Wavekatcher

Hey MassiveO,

Have you figured out the range of the stock tx and rx? I am wondering if I should bother switching over to my Futaba gear? The range seems fine for where I am running, I'm just not too fond of the clunky tx.

PS Cool looking ICON you ordered from HK.. Can't beat the price. YOu may want to waterproof everything. Even the Parkzone A5 canopy leaks.

Wavekatcher

MassiveOverkill

Hey Wave, on the lake in my video's I can get almost to the very end, but I'm also using NiMH, not alkaline in my TX. I've only had one time where I had to walk 5 feet to get back in range and when Irun, her, I'm pretty much standing at water level......maybe 1' above.

I plan on waterproofing everything and also adding flaps if Idon't have to do too much carving. I did order an HKremote and spare RX as well as a spectrum RX to see if I can use my other FlySky heli remotes with the SMX:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=16239

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=11965

MassiveOverkill

Finally got my driveline setup working great. Shaved off half the weight using a straight shaft setup using brass with small piece of Octura flex at the tip over the flexhaft setup it rpalced. If I run to LVC, the motor is hot to touch, but rapidly cools down.....cool to the touch in less than a minute whereas before I would have to let the boat sit for 5 minutes before the motor cooled down to even touch it.

I'll never use a flexshaft again. Boca bearings...........probably would have blown up another set under former conditions a long time ago. This is a testament to their toughness.

Submarine kind of day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4j1MVoOKDE

A little smoother water with the new straight shaft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POKsMVG3H8g

siberianhusky

From those videos it looks lit it is running a bit wet. Could be causing the heat problems.
Since you can't adjust your prop at all because of the solid drive shaft try moving the cg back a bit, get the hull aired out a bit more and it will draw a lot less amperage, run cooler.
Personally don't like a solid driveline at all because you've removed almost all the ability to tune the hull. Only things left are CG and prop size.

MassiveOverkill

Hey SH, remember this boat originally came with a stainless steel stuffing tube so it's not like I'm gimping it beyond stock.   I actually do have about 2-3mm worth of vertical play in either direction at the motor end of the stuffing tube.  The stuffing tube is actually lower than stock now with the new brackets I made.

The stock ESC was about 40 grams and the SK 120 is a portly 91 grams located forward in the hull. 

Earlier in my posts I said it seemed to run faster on the stock battery, which is 138g vs 179 for my Grayson 2200 30C, so the boat is at least 90g heavier than stock.

I think I'll try your suggestion and move both the battery and ESC back.  I'll have to remove some servo mounts that aren't being used to move the battery back, which will allow me to move the my Overkill ESC back a bit as well.  I just hope it doesn't mess with the self-righting, but I think I'll be OK, as motor torque alone can self-right this boat.

Thanks. 

Wavekatcher

I had a great run today! Made it 3 feet and the shaft w/ prop came loose. DOH! Some idiot (me) only tightened up one of the two grub screws after greasing the shaft from the last run. Note to self...remove both grub screws and re-lok tite. Dummy

MassiveOverkill

Well at least you didn't lose anything.  With my straight shaft, I undo the grub that holds the shaft and slide the shaft back as far as the collet will go and get some lube on the stub, which is all that needs it as the motor end spins freely (it's still lubed, but doesn't need constant relubing like the stub)

Wavekatcher

Well, even after removing both grub srews and re-loktiting and tightening the grubs as hard as I could the prop shaft let loose again.???? Should I solder the end where the grubs seat?

Also, my stock tx is acting funky. Motor still runs (very slowly) even when trigger is released. I have to mess with the trigger to get the motor to stop.

MassiveOverkill

If you solder it, make sure you clean it really well and lightly sand to clean it.  While you're at it you can actually sand the whole flex to reduce friction but be careful.  There's plenty of meat on the Octura flex, but not a whole lot on the stock. 

Try rebinding your transmitter to your receiver.  There's a bind button behind the sticker on the RX (no need to remove the sticker).

