Top 10 things not to do...

[cstranc]

They say you learn more from your mistakes then your triumphs...

I have made a fair number of mistakes already, but I am sure there are tons of really great errors I have not made yet.

Would anyone care to share?

I'm looknig for things like:

1. Don't put a lead acid battery in the WTC allong with a motor because it will explode (thankfully people told me about this before I found out the hard way).

2. Water can travel down the inside of an electrical cable or your reciever antenna.

3. When you are making torpedoes check the bouyancy during every step of design / contruction.

Please feel free to educate me on the best/worst things I can do..

Chris

[raalst]

fuses are NECESSARY.
I fried my

fuses are NECESSARY.
I fried my Skipjack omitting one. and I mean damage to the polyester.
No fun to get a sparking and smouldering tray out of a dry hull
skipjack. It makes nice fumes though....

[JWLaRue]

Okay, I've got a good

Okay, I've got a good one:

When trimming the boat, don't drop lead weights in the area of the battery terminals.

I did this when doing the initial trimming of my OTW Type VII and managed to drop lead so that it covered both battery terminals. At some point in the process I commented to a friend that the water inside the hull was getting....cloudy or dirty. It finally dawned on me that it wasn't cloudy, but that I was seeing bubbles created from a short across the battery terminals. This even with a fuse!

Once the boat was pulled from the water, I removed the piece of lead...but it wasn't soon enough to save an $80.00 battery pack!

Moral of the story: cover your battery terminals or at least shield them from each other.

-Jeff

[aeroengineer1]

Sounds dumb, but double check

Sounds dumb, but double check that your endcaps are securely in place before putting the boat in the water. I had an endcap that I thought was inplace, but doe to a change in pressure when submerging, I found out that it was not, and that the boat was going down a lot faster than intended.

Adam

[mylo]

...When installing your internals, do

...When installing your internals, do NOT epoxy in your bulk heads until you are CERTAIN of how your control rods are going to run. You see, if you need to put a bend in a control rod, or fiddle with a linkage on the 'wrong' side of a bulkhead that you can't access because of confined space, you have to cut the bulk head out with your rotary tool, grind the inside of the hull smooth again since it'll have a 1/2" or so of remaining bulk head since you couldn't get closer to the hull without boring a hole through it with your rotary tool, cast another bulk head, sand it, prep it, prime it....which is very time consuming and most frustrating.

.....I'm sure many of us could go on and on. I'll leave it to this most RECENT learning opportunity.

Mylo

[anonymous]

At a show, don't get

At a show, don't get your time slot wrong and then have an argument with the person who is operating on "YOUR" frequency!

Davy

[Rogue Sub]

Here is my favorite reoccuring

Here is my favorite reoccuring mistake.

Treat every sail like your going to fly a plane. Check the Gas, motor response, planes, rudder, ballast system, etc.

Not sure how many times when i was starting I launched a dead stick out to sea!!

I also like to vent my WTC after every run. You never know if you got just a little water in there and come back the next day to find the whole inside a rust mess. One of my Akulas is in dry dock because of this!

[cstranc]

These are great. I'm sure

These are great. I'm sure many people have learned them the hard way.

Ronald,
I was staring at that fuse holder and thinking "do I really need it? What if it burns out in the middle of the lake?" that would be a real pain. Thanks for correcting my thought process.

How do you size the fuse? Where do you place it, between the battery and everything else? If it blew then it would kill power to my radio gear leaving it potentially unable to surface.

Or do you have a separate battery for the radio gear to ensure power?

Am I correct assuming the fuse must be in the WTC or else the water will prevent it from melting under load?

Mylo,
My heart goes out to you. I am not stranger to un-planned dremmel tool time...

Adam, Davy, Nuke,
Do any of you actually have a "pre-flight checklist" I can shamelessly steal?


Thanks again for the info.

[raalst]

I like my boats a

I like my boats a leeetle dynamic, i.e. with a minimal amount of reserve buoyancy even with the tanks full.

the fuse could be placed in the wet, would not impair the melting
(this wire is in a vacuum in a glass tube..) but the terminals would
corrode rather quickly because of the amount of current coming thru.

apart from that, I would think the following is a nice approach :
- separate the large current eaters from the low current eaters
(wiring-wise). low-current eaters are receivers, maybe lighting and
a few small servo's. my servo's already pulled 0,5 amp each!
- put a fast blowing and/or nominal rating fuse in the wire to the
large current eaters, so it blows first. I just use guesswork
based on the motors, and just tried it on dry land, activating as
much motors simultaneously as i could. Starting/Stalling motors
pull the most current.
- put a slow blowing fuse with a larger current rating directly on the
terminal leaving the batteries.
- this makes it less likely your receiver goes dead.
but then again, any active surfacing probably needs a
large-current-eater, i.e. a motor or pump.

please note : the skipjack never sailed again, it's still awaiting mayor
overhaul, as a small Kilo and now a large scratchbuild got in the way.

[Rogue Sub]

Chris,

Your "pre flight" check list

Chris,

Your "pre flight" check list should be custom to your boat. Last I saw you had all kinds of new fangled systems you were trying. Ofcourse I havent seen you post lately. Whats going on build that boat and give me a copy already. Do I need to go up there and motivate you!!!!

Oh and as for your pre flight just put every system you have on it. We dont put the real thing to sea without checking every system first.

Kevin

[mylo]

There is just one simple

There is just one simple thing I'd like to add:

WEAR SAFETY GLASSES.

I've never been a big fan of being safe, too much of a pain, but I make an effort to wear my safety glasses particularly when working with metals.

Well, one day I got lazy and decided to make a "quick little hole" in something, I don't need my glasses for a "quick little hole". Yep, this was the one time where a microscopic brass fragment ended up in my eye. What pissed me off most was I lost an entire day sitting down at the hospital (where of course, I was LOW priority), when I could have been sub building. A whole day.....putting on the glasses would have taken way less time.

So, ...when making a "quick little hole", I always put the glasses on. When my glasses get scratched to the point where they annoy me, I get new ones. In fact, I have a set of glasses hanging at every tool that I feel requires them, to prevent me from hunting around when I need them. Most of the time I forget I'm wearing them. (I still had them on when I went out to eat one time...... )

Mylo