Foxvalleypcgeek

I have had 2 RC boats, the first being this Enforcer 57 that came in a kit and second a Traxxas Spartan. The spartan I sold within the first couple of weeks as it was too small for on the lake and needed glass like water with its wicked speed. The Enforcer took off the next year after getting it and was never found again. We did see a what looked like a large yellow boat while driving by someones pond, and turned around and it was gone. So I be sure to fly my drone over there every now and then to see if it pops up again. I am really excited to get some drone (Phantom 4) + GoPro + RC boat footage this time around.

I found Tom on here to get the Seahawk 72" hull. He has been pointing me in the direction to go for things such as the radio system, engine, and zipkits radio box. I did not want one that gets taped shut again as that was a pain. I am waiting to hear back from GizmoMotors on what pipe best goes along with theGZ-29.5 Pro Mod Engine.

Then I will know what to tell the prop guy for the prop.

Then on to things like the fuel tank and hardware. Whats the best to get for that without spending a fortune? I even see fuel bags now that look like an IV type of bag. I think I would rather have a normal tank but maybe the bag is better?

It also seems that one rudder is better then 2 like on the enforcer? I wouldn't mind a single one as it was a pain to keep them aligned from what I remember.

Then the water pump, I haven't even seen one of those on the few sites I have looked at.

And what would be the recommended servos to go with?

I'm sure theres a bunch of little stuff I'm forgetting but looking back at old pics of the Enforcer there doesn't seem to be all that much to a boat. I think my RC cars have had a lot more stuff going on. This will be the first time for me drilling all the holes and such as they were pre drilled before. Which Tom recommended a 90 degree attachment that goes on a dremel to put the motor mounts in, I didn't even think of that with how close the rails are.

And lastly I was going to leave the boat white to match my crown vic cop car I drive around in. Looking to get a little harbor freight trailer and fabricate some type of mount in there the boat can sit in and strap down. No walls or anything as I wan't it to be visible.

A few pics of the run-away boat a few years back

expresscraft

John just left my shop with your sea hawk molds and a set for our 70" Apache, That I just sold last night.john I am sure will sand the molds to a finer grit and re-buff them for a even better gel coat finish. On the sea hawk it has a shoe box deck and hull fit where the deck over laps the hull. It has a finished seam line and will look great in the white gel coat. Boats like our Apache, c-68, thunderbolt and MTI have external seams and they need to be filled and sanded as these boats are meant to be painted. But when done they do not have a seam showing and although they do take a little work they sure do look great. I will keep you posted on your build.

Foxvalleypcgeek

Awesome! Good thing I have the finished one then, I wasn't planning on doing any paint work. I look forward to the progress and some pictures hopefully.


There I am with the Enforcer boat and the little bit bigger boat in the background. I hope to get some epic shots with it cruising next to the real boat with the drone.


Some rooster tail fun with it in this video, I don't think the RC boat will be quite as spectacular lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4fVYbcPxMw

MadDogDan

John,

I think I see the cause of your "run away" Enforcer. It looks like you were using a Spectrum transmitter. Spectrum for the most part are surface or air radios and not marine. They make only one true marine receiver which doesn't come stock on any of their radios. If your receiver was completely sealed with two long antennas, duel connections for all channels and the whole unit was the size of a postage stamp, then you did have a marine receiver. If you did not have their specified marine receiver then any of their others have a hard time keeping a strong signal on water. You may have had a receiver glitch that caused the loss of control and therefore a runaway. I had that happen with my first boat, traded my Spectrum for a Futaba and never had a problem since.

The boat club I hang with all race so none of us use clutches and therefore we don't need water pumps, but I do know that Gizmomotors sells water pumps. As far as fuel tanks goes most of us run fuel bags. With a hard tank you need a vent or return line and if you have a blow over the hard tanks quite often fill with water. With fuel bags they don't need to be pressurized and there is no vent line. It is a completely closed system. They are pretty inexpensive, easy to install and change after the end of the boating season. I used to use IV bags but have had quite a few bad ones. Zipp Kits sells their own version made to their specifications that are more durable then Baxter IV Bags, just as cheap, and easy to maintain. They come is three sizes and the largest is great for long cruising times on a big lake.

Hope this info helps,
Dan

Foxvalleypcgeek

Thanks Dan,

However my name is Scott not John lol. Ya we figured it was the radio that failed. Definitely not using one of those again. So the fuel bag looks like the way to go and just needs to be replaced each year.

MadDogDan

Sorry about that Scott, don't know where i got John from. Yes the IV bags are the way to go in my opinion. The real IV bags need to be changed out every year but the bags made for Zipp Kits seems to last twice as long. I have one in a Crackerbox that is three years old which I am changing this week but it is still going strong. I change out the ones in my Outrigger, Jersey Skiff, Thunderboat, F1 Tunnel, & Cat every year at the beginning of the season. You can buy their bags completely rigged (bag, fuel line & fuel T installed) for $12 and then just get replacement bags for $5 when needed.