Wavekatcher

Ok thanks.

I'm not sure if the grease I'm getting on the flex is the problem or what. I wouldn't mind upgrading to the Octura flex.

MassiveOverkill

Convert to straight shaft (with a flex tip):

Wavekatcher

Ok, looks good. I'll pm my address so you can send me yours

I was looking @ Offshore elctrics and it looks like they have everything I will need. Would you mind helping me with the build process? I should order the brass tubing PN #127, Octura flex .130 PN?, Etc. etc.????

Thanks, Jeff

MassiveOverkill

So I originally went with the .130 flex because that's way I thought I was going to use as my final setup. If you're going to convert to straight, you don't need a flex that large for just the tip.......hell you could re-use your stock flexshaft as your flex tip. This will prevent you from having to bore out your stock coupler as I had to do.

Had I not already bored mine out, I would have taken the stock flexshaft and used smaller brass tubing at the motor end, which will give more clearance.

If I had to do it again, I'd go with a smaller prop shaft (I would buy a few):

http://www.offshoreelectrics.com/pro...prod=oct-oc4ps

If you have an Ace hardware around they'll have all the brass tubing you need.

Take your prop new prop shaft and boat down to Ace and find some hollow brass tubing that fits snugly inside the stub. If that brass tube also fits snugly around your flex cable, then that's all you need. If not get additional brass tubes one size up and one size down so that they fit inside each other. You'll need a tubing cutter and some Permatex Red (or Loctite equivalent).

If you do this, your setup should be faster than mine as the small diameter setup should have less friction as well as less weight. Despite what others have said, it makes a big difference with our small, made-for-mini-helicopters and park flyers motors.

At the stub, you'll find that you have a larger piece of teflon tube seperate from the main teflon liner. You can reuse this, but it's sloppy. I would use another piece of brass. You want the that piece of brass to fit snugly inside your stock steel stuffing tube but somewhat loose around the stub. You can replace your steel stuffing tube if you have to buty obviously try and reuse what you can.

It sounds confusing but once you take everything down to Ace and fit it, it will all make sense.

I would have kept this:



Had Joysway not made the prop shaft of pot metal so it eventually looks like this:

Wavekatcher

thanks for the help

I think I understand. So, the flex shaft is cut then right? Does the permatex hold everything together?


So...short piece of flex inside brass tubing which fits inside new propshaft stub. then teflon liner (or brass tubing) over stub ?

Will the new smaller prop shaft stub you linked for me fit the prop I have?

MassiveOverkill

Yep, you'll use a small piece of the original flex. If youwantto preserve your stock flex, get theflex\prop combo and order additional prop stubs for spares. The flex will be enough to make plenty of tips or even go back to a crappy flex setup if you wish:

http://www.offshoreelectrics.com/pro...oct-oc098L-24c

Permatex is used at all the connections. You'll sand the brass tube with high grit where it gets inserted into the stub and if you're lucky enough that the .098" flex will fit inside that brass piece without using a larger connecting piece like mine, you'll just score the inside of the brass tube with a sharp object such as a small flathead or drill bit......same with the inside of the stub.

You'll take the teflon liner and sacrifice it to the Gods of Friction and High Maintenence.

The beauty of the Permatex is that if you screw up or want to reuse, it dissolves with heat (candle flame was enough for me).

It's 1/8th prop shaft which will fit our props.......it's a little snug, but fits.

This is the setup I'm running now:

http://www.offshoreelectrics.com/pro...od=oct-oc64pkg

as you can see it's 1\8" prop.

MassiveOverkill

Scuffed up the hull, you'll be glad to know there is zero hook at the transom:

Wavekatcher

Hook means...drag.???

Got my parts ordered, thanks again!

MassiveOverkill

The flat surfaces on the bottom of the hull near the transom shouldn't haveany concave or conveximperfections there (called hooks and rockers), or it will slow you down.

