<div dir="ltr"><div>They shut down at about 3 PM on Sunday. I disassembled them today expecting them to be filled with water but they were dry. I reassembled today. I charged the batteries up last night so they were full charged this morning. When I powered the thrusters up today, the were at ambient temperature and the controllers had been sitting all night so they were cool. The thrusters started up misbehaving like they did when they shut down, i.e., would not spin up. After playing with them for about 10 minutes they both came back to life a few minutes apart. They have been running fine ever since. </div><div><br></div><div>Cliff</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 9:00 PM, hank pronk via Personal_Submersibles <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org" target="_blank">personal_submersibles@psubs.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><div><span>Cliff, How much time lapsed before they fixed themselves? maybe they needed encouragement to restart because they were just on cusp of being cooled enough.</span></div><div><span>Hank</span></div> <br><div><br><br></div><div style="display:block"> <div style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,sans-serif;font-size:12px"> <div style="font-family:HelveticaNeue,Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,Lucida Grande,sans-serif;font-size:16px"> <div dir="ltr"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> On Tuesday, September 1, 2015 7:39 PM, Private via Personal_Submersibles <<a href="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org" target="_blank">personal_submersibles@psubs.org</a>> wrote:<br> </font> </div> <br><br> <div><div><div><div>Wonderful detailed report Cliff! My theory is a thermal shutdown of the controllers as Hank suggested. Although I have no documentation on their speed controllers, the fact it fixed itself suggests that. But then on the other hand why did it take all that switching on and off to reset?</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>This reinforces my intention to put a speed controller override into the new boat.</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Best,</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Alec<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><div><br clear="none"></div></div><div><div><br clear="none">On Sep 1, 2015, at 5:40 PM, Cliff Redus via Personal_Submersibles <<a href="mailto:personal_submersibles@psubs.org" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect">personal_submersibles@psubs.org</a>> wrote:<br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">I
took the R300 out this weekend.<span> </span>This was
the first time to have it back in water since the 2013 Psub convention in Islamorada.<span> </span>The objective of the dive was to evaluate some
fairly significant modifications.</font></span></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"></font></span><br clear="none"></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">To
improve low speed maneuverability and reduce noise, I junked the jet pump and ailerons
and went to four fixed MK 101 thrusters. I also junked the VBT and just add ballast
to get neutral. Also I added a Garmin AIRMAR DST800 Smart Sensor to measure
altitude, speed and water temperature.<span>
</span>It worked great.<span> </span>Installed a new
LED 5k light, upgraded to a new HMI, and changed the foot and joystick controls.
<span> </span>I also rewired the main battery bank for
36VDC rather than 120VDC and installed four MK 101 motor controllers.<span> </span>I modified the aft horizontal MK-101s by
adding Kort nozzles and used air to pressure compensate.<span> </span>I used the same pressure reducing regulator
Hugh Fulton posted about awhile back that he is using on the QSub.<span> </span><span> </span>The changes
decreased the weight of boat by 200 lbs while the displacement remained the
same. <span> </span></font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">My
son, wife, a diving friend and I took the boat to Canyon Lake in Texas this
Sunday.<span> </span>Visibility was less than 5 ft so
could not see much.<span> </span>My main interest at
this point was just to get into water.<span> </span>After
launching the boat, I did some testing to get the base line ballast both mid-ship
and in the stern correct so that I could get neutral and trim after flooding
the MBT.<span> </span>After establishing the fixed
ballast, I took the boat out to test how the horizontal thrusters work for
surface maneuvering. <span> </span>I was very happy
with way the horizontal thrusters performed. Surface maneuverability was
excellent and these motors are supper quite.<span>
</span>I did find that you could cavitate the props on the surface if you hit
it with too much power. As before the changes, when you get up to about 4
knots, the bow wave obscures the pilots vision. <span> </span>Breaking is much improved and it is now
possible to rotate on the surface or in the water column.</font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">I
then took the boat out for the first submerged maneuvering.<span> </span>The vertical thrusters were very effective
