All donations are securely managed through PayPal. Amounts donated are not published online.
Many thanks for your kind support.
Model Boats Website Team
Donation History
September 2018: 11 people August 2018: 5 people July 2018: 8 people June 2018: 8 people May 2018: 7 people April 2018: 24 people March 2018: 13 people February 2018: 8 people January 2018: 16 people
Sorry but when you said 6v I assumed it was a SLA so your NiMh, must be a 5 cell as they come in multiples of 1.2v. So I agree the simplest solution is a Rx battery pack and disconnect the BEC supply. (May need to remove +ve wire from ESC(s) plug?)
I think it would be worth the risk of running the DC Motors at 7.2v (NiMh) or second choise 7.4v (Lipo) and get rid of the 6v lead acid battery. The chance of damaging the motor is limited, the battery packs will be lighter than an equivalent lead acid, but will need to by a charger as well. Always put a fuse in line rated 5 amps below that of the ESC. Or buy two higher voltage motor? only £6.99 each plus P&P link copy and paste into browser address:- https://howesmodels.co.uk/product/graupner-speed-600-8-4v-mo...
Help required please, I have two Graupner Jumbo 540 6volt motors in an eboat circa 1978, I had fitted an Mtroniks speed controller replacing the Bob's board only to find that when the voltage dropped below 6 volts down to 5.6 volts I was experiencing intermittent operation of the esc. I have been informed by Mtroniks that the minimum voltage for operation of the esc is 6volts. Graupner have also confirmed that the maximum voltage for the Jumbo 540 motors is 6 volts. Do I have any alternatives other than refitting the Bob's board?
Doug, is that the Rx with stabiliser that you had trouble with? And what exactly does a stabiliser do in a model boat? And don't say "stabilise". If I did do airyplanes they would be smallish as I don't have space for big stuff and then you're into IC with fuel costs or big battery packs for big expensive brushlesseseseses. I must admit, whilst the really fast boats make you think, "Bloody hell" a few times they do become boring. Actually I find they all become boring as there isn't the involvement as with an aircraft, which is why I thought sailing models would be a good compromise. If I lived in a hilly area I would be a slope soarer, but I live in the Flatlands! Now flying boats/floatplanes is an idea, but you'd need a large body of water. I wonder if you could make a ducted fan Bluebird K7? Martin
Photos by marky Fleet Admiral! Posted: 3 months ago
Working on the hull and superstructure ,The hold lifts out to allow access my brothers going to do the mechanical side for me he has a motor no details yet , battery pack etching will be in the hold covered by dummy coal ,That's the theory anyway
Hi, Doug: Sorry about that. Where power enters the circuit board the reading is 8.08 volts, same as the 7.2V battery pack when it’s fully charged. That sounds like something from an Abbott & Costello routine! 😎😎
Right, gentlemen who know fings, here are shots of the wires I have. OK, I must have put the banana plugged wires in a box marked R/C Gear, I'm assuming, but the charger's wires mainly have brick red flat contact -containing plugs. However, none of my battery packs have those, they have the white things with two small round pins in 'em, one socket square, one round. The newest pack for binding duties has a little black jobby that fits the Rxs. Pictures included of all relevance. I tried to charge an old(ish) lead acid after making up a lead, but the charger put up a "Connection Break" legend on its screen. I assume that means, That one's f****d, mate. Fair enough, I thought it might be. But i still haven't worked out a lead to charge those green wrapped old NiMhs. I HAVE charged them before, because I have had two attempts at flying the aircraft. It went round in circles and then took a slate off my daughter's roof, proving that aircraft models really DO need insurance! Anyway, enclosed are three pics. The shot of a Lipo is to show that I do have such things, but that dates way back and although not damaged or bulged hasn't been charged while I've had