Dragon Shark - a new start

[Guest]

If you want a very quiet boat, you need to mount motors on rubber and if using reduction use belts rather than gears. Also helps if you balance your props, especially if they're large and metal.

[IdefixRC]

Never heard a chinese sub underwater. The noise mine will make might be scale after all lol

[IdefixRC]

Version 2 of the piston tank is ready. Now using 48 pitch rc car gears for a 1:30 gear ratio. Reduced speed and noise. This is now good to go. Now I only need to install the limit switches and learn arduino programming to build the tank controller (while it is a pity that johnredearth here in the forum did not share his arduino code it will be a good learning experience . I will post all the code here once done).

Arduino ambition: control tank fill and empty from the remote.3 Limit switches for empty, full and trim. Failsafe detection and auto surface.
In the future might add proportional control with a hall effect sensor.

A few pictures of version 2:

[IdefixRC]

Piston Tank update !

It is alive !!!!!
The Arduino programming was easier than I thought. Although I ran into some trouble with the HBride I used to control the motor (it was limited to 2A and from the looks of it the motor definitely pulls more than that) and had to use a brush speed controller instead, it is done now and running fine. Side effect of this change: the motor can now be replaced by a brushless motor without any programming changes required.

I at the end decided to not go with the trim end stop on my tank (although it is perfectly implemented in the Arduino code and works like a charm) as I will definitely work on the proportional control next which will make it redundant in any case.

Some picture of the finished tank and a video to it in operation below (the Tamiya speed controller I use limits the reverse power, I have another cheap speed controller on order and hope that this will solve the issue of the slow flood control - and the resulting lack of power).

Full description of how the Arduino controls the tank incl. wiring diagram and code can be found here in the members section of the forum

A quick video of how it looks like now and works with my RC Radio

and some pictures of the finished tank

[Guest]

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