Topic: My 12 foot Gato class submarine! (Read 269484 times)

sub john · « **Reply #375 on:** November 27, 2012, 12:28:15 pm »

been trying to post picture but im having problems posting them up

Subculture · « **Reply #376 on:** November 27, 2012, 07:12:55 pm »

Yes I've had problems with the picture posting on this forum in recent times too. I use a free photobucket account, which I've had for a few years now, and that works well.

Flickr, Picasa and Smugmug are good alternatives if you don't like the feel of Photobucket.

sub john · « **Reply #377 on:** November 27, 2012, 09:55:45 pm »

HI Subculture
Thanks for coming back with some of the alternatives for posting up pictures on mayhem, tried for about 1.5 hours today in the end got that fed up with it not working no matter what i did i just gave up.

Some thing that i can ask you is what shows do you think i would be able to take this sub of mine to thought about taking it to Norwich but don't know wheather i would get it in the pool would need possably a fork lift truck, to pick it up and lower it in to the water from what i can remember many years ago when i was there i think there was a wall that you had to lean over to put the subs or boats in the pool, don't know how we would get this sub of mine in as i could see some thing getting broke.
All the best John

Subculture · « **Reply #378 on:** November 27, 2012, 10:13:15 pm »

The pond at Norwich is built up from ground level. So the bottom of the pond is essentially where your feet are, and a three foot high wall goes all the way around to contain the water. I've seen large models sailing there, but not as big as yours.

Other shows. Well the pool runs operate in 165ftx80ft at Brockwell and 100ftx60ft at St Albans, and depth varies between three to 9 feet. I think your boat would struggle in the smaller pool at St Albans to be honest, and I think you would find it impossible to get it through the building. Brockwell would be doable, as access is a little easier, but as you say, launch and recovery could be interesting.

There is the show at Alfold, fairly big lake, but the water looks completely opaque in pictures I've seen of it, so periscope running only I would think.

The lake at Barrow looks fairly well sized, quite a long way to travel though.

Maybe a good idea to build a smaller boat?

bikerdude999 · « **Reply #379 on:** November 28, 2012, 10:39:36 am »

How about mayhem weekend at wicksteed...

Mad_Mike · « **Reply #380 on:** November 28, 2012, 10:41:47 am »

noo dont need a smaller boat just some thinking. You need to build some kind of launch ganty on the trailer john. i was thinking along the lines of something similar to how lifeboats are launched on a davit:
http://www.ship-technology.com/contractors/survival/nmals/nmals4.html
I think though that overhanging weight may tip the trailor over sideways, it would need some kind of counterbalance as support legs would not allow the boat to either lower or even get near the water edge.
You could also make an engine gantry hoist which could fold up for transport. If one set of legs was in the water and the other other on the ground with the trailer and water edge between them.
Just ideas

Subculture · « **Reply #381 on:** November 28, 2012, 11:03:50 am »

I think Wicksteed is too shallow for submerged running.

U-33 · « **Reply #382 on:** November 28, 2012, 11:20:38 am »

I'll go with Andy...build a smaller boat, John.

bikerdude999 · « **Reply #383 on:** November 28, 2012, 06:48:00 pm »

Quote from: Subculture on November 28, 2012, 11:03:50 am

I think Wicksteed is too shallow for submerged running.

probably for submerged running but a good chance to meet forum members, and show off the sub where it can be seen.... on the surface!

sub john · « **Reply #384 on:** November 28, 2012, 07:37:46 pm »

tryed again to upload picturs from photobucket and all i get is a box with a red x in it just about to give up now

Subculture · « **Reply #385 on:** November 28, 2012, 07:56:34 pm »

Something has gone wrong there, you only have the image tags.

160watts!! I take it you have a healthy battery. Do you really need that much poke? Our commercial R/C sets are under 1 watt after all.

Did you do anything further with the sonic system you were tinkering with, i thought that was a system that held the most promise for DIY construction, as it's not strictly RF, so you don't have to worry about licenses etc.

Subculture · « **Reply #386 on:** November 28, 2012, 08:07:07 pm »

Okay, here's how you use photobucket. Log-in to your account on photobucket. Go to the library where your pictures are stored.

Move the mouse cursor over the image you want to post on the forum, and you should see a small symbol in the right hand corner of the image that looks like a cog or gear wheel.