Are you going to use a clutch? If not then you don't need a water pump. A good double water pick-up rudder will supply enough water to cool a modified 29.5 or you could use a single pick-up rudder and add a "blast pick-up". In any event with your pipe running internally I would definitely use two water feeds. One for the head and one for the pipe flange/header.

Foxvalleypcgeek

The other boat came with a clutch so I don't know what it is like without I guess. But it was recommended that I get one again from Bonzi. Its just me playing around in the lake, zero racing around here. I saw the rudders with a dual pickup as well as the flange header with a water input on zipkits as well. If I remember the enforcer boat had a wet exhaust which this one will not.

Foxvalleypcgeek

Im also looking at the superbee kill switch to hopefully prevent another boat take off! The fact that I can use the third channel on the remote to kill the engine is a great plus!

The Saylors

The killer bee is a good switch, see it a ton on ground based gas trucks. I plan on getting one for my losi 5ive-t build in a few months. As a side note how do you like that phantom 4? I know its off topic but that is literally the only drone i have given any thought to buying but it's just sooooo expensive lol. camera footage look crazy good though.

Foxvalleypcgeek

I had the P3Pro and then the 4. It is pretty awesome. I have put on 242 miles with it so far! The speed of it is what really interested me in the upgrade. I have had it up to 54.43 MPH which was in the opening scene of this video! Something just not possible with other drones unless they are racing ones or something. But they don't capture footage on that level. Totally worth the money. I have three batteries and have a rotation I go through. One in the fridge cooling off, one on the charger and one in the drone. Pretty much not stop flight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXv5pSeGOuk

The Saylors

That's awesome. I have been wanting one for filming rc as well a dirt bike riding on my dad's track. Also i could use it for work as i do real estate and having some elevated pictures are great attention getters. I never really considered speed when looking but having it is a good idea for sure, can't film it if you can't keep up. I'm becoming more impressed with it every time i talk to an owner of one (or in your case two). The main concern i have had is that i don't want to have to buy a dam*** ipad or a new phone. If they had one that came with a mounted screen i would prolly buy one now lol. You said that you have put over 200 mi on it, does it keep stats like that? Pretty neat little extra feature.

Foxvalleypcgeek

The range factors in to that speed as well. Going ~55 MPH you get far away very fast. I took it across the lake and hit 16,500 feet which is a little over 3 miles and then back and landed with 25% still. Could have gone farther I guess but didn't want to push it too much. Nobody else besides DJI has lightbridge, everyone else is just WiFi which is significantly shorter range. It works with anroid or ios. I bought an Ipad pro 9.7 for it just to fly with as its the biggest screen it will fit and works great with third party apps such as Autopilot. The ipad also has a barometer so as I go up and down a hill while its following, the drone will also adjust elevation up and down. You see people crashing their drones into something because they climb up but the drone stays the same elevation from takeoff. I use my android phone for FPV flying, I put my phone in a set of virtual reality goggles and fly that way sometimes. Its a neat perspective and no sun glare on the screen. You angle your head up and down and the camera on the drone follows. It keeps tracks of all the stats and I use a third party called healthy drones, which all my flight logs get uploaded to, and they provide a nice visual graph/map/stats to look at.

The Saylors

That is really cool. I haven't had any sort of air planes for over a decade, man has the tech really taken off. I'm happy to hear that you can use an AOS with it, all the ads made it sound like apple was my only choice. It's interesting that you bring up the elevation thing as i have been wondering what they use for elevation reading and control. I know it's not allowed to use fpv to fly but my dad owns a massive area of land out in the boonies so i should be fine doing what i want out there. Is there any sort of "follow me" feature yet? That would be really useful for filming unpredictable targets. Lol that's my last question then i can get outta here before a moderator eats me for posting drone questions in a boat thread lol

Foxvalleypcgeek

The stock DJI go app has follow me and active track as well which was introduced with the 4. You make a box on a target and it follows it. Works pretty good but I wouldn't have much faith on a fast moving target. Old fashioned follow me used the gps signal to follow.

The Saylors

I was hoping it would track an id chip that you could put on the target. like a rider could wear it and the drone would follow around the track with the id chip in the center of the frame. i'm sure its just a matter of time though. Thanks for all the great info barry lol j/k... about the name part not the info part Have a good one Scott!

Alex

Foxvalleypcgeek

With Litchi you can use a second phone on the subject and it will follow that phone, doest not have to be the phone in the remote. That is called Magic Leash. But that phone does need Internet access.

The Saylors

oh if it needs internet than that would be an issue as i will be out on a farm lol When i said he lives in the middle of nowhere i meant it. He scratches his head whenever i get into things like wifi and internet speeds. He only understands that it works or it doesn't. Oh well if one of us has to fly while the others ride then it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Foxvalleypcgeek

What pipe to go with the GizmoMotors 30CC full mod motor? They telling me zipkits pipe is a bad combo with that engine, but it is a pretty stainless steel. Gizmo's is just steel. Anyone have any experience with this motor and pipe?

