Jupiter, a Caledonian macBrayne Ferry

Neil
Here is an extract from the User Manual (the bit of paper which you probably threw away first....). You will see that the two thick red/black leads each side of the 3-wire cable go to the battery, while the two at the other end go to the P95/2 and thence to the motors. Don't use that switch for the main power supply - it's totally unsuitable. Put it back into the deep dark hole  where you found it. I'll send you a big, fat toggle switch to fit into the Red cable between the ESC and the in-line fuse. That will operate the connection from the battery to the ESC - and thus also the radio receiver (via the BEC-thingy inside it).
The two little blue tabs are headers which control the brake (don't ask....it's a car ESC) and the type of battery. You should set yours for Brake = Off and battery type = NiCd/NiMH.
BTW with that Hitec radio you won't require any P96's because you use the computer EPA (End Point Adjustment) on each of the three channels to set the throw of the servos operating the VS units. Just plug the servos into the receiver - the Fwd/Backwards servos fit via a Y-lead into the same channel -  and RTFM.
I'll re-do the wiring diagrams for you. Touch nothing until you get them!
Postie has been but your communication wasn't with him. Maybe tomorrow, eh?
Great will be my reward in Devon......(??)
DM

YES MY FRIEND........I sent it last night from ASDA  as I had to go there for stamps.......but it was about 5.30pm and the last post was 4.45..................got to dash to pick daughter up from college but will get back to you later/ cheers, neil.

now, dave............could you jot down the instructions for setting the esc and what does RTFM mean

neil.

made a bit of a boo boo yesterday when I painted the mast.............forgot that I had detailing to fit to it before spraying.........so set too last night to do what I had omitted, and then when finished will cut the hardened paint back and respray.
I also made the two small life raft canister racks for the aft quarters of the boat deck. Next job will be the main overhead life raft racks..........bit more tricky as they will have to be self standing units instead of being attached to the wheelhouse as well as the boat deck.

oh and the strange looking thing with 3 right angled "rods" are the main wheelhouse front window wipers.

whilst I am waiting for certain items to arrive for setting up the radio gear and voith schnieders I have been working on final small building projects...........even the small bits take time, like the little ring  lugs for the cross tree on the mizzen quadpod mast, for holding the pulleys for the flags to run up and down. These were made from 1/32 brass wire and fixed with cyano to the cross trees and stay.

then it was down to making what I think is the final piece of construction, [ but I may be wrong lol.], and that is the pair of overhead life raft holders. these were constructed from plasticard, most of which is self explanatory, and just a lesson for me in fabrication and strengthening, plus use of distant photos.

finally after I dry fitted them both with canisters I decided to indulge myself by fitting all the other "furniture" to that boat deck including lifebelt cases and cupboards.

What a ripper build Neil

I can't wait to glue all those bits and pieces down permanently but have to work deep down under the wheelhouse to connect all the electrics up, and as sure as god made little apples I am bound to knock bits off with my clumsy arms if I do before all is connected up....................so i'll just have to grit my teeth and wait, lol.

today was a day for collecting my r/c gear together and making up some wiring. I know that the receiver is a bec capacity but the battery pack was attached just to make sure that all channels were working, all ready to go, and now just waiting for a couple of items to arrive from Dave Milbourn and then everything needs siting in the fore access area under the main wheelhouse.

after that it was playing with a few fittings and putting them together, such as the none working floodlights and the upper bridge voith  control boxes [ the ones with 3 wheels on them.

She's coming along nicely Neil those flood lights and the other small bits look a bit tricky to handle but I'm sure you will sort it

the only thing tricky about them, TR, is the painting of them, and other small bits.....

the floodlights (lamp shades, lol) were actually nicked from Frank Hinchliffe ( of Caldercraft fame) many years ago.

He was selling up to Jotika and I had been a friend for a number of years, and he knew that a friend of mine was a builder of 1:48/50 scale and so invited us over to raid his stocks of fittings before he sold it all........we were like kids in a sweetshop and were picking handfuls of each type of fitting from the trays that my mate might wish to use on future of his builds ( I built predominantly in 1:32 scale by that time so didn't need anything)........and the lamps and a few other fittings are the only things left after more than 2 decades of my mate building his boats.......and he gave the fittings to me a while back when he gave up building.

