we have liftoff!

Waaaahhhhzzzooooo!!!!

it works!!!!

so like i said, i called contact who knows RC boats. I described the issues and he came to mostly the same conclusions i had - add weight, you might have to fix the prop shaft friction, etc.

[background: in my internet research, i kept hearing this word, "cavitation". dumbly, i never looked it up. however, i lucked into coming across all this talk about r + l handed props and how its ideal to have the screws turn opposite directions, specifically the left one turns counterclockwise and the right one turns clockwise. when i read it, i thought, "oh, how smart, turn opposite so that together it pushes the boat straight. but how am i gonna make the motors turn opposite directions when i have them hooked up in parrallel to the same ESC?" (stupid thought, but i make up for it later) anyways, i got all together nowhere (i thought) with my internet research. so i went out to check out the problem again. it persisted. water churned up instead of back and the boat almost pivoted to the right without rudder involvement. so i called stephen, my rc boat friend.]

then i brought up maybe something to do with the right or left handed props caused some sort of problem.

[a little more background, sorry: this is the way my dad has taught me to ask questions. first, you lay out the problem, and hope they can answer the implied questions. next, you kinda through out knowledge that you've gained from the research you've already done, hoping a key term sparks some chunk of knowledge in their brain such that they answer the implied question. lastly, you straight up ask them, "what question should i be asking that I am not smart enough to know to ask?" its a pretty effective system. ]

so i threw out the hook and to my surpise it worked. he said, "yep, they should turn the opposite direction" (in my head i thought, ya, but how!) then it hit me. i'm an idiot. electric motors are the easiest thing in the world to reverse direction. you just switch polarity! i confirmed this with him, and he actually suggested this fix might end up solving both issues. how sweet!

so i switch the polarity. turns out, i had a 1 in 4 shot of putting the motors in right. i got it half right. so i switched the direction of the left motor (which makes sense since if you remember i had thought the left was stronger than the right, making it turn right. but actually, it wasn't supposed to be turning that way, rather the other way. so i sort of made it weaker. if you didn't follow, don't worry, its a criss-crossy sort of idea).

i took her out, and she worked perfectly. with little to no throttle she goes!!!! and if i were to go to full throttle, i'm sure shed fly! and reverse works just as well!!!!




oh by the way, the word i came across, cavitation. means "formation of low pressure bubbles by means of mechanical forces, such as those resulting from rotation of a marine motor" ha! kinda exactly what i needed. whoops!