system check 1

i spent all afternoon on the damn rudder servo, outfitting cross beams to mount to. ARG so agravating. well anyways, i finally got it all lined up, and installed. its not level, which is a problem, but only a minor problem. it'll put extra strain on the servo and require more torque to turn the rudder. however, since i'm way way under the torque the servo can give me, i'm fine. the rudder servo turns the rudder nicely. if i hadn't told you the level issue, from the outside, you'd say it works perfectly! :) the fact it works is good, cause i don't know how i'd fix the issue if i had to.

i've hooked the whole drive system up on drydock and been cruelly reminded how ill-alligned the motors are. worse still, BOTH motors are out of alignment. they're making a chilling door-creaking type sound. it comes from the drive-dog rubbing against the stuffing tube. however, i think the sound will go away in the water. heres why. from my prototypes, i ran into a million different problems with the connection between the drive shaft and the prop shaft. first the surgical tubing got twisted, then the shaft pushed itself out of the subskate. but the cause of a number of the issues was that the allignment was functional out of water but under strain (when the props were actually creating force), something changed. often times, the root of the problem was that the shaft was pushed forward from the screw's force. ahah! this is actually just what i want at the moment. gravity brings the drive dog to rest upon the stuffing tube, creating the soul-piercing noise. but with the force of the screws pushing the prop shaft forward, the drive dogs won't rest on the stuffing tube anymore. it will be pushed forward - into the dog bone, into the motor, into the motor mounts, and finally into the boat! (hopefully) so I THINK the issue i'm having on drydock will go away in the water. only one way to find out!


Drive system check #1
6 pm
August 11, 2009
Lake Tahoe