Canuck Subbuilder

Hey All!

I am in the process of designing and building my first RC sub. It's a scratch-built unit and from what I have read in other posts would be classified as a Junkyard Sub.

To describe it takes little work so I'll try and condense it to a point form list of parts and pieces that I have assembled already.

Main Body - 3" PVC plumbing fittings and tubing. It's effectively a two tube design looking very similar to a zodiac and two 14" long ballast tubes (also 3" PVC) held below. I wish I had pictures to show but if you remember the Star Trek shuttles and the way the nacells looked - picture that and you've got it. Moving on, It measures so far 24" wide, 34" long and 17" tall. The fittings are also serving as my electronics housing area as well as the motor mounts. the main body is going to be dry inside and the ballast tubes wet - (tests so far have lead me to this decision)

Ballast Control - the overall design is for a negatively buoyant sub with a 20 oz CO2 bottle as my air supply. i have it routed through 2 regulators in series of which I can bring the pressure to 0 PSI if i wish and a Robart servo controlled air retraction system control valve. this has given me full control of the air supply and allows me to both fill and drain my ballast with one servo. I am having trouble right now with the functional side of the ballast system right now. I'll ask the question about that at the end.

Drive System - I have purchased a 15Ah 12V Yuasa lead-acid battery to serve as my power source for the motors and my extra weight to actually make the sub heavy enough to overcome the buoyancy of the 3" tubing. I have also purchased two Aristo-Craft RC540 motors (7.5A draw no load) as well as two Graupner Pro-2 booster Jet-Drives with reversing modules for steering and reversing. I know it eats up 2 channels for steering but I think the coolness of it is worth it. I also have a 50A speed controller for obvious reasons. Hoping it'll handle both motors under load. The drive tubes are actually and extension of the main body. I have arranged a set of y-fittings to point down with 45 deg fittings to bring it back to parallel with the body and putting the drives below the water-line so I can propel it when surfaced.

Radio - 4 channel Hi-tech surface radio - nothing special

Camera - hope to work on that soon, need to get the sub functioning first

Finished Body - I intend to get my final shape by fiberglassing it and giving it an insane paint job.

Anyway, now that that is finished I have a big question. What is a good media for a ballast air tank. I've mentioned that I have tubes and I've tried to just fill them with air but it escapes through the holes in the bottom after rolling over. I've also tried inner-tubes but they don't empty out enough or loose their shape enough to allow water to enter the tubes. I've also tried 12" straight party balloons (doubled up)as a last ditch effort but they blew up in my face. well not my face... the tub.. i mean testing area. that was fun!! (BOOM!!!!)

So I hope I haven't bored any of you but I'm having a blast with this thing. it's challenging and it's great stress relief for me!

I look forward to any answers or advice!!!

and444

it looks like you have a really cool project there!

i am new here too.

i came across this info on the net about a sub made out of pvc tubing. The guy who put it together used a blow tank made out of a veterinary-type syringe operated by a strong servo. The syringe is located inside the sub. When the water is sucked in, the air inside the sub is compressed, and the sub submerges. When the water is pushed out of the blow tank, the sub becomes positively boyant again and surfaces. It's a neat system, but the servo has to be strong, and the body of the sub has to be waterproof.

here's the link: http://web.ticino.com/Submarine/

Andrei

and444

Oh, i forgot one more thing.

I am also interested in underwater applications of the wireless camera. Someone here said that it doesn't function very well under water, so a surface antenna may be required. My personal thoughts on this, and I am not a physicist, is that radio waves have difficulty overcoming the water/air threshold, that's why people are having problems receiving a signal from under the water. I think this problem can be solved by having an underwater receiver antenna. My theory still remains to be put to test, which I will do shortly--as soon as I get my camera, which is in the mail. Anyway, please keep us posted on your project. I personally will be interested in how your camera works out.

Good luck
Andrei

Canuck Subbuilder

Hey Andrei,

Thanks for the reply.

I've actually seen that site in my researching and i think he's actually on to something for small subs. I'm actually looking for a good inflatable tube though, something that would fit in my ballast tubes and I haven't really been able to find anything as of yet [&o]. I thought of maybe those inflatable lumbar support pillows or somthing like one of those kids water toys?? they seem durable and deflate half decent not sure but I'm not giving up.

Anyways, your other comment about the wireless camera is one of my concerns as well. I've been looking into it and found a guys website that kinda goes through his process of putting a WTC for a camera on his sub. He's even got a video you can download that shows actual footage he shot with it. from the date on the website it looks like he finished it only a couple of months ago. it's pretty cool! here's the link

[link=http://www.rc-sub.com/underwatercamera.html]http://www.rc-sub.com/underwatercamera.html[/link]

Anyway, back to the drawing board for me. lots to do!!

Canuck Subbuilder

Hey all,

I think I may have answered my own question. With the idea of kids water toys floating around my head I drove down to the Toys R Us store and started looking around. I managed to find a pair of water wings for toddlers. I looked at it and found that I could cut along all the seams and get 4 2.5"x14" vinyl tubes that are well sealed and have inlet/outlet valves on them. so far they've turned out perfect. I've done some preliminary testing and i can get the sub to surface but had a little trouble getting it to sink again. The problem being that the waterwings are preformed and have no elasticity. They're not like balloons that expand and then go back to a small shape. I came up with a solution for that too!! Because I'm encasing these tubes within 3" piping I figured I could use the pipe walls as a backplane for a springboard. I cut some tubing down to 12"x2.5" strips and mounted a compression spring to each end and mounted the whole assembly inside pipe. After some preliminary testing it I think it's probably my most successful design yet. I'm looking forward to mounting it all and making sure it works the way I want it to.

Thanks and happy building!!

Canuck Subbuilder

Managed to take some pictures of the body my sub as it is today.

It's missing a few pieces here and there but the main idea is there. I took some pictures of the air system I've put together as well.

Any suggestions are welcome

Thanks

Canuck Subbuilder

Hey all,

I've been working on getting my sub complete and I think I've taken another step forward. I've managed to put a bit of a skin to it. Granted it's Duct Tape but it's my pre-fiberglass stage. I'm still waiting for parts to come in from Hobby Lobby so I won't be able to progress much further till then.

I've taken some more pics if you're interested. Enjoy!