I spent a pleasant hour down the lakes this morning for my Puffers trials although it was a beautiful day we had the cross winds and surface chop often associated with Walpole Park, no matter she handled the conditions very well, speed at full throttle was ample for a Puffer and a comfortable cruise at half throttle, the chain steering performed as it should and gave a nice tight turn at hard over, now the cons. the smoke gen dose draw a lot from the battery and after a little over 10 minutes I could hear a change in the motor when switching the smoke gen on and of, even so she was still running after half an hour but I brought her in while she still had power, one good thing she was dry inside,I did have my trusty old Springer Gopha Girl in the car just for peace of mind, I'd like to get a bit more run time so as the Pb battery is only 1.2 Ah I'll see if I can fit my spare 3s lipo as a first step, I tried it on the bench and it seemed fine with no discernable change in the motor when the smoke gen is used and the lipo is 5000 mAh so should give me at least twice the run time, the only thing I have against lipo's is I tend to go for a sail on an adhoc basis and with the lipo being in storage charge you have to remember to charge them the night before or early in the morning, I suppose I could get a 12 volt nimh battery of the same capacity, I see how the lipo performs first, Only got one photo the sun had darkened my specs and the phone screen looked black so I guess I was lucky to get one she was about 30 feet from the side so I've cropped it.
Joe