And as for painting/spraying..........I take a piece of masking tape and put it on a board so that the sticky side is up.........stick the fittings onto the masking tape so they don't blow away and spray to your hearts content,...........mast and life raft canisters sprayed this morning with primer.

That's a neat little trick with the masking tape, thanks, we learn something new every day

wiring to me is like platting spaghetti......virtually A MISTERY  to me without a full diagram, which has kindly been supplied to me by a friend, who constantly takes the proverbial out of me for not being able to wire a simple plug, now just missing two components that he is sending me, and then it can all be set up. The electrical components will be stuck down to the wooden decks under the wheelhouse using stick on VELCRO.
whilst scratching my head about the electrickery I painted the mizzen mast it's two tone colours and glued the two loud hailers into the mast..........these little white things that look exactly like those on ship..........were poached from my daughters cake baking tin...........they are simply......candle holders.

just finishing off fabricating the guard rails around the passenger accesses and the lifeboat accesses, using the left over plasticard stanchions I made some years ago for another model.

It is with immense gratitude and humility on my part that I offer here and now my heartfelt thanks to a member on here.

Inertia, aka Dave Milbourn, who owned his own company ACTion Electronics up until recently has been of incredible help to me over the past few weeks in both help and supplying me with the correct electrical parts to enable me to get my model Jupiter working on the water.

Dave supplied me with full working diagrams on where all the wires go, the receiver, fuse box and the forward only  ESC to match the Voith Schneider psu's, and answered all of my questions within minutes, no matter how trivial they were to him.

I have always given information and help freely to modellers myself, hoping that my experience in the building side of a model was taken as it was meant, as experience and help, and wonder at times why people ask for advice and then not take it, and I have hopefully not tried Dave's patience when asking him for help, step by step too much, but I can only say, Dave's knowledge and help and experience has been invaluable to me.

Below are photos of the equipment fitted into the hull to the best of my ability, blutack comes in as a wonderful anchor to the fixing, and all I need to do now is connect the batteries and pray for no smoke, lol.

the last two shots show the vehicle that hides the stern Voith drive motor.

Thanks Dave, VERY MUCH INDEED. Couldn't have done it with out you.

You're most welcome, Neil.
Dave M

the things you can do with a Dyson vacuum cleaner............build a nozzle from pieces of silicon tubing and hoover out the rubbish from the lounge deck collected from building, and the hull ready for fixing the battery holder with bathroom sealant........then a quick masking up, a spray job where the rear boat deck bulkhead was sanded to fit and a fixing of some final pieces of guard rail.

Apparently the setting up of the voith Schneider units is so critical that I decided to use a mechanical and practical way to first test the transverse movement with my Hitek Optic 6 TX, and so made a board from plywood and calibrated it into measurements to get one servo exactly right with the 4 mm transverse needed in either longitudinal direction and exactly correct on the tx computer. I drilled the hole to the nearest size I could and then rolled a piece of abrasive paper into a tube and sanded the hole to the correct size to fit the top of the servo.

Then it is just a small task of centring the arm and set each channel to the percentage that the computer on the tx showed was the correct percentage of travel for the arms.

Well - I'll go to the foot of our stairs! Neil H-P meets Euclid!
Keep at it, dude. Your fan club grows by the hour...
Dave M

inertia wrote:

Well - I'll go to the foot of our stairs! Neil H-P meets Euclid!
Keep at it, dude. Your fan club grows by the hour...
Dave M

........................comes from spending years as a tech drawing teacher ..........didn't go to waste after all.........I learned something. lol

I DON'T BELEIVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAD the TX  batteries on charge all yesterday and today, with an intermission over night, put it back in the receiver this evening to set up and......................the TX has lost it's link with the RX and there is a continuous bleeping from the TX.... which on reading the manual, means low battery...............I feel that the battery pack that came with the TX  off someone on another forum is about done, and unless they hold any sort of juice, it's going to be another trip to Frodsham for the model shop owner to mate the two up, after buying another battery pack..................will my woes ever end with this bl**dy ship.

just a little frustrated tonight................and I thought I was doing so well.

grrrrrrrrrr

 I sure hope the saying things can only get worse does not apply here Neil.

