kielbasa

Well, I got my sub earlier this week,and like a kid at X-mas, I got it out of the box, and charged the batteries. first, I wold like to sa that it truly looks fantastic. I read somewhere else that this is a glorified toy, but I have to disagree. It is a really nicely built, and well engineered bit of kit. It is a treat.

I was able to meet with a few other bubbleheads today in Shrewsbury Pa at the YMCA pool and run it a bit. I had some problems. I have plenty of experience in RC sub, and RC in general, so I am not a newb who does not know what a Flux-Capacitor or liquid filled motor mounts are for. I know about the ball bearings.... everything is ball bearings these days.

when bench testing the boat, I noticed that it would turn on, and go into fail-safe mode. I have control over the throttle, and the planes/rudder, but no control over the ballast, it is constantly running, like a poorly tuned harley, trying to empty the ballast (i am not worried about the sound, that is normal, just that it is always doing it...) After doing a hard reset, the sub has ballast control for about a minute, and then goes into fail safe, with the green LED solid (ballast emptying) and a blinking red LED, indicating water in the hull, a bad signal from the Tx or a low RX battery.

I feel like all three are invalid,
I have no water in the sub, I ran it with out the shell on, so I could clearly see the LED's and the ballast bag filling/emptying. I was only able to fill it once in the water, before going into fail-safe. I also was able to quickly get the boat out of the water, and look through the cylinder to verify no water intrusion.
I still had plenty of power while running on the surface, god control movement, no brownouts or fades. The throttle was responsive to all inputs. It is not a fast boat, but I feel like running on the surface, wiggling the stix, the ballast pump constantly blowing, and the throttle pegged made no difference.
just to verify, I actually put the boat on charge for about a half hour, and still the same result, straight to fail-safe, with e ballast trying to empty.

I guess what I am wondering is that, if anyone has had a similar experience? and what yo may have done to remedy it. I am thinking of unplugging the water sensor? I will definitely be calling ACE tomorrow, to ask them (besides, they owe me a me TX charger and a new front bulkhead). I also want ot ass some sort of monitor, such a s a voltwatch so I can instantly verify the RX voltage from the window. Then t figure out some kind of camera rig for the nose.......

Here a few pix, thanks to Jeff LaRue for driving while I took pic's.

pompebled

Hi Kielbasa,

If you run the stock gel battery, half an hour ist too short to fully charge it, four hours at 600mA would come close.

Should the problem persist with a fully charged battery, I'd contemplate the use of the warranty it comes with, something isn't right...

Regards, Jan.

kielbasa

jan,
thanks for getting back to me. Just to clarify, I gave it a 24+ hour charge, 2 days before using it. I am going to re-charge everything again just to verify that it is not the battery, and will be adding some sort of digital voltmeter to one of the open channels of the RX.

I just do not think that such a long charge would be that depleted after 2 days.... I just put it on the wall wart for about an hour to try to "top it off" and see what that would do. it was the only thing that I could imagine. I am also going use my on TX, and verify that it is not a weak or poor signal from the stock TX.

I like the sub. but want it to work. the only othe issue I have with it, is feel like the bladder is too small to actually get it under water, but I will wait to get the battery/TX/signal issue worked out first. Then I can worry about it.

Any one else have any ideas, praise, money for me out there?

d
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Habaneroe

My Feedback: (1)

If you are running it in a pool like the pic... doesnt clorine interfere with the signal significantly? Have you tried it in a pond? Oh wait you said it did it on the bench nevermind...

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

I don't know, certainly could be a part of the problem. But just for conversations sake, I have one of those "Cyborg Shark" r/c sharks which is actually a submarine and it goes to the bottom of my 10' swimming pool and never loses radio contact.

http://media.putfile.com/Cyborg-Shark

alligator

Keilbasa, Regarding your TT Neptune Sub issue you may want to check out http://subcommittee.com/ message board under the r/c modeler forum or http://www.rcgroups.com/submarines-60/ There you will find an extensive write up on this sub by (Aquadeep). It appears he has torn this sub apart and has modified it extensively. You may find some further info. regarding your problem from him. Can't hurt to give him a try. Regards, Al,

tmsmalley

One guy noted that the stock charger didn't seem to be working properly and wasn't putting a full charge on the batts. Might want to try a different one?

astroboycp

Have you tried another fully charged batt to see if it's still the same problem?

astroboycp

Yup the thread by (Aquadeep) is quite detailed regarding his mods. I am still going through it.

AQUASUB

Yes check out the mods and findings I incountered here in RC Universe and RC Groups.

nick_75au

I found with mine (exact same problem) its the third fault, low RX battery, the stock ESC was the problem, Its designed for 7.2-8.4 volts, while it works ok on the Higher voltage of the gel Cell the BEC does not. There are 2 solutions, disable the BEC by removing the red wire from the ESC plug and run a separate receiver battery or change the ESC, which is what I did, I used a M-tronics Viper 15 and have not had a problem since. I don't use the stock charger at all. (I have a nice I-charger 208B)

Nick

AQUASUB

Thats interesting as I have not had any problems with the electronics on this sub,just a lose fuse once that was my falt,other than that it runs perfect and with alot of mods.

Dave

glenladen

I tossed the charger,because I could get a decent charge for my Tx batteries and also changed the radio out mainly because the supplied radio came with a frequency that wasn't legal for Australia.

cheers,
Glenn.