it. It was sent to me with 2 small outrunner brushless jobbies and a couple of brushed ESCs as a thankyou for sending plywood to a part of Britain that the PO won't go to with biggish parcels. Finally....I have today received my FlySky RC set and guess what? It all works, perfectly, out of the box. It's PRE-BOUND! Whoopee do! It musdt be an upgrade as it came with a small Li-Po battery pack for the Tx. and a charge lead from USB to Tx. body. That's all great, but how do I know how long to charge it for? It currently has what looks like a full charge on it, judging by the brightness of the LEDs. Getting used to a passable impression of my son's old Subaru front wheel and tyre (complete with vented disc and caliper behind!) will take a while. I am guessing that pushing the throttle trigger forward is like a brake on a car. I assume on a boat it would be reverse? The instructions are not in any way exhaustive! But hey...on a tatty old Futaba servo it all worked a treat. Here's the pics of wires. Cheers, Martin
The Southampton has lots of screws around the deck but some are under the bollards so you need to remove them, there are two aft bollards which need to be gently prised loose but the others are scewed to the bulwarks. I changed the radio in mine as well as the motor/gearboxes and fitted a v.tail mixer from www.mr-rcworld.co.uk with 2 speed contollers as well as converting the battery holder to take a six volt nimh pack. The effect is awesome. Happy sailing😁
Help, Doug!! I just bought a pack of gold plated 4mm plugs for my iMax charger. It didn't come with any! Leads for everything else, but no way of plugging them in unless they're LiPos, which I know nothing about. The plugs turned up today, BUT, the hole in the top is HUGE! How does one go about soldering a fiddly little wire into such a massive 'ole! They come with red and black heat shrink, but only for AFTER you get the battery wires into the plugs. I'm assuming I'll have an "other half" plug to plug the battery pack wire into, which I can then solder these mahusive plugs onto. Why is all this stuff so bloody difficult?! Martin
Doug, the loaner was bound to the guy's DX5e in DSMX, but I will keep saying for pmdevlin's sake that both Orange Receiver and my Tx. says compatible with both protocols, but the Spektrum loaner wouldn't bind. I bought a 6 volt Rx battery pack especially for this and it's giving just over 6Volts. I bought 4 new Duracells for the TX. (all said above), so all is well on the volts front. The Orange in fact is OK for 3.7-9.4 volts it says. I did all you suggest , but no flashing lights on TX and no end OR change to the frequency of, flashing lights on Rx, either of them. Doug, isn't your stabiliser Orange Rx. also compatible with both? When did orange go single protocol, I wonder. Martin
Hello, Doug: I had everything ready to take the voltage readings this morning except for one minor detail: the 7.2v battery pack was dead so I had to plug it in to charge. It should be ready by mid-afternoon today. In the meantime I’ve got a few questions about connectors. As I said earlier I want to install connectors in the existing wiring that runs up into the deck house & pilot house. I’ll do the same with the new wiring that’ll go to the mast LEDs, too. I’d like to use miniature multi-conductor plugs & sockets with male & female conductors that solder onto the cut & stripped wires. Presently there are (10) wires for LED lighting, (2) for the pilot house lamp, (2) for the smoke generator & (2) for the smoke “blower” - (16) wires all together. At this point I don’t know how many wires there’ll be all together. Do you think a single connector for all of the wires is a good idea or would it be better to use several small connectors? Last of all, do you know of a source for small or miniature connectors? Radio Shack’s site lists connectors but they look too bulky. The conductor pins & sockets used with them appear to be designed for much larger gauge wires than the skinny wires in the tug. I’ve looked at several other sites but the technical nomenclature used for something as simple as connectors give me a headache. Help, please?
