FE Evolution

[srislash]

Ah the good old days.

3800's? 4300mah'ers? Guess I was on hiatus. Think the best we had was 2200mah when I left. Lots of my packs looked like that Mr Smock after a race. 4mins usually just finishing in the lightest boat possible.

[ray schrauwen]

I remember back in 05 or 06 in MI, the nats I think, Running a Blizzard Matrix or Extra or something?? on 6 3800, Barracuda 80, and a Feigao 6S. After a run I open it up and the whole pack de-soldered itself.. Fun times... Nimh's were more expensive than lipos almost at that time.
Nayman let me take his little Lipo mono out for a spin at the end of the day, wow, what difference I said and the rest is history. I still have my first set of Poly Rc lipos, only blew out one cell on a 4S pack. These packs are 7 years old now!

[NativePaul]

Did you ever use Sanyo 500AR AF size cells on the states? We found them to be the hot (literally) ticket for SAWs over here in the early 90s when I first got into FE, weighing about half a 1400SCR sub C and (just) capable of the 40A we were pulling in races, the resulting weight loss really picked up the speed, I got 38mph with 12 of them in a JB Marine Thor 27" sport scale hydro powered by an 8.4v BB turbo, that boat was a beaut and housed my only ESC, all the others had switches. NiCads were awesome, those 500s took a 16C pulsed charge and a real world 80C continuous discharge, they melted the heatshrink, melted the velcro and burned your fingers, but kept on ticking, a few years ago I found a pack of 12 1700SCRCs and charged them for a giggle with poor results, but 3 cycles later they were up there I broke a brushed boat out of the loft and it performed perfectly, not bad for cells with 2 seasons of use that had lain dormant for around 15 years.

[ray schrauwen]

I still have a Hydro Zeta Boat esc designed to run a pair of 05 motor. It was very coggy though. I paid $300 for that esc back then and it was the cream of the crop besides the old faithful Hughey Slide 2 & 3 speed esc's. They were awesome really. Ran the snot of those things.

My first RC boat was a homemade 22" Balsa Hydroplane modeled after Atlas Van lines. Still have the plans somewhere. I used micro switches and car packs from my Grasshopper. Maybe I'll scan a pick of me holding it in mid build... time... LAter on I bought an astroflight motor and esc. Later it was SS1's and Plett's, then Aveox brushless motors and Hacker esc's. A hacker sold for about $200 and it was built to handle a whopping 100amps!! Then Castle came in then China started selling Suppo's and on and on...

[jcald2000]

Great pic's Howard, lot's of good memory's there.
At the 05 Nats, I pitted for Ed Hughey and one of the boats I launched for him was a rigger like the one he was holding in the picture, 2 05 motors, gear drive, switch speed control, a wild looking prop and [B]1200mah[B] NiCad's. Ran very Good!!!

[Fluid]

Did you ever use Sanyo 500AR AF size cells on the states?

I did use them on a limited basis. I built and ran a T Hydro at the 2001 LA SAWs with a big brushed Plett and 32 x 500 mAh cells. It only ran ~70 mph versus the record set that year at over 80 - BL power was here to stay. I found they had major voltage depression compared to 1400 cells.

jay alaskan assassan.jpg

Sharp-eyed readers will recognize Dick Crowe, Ray Fuller and Greg Schweers in the background....



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[jcald2000]

Anyone remember the 5 motor boat Steve had built at Sharp Pond? Howard, got a picture of that?

[T.S.Davis]

Anyone remember the 5 motor boat Steve had built at Sharp Pond? Howard, got a picture of that?

I was just thinking about that. (5) Aveox 1412/1.5y on gear drives with 12 cells each for a total of 60! cells. Diabolical. That was 2003 I think.

Then the following year Steve came back with a 53" Apache. I think it was 53". Twin Lehner 2280's on gears. 32 cells per side. 64 cells total. Had etched Balantine drives on it. Gorgeous setup. Made one pass at Sharp Park and landed it up on the grass. We never saw the boat again.

[madmikepags]

I was lucky enough to start in the boat hobby right when lipos we starting out. I had 2-3 boats I ran w NiMh but when I started racing it was all lipo

[Fluid]

I was just thinking about that. (5) Aveox 1412/1.5y on gear drives with 12 cells each for a total of 60! cells. Diabolical. That was 2003 I think...

Something like this?

2002 Quint.jpg




.

[Flying Scotsman]

I mentioned that I missed fussing around with a motor lathe for brushed motors on a previous thread and I genuinely meant that as I like fiddling with brushes and other motor components but nicd and nimh batteries, NO, they were a pain in the ass especially with memory issues. All batteries though, like any energy source can be dangerous if you do not use common sense and follow proper handling instructions....no mismatching of brand and C rating, charging, storage etc.
Now back to "The Good Old days". It was amazing to watch how ingenious the early devotees of FE boating were in adapting technologies from other rc hobbies in their pursuit of speed and handling with the disadvantage of a heavier payload and power to weight ratio. There were geared transmissions and all sorts of ideas that could go bang or hang on a minute I am onto something. I look forward to some of these being shared on this thread.

Douggie

[srislash]

I mentioned that I missed fussing around with a motor lathe for brushed motors on a previous thread and I genuinely meant that as I like fiddling with brushes and other motor components but nicd and nimh batteries, NO, they were a pain in the ass especially with memory issues. All batteries though, like any energy source can be dangerous if you do not use common sense and follow proper handling instructions....no mismatching of brand and C rating, charging, storage etc.
Now back to "The Good Old days". It was amazing to watch how ingenious the early devotees of FE boating were in adapting technologies from other rc hobbies in their pursuit of speed and handling with the disadvantage of a heavier payload. There were geared transmissions and all sorts of ideas that could go bang or hang on a minute I am onto something. I look forward to some of these being shared on this thread.

Douggie

I wish I had pics of that Hyperdrive setup for you guys but no such luck. She was all custom.

Remember 'cutting' brushes for less armature drag? I remember spending oodles of time with a little 'dyno' trying to get two motors to match up for that drive system.

[T.S.Davis]

Something like this?

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That's the one. I recognize the bench as being Sharp Park too. It was for "Unlimited" offshore or what ever we were calling the nonsense we were doing then. Made one test lap I think. The thing was terrifying. It didn't get raced that weekend. It was way too much for our pond so it was probably for the best.

Look at all those Schulze 105 laying in there. That thing cost a small fortune to put together. Over $500 in gear drives. Maybe $1300 on motors. Another $1500 for speedo. Then the boat and hardware. 5 struts. Fine would have convinced Steve he needed 60 high voltage matched cells so maybe $700 . Then (5) X447 balanced and sharpened that barely cleared each other. Yikes. Nutty in 2003.

[ReddyWatts]

I built a Graupner Cat with a Feigao 10XL (1668)on 18 nimhs using a 1.33/1 transmission spinning a X447 prop. There was not much room in that hull.

[T.S.Davis]

.....ha, with a broken flex cable. It was always the thing you didn't think of in those early days.

Deans connectors because that was the best thing available. We all had em. Astroflights were better but too expensive. Ha! That's funny now that everything has gold connectors.

That motor coil is old school too. We're all spoiled with the jackets. The only thing then was a coil or a Gundert which leaked like a sieve if you were going faster than 30mph.