Well,now that disaster has been averted by Martin and his brave colleagues,I can now continue this conversion from where I left off.
I picked up two new Raboesh props from Cornwall MB's,who I tend to use most often as regards boat bits & bobs. Although the original speed props are of the dogdrive type,the threaded portion of the shafts is more than long enough to accomodate the new props with space to spare. The only real problem that I had as far as prop choices went,was the fact that the shafts are threaded M3. This severely limits the props that you can fit,as besides Raboesh,I know of no other supplier of M3 props,(though I'm sure that you'll let me know of someone else who supplies them).
Space beneath the deck is severely limited,so I made the decision to fit a small 9g micro servo to serve on rudder duty,this was another headache. I sent off for a mini micro rudder,but whilst awaiting it's arrival,I found my old rudder from the RTTL which I had replaced. Out came the tinsnips,and a little bit of butchery later,I had a servicable rudder,which also turned out to be longer in length,fore-aft,than a micro rudder. Now when you consider the fact,that this boat is running on twin shafts,which are not mixer controlled,(I can't afford one just now),you'll see the logic behind having a longer rudder. I'd set up the props to rotate inboard,so that they'd tend to throw the water over the rudder,rather than to either side of it,at least that's what i hoped anyway.
When it came to positioning the rudder,I may have made a faux pa,in that the leading edge of the rudder sits in line with the prop blades,effectively creating a partition between the two props,no doubt you'll tell me otherwise.
Some pics.
Receiver wise,I just used a 27MHz one that I had laying around,and when you consider that most of the members at my club now use 2.4 GHz,I'm not going to be getting much in the way of signal conflict. ESC wise,she's just getting a Nosram Hawk Power reverse 15T limit ESC.(Please don't ask the Amp rating,as I just don't know,but I'm sure the peak is 100A) Power wise,she's been fitted with a 7.4V 2S/ 1600mAh Lipo pack,(This is less than half the weight of the original 8xAA NIMH pack),and is the only Lipo that I have that will fit into the small battery compartment. To run the linkage between the servo and the rudder,I had to cut out a section of the aftmost bulkhead.
Ok,time to refit the deck,or so I thought,I screwed everthing back into place,making sure that the deck was sitting correctly; connected the battery and tested everything out......blast it,the rudder isn't working properly. Back off came the deck,and by carefully looking inside the hull whilst I lowered the deck into position,I discovered that the mounting dimple of the rear turret,for want of a better word,was fouling on the servo horn,so out came the sidecutters,and one snip later,free movement of the servo horn.
Lets not mince words here,I'm getting more than a little hacked off with this,having to remove a multitude of screws everytime you need to get inside the boat,(28 in total),so out came the fretsaw,and I cut out a section of the deck,which whilst only allowing me access to the receiver/motors and esc,does help.(Only need to remove 4 screws to access this part.) what I have found,is that to access the rudder assy,I don't need to fully remove the entire deck,but I do still need to take out a dozen screws,which will allow me to carefully lift the aft section of decking enough to gain access.
Sunday:- Time for the refitted ships trials. I wasn't too sure just how,if at all,this boat would perform,would the rudder actually work,or was this just one of these things that just wasn't meant to be.
With everything switched on and set up,I took the plunge,and opened her up. Now,if you've seen any of the youtube videos for the Smasher,you'll see that it's way overspeed in stock form,so I was hoping that the changes I'd made to her would hopfully make her sail a little better speed wise. Well,all I can say,is that I was pleasantly surprised,as the change in voltage,coupled with the different props had made all the difference in the world to her. She now looks much more like the thing and the rudder actually works quite well too,so I've certainly won a chocolate watch here then.
A short trial video of her in action.
http://youtu.be/D4ZCvHepIc8