Prather Commander / twin TFL P1 drives

[FlogginHarvey]

Long time RC'er and gas boater doing a electric buold for my daughter and I to put around with on the neighborhood pond.

Boat is a 46" Prather / Hyperformance Commander II with twin TFL P1 drives & OSE 150 Amp ESC's on 3S. It will be a slow build to keep my wife happy.

Finally got started with it on Friday night and Saturday. What a PITA cutting SQUARE holes. I am hoping the drives are too high from the running surface. I used some gas boat building rules and scaled it down for the 3/16 prop hub holes. We shall see...

[Tamelesstgr]

Those scale drives looks great, good luck with the build.

[FlogginHarvey]

Thanks tamelesstgr!!!

[Brushless55]

Looking forward to this, looks great !

[FlogginHarvey]

Thanks Brushless55! It will be fun now that those darn SQUARE holes are finished. those were a bit of a PITA but not bad with the hardware templates from another member here. HUGE help.

I just ordered up ESC mounts, trim tabs, and some more "builder stuff" from OSE.

[FlogginHarvey]

Well, I feel like I almost got something done tonight...tabs set and mounted. I found a pair of old and unused thru hull water pickups I've been looking for for a while. Did I mention I hate square holes?. Wish I still had more of these lying around. Can't get them anymore. Dig out some stearing servos and started assembled the servo mounts. Still have to assemble and locate the esc mounts, solder things up (yuck), assembling up the battery mounts, finding the CG, getting those installed and plumbing the water lines. Then graphics... That doesn't sound like much.

[FlogginHarvey]

[FlogginHarvey]

here in a link to the handy templates:

http://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/...ket&highlight=

I have had some questions on measurements on the drive spacing and required transom area...I will try and get some pics with a tape measure so you guys can see what I have so far. I may have gotten the drives a little too high off of the running surface but won't know until i run it...might take some prop testing to dial in...tried to measure out as if I was running stinger-type drives with the stuffing tube running through the transom.

We shall see...I suppose that is just part of the hobby. Build and test. Build and test. build and test...

[FlogginHarvey]

So, a gas guy needs a little FE help...down to esc and battery layout/CG. I have seen a couple of gas builds/videos with the CG set at 30% on this hull and it was absolutely perfect. Didn't even require tabs.


Is there a rule of thumb regarding the distance between the motors and the ESC? I'm guessing as short as possible but I'm a little worried about how far forward the battering will need to be with all the hardware hanging on the transom. Those drives and ESC's are heavy!!! And going with a 7955 servo servo for each drive...the weight aft is starting to add up quick!

Thanks for everything!!!

[Tamelesstgr]

Wow, that is looking great! Can you possibly mount the batteries in the middle of the hull so they are really low, then mount the ESC's infront of the drives, kind of up the hull a little?
Ken

[Tamelesstgr]

Wow, that is looking great! Can you possibly mount the batteries in the middle of the hull so they are really low, then mount the ESC's infront of the drives, kind of up the hull a little?
Ken

[Checkmateguy01]

That's awesome!!! A twin set up will be in my future!! Dumb question, how do you set up two servos to work together? Can't wait to see how this boat turns out and runs!!

[cmoo]

That's awesome!!! A twin set up will be in my future!! Dumb question, how do you set up two servos to work together? Can't wait to see how this boat turns out and runs!!

as long as the BEC has enough power to move 2 servos, then you can just splice them together or use a "Y" adapter.super simple :-)

[FlogginHarvey]

Thanks for the compliments, guys!!! cmoo, that is what I'm hoping to do - y-harness them together. It works fine at 6v on my MHZ Apache with twin S6 drives. I'm hoping for something similar here. We shall see.

Here a couple of pics of the Apache. It's a BIG 60" hull...

[FlogginHarvey]

And some updates on a little progress tonight. Drives have the holes all reemed out and M3 screws through, tabs the same. Played around with a little layout and CG...trying to keep things spot on at 30% as per some input from some gas guys that had really nice running Prather Commanders. I hope they are similar. Yes, I was testing CG with 2S packs...just trying to get an idea on layout and if I would hve enough space to keep things near the keel and on the centerline to keep the vertical CG as low as possible. As tamelesstgr pointed out.

Anyone see any potential issues with the below placement??? To far, to close, etc...?