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Hello all, I had my UL-1 boat out right before I closed out for the season. This is a new boat to me, I bought it off a guy on the forum here. It had hit a log before I got it, and the original owner did a good job fixing that back up. Well, I ran it onto shore about the 3rd time out, while on a new pond. That took a toll on the rudder bracket attachment area, breaking it all out again. I got the cutting wheel out and noticed that it had been getting water behind there, and there were some minor rot and rust issues. So I decided to go for it, and remove that entire section, as can be seen on the picture below. My first plan was to construct a block of 3003 aluminum and fill in this open area. But there are all kinds of rough areas in there and I felt there should be a better way. I was also concerned about adding weight to just that side. This is a very light boat in it's native form. So I decided to cover the entire back of the transom with a T-6061-T6, 0.040" aluminum late, cut out precisely as a template of the original transom. I got some pics of that below...
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Last edited by CraigP; 04-02-2018, 09:21 PM. -
The biggest concern I had about the stock attachment bolt plate was how thin it is! I measured it at just under 0.040", barely enough thickness for just 2 threads. I'm wondering how many people have stripped this plate out, seems like a pretty easy thing to do. I have some pics showing this plate. It is part of a larger piece of metal that ties into the thread plate for the rudder brackets. This part of the plate still looked pretty good, so I left that section in the boat. The pic of this rudder portion has been re-flattened out by me, it was pretty puckered up by being pulled so hard with the mounting bolts...Last edited by CraigP; 04-02-2018, 09:22 PM. -
The rudder also took a hammering, it got loosened up at the hinge pretty bad. I decided to replace and upgrade it to an RCBB, dual water inlet rudder assembly. Not easy finding a replacement rudder assembly for this boat. This little baby came from Australia! I sanded off the back of the original transom and took the bead that extends out around where the two halves the of the boat are bonded together. It got to looking pretty ugly, but there was a great, flat surface to bond the aluminum plate too...Comment
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It turned out very nice! I changed the rudder linkage to an aluminum ball end type, available from OSE. I also put in a Turnigy T-120 ESC and a single channel Opto Board, as well as an external UBEC. It has a Tactic radio right now, but I'm going to convert it to a Fly Sky with an external antenna. I installed a dual outlet port on the side of the hull. This is a Traxxas component. I also installed a water cooled front motor plate to provide additional cooling to the motor. The motor has the stock can cooler but I changed out the fittings for ones with larger ID holes in them. I also modified the hatch to seal without tape. This was the hardest one to do so far. The hatch on the UL-1 is really just a flimsy piece of vacuum formed plastic. So I made a frame, by cutting it out of a larger piece of T-6061-T6, 0.063" Aluminum. This had to be bent with the curve of the hull, then bonded to the hatch. There needed to be thread inserts installed in the hull, and the UL-1 is a sealed tub. So I had to cut little access points, then I made covers out of T-6061-T6 0.015" aluminum, secured by 18-8 2mm cap head screws. I tapped the fiberglass holes so I could screw the screws directly into the hull. Notice there is a top hatch, that has been siliconed down. That is the access port to get to the dual outlet cooling hoses, and get clamps in them. The boat has a stock, 2030kv motor and still has a 0.150" flex cable. I run it on 2, 2S 5200mah batteries, for 4S power. I have been running it with a 1715-17-45 ABC prop, and the boat scoots pretty good!Last edited by CraigP; 04-02-2018, 09:30 PM.Comment
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Good job Craig. I like grafting in aluminum for mounting where I can.Comment
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It’s very strong, with no hull flexing at the rudder or strut. It only added 34g to the boat. I’m also thinking, since I’m adding weight to the front for balance, to change over to a 4074, 1400kv motor and raising the volts to 6s. That will give me a good increase in runtime. This boat is a blast to run! I have a T-120 in it, so I got plenty of ESC for it. At this light weight, I’m figuring on using about 50A average. This is a great learner boat for my friends to get some seat time with a hydro..Comment
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Been doing some calcs on this boat... Looking to expand run time, so I found some 3s batts that will fit in the hull properly, they are 5200mah 50C. I have the T-120 ESC in there already. So I put my 3674 1400kv motor in that has a kt of 0.92 and an EFF of 92%. I had this motor in the DF29 with a data logger on it, very surprised how efficient it was! So on 6s, I’ll have right at 29-30,000rpm on it. It will fit my small ABC props, the 1715-17 for 49mph, the 1716-17 for 55mph, and the go prop, a 1717-17 for 62mph which is probably the top speed for this hull. Expecting it to pul 50-60A, so the run time should be close to 5 minutes. It snowed here yesterday and has been it the 30’s... Will it please get to spring soon?Comment
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Oh man, down there!!! Still snow!!! We had some last weekend so I am of the same mind as you Craig.
NASA is calling it ‘Solar Minimum’ and should end after the 2018/19 winter. Or so I read.
So I’ll be very curious how the pitch changes in prop react for you. I did it on my Fast cat and really only noticed amp draw changes but nothing in speed. I didn’t put a lot of time into tuning thoComment
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I’ve found with these 17 degree ABC props, that the 1715 likes a tiny bit of positive on the strut. The 1716 likes neutral and the 1717 likes a bit negative, angles under a degree... These props are touchy! But they really get at it!Comment
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I finally got the UL-1 back out on the water today! The wind was kicking up, but it was great to get out and run this boat. I ended up putting this boat on 6S as mentioned in previous post. The boat does very well on this. I have a video that you can see it run. I wasn't really getting on the gas today, but there are a few speed spurts to get a feel for its capability. It has about a 5 minute runtime, I didn't post the whole run... It's running a tiny Prather B215 on it today. The CG has shifted back about 3/4" because of putting in the 3674 motor, which is quite a bit heavier than the stock motor. It was a beautiful day! I hope others are starting to get their rides out there on the water. Hopefully, winter is behind us!
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Dang that looks good. I might do that just because of how well it looks. Nice job.Comment
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Here’s the batts sitting in the boat.. They run very well at these lower current levels.Comment
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