Well managed to get a quick session in before work this morning, but it will the the last, and it went very well. I should be abler to look in from time to time, so comments most welcome to help with this project.
I now have, courtesy of a fellow member, a microgyros leveller. Even though Mike at Microgyros has emailed and spoken on the phone, I am not sure how this should be set up. I changed all the servo rods, and fitted much better connectors. I found that trying to shape a rod from the servo, out of the wtc, and to the planes or rudder, was virtually impossible, so I have done them all in two pieces. A nice straight rod out of the wtc, so no binding, then a second piece to the planes. The wtc is black, so I cannot see inside, which I think presents a problem with the leveller. I hook everything up, seal the wtc, fit in hull, and check for level running. In the pic below you can see how much deflection I need on the rear planes to surface run. The front static planes also have to be angles in a similar fashion, to stop the immediate diving. If this was a model aircraft, I would say the cog was way off, but I don't understand this sub stuff, so some advice would be appreciated.
This will now surface run, it was quite windy this morning, so not very good conditions in the choppy water, but, with some small inputs on the elevator control, it will surface run. Thing is, although I know on the bench the leveller is working, and working the correct way, I have no idea what its doing in the model. Very small inputs create the dive, and if I only dive for a few seconds, I know pretty well where its going to come up, so far so good. I cannot seem to stay at a constant depth. I was thinking levelling off at fin depth (with a barrel attached to indicate this) I should with some stick adjustments be able to maintain some sort of reasonable constant depth (especially with the leveller thingy) but this is not happening, suggesting I am not setting the leveller up correctly. Does it need to be set up every time I hook up the battery? and by the time I have forced everything back in the wtc all things have probably moved. I have to have the motor end of the wtc sealed up at home, its way too fiddly at the lakeside, and all the electronics go in that end. I suspect I need to cut out a clear "window" so I can see the leveller?
Do I need all that trim on the planes? without that it just immediately dives. Good thing is no roll on the turns, so it looks quite good, however the turning circle is still massive, so I need to increase the rudder area as even with the larger control horns it turns better, but not enough.
Ballasting seems to be very critical, sitting still level on the water does not really have any influence when its running, the smallest piece of foam making all the difference. I am looking forward to trying again on a calm day.
Any input most welcome!, we will beat this