Move your mouse over that, and a small menu drops down, one of the options says- 'get media links'. Highlight that with the cursor and left click with the mouse, a window will open up, with a link for the media , left click on that, and it should go yellow in colour and say 'copied'. The link is now copied to your clipbaord, and you can paste it into the window on MAyhem or any other forum.

Sounds tricky, but take seconds once you do it, very intuitive.

Subculture · « **Reply #387 on:** November 28, 2012, 08:09:58 pm »

sub john · « **Reply #388 on:** November 28, 2012, 09:17:25 pm »

HI Subculture
Fine on the pond at Norwich i can see me having problems trying to get it in there for sure, it looks like i will be struggling to sail the sub at many shows which is a shame. Just been down stairs in the garage to measure up how much water i need to be able to float the sub off it's under carriage i need about 32inc of water then it will just float off the strips that it sits on. You said about build a smaller sub trouble is you can not get much stuff in that was the idea when i built the big sub of mine.

Thanks for the instructions on how to use photo bucket i will give it another try later on and see if i can pull my hair out. You asked about 160 watt RF power amp you must have seen me post up info on it but know pictures yes that is a lot of power but it is on LF under water, unit has been made from scrap bits and bobs your normal TX transmitter on say 40MHZ knocks out about 100 MW ERP which is not a great deal of RF really.
You asked about sonic link had i done any more with it sorry to say i have been to busy with other bits, helicopters and planes and other electronics there does not seem to be enough hours in the day some times thanks for your help
John

sub john · « **Reply #389 on:** November 28, 2012, 09:27:32 pm »

HI Bikerdude
I did think about Wickstead when mayhem is there if i could get it in the water and just sail it on the surface would be nice but like you pointed out it would be good to just take it and show it to people plus like you said again people from mayhem would get to see it and i would get to meet some of the guys off the forum. How deep is the water is there a slip way there sorry to say i have not seen it so i don't know, but like i have said i would like to take it to some shows this year, still got to do final trimming on the sub once it is on the water trouble is it's to cold now to have your hands in cold water messing about in lakes.
Thanks for your interest John

sub john · « **Reply #390 on:** November 28, 2012, 09:32:12 pm »

HI Richard
I'M sorry but I'm not in to SMALL THINGS the bigger the better is my motto
John

sub john · « **Reply #391 on:** November 28, 2012, 09:49:54 pm »

HI MIKE
Nice to hear from you, have seen some of your post messing around with steam engines i think it's great that you are having a go i must say i do appreciate some of the engineering that these guys do, a lot of time and effort goes in to building some of these engines, but now on to the sub. Have spent so much time refitting this thing of mine to not use it now would be a great shame, but sorry to say will have to wait till the spring now to get it back in the water. But saying that if we get much more rain i think i will soon be able to sail it out of the garage.
Fine on what you said about making launching method trouble is trailer is custom made for the sub to fit in now and would be to hard to change it but I'm not saying it could not be changed. My mates that helped me take it out last time to try and trim up can not wait to get it out on the water again and with out there help i would not have been able to have took it out and tried it again, as i have to be carefull about picking up heavy weights or i could end up back in hospital if not carefull
All the best John

bikerdude999 · « **Reply #392 on:** November 29, 2012, 10:50:38 am »

At this moment in time, I believe it's about 5 feet deep! But normally it's about waist height I think, can't say I've ever got in to find out, but I'm sure the photos I've seen of people in there, it come up to about the waist. There's dimensions of the lake on our site but I can't remember what they are at the moment, I'll look when I get home.

No slipway though, so you'd need some sort of mobile launching ramp, (I'm sure someone on here built 1?) or engine hoist type of thing. But even without going in the lake I'm sure many would love to see it close up, and see all your hard work on gadgetry!

sub john · « **Reply #393 on:** November 30, 2012, 09:59:32 pm »