found out my oldest charger at tea time last night.......bought in 1979........a Jester  with a 50mah charge rate......stuck the bat pack on charge and just before bed time 01.00 I connected up n turned on..........the tx and rx still bound together and two of the channels are working.....so have just to get the other two working now...............but I put the batteries on for a full charge all day today, before I attempt to get it all set up tomorrow................so must have been the charger I was using prior to my jester unit that was discharging the pack rather than charging.................think i'll take up golf or fishing as a hobby............less stressful lol,

anyway, to take my mind off the trials and tribulations of me getting the electronics working, on Saturday I had a delivery from the post.

it was the one thing [ I think.....can't remember buying anything else fittings wise] that I haven't made for the model from scratch........the small bench seats for the upper boat deck.............and they look just the job........

no way was I at this late stage even going to attempt making these............as small as they are, they look great, and cost me the massive amount of £1.39p [2$ US] including post from china. couldn't have even thought about making them for that price.

They sure look the part Neil. 

well a after two weeks of off and on frustration, charging batteries fully, reading manual instructions that to me sound like the most foreign of languages I am totally stumped, as I just cannot get these Voiths to work.

contacted Dave yesterday who very kindly said that he would have a look at it all for me, so on Sunday next, 11th of June, I shall have a pleasant early morning drive down to Nottingham hopefully to get everything working.

Might just be a glitch, might be a cockup on my part, or just might be a bit of duff gear but I am sure that my learned wizard friend will be able to sort it out for me.

until then I shall just have to wait to progress with the model and sit looking at it. I daren't start sticking bits on it for fear of knocking them off again.

all batteries, including spares now again on charge so to be ready for Sunday

I'm sure Dave will sort it out for you Neil 

Damien wrote:

I'm sure Dave will sort it out for you Neil 

I have 200% faith in Dave, Damien............the guru of all things R/C.

I have the feeling that if I can't then my street cred will be shot to hell and the whole world will probably fall in on me!
Meanwhile I have to tidy up the workshop and bone up on setting the computerised functions of the Optic 6. 'Tis a good job I have my friend JD to help me..... Old #7 has soothed my fevered brow on many occasions.

I hope Neil knows my usual charges.......

DM

 I'm sure he does

will a couple of bottles of asda red be ok, lol

If it's cheapo plonk you're into then my usual glugging red is LIDL's Cotes de Rhone Villages. Don't forget to buy some for yourself...
DM

inertia wrote:

If it's cheapo plonk you're into then my usual glugging red is LIDL's Cotes de Rhone Villages. Don't forget to buy some for yourself...
DM

I actually don't know what it is at the mo.........but will remember that.......like that myself.

Well guys,I had made a couple of muck ups.  Dave had sent me an addendum to the diagram I had already got and I thought that they were the same so had taken little notice.......I read that I  had fitted 2 leads in the wrong sockets of the ESC  and so transposed channel 2 and 3 and the motors fired up...........and run beautifully.


The second mistake I had made was that the Y lead that runs both servos for fore /aft motion of the boat also had a fault purely of my own making........I had inadvertently connected one servo in the plug ..........black, to white signal wire and therefore neither servo on the Y connection was receiving a signal......thus no movement. Dave told me to check the Y lead where I found my mistake.


I sorted these out last night with the continued help and heckling from my friend Dave [who must by now have concluded that I really am a total idiot with electronics], and this morning with the help of the manual [YES I REALLY HAVE READ A MANUAL], remote servo with the wooden calibrations on it I used this remotely plugged into each channel individually on the R/X to set the centre point and then the EPA [ End Point Adjustment], which is critical to the joystick on these voiths so as not to put any pressure on locking them up r binding the blades, and this process went remarkably easily for me....a bear of little brain, lol.

so it is now all set up and adjusted on the workshop........but probably need fine adjustment on the water to get the Voiths' blades to idle neutrally without movement of the boat.

thank you, thank you, thank you, Dave Milbourn......you are a true star.

Aw, shucks, Neil - I'm blushing like a little girl! You are living proof that anyone can put the electrickery into a model boat and get it working if they read the flaming manual and don't try to rewrite the laws of physics.

Don't forget I have your original E-Mails for blackmail purposes, should the need ever arise....

