The official 36" zelos twin modding thread

[Erroneous]

Carefull scoring fiber'glass'. It will follow the weakest line and like glass, break.

[fweasel]

Who's scoring fiberglass? The struts are made of aluminum (aluminium if you're British) I'm referring to the mating surfaces between the two pieces of the strut that slide against each other for the trim adjustment.

[dasboata]

REDLINE and I hit the lake today and came to the realization that both of our boats were in need of more weight farther forward in the hull. After an initial run on 4 3S packs, strapped down in the stock locations, Mark's boat was bouncing and ready to take flight in pretty ideal conditions with x447 props and struts set conservatively at 3mm. So we brought his boat in, moved two of the batteries forward so all 4 were inline and as far forward as the tray allowed. The center two were strapped in, the outter two were wedged in between the center pack and white flotation foam in the sponson. Sent it back out, ran true and smooth. I did the same on both of my runs. First run was 70mph and the second run was 72mph. Boat ran wide open, super stable, for as far as I could run and still see the boat. Best setup I've run personally to date. I think there's room for improvement running it a little looser by sliding the batteries back a bit, but the major leap forward was realized today and will get both of us much closer to fine tuning for the next trip. Plenty of people have run with all 4 packs side by side before, it was just something we hadn't tried in our boats. I'm sold.

Other issue we're both fighting is the strength of the wire drives pushing against our struts and altering their position during the run, without a crash. When I ran flex cables, the only time my struts moved on me was during an acrobatic event. I love the wire drives so my fix will be to disassemble the struts into their two major pieces and rough up the mating surface around the adjustment through bolt. You can't do that while it's assembled as a single unit. Not worth the effort or drag to fabricate a vertical turnbuckle style support connecting the strut arm to the bottom of the hull like the big boys use. I may just use a little JB Weld to hold them in place for the LOTO Mini Shootout next month and do the disassembly work over the winter.

Also got my telemetry working with the DX5R. Still only running a single temp probe on one motor, but it was nice to see the motor temp in real time during the run to know that everything (mostly) was happy and healthy. Started at 90* as I headed out from the dock, ran just under 120* during the run, and spiked a little higher when I brought the boat back in and the cooling flow stopped. Good data to have. Can't wait until I can run dual probes.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]152987[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]152988[/ATTACH]

If you want to have fun with the boat in the 70MPH range the 447 are the way to go,,,the boat stays on the water and you can have fun driving the boat I'v been at the lake and working on 2 of them for the last few month the 1715 are faste,,r but the 447 make the boat more stable with there increased lift

[dasboata]

REDLINE and I hit the lake today and came to the realization that both of our boats were in need of more weight farther forward in the hull. After an initial run on 4 3S packs, strapped down in the stock locations, Mark's boat was bouncing and ready to take flight in pretty ideal conditions with x447 props and struts set conservatively at 3mm. So we brought his boat in, moved two of the batteries forward so all 4 were inline and as far forward as the tray allowed. The center two were strapped in, the outter two were wedged in between the center pack and white flotation foam in the sponson. Sent it back out, ran true and smooth. I did the same on both of my runs. First run was 70mph and the second run was 72mph. Boat ran wide open, super stable, for as far as I could run and still see the boat. Best setup I've run personally to date. I think there's room for improvement running it a little looser by sliding the batteries back a bit, but the major leap forward was realized today and will get both of us much closer to fine tuning for the next trip. Plenty of people have run with all 4 packs side by side before, it was just something we hadn't tried in our boats. I'm sold.

Other issue we're both fighting is the strength of the wire drives pushing against our struts and altering their position during the run, without a crash. When I ran flex cables, the only time my struts moved on me was during an acrobatic event. I love the wire drives so my fix will be to disassemble the struts into their two major pieces and rough up the mating surface around the adjustment through bolt. You can't do that while it's assembled as a single unit. Not worth the effort or drag to fabricate a vertical turnbuckle style support connecting the strut arm to the bottom of the hull like the big boys use. I may just use a little JB Weld to hold them in place for the LOTO Mini Shootout next month and do the disassembly work over the winter.