HI Bikerdudd
Thanks for reply you said it is about 3ft deep normally and could be at the moment 5ft deep if it was 3ft deep would probably be able go around at periscope depth, if could not do that then could just sit on the bottom of the lake. You said that there was not a slip way is it possible to pick the sub up on straps and use fork lift truck to pick it up and put it in the lake if we could not do that then it could all ways be used as a static display model like you said. Will try my best to bring it to mayhem at Wicksteed park, have got new tyres on the trailer so that's all done so won't be a problem transporting it around now. Was lucky last time i took it out to trim the sub up as Pauline the other half when we pulled up out side the house she could see a split between the tread on the tyre i think we where lucky nothing went wrong if trailer had rolled over would have been a right mess.
All the best John

sub john · « **Reply #394 on:** December 04, 2012, 05:50:35 pm »

i have been working on a 160 WATT RF amplifier for the last few days the first picture is of the digital driver unit that can deliver 10 - 20 WATTS of RF unit will be switched to 10 WATTS to drive the 160 WATT RF power amp

this is one side view of the driver unit

this is the other side of the driver unit

this is looking inside the 160 WATT power amplifier the unit has still got to have a band pass filter built into it and a few other bits as well . i ran the unit up for three hours into a dummy load knocking out 160 WATTS the dummy load takes the place of the antenna when being tested on the bench this unit will plug into an antenna what will be placed in the water transmitting to the submarine on low freqency trying to get everything done to take the boat out for when the weather picks up

here is one side view

this is the other side

thegrimreaper · « **Reply #395 on:** December 05, 2012, 10:26:09 am »

John pushing out that amount of Wattage 160 watts are you not going to interfere with other radio in the surrounding area I only ask because in my early CB days (AM) I knew a guy who had a 100 watt Burner {amp} that when switched on and the mike keyed up it took out the police radios in Chester and the local hospital suffered from the interference as well granted he lived between the hospital and police station, I am wondering what the difference is between what you are doing and what he did all them years ago?

Regards Mark

Subculture · « **Reply #396 on:** December 05, 2012, 03:28:46 pm »

Depends on the frequency and bandwidth you're working at.

Suffice it to say, you shouldn't be messing about with RF unless you know exactly what you're doing, especially as the power goes up.

thegrimreaper · « **Reply #397 on:** December 05, 2012, 05:18:10 pm »

Andy I don't think anyone knew what they were doing really when it cam to CB radio and burners they were always to expensive to buy was happy with the dx`ing at the power I had with the super cobra and multi mode that I had just thought I would ask about interference with other band.

Mark

sub john · « **Reply #398 on:** December 05, 2012, 07:21:55 pm »

HI Grimreaper
You asked about interference to other bands the driver unit that i have done has got a band pass filter on the out put which is to stop interference to other bands, when that unit plugs in to the RF power amp which is giving 160 watts this unit has all so got band pass filter to antenna to make sure the RF signal going out is clean from coursing interference to other bands including my self as i use 5 other frequency's sending out all sorts of digital data.

You said about your friend knocking out a police station and i think it was all so a hospital to be honest i used to be a rig doctor that's what they called it on the CB radio that's more years back than i care to remember, a lot of these CB radios filtering is a bit of a joke on the RF out put and when you start talking about burners or RF amps to get more power most of these do not have any band pass filtering at all it's just raw RF coming out so you are going to course interference all over the band. The design of these units was rubbish in most of the units you only get what you pay for when it comes to making RF amps, i have got a 150 watt linear amp that i designed on 1.2 GHZ that's quite high in frequency and that does start to get dangerous if you don't no what you are doing. I used to use it on 23Cm's fast scan TV that would plug in to a antenna that had got 18DB of gain and that is a serious RF power like Andy has said if you don't know what you are doing with high power RF leave it alone. With me having a full radio ham licence it means you can experiment with different bands with out getting in to trouble sorry to say a lot of radio hams now seem to buy a black box to get on to the bands and do not seem to make any thing any more which is quite sad but I'm not saying there is not any body making stuff any more for me that is one of the reasons why i became a radio ham to be able to go on different bands and make my own radio equipment and plus with me working in RF micro wave electronics for quite a few years you do tend to learn quite a bit about RF
John

sub john · « **Reply #399 on:** December 05, 2012, 07:37:36 pm »

HI Subculture
What you have said Andy is spot on RF is not to be messed with not when it comes to micro wave frequency's, at different frequency's it will course hot spots in your body according to what frequency you are using and of course what power level. It really can be quite dangerous.BUT Before i for get won't to get back on to sonic link for controlling a sub under water when i get a few more jobs out of the way i will try and get back on it
John

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Author Topic: My 12 foot Gato class submarine! (Read 269484 times)