Foxvalleypcgeek

Well some things have been ordered.

The hull
30cc full mod engine
Bonzi CZ outdrive setup
Drive cable and stuffing tube
Prop
Water line
rudder linkage
The Super Bee Kill Switch
Radio/receiver
Rudder Servo
Dremel right angle attachment

Going without a clutch to start at least. I pretty much always was standing in the water when driving the last RC boat so running into the dock or wall is not really a problem when trying to catch it. I can also just hit the third channel on the remote to kill the engine when im done.

danielplace

You can also just backtrigger/brake the throttle and close the carb. This is what majority do and it may save your new engine from a early grave.
Don't use a cable.
Solid linkage and you remove the carb idle screw and the servo maintains your idle. Your radio trim sets the idle. That way when you set the backtrigger/brake up so it just closes the carb and the engine dies. You don't want to get in habit of 3rd channel remote ignition engine kills because you want to slam the carb closed at the first hint it is going to wipeout because if you ingest one drop of water in that new motor while it is still turning even one iota you will twist the crank and basically have a $500 anchor/paperweight.

The more electronic junk you put in a boat connected to the receiver or battery is one more thing to get ruined by water and/or otherwise short out and meltdown the entire wiring from the device to the battery and and other wires that were laying together with the wire that burned will be ruined also like the servos. The radio will do almost everything a remote kill will do except in case of total loss of power and if you use a coreless throttle servo the integral carb throttle spring is enough to close carb at loss of power. You can just set the failsafe to backtrigger and when you shut off transmitter it will close carb and kill the boat without an iota of extra wires or electronics.

Foxvalleypcgeek

As to drive cable I was referring to the flex drive cable running to the prop. And as to electronics I have already been there with a built in failsafe doing absolutely nothing. As in the first post I said the original boot took off across the lake. I see nothing wrong with the killer bee switch.

danielplace

Been doing this for a little while. Just trying to help.

I wasn't referring to any cable you mentioned. I was referring to the throttle setup not the drive line. People use cables for throttles and they are not great for back triggering/braking the carb. Just suggesting go solid rods and Speedmaster type throttle assembly.

Nothing wrong with a kill switch, voltwatch, gps, etc until it shorts out and burns everything up.

Besides that my point is you MUST have a way to close the carb butterfly completely and you want to be in the habit of slamming it shut when you shutdown so in a wipeout you slam it shut until all is still and quiet so the engine does not ingest water.

People think a switch, voltwatch, gps and/or other misc. accessories plugged in their radio boxes are fine and serving some good purpose and then same problem, majic smoke, total meltdown. Seen water cause them to fail and go dead short them or just frayed wires in them completely meltdown all the wiring in the radio box no less than 5-6 occasions. That stuff when it goes dead short you have no control either.

expresscraft

Scott, you will get a lot of information on the forums and most is backed with very good intentions, I for one will vouch for Daniel place as a great source of info. there are a lot of neat items made for model boating. Some are pushed very hard by the people that make them or sell them, But are not really needed or used that much. I do agree that mixing anything electric with water has some risk, I use corrosion x on all of my electric items.
The sea hawk is laid up, but john is making a new deck, He stripped the molds and re buffed them, Then treated them with a chemical release agent that is very slick, The deck gel coat pre released and is not right. He did not know or see this until they removed the part. This is not uncommon in new molds or in this case molds that have been redone with release agent. he has already re sprayed it and it may already be laid up again, but it will sit in the mold for a day or so. Resin is drying and curing fast with our heat, so it will not take to much longer.

Foxvalleypcgeek

Well after the last boat went across the lake with the supposedly built in failsafe system, I would never trust it again. If a separate one was to burn up, I would much rather have that then over a runaway boat. Seems much more reliable failsafe as it is directly wired into the ignition coil. Much easier to replace a few electronics for cheap then an entire boat. So my thoughts stand on that. I have burnt up speed controls and such before running in snow but those were in the 100s. The receiver for this is like $7 lol with the flysky.

I don't know Daniel but when someone says things like why don't you do it this way like 99.9% of everyone does I get a bad vibe. I see the post is edited...

danielplace

Yes I edited it a few minutes after I posted and read it and didn't think you would like the sound of it either so I fixed it.

Flysky ?? $7 receivers. It is no wonder the failsafe didn't work and your boat crashed. Was that the flysky also. And your going to fix it with a kill switch. LMAO !!!

So set yourself up for another crash and blown engine.

$2000 boat. $40 radio. $7 receivers. Not a good combination.

You should have saved the money for the kill switch and spent it on a decent radio.

You are missing the point.

Again it isn't even about the possibility of more electronics increasing the risk of meltdown it is about keeping the $500 engine from ingesting water.

No worries. Happy boating.