I went along to Bury Metro Marine Modelling Society and got some good advice from a chap called Peter (may not be the same one...) Thank you.

The upshot is I'll be swapping the dodgy App-driven Tx/Rx for a proper one.

And why did I buy an unbuilt trawler model? Well the 2ch radio control will come in handy as a test setup anyway!

Thank you for your replies!

Low battery is not impossible; but it powers the motors fine direct, receiver lights come on, ESC lights come on, and the phone connects to the receiver fine via WiFi, so I assume it's OK.

Peter - I will pop along to Bury, probably today, as it's a lovely Sunday morning. Thank you.

RNinMunich - I don't have a compatible TX but will look into that at some point.

I did consider the 1:350 version, but read that the dies were very old now, and that the Academy 1:400 was more recent and far more accurate.

I'll show some pictures of the hull layout later. it was quite a struggle, and I've gone to quite a bit of effort to keep it balanced, with a heavy water pump towards the front to make it go 'down by the bow' (but not sink). Yes, quite ambitious. The hardest part was that the two outer props are incredibly close to the hull, so that only very small motors will fit. I didn't want to go for any sort of flexible coupling as I thought that would lose too much power, and larger motors probably wouldn't fit anyway.

I don't really mind if it's slow and hard to manoevre, as that would be realistic. if it doesn't work I may rip the motors out and just pit one big one in the middle and steer by rudder.

I started this a couple of years ago, planning to convert a 1:400 Academy model to R/C. The build has gone reasonably well. However, I am inexperienced in R/C and have run into control problems. I've posted an appeal for help on the Forum...

Hi there

This is my first boat model build and my first post, so apologies...

I have a passing familiarity with model aircraft radio control, and a fair amount of scale experience, but a couple of years ago took it into my head to convert a 1:400 scale Titanic model to r/c.

I worked out the circuit with a lot of study, using an Mtronics W tail mixer, 3 Viper ESCs, three coreless motors and a Kyosho 2.4GHz receiver. The build went reasonably well, and when I connected it all up and tested it the motors ran and could be controlled with the Android phone app more or less as desired.

However, I knew the power supply being connected to the receiver wasn't ideal so I disconnected it all, intending to connect the power through one of the ESCs.

After leaving it for a couple of months I can't get it to work again in any configuration, or even get the ESCs to enter set-up mode again.

Is there anyone in the North of England who can give me some hands-on advice? Have a look at the set-up? I have spent many fruitless hours trying to get it working again. I feel sure it's something simple I am overlooking. I am in West Yorkshire, near Halifax/Rochdale. At this rate I am thinking about just making it controlled with an on/off switch.

I will put a photo in the photo gallery or here if I can. Thank you.