Water trials have been delayed by trying to resolve the challenges with my HMS Brave Borderer project drivetrain. As those efforts have been halted, waiting for new components, decided to complete the Teakwood water trails. First battery trails used 8 x 1.2 Ni-Mh cells is series, giving 9.6 volts. This was unsuccessful as the battery life was only minutes. Lesson from this is not to buy cheap Ni-Mh cells from an Oriental source. Tried 2 x 7.4 Ni-Mh packs is series giving 14.8 volts. Vessel was far too fast and throttle control poorly modulated. Was thinking of fitting a voltage reducer with this battery layout so could adjust the top speed. Have done this before and it works well. When searching in my box of bits found a voltage step up increaser. Never used this before so rewired the Ni-Mh packs to parallel and adjusted the output voltage to 10 volts to see how it worked. Result is a nicely performing model with an usable top speed potential for emergency, Duration of the first run comfortable exceeded 1 ½ hours, which am satisfied with. The cells are positioned around mid hull to supplement the fitted ballast. From the pictures the model has all the grace and style of the original vessel and sails well. In conclusion, a successful project that justifies the many hours spent in building and refining the model
Doug, if you have an Orange Rx. like mine, the bit where the plugs go is on the end face, so when you tip the battery wire on its side to plug in, the red wire is indeed uppermost, the black wire, bottommost. The Spektrum Rx. has the plug bit in the top face, so the uppermost, red lead goes through a right angle and goes downwards, but yes, in the middle. I made sure of the polarity first, but that bit you mentioned meant nothing to me, just symbols. I didn't want to trust them if I didn't understand them. The bind plug did indeed go in the slot marked bind. On the Orange Rx. it says BIND/BATT. I didn't plug any servos in as it isn't necessary and I didn't have them to hand without fishing them out of the restricted space in my Vanity model. I have now watched so many you-tubes and read so many instructions that I can assure you I got the order right. Bind plug has never been out of the Orange Rx, except to assure myself of good contact. Battery pack plugged into AUX> socket, flashing yellow light, Tx. tother side of workshop, pull on trainer switch and turn on power. Beedlyboop noise, light on right hand side of array, but NO flashing on Tx. Hold trainer switch till will to live starts to ebb, give up. The Spektrum you show, Doug is the same, albeit with different aerials, but the guy assures me it bound to his DX5e before he sent it to me for the trial. Your Orange however is very different from mine. Mine, as I said, has the pins poking out the end and the writing where your pins are. Yes, it has an S in the case, which I read meant signal, not that I knew what that was. It is a much smaller box than yours. Now you can see why I spoke of uppermost as my battery cable has to go on its side to plug into my Orange and in that position the red wire is indeed, uppermost. If you see the normal position for the Rx. to be flat on it's back with the pretty stuff on top. So, what else can it be? I will try what you suggested about the metal free garden, tomorrow and after that we will have to wait till the Fly Sky arrives, estimated E.T.A., early next month. Your PTB looks very bare. Had you always intended to strip the tubes and rudders too? Now, you have to paint the insides a nice neutral colour, like Spitfire Cockpit green, which is also Jaguar cockpit green, but Maseratis were silvery grey. Don't ask how I know...long story Cheers, Martin
Evenin' Martin, What does "uppermost" mean ?? The negative (black) of the battery lead should be towards the edge of the RX. The red positive is always in the middle however you put the plug in. The Bind plug is only a short circuit between the negative and signal pins. It should ONLY EVER be put into the socket labelled "Bind/VCC". The battery you can put in any other socket, Black towards the edge of the RX case. NOTE: In the DX5e manual there is a warning about Binding and connection problems when the TX is very close to the RX, less than 4 feet, and/or if there are metal objects close to either TX or RX. The latter can cause reflections of the TX signal to be interpreted as interference or 'noise' and prevent connection. The RX looks for a series of uncorrupted signal packets to be able to Bind, and subsequently 'connect' to it's own TX. Binding simply 'teaches' the RX the GUID (Global Unique IDentification) of 'it's own' TX. Try the binding out in the garden (take a brolly with you as required 😁) away from metal objects and walls etc. With TX and RX at least 6 feet apart. Good luck, cheers, Doug 😎
Vero also from The Component Shop in N.Wales .Order £ 3 or more/of anything/ from them and get a free catalogue. Excellent firm / service. Battery packs made to order if what you want isn't in Catalogue. Just one example of their great service.😋👍
Fleet Admiral! Posted: 1 month ago
Sub-Lieutenant Posted: 2 months ago
Lieutenant Posted: 3 months ago
Petty Officer Posted: 3 months ago