DM

PS Don't forget to reduce the end point on the throttle channel (#3) to about 65%. Umi (aka SWMBO) reckons that the VS units shouldn't be run at more than about 8 volts, so chopping the top speed down by a third on the End Point Adjustment will have the same effect. Apparently they can suffer damage if revved too high.

inertia wrote:

PS Don't forget to reduce the end point on the throttle channel (#3) to about 65%. Umi (aka SWMBO) reckons that the VS units shouldn't be run at more than about 8 volts, so chopping the top speed down by a third on the End Point Adjustment will have the same effect. Apparently they can suffer damage if revved too high.

had overlooked that channel, DAVE........now I know the mystical sequence, i'll do that. cheers.

just done it, and by the revs coming out at the top end [63%] I think that she will have plenty of power without reaching those top end revs.

looking forward to now getting all the top hamper on.

thanks.

Everything is now set to enter the final stage of the build..................and then I entered my workshop.......OMG!!!!

I HADN'T REALISED..........just how messy and disorganised I had been in the last stage..............boxes upon boxes and trays full of painted fittings.....a lot of cyano is needed................plus a mask, as my sinus's are allergic to superglue odours.

Think the tidying and clearing is going to be much more than an hour,.............so off to work I go!

Maybe a few days before I hopefully emerge, unscathed.lol.

I don't do elves, Neil.... Yer on yer own, dude.  
DM

BTW Humpty Bimble for June 3rd. "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way".

thank you kind sir for the birthday wishes........it was a lovely sunny day, and tidying is an easier task than what I have just been through with those voiths lol

and I just love a whole lot of Pink Floyd............greatest band ever was..............other bands are available, lol

The final Lap.....the charge to the finishing line, the marathon of boat building..............call it what you will, I have never spent this long building a model in my life and can't wait until it hits the water.

And now that I have finally, with great help got the electronics sorted, I can crash on. It is now a basic job of painting anything that hasn't been done so earlier, fabricating very small items that might have been overlooked and sticking them onto the model.

As such I have decided to work my way through each section from bow to stern doing each section in turn, leaving the most vulnerable area, the ships boat deck till last.

last night and this morning I fabricated the ducting for the windlass controls, painted it, lined it and then put onto the model fo'csle deck almost all of the items needed. The Jack staff on the bow and the anchor chain need painting  but the pictures of the ship show it so rusty I don't know whether to paint it white or black.......any suggestions!......even the ship's bell got a look in. lol.

we've all used the term "waiting for paint to dry".........

I actually am, before I can leave one of the little "mini builds" on the very aft of the car deck close to the stern ramp, and so I thought I'd have a little play and liven up the fo'csle deck, and add a few crew members.

the anchor windlass won't work properly.............not the first time things have gone awry on a Caledonian McBrayne ferry, and probably won't be the last.

in fact recently they had a [debatable] beautiful new ferry built at a builders in Germany called Loch Seaforth at the cost of 42 million quid...............it wouldn't because of the size and design of it's stern car ramp, fit onto the dock of the Island port that it was supposed to service...............whooooppppzzzzz........so the dock link span had to be virtually rebuilt to accommodate the ferry...anyway, that's another tale, lol...

so one of the engineers in white [ and gawd knows why engineers working uniform dungarees are always white]is telling the other four crew men what needs checking and doing to make good, whilst they look on quizzically.

and just before I go to bed........

I have taken a few shots of the car deck where everything that can be seen has been fitted permanently around the inside edges of the bulwarks and on the amidships engine room casings, including the funnels and the main engine room vents.

the car ramps have yet to be fitted with the rams, "tail feathers", retaining clamps etc.

and the life rafts and life preserver lockers etc have just been placed on the boat deck to give me encouragement to crack on.

Amazing detail Neil

Where did you find such varied and realistic figures? I can never find anything other than the Chinese rubbish.

Barrie

barriew wrote:

Amazing detail Neil

Where did you find such varied and realistic figures? I can never find anything other than the Chinese rubbish.

Barrie

found them on ebay at the very start of the build 4 years ago, barrie, but there were only 16 different figures, so there will be some repetition around the boat unfortunately..........will just be painted different colours, lol...........and not standing together.

however I have seen other figures on ebay with different stances at the same and different scales....railway modellers love em.

Ablunder was unearthed some while ago with the side loading ramps.

Although I had made them to the size of the plans and the model sides also to the plans, when I moulded the ramps..............they didn't fit for some reason I have been unable to fathom. The side brackets, although in the correct place were too low and if raised the ramp was too shallow in height.

And so this morning I added some wood to the base of the ramps, with cross members to "at least" look similar to what it might  do "from a distance", and as such, I claim immunity under artistic modellers licence, lol.