3. Electrics
 

  

Electrical testing started and proceeded in a well orchestrated  and methodical fashion as you can see!


First thing up would be the rather tasty looking speed controller.


Rather than use the radio, I will use by servo tester made by
S M services.


This is the test set up using a convenient 540 I had lying around.
I'm using a 7 cell 8.4v  battery.

The Corad controller is self sensing, LED direction indicating very smooth


This is the Action P64A "Micro Puffer Stream sound generator 9single cylinder)" with the Action "Super 2in mylar .5 watt waterproof 8ohm mini speaker".



Quicktime movie 6.5Meg


The sound unit is quite clever in that it plus into the speed channel of the receiver and has a pass through plug for the speed controller.

The 2 adjusters are for volume and 'Puffing rate!'
Testing with the servo tester above showed that there is an inbuilt "dead band where the unit is silent at throttle stop - i hope this coincides with the speed controller!!!!


This is the Action P44A 'Universal' twin Switcher unit. One radio channel can be used to switch on 2 devices, for our purposes smoke and lights. The unit can be configured so that each relay can be set to be latching or non-latching


Both unit arrived from Action promptly and well packed with clear and well presented instructions, well done Craig.


We also purchased a Tomahawk smoke unit and oil  from www.phillsmodels.com. We haven't tested this yet as the unit is rather incomplete in that you are only supplied the heating element and no proper mount or  fluid tank.



This is a close up of the Tomahawk smoke unit.... isn't that a paper clip!!!!!

I've got a feeling that this may be replaced with the Hunter system smoke generator that is supplied ready to run - Does anyone have experience of the Hunter unit? www.huntersystems.co.uk






The motor choice  made for interesting conversation between Bradders and myself. We rescued some lovely 380 / 400 size motors from a couple of printers that could be run in a semi-synchronised fashion. We felt one one wasn't quite powerful enough  but 2 will pull a bus!. Bradders father spun up a couple of nice little couplings for us, thanks Les.

After pondering over the motors for quite some time I changed my mind. I would really liked to have fitted the twin motors as they ran silently, drew only a few milliamps and had a 850mA stall current  but in the end as this is not my personal boat and maybe the setup was a little too experimental, I opted for a more conventional arrangement of a single 540/600 size motor ( a stern email from Jan also help change my mind too! )

Motor choice is always a contentious issue in scale boats but a I follow a few basic rules;
1. Always have more power than you need,
2. KISS ( Keep It Simple Stupid ) - use one motor if possible &
3. Buy a motor that most suited to you needs i.e. if it needs a gear drive you've not got the right motor in the first place. (Gearboxes & belts drives are noisy and wasteful of power).

It's not easy finding slow revving 540/550/600 size motors but Ian of Midway Model, Leicester sells a unit by MFA / Como drills - Part No. 457-RE540/1 which work on 4.5-15volts that I quite like.

But I went to the Northern Model Boat show the other week and found an even better motor on the Model Motors Direct stand.
The "555" has "Special Strong 5 pole" configuration. They are very strong, quite low revving and almost unstoppable!... I must remember to fit a fuse!!!!


Well all this just my opinion, but what do I know!
 

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