periscopes

[paul von braun]

Hello all,
does anyone have any experience of making their scopes go up and down?
My thninking is rack & pinion, but would like to know what others do with theirs.

Thanks in advance,

Paul.

[mylo]

Paul,

I've been putting some

Paul,

I've been putting some thought into this as well. I am trying to design a system that is similar to a piston type ballast tank, that being, that an electric motor turns a centre threaded rod which is secured at both ends of it's own WTC with the rod in roller bearings. A nut is situated on this rod and secured to a piece of brass pipe so that the nut, in fact, is not allowed to turn. As the motor turns the threaded rod, it either pushes the nut up, or down, depending on which way the electric motor is running. The brass pipe is fitted over top of the threaded rod, allowing it to travel up and down the length of it. This brass pipe can either in fact be your periscope, or you can affix a smaller diameter rod/pipe to the top. I plan on using a large enough scale so that the brass pipe itself will be the periscope. It's still in the engineering phase and have yet to work it all out, but this is generally the route I'm going. I did consider rack and pinion but I discovered that the "piston" method is going to allow me for more periscope travel and basically simpler to design and build. I just have to figure out how to seal the brass pipe as it has to move both inside the periscope WTC and outside of it.

hhhmmmmmmmmmmmm... ?

Myles.

[subdude]

Myles,
You've just basically

Myles,
You've just basically described the mechanism I built some 12 years ago to operate the retract mechanism for the bow planes on my 1/48 fleet boat. Detailed in the SCR, issue 38 or so, I think.

Jim

[mylo]

Jim,

I'm real new to

Jim,

I'm real new to this "sub building" thing so it wouldn't surprise me if I go "off the deep end" on a few ideas that may be considered....well......stupid...for a lack of a better word. It gives me a bit of confidence that someone has tried something similar for a different application.

I have it in my head as well as a few diagrams what I'm planning. I don't know if I described it very well. One of the problems I ran into with the rack and pinion design is the speed in which the scope travels. Unless the pinion can be geared way down, the thing is going to move too fast. With the piston approach, I can gear the centre rod to the elec motor easily enough with the added bonus that a fine thread rod will also slow the scope speed down.

I have myself convinced I can make this work. Reality may be a different story.

.....now, how to stuff that little cam in the scope.

Myles.

[subdude]

Hi Myles,

First, no such things

Hi Myles,

First, no such things as stupid questions, or ideas. You never know what might just be the next great thing! Your description would work, but is actually a bit more complex than you need.

I have a gearmotor driving the threaded shaft with a follower that moves a linear rod to extend / retract my bow planes. Easy to do, works very well, and is cool as anything to watch the planes rig in/out at scale speed (takes about 6-7 seconds to actuate) You can vary the voltage to the motor to get exactly the speed you want. Very easy to build, easier yet to seal, all you need to do is seal the 1/8" solid rod exiting the watertight. If you would like pictures, email me and I'll send some. Email address is in my profile.

Above all, keep building, and thinking outside the box (or tube, as it were)

Jim

[wayne frey]

Has anyone tried both gears

Has anyone tried both gears and hydralic setups. And timing the rear antennas to come up slower would be cool.
Just trying to stir up the board and learn something.

[don prince]

Hydraulics anyone?

The book Model Submarine

Hydraulics anyone?

The book Model Submarine Technology ISBN 1900371049 Traplet press chapter 11 shows such a system in a Type XX! U-Boat.

Regards,
Don_

[fgroza]

Engle uses the jack screw

Engle uses the jack screw method on their scope setup. I have only seen it at their website. This may give you a better idea of what to do.
Frank

[gotland]

Well Gentlemen,

but the picture in

Well Gentlemen,

but the picture in the book with pneumatic periscopes is about 15 Years old, today we do this job on a much higher level. What You see in the book is a "prototype" not state of the art.

Gotland

[jutland67]

Gotland, can you give some

Gotland, can you give some more details of the systems you use ? It sounds really interesting. I must admit that I am also trying to come up with a simple but effective and scale-looking system of raising masts and periscopes. Ant advice or pics would be very welcome ! Best regards

[berserk]

Hi,

You can find some pictures

Hi,

You can find some pictures on
Gotlands Site or the Webpage of Södermanland.

[redboat219]

-You could adapt the mechanism

-You could adapt the mechanism used to automatically raise or lower cars' radio antenna.

[mylo]

red,

That's funny that you

red,

That's funny that you mention that. I was thinking of the same thing.

Mylo