Also got my telemetry working with the DX5R. Still only running a single temp probe on one motor, but it was nice to see the motor temp in real time during the run to know that everything (mostly) was happy and healthy. Started at 90* as I headed out from the dock, ran just under 120* during the run, and spiked a little higher when I brought the boat back in and the cooling flow stopped. Good data to have. Can't wait until I can run dual probes.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]152987[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]152988[/ATTACH]

If you want to have fun with the boat in the 70MPH range the 447 are the way to go,,,the boat stays on the water and you can have fun driving the boat I'v been at the lake and working on 2 of them for the last few month the 1715 are faste,,r but the 447 make the boat more stable with there increased lift

[dasboata]

Just some quick pics of a JB weld repair,,on 1 boat that broke,,, and another way to do a preventive repair on a new boat.. I sanded the surface with 80 grit cleaned with acetone and cut 2" tape by folding it in 1/2 and cutting a hole in it like you would do when you fold a piece of baloney in half and bite a hole in it LOL you'll get the idea came out great I thought I had a pic here ?

[Erroneous]

Who's scoring fiberglass? The struts are made of aluminum (aluminium if you're British) I'm referring to the mating surfaces between the two pieces of the strut that slide against each other for the trim adjustment.

Ahh 10-4... ����*!**♂️

[kfxguy]

Abc 1814-17-45 props are the fastest and most stable I've run on this boat. When I ran 1715's it wanted to take flight too easily.


Tips: I added a few oz of epoxy to the front of mine. Take the foam out and add 2-3oz of epoxy in the tips an tunnel. Make sure you have a 5 gall on bucket of water or your bathtub ready to put the front of the boat in after you pour the epoxy. If you don't then the heat from the curing epoxy will deform the hull.

I wish the rudder on this hull was 1/2" longer. It would help the flightyness a lot.

[dasboata]

Abc 1814-17-45 props are the fastest and most stable I've run on this boat. When I ran 1715's it wanted to take flight too easily.


Tips: I added a few oz of epoxy to the front of mine. Take the foam out and add 2-3oz of epoxy in the tips an tunnel. Make sure you have a 5 gall on bucket of water or your bathtub ready to put the front of the boat in after you pour the epoxy. If you don't then the heat from the curing epoxy will deform the hull.

I wish the rudder on this hull was 1/2" longer. It would help the flightyness a lot.

I have to try the 1814 when I get them if I get them sadly

[Team Lucas]

Abc 1814-17-45 props are the fastest and most stable I've run on this boat. When I ran 1715's it wanted to take flight too easily.


Tips: I added a few oz of epoxy to the front of mine. Take the foam out and add 2-3oz of epoxy in the tips an tunnel. Make sure you have a 5 gall on bucket of water or your bathtub ready to put the front of the boat in after you pour the epoxy. If you don't then the heat from the curing epoxy will deform the hull.

I wish the rudder on this hull was 1/2" longer. It would help the flightyness a lot.

what I had did for weight before pouring the epoxy, is I slide out the 2 foam on the sides and hollowed out the tips and weighed some 22cal led pellets {Walmart sells them} taped a lid on it and slid them back in. gave me a idea of how much I should add.

[fweasel]

These showed up today, just in time for the races this weekend. Thanks Brian! Hope I get some good weather on Saturday to test with them before Sunday morning.

2017-08-14 18.37.10.jpg

[REDLINE1]

Has anyone filed there water pickups down flush with the sponson? I want to do a little blueprinting on the sponsons and the pickup makes it hard to block sand flat

[kfxguy]

Has anyone filed there water pickups down flush with the sponson? I want to do a little blueprinting on the sponsons and the pickup makes it hard to block sand flat

Yes I did mine.

[IRON-PAWW]

Well..... So... Somehow this boat appeared on my workbench. I had <cough> nothing to do with it </cough> I swear. My Zelos 48 trials are great - but I need a break from that for a while.

I've gotten to page 28 on this thread only so I apologize if it's been discussed.

I'm soldering up a wiring harness today. I've got 4 x 3S SPC 6500mah 65c batts.

Now - what's best here?

(1) Do I series the two batts on each side for 6s - then connect each side to the corresponding ESC directly - meaning I have the two ESC's wired separately?

OR

(2) Do I series each side for 6S - then parallel each side together - and then essentially have the two ESC's drawing power from all four batts?

OR

(3) Either way is fine.


Got some X447's on the way from Dasboata (cheers to him!) and I really only want mid 60's out of the boat and that'll do me fine.

[MADRCER]

Less wires = less resistance... so Number 1.

[IRON-PAWW]

Thanks MADRCER, That's about what I was thinking too. Spun it up on the bench today after making the harness. Geez those motors hum don't they?

Did the sponson tips and tunnel nose as well with epoxy. Thanks for Travis for that little gem - yeah I put it in water... :-) Learned the necessity of needing that with my 48's. This hull feels stronger though I have to admit.

That seam though....... Who's strengthened that? Better than in my 48's.. but still looks a tad weak. Were you guys just pouring a little epoxy along it?