for depth control, pitch and roll control. <span> </span>I found that it was much easier to get to
specific depth and hold this depth using the vertical thrusters than the old
way I did it with the VBT.<span> </span>They worked
great.<span> </span>While removing the VBT simplified
dive operations, it did result in loss of freeboard of about 1 inch.<span> </span>This is a downside of removing the VBT as the
freeboard was already quite low.<span> </span>I just have
to be careful when opening the hatch.<span> </span>I
opened and closed that hatch throughout the day and only took splash one time
when a boat came by I did not see.</font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">The
new Garmin AIRMAR DST800 Smart Sensor worked great. With visibility less than 5
ft, being able to know the altitude was very helpful on dives. As usual, it got
darker as you descend but knowing when the bottom was coming up was nice.<span> </span></font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">On
the negative side, during the last dive of the day, the vertical thrusters
failed while my son was on bottom in about 27 ft of water.<span> </span>He had to surface using the MBT. Why these
thrusters failed is a mystery. <span> </span>It was at
the end of the day and I had pushed the batteries pretty hard all day along but
we still had plenty of battery voltage.<span>
</span>My sons second attempt to surface
was to put some air in the forward MBT to lift the nose and then use the aft horizontal
thrusters to power to the surface.<span> </span>This
failed as aft horizontal thrusters were not responsive.<span> </span>After surfacing with the MBT, we discovered
that tree limb about 1.5” diameter had lodged in the starboard horizontal thruster
between the prop and the Kort nozzle.<span>
</span>This explains why we lost horizontal thrust but not vertical.<span> </span>After getting the boat back on the trailer, I
tested the vertical thrusters.<span> </span>They
would barely turn even when giving them full power.<span> </span>My first guess was that the air pressure compensation
system failed and the thrusters were full of water.<span> </span>When I got the boat back to my workshop, I
disassembled both vertical thrusters and discovered they were dry. After recharging
the boat, I tried the vertical thrusters again and got the same slow speed
operation.<span> </span>After turning them off and on
for about five minutes, the starboard vertical thruster stared working
correctly.<span> </span>I kept switching the port
vertical thruster off and on and all of a sudden, it began working correctly.<span> </span>When I had the motors apart, I put a
multimeter on the wires going to the brushes and found it showing 35VDC.<span> </span>At this point the control signal to these
motors was 2.5V so voltage to the motors should have been zero.<span> </span>My guess is that the MK motor controller is
acting up.<span> </span>But it is strange that both
the vertical controllers would fail.<span>
</span>Also, if it were bad motor controllers, then why did they both start working
again.<span> </span>This is still a head stumper for
me.</font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">Also
towards the end of the day, the OTS underwater communication stared acting up.<span> </span>Base and standby diver using an OTS Guardian
full face mask could hear underwater transmissions from me but I could not
receive either from the diver or from the base.<span>
</span>The underwater commns had been working great for the previous 7 hours.<span> </span><span> </span>I was
also having trouble about this time with the VHF radio that Alec gave me.<span> </span>Again I could not receive.<span> </span>When I get a chance I am going to see if the
connection to the antenna got disconnected.</font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">One
of the nice new features of the new HMI besides being larger and having a higher
resolution, was it has built in data logging.<span>
</span>So after the dive it was very nice to be able to download into Excel about
50 variables logged at a one minute interval. I was able to plot these and get
a detailed picture of how all the ship systems were working during the day.</font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">If
anyone has any thoughts on why the vertical MK 101 thruster motors failed, or
have had any negative experience with the MK101 motor controllers, I would love
to hear them.<span> </span>When they are working, they
are great.</font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"> </font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000">All
in all, I was very happy with the changes but have a few kinks to work out
before I take her out again.<span> Now if I could just find some clear water to dive in, I would be a happy camper!</span></font></span></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"><span></span></font></span><br clear="none"></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><span><font color="#000000"><span>Cliff</span></font></span></div><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="3">
</font></div>
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