regarding motor selection, speed controllers etc. Things have moved on since I last built a boat. Do brushless motors justify their cost? Is the complexity of gearing worth the effort, and what is the best way to accomplish this (the current installation allows the use of near-horizontal shafts which looks good, but a larger diameter motor/gear/pulley would need more incline)? I would prefer a switch to 12v to enable use of better smoke generator etc. but don’t know how this would affect choice of ESC and motor.
Boat is 48” long on a 6” beam and she weighs around 5-6 Kg.
All advice would be welcome.