FE Evolution

[T.S.Davis]

This could be fun.

Try to remember the crazy things you did over the last decade or so in your quest for speed.

How about the Makita motors that Andrew from FastElectric dug up years ago? Called the the 800BBX. Ran fine on 16 cells but on 18 bzzttt. Melted the brush caps right off the motor.

Brush coolers on the hoods of 05 cans. What a pain in the a$$ those were.

Hammer head soldering jigs.

1400mah Nicd yuck

[Ralf]

hehe. Remember the oldschool brushed plettenberg motors. A 42" mono doin 54mph, woah, holy, it is a weapon, hope you built it bullet proof!

[photohoward1]

Ran 32 1/2 sub "c" cells once on a rigger. You had to toss it so it wouldn't just stand up straight. Ran a very large Plett. New Nothing about amp draw back then. The Cells blew the first time I ran it. That was about 20 years ago.

We also had a guy that ran his "05" can motor outside the hull to keep it cool. (Not so good).

On/Off switches that fused ON! That was fun on a 1/20th of a mile course.

[Fluid]

A Titan 29 running 24 x 1700mAh NiCD cells with a Hacker 540L on a gear drive. 45 mph WooHoo!

A 21" DPI hydro running 8 x 1200 mAh cells and a 15-turn 05 car motor and x432 prop. 30 mph WooHoo!

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[srislash]

This is more than 10 years ago but 18 800mah sub-c's in a 20" balsa rigger weighing in a 2.5lbs falling just short of 70mph. Ran a Astro cobalt 05 and 207 speedy.

BTW, record was 71.3 held by Jim Auguston.

Also ran a Astro 25, 18 sub-c's in a Graupner Systems 7 cat. Think it ran 40+ mph. Loved that cat.

[photohoward1]

Ran the Systems cat with 24 cells on an astro 40. 2000mah cells. 207d too. 40mph for 3 minutes.

[Fluid]

Finishing heats at the 1995 APBA Nats 1/10th mile course with dead 1200 mAh cells by waiting for them to recover a little voltage and blipping the throttle, moving 2 feet each blip for the last 50 feet......



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[T.S.Davis]

Ran the BBX in an ABS plastic FDM 32 on 18 cells. Felt like a thousand mph. Low 40's maybe.

After the BBX we ran some Milwaukee motors. I think those were 20 cell motors. I ran 24 cells for that extra super extreme power. Good for about three 4 minute heats. The next run is when the armature would bloom like flower. That was my unlimited offshore boat. It was a Titan 29. LOL Same class the Fines were running 43" Aeromarine monos in.

I ran 32 cells in a 33" Titan40 on a Lehner 2280. That was nuts.

Jay, you bought one of the first hulls I ever pulled. Heated the ABS in my wife's oven. That women is still married to the same buffoon. Patience of a saint.

Dennis put together twin brushless systems cat in 2004. Burned it into the shore on it's maiden voyage at about 60mph. 60 to zero in about 7".

Howard, what was the setup you ran that threw a magnet? That was the one I was trying to remember.

[Fluid]

Terry, that was my very first BL boat. Ran eight NiMH cells, can't remember the Lehner motor. BK controller and Futaba AM radio. Ran okay but I moved to Texas before it was fully tuned up. Finally gave it to a club member who ran it for two seasons. No idea where it is today.....




.

[photohoward1]

Drifter. S. 33". Hacker B50L. 3450 rpm per volt. 18 sub c cells. Hughey gear drive 2:1 ratio. Hacker 70 controller. Radar at 48 mph at sharp park. 4 minute offshore. Sounded like a turbine. Then like a riffle when the magnet went. I still have that hull as a play boat. Direct drive on 4s with a cheap 2200kv motor.

[T.S.Davis]

Howard, didnt you have a geared 24 cell graupner systems too?

So funny the way boats get around. That Titan40 I mentioned, I used to call Burnt Toast because I had baked so many speedo in it. Half dozen at least. Hackers and the early castle barracuda. Sold it to Fred. He raced it a while then sold it to Jay (fluid) with Advanced Auto stickers on it. It finally showed up in Radio Controlled Boat Modeller with some article Jay wrote for them. We both giggled when we saw it in there. That boat must have had a 1000 laps on it.

Did anybody else crush 8 amps into their IB4200's to get them to the magic temperature where they delivered better voltage? Ugly when those went wrong. I saw a whole set of 32 matched cells turn into a fizzling mess. burned alll the shrink up. Guy took them off his charger and dropped them in the garbage.

[srislash]

Hope I am not budding in guys but I have some of the old pics on here from another hull I built to race up here. A Graupner Portifino, 2-1 gearing, Tamiya Techni-Golds with a series switch for occasional 14.4 volt bursts. Ran 4 1400mah nicd packs and a Robart ESC. I still have it.

mums_pics_163.jpgmums_pics_162.jpgmums_pics_160.jpg

I should add that before the Astro 25 in the aforementioned Systems7, I tried a number of little car 540 cans running twin motors and a Hyperdrive belt system. That thing sounded like a blower whine once it got going on 12 nicds, till the burnt armatures.

[jcald2000]

Steve Reesor at the Nats with a comm lathe turning the comm's after every heat to try and stay with an Aveox!

[T.S.Davis]

Hope I am not budding in guys

No way. That's exactly what I'm talking about. That RPM thread got me to thinking about the old days. Back then there were no steadfast approaches to get where we were going. Every build was an adventure. Some included our best guesses. Sometimes we guessed wrong.

I remember at a CAFE race in Ohio, Steve Reeser asked for a mercy minute. Back when we did those. In that minute, he and Neil soldered the leads onto a motor, installed it, and taped the hatch down. Steve didn't want any connectors between the motor and speedo because that was a power loss. So to turn the arm between heats was a nightmare. Especially if you ran any other classes.

One year for a Michigan race I was burning an SS1 up for every LSO heat. Boat was fast. Came back to shore and a billow of smoke came out after each run.

The JAG team understood the mathematics and engineering early on. That's why they were so fast I think. Still an adventure. Most builds still are. But less guess work from the JAG team even then.

[photohoward1]

I did run that Systems with 24 cells with a gear. Probably an aveox or a Hacker 10 or 12xl. Don't remember. We ran a lot of Gears back then. There was not many choices of windings. Even if there was we had no idea what to use. Alan and I figured out that 24K was the sweet spot back in the NIMH days. (Hacker 14L was fantastic. I could run my 12 cell offshore, H&M No step 2, for 4 1/2 minutes at about 44 mph. that was forever. You could only pull about about 60 amps before the voltage dropped way to low. I still have the test scores of my packs written on my workbench. I had a bunch of tail light bulbs strung together (1157) to pull amps and test my packs. The goal was to maintain 1v per cell under load. Matched cells.....Ouch. $10 per cell and I had 2 packs per Boat. Used to to keep poppin the charges on to heat the cells up. I do believe we started at about 120 degrees. (We ran every class) After the Nats I sold them for $1 per cell. (Michigan guys they will buy anything).