Yen Shock Mini

[Froggy]

Just curious how many of you that owned these boats have lost one.

Ive lost two of the mini Scords in 3 months, the 1st one took a nose dive and never came back up, the 2nd one was a replacement I lost yesterday it spun out on a turn went under and never returned to the surface.
im running a radio link 6gs radio was wondering if the motor shutoff when it went under, both boats had really strong tape hatch bond and pool noodle floatation, both are gone.

[Panther6834]

I see two possibilities. Either the hatch tape didn't maintain the seal, or water might have entered the hull through a different opening. In either case, the floatation (pool noodle) might not have been sufficient enough to overcome the weight of the water. In order to float, the total weight of a vessel must be less than the weight of the water it displaces. If water enters the hull, you're relying of the being enough 'floatation' inside the hull, so as to displace enough water weight to allow the boat to return to the surface.

Using my stepdad's Recoil 17, I had added pool noodle...but, not enough (I "thought" it was enough, but I was wrong). On one run, the hatch came off (I'll admit, only the hatch latch was being used, no hatch tape), the boat went under, and didn't surface. Borrowing another RCer's inflatable raft, I rowed out to where the boat went under...and, I found it...'floating' approx midway between the surface, and the bottom. Thankfully, the boat was recovered, more pool noodle was added, and he always uses hatch tape now.

There is one other possibility of what happened. Assuming you were running is a natural lake/pond, or even a man-made one with mud/clay bottom (ie. not a "cement pond"), the boat could have nose-dived right into the bottom, and for stock in the mud/clay. At full-throttle, I'm sure there would probably have been enough force to 'drive' it into the bottom...to which that boat started singing, "You Really Got A Hold On Me".


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

[Froggy]

I would have thought that after the boat left the surface it would shut down from a lack of signal.
the lake is man made hard pack clay bottom it 6ft deep where I left the surface ??

[Panther6834]

I would have thought that after the boat left the surface it would shut down from a lack of signal.
the lake is man made hard pack clay bottom it 6ft deep where I left the surface ??

Don't know what Tx/Rx you're using. Typically, they don't "shut down"...they go to "zero throttle/steering"...but, it's not instantaneous. I know, with my Traxxas TQi, it takes a few seconds for the Rx to recognize "loss of signal". That's more then enough time for a boat to dive 6ft. Same goes for my drones...usually takes several seconds before the drone realizes signal has been lost (to which, it starts automatic "return to home").

I've never tested signal loss with my Futaba, FlySky Noble NB4, or Radiolink RC8X...but, that's probably because I've never achieved enough distance to have signal loss. Point is, when there's signal loss between the Tx & Rx, most usually have a pre-set period of time (such as 3 servings) before it's 'failsafe' kicks in. Assuming the water is clear enough, you do the same as I did in recovering my stepdad's boat. 6ft should be shallow enough to see it. If not, know anyone local to you with an RC submarine?


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

[NativePaul]

I have a radiolink 6GS (for my cars, only the best proven tech for valuable fragile boats traveling at high speeds at long range with knife blades attached IMO) and i seem to remember having to change the failsafes from defaults, i dont recall if it defaulted to throttle hold or something silly like that, or it was throttle reversed or partial throttle, but its deffo worth checking that failsafe is on and its set to throttle off on all your models.

Even if the failsafe is set correctly not all failsafes are created equal, when the Spektrum waterproof surface RXs came out there was a marked increase in lost monos in the UK race scene, which with some testing was found to be the RXs not responding to failsafe quickly enough and submaring boats being propelled into the lake bed at full throttle and getting stuck, folks switched back to air RXs and the spate of lost boats was.

A lot of ESCs have a failsafe on a 3 second timer, some throttle cut, some throttle hold. With the early Spektrum surface ESCs they would take longer than that to failsafe, so the ESC failsafe would kick in first, and it wasnt unusual to see a hump or fountain in the water form a boat flat out nose into the bottom, and towards the end of the race it would run out of battery and pop back up to the surface if the bottom was hard enough not to get stuck.

Getting stuck seems to be a reasonable likelyhood in both man made and natural lakes, assuming no hull breach or enough bouyancy was fitted, draagging a reasonably heavy chain with the rescue boat will likely move it enough to unstick it, or worst case if you have a local scuba diving club, they can often be bribed to put on a search with a bottle of something tasty and enough cash to pay for their air fills and petrol.

It's easy enough to check your failsafe, take your shaft out, rev up the boat, switch the TX off, and see what happens, maybe it takes 3 lost servings of data to kick in failsafe but with the Futaba FASST airs I've used for my boats it is close enough to instant that I can't tell it isn't.

[zooma]

I have seen cases where the modeler had no idea about the failsafe, and inadvertently got it set to hold. That shows up when the boat flips, and the antenna gets underwater.

[Panther6834]

All I have to say about Spektrum is, they make great aerial equipment...but, personally, I stay far away from their surface equipment.


~ More peace, love, laughter, & kindness would make the world a MUCH better place

[Froggy]

I have a Radiolink 6GS, when the boats went down neither one of them showed any sign of opening up there were no bubbles fro escaping air the water was like glass both times I’m thinking they are stuck in the clay bottom unfortunately there no visibility at all.
I live in this man made lake that is maintained with chemicals to keep the algae and weeds at bay, they are dyed dark blue to block out the sunlight to prevent the algae from growing.

I thought about making a dredge and dragging it around the bottom, I have a small electric pontoon boat I might give it a whirl, not getting in the water it’s toxic

[zooma]

I have a Radiolink 6GS, when the boats went down neither one of them showed any sign of opening up there were no bubbles fro escaping air the water was like glass both times I’m thinking they are stuck in the clay bottom unfortunately there no visibility at all.
I live in this man made lake that is maintained with chemicals to keep the algae and weeds at bay, they are dyed dark blue to block out the sunlight to prevent the algae from growing.

I thought about making a dredge and dragging it around the bottom, I have a small electric pontoon boat I might give it a whirl, not getting in the water it’s toxic

Our neighborhood lake is like that too. But the local scuba club has retrieved many boats for us over the years.

[High_Card]

I lost a mini mono earlier this year and I attribute it to a few things. I was running stock motor which was a 3000kv or so, that's what the tenshock mini mono ships with. Great on 2S, but on 3s I was pushing it. Second, I was running a slightly heavy 3s 2200mah graphene battery, this didn't help the cause, as I I felt was running the boat heavy. Lastly I brought it in to check temps and give it a break, when I did I re-taped the hatch that wasn't fully dry. All of these things contributed to what I think was burning up the stock ESC, possibly putting a hole in the flood chamber and to the bottom she went. Things I corrected on the replacement was a lower 2000kv motor, Lighter 1800mah 3s battery and a solid Hatch tape job. make sure you get a good duct tape or a few rolls of hockey tape and carry a rag to make sure its dry when taped. Also as mentioned above, flotation is key i now pack mine with pool noodle. Somewhere there's a formula for every inch of a certain diameter pool noodle it offers X lbs of flotation. I followed this on another FE boat I run and it sure saved it when the ABS hull cracked in 3+ places from a spectacular flip and was nearly a total loss, but stayed floating no problem as I was able to reel it in with my fishing rod.