SteelShadow104

Hi, I'm completely new to all of this. I'm trying to custom make a model warship and was planning on trying to add as many features as possible. It's going to be in 1/150 scale and will measure out to be about 4 1/2 ft long, and roughly 5" wide. I have only recently just stared planning out the features I desire and I'm just looking for advice on what I need to do to make them work. It's probably gonna a far-fetched project, but bear with me. I have at most 12 servos I need to hook up: 5 for turret traverse, 4 for 4 torpedo tube traverse, 1 for a rudder, and 2 for possibly 2 catapult fighter traverse. I also have 4 propellers I need to hook up, but I figure with a gear on both sides of a motor I can make it down to one motor for port and starboard sides. the last few things I wanna try to implement but aren't necessary are interior and exterior lights, and smoke. Hell maybe even a horn. I want to try to put all these feature onto a controller that I can hold, and I do not care if I have to build the control itself with electronic components (which I'll probably have to). I am hoping to have basic remote control for movement like normal, but a knob for each turret, torp, and catapult launcher so I have complete and accurate positioning. As well as switches for the lights and smoke. I know it sounds like a lot to put into one ship, but I'm willing to try to make it work. If anyone has any advice or can point me in the right direction I highly appreciate it. : )

mfr02

1 Try to figure out the weight of the extras, and where the weight will be. Scaling to 675 feet long, this says Battleship, so stability shouldn't be a problem.
2 Search the internet for similar projects, of which there are several.
3 Today there are radios with enough channels.at a price. Or, if you already have the appropriate skills, you can add your own multiplexing at each end.

One suitable direct motor per shaft is usually lighter, simpler, quieter, cheaper and less bulky than gearing. Brushed motors, one ESC per side - brushless, one smaller, maybe cheaper ESC per motor. One of my club members has a 1:150 HMS Manchester with a stack of working features, lights, swivelling turret, sound effects, radar etc. Its a bit tender, but works very well.

Hydro Junkie

Something to think about would be how to use one channel to operate more than one function. Mfr02 is guessing a battleship, could also be a cruiser or battlecruiser. Regardless of which type of ship you do, you could use one channel to operate the forward turrets and one to operate the aft turrets. Do you really need to have a multiple catapults that can rotate? Why not just have one move and one fixed?
I have to agree with mfr02 on the motors and control for them. I built a Tamiya Bismarck years ago that had a gearbox set up turning the outboard shafts. It was very noisy and not something I would recommend since the model was basically uncontrollable on the water as it had a fixed rudder, not something that could be controlled.
As far as other functions, many of these could be done with programable servos and splitter units, something fairly new to R/C but highly touted by those that fly larger model aircraft. Just something to think about

mfr02

It would be good to know if it is a model of a particular ship or a freelance or "might have been" project.