MassiveOverkill

Hey Wave, make sure you measure the total distance from your transom to the prop as you'll want to keep this measurement as the baseline with your new setup.  I've experimented a little with prop distance closer and further away than stock and it makes a big difference in handling and the prevention of crabbing\walking as does the battery location fore\aft. 

Wavekatcher

Ok, thanks for the heads up. I got 2 more runs in (finally the prop/shaft stayed put) on the SMX yesterday evening. My wife had never seen me run it before, and she couldn't stop laughing when she saw how fast it is.

My parts arrived today from OSE. Great service. 2 days all the way from Maryland??

Did you receive your Icon yet?

My early B-day present from my wife arrived via the big brown truck today. Silver/red RXR Revolt 30. $250 plus free shipping.

MassiveOverkill

Nice!! Happy Birthday!   Icon is on the slow boat to the US.  I hope it's not more than 2 weeks.

MassiveOverkill

Motor finally let go and burned up on me. Trying to put a new motor and new motor mount is actually harder than rewinding the motor.

I've never rewound a motor before, but it's really not as daunting as it seems. First try, since I didn't have any wire to rewind with, I simply took my spare CF2812, which uses a different pattern (AaBbCc) unwound it, and then rewound it like the Joysway which is ABCABCABC and stuck the 8 magnet pole can back on.

Dry run didn't work too well as it heated up quickly.........I had mistakenly wound one of the stators in the wrong direction.

I decided to rewind with a heavier gauge and it dawned on me that I have a ton of spare brushed motors. I cannibalized one and it had plenty of wire to spare, so I rewound again. I dry tested the motor and she ran beautifully but the leads were a little warm. I terminated in a D because I wasn't too sure if I'd get back to the 3300KV.

Well the motor worked beautifully for about a 45 seconds. I figure the boat was going 45-50 mph as the hull wasn't even in the water. I was about to bring her in when a puff of smoke emerged.

Got out the fishing pole and spare boat and reeled her in. ESC is still good thankfully.

I obviously I got 3300KV and whole lot more. I would guess the rating increased between 4000KV-4500KV.

I ended up with doing 3 strands of the .015" at 5 turns each stator (that's all I could really fit... stock is 6 strands of .01" at 8 turns). Since the D termination was producing too much KV, the next rewind would be in a Y termination which reduces the KV by .53 (going from Y to D gains you 1.73KV) but increases torque and reduces amp draw.

My rewind (well this was the 2nd rewind with a D that burned up, my 3rd rewind with Wye termination looks the same but not as sloppy):

The boat still freaking flies, still way faster than stock. I may have to prop down. If you guys that own the SMX think it's fast now, just wait............a rewind does wonders. I'll try and get some video later after I do some more safety runs.

M2them

Your posts here have been very informative. Thanks. I burned up my stock ESC within the first week. I was running 1800mah 20c at the time. My grub screw was loose out of the box. I didn't know this until my drive shaft and prop came off while running. Somehow, my buddy found it! Lesson learned! Despite the cheap ESC , I am very impressed with the speed and handling of this boat. I will be checking back to see how your new ESC works out.

MassiveOverkill

The new ESC is bullet-proof but too heavy. Go with a 60A ESC or anything that weighs about the same as stock, which is 40g. The 120A SeaKing ESC is twice the weight and weighs down the bow. Joysway actually does make a replacment motor so Aaron from Banggood is seeing if he can stock it. I'm very happy with the boat otherwise.

Wavekatcher

I finally got my SMX to a lake and was able to get 3 more fantastic runs. This is a great little boat. Flipped her 2 times on her hatch, no problem, just a blip of throttle, she self rights, and I was off again. Still running all original stock. 1800mah batteries 3S.

I only run for 4 minutes (WOT) to keep down the heat. Batteries come in around 3.82 per cell. The motor comes in hot, but not overly hot. Love this lil bugger. I oil the motor bearings at the end of the day.

Now to build my new shaft

Hey MassiveO, Did you get your Icon A5 yet?