[PSUBS-MAILIST] R300 Dive report - Canyon Lake, Tx

Wed Sep 2 08:04:36 EDT 2015

Yes, same battery.

On Tuesday, September 1, 2015, Alan James via Personal_Submersibles <
personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

> That's real weird Cliff, especially the fact that 2 separate units
> are playing up. The only common denominator is the batteries I suppose.
> Are they both drawing from the same batteries?
> Alan
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Cliff Redus via Personal_Submersibles <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','personal_submersibles at psubs.org');>>
> *To:* Personal Submersibles General Discussion <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','personal_submersibles at psubs.org');>>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 2, 2015 2:21 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] R300 Dive report - Canyon Lake, Tx
>
> 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.
>
> Cliff
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 9:00 PM, hank pronk via Personal_Submersibles <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','personal_submersibles at psubs.org');>> wrote:
>
>
>
> 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.
> Hank
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, September 1, 2015 7:39 PM, Private via Personal_Submersibles <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','personal_submersibles at psubs.org');>> wrote:
>
>
> 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?
>
> This reinforces my intention to put a speed controller override into the
> new boat.
>
> Best,
>
> Alec
>
>
>
> On Sep 1, 2015, at 5:40 PM, Cliff Redus via Personal_Submersibles <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','personal_submersibles at psubs.org');>> wrote:
>
> I took the R300 out this weekend.  This was the first time to have it
> back in water since the 2013 Psub convention in Islamorada.  The
> objective of the dive was to evaluate some fairly significant modifications.
>
> 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.  It
> worked great.  Installed a new LED 5k light, upgraded to a new HMI, and
> changed the foot and joystick controls.  I also rewired the main battery
> bank for 36VDC rather than 120VDC and installed four MK 101 motor
> controllers.  I modified the aft horizontal MK-101s by adding Kort
> nozzles and used air to pressure compensate.  I used the same pressure
> reducing regulator Hugh Fulton posted about awhile back that he is using on
> the QSub.    The changes decreased the weight of boat by 200 lbs while
> the displacement remained the same.
>
> My son, wife, a diving friend and I took the boat to Canyon Lake in Texas
> this Sunday.  Visibility was less than 5 ft so could not see much.  My
> main interest at this point was just to get into water.  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.  After establishing the fixed ballast, I took the boat out to
> test how the horizontal thrusters work for surface maneuvering.   I was
> very happy with way the horizontal thrusters performed. Surface
> maneuverability was excellent and these motors are supper quite.  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.   Breaking is much improved and
> it is now possible to rotate on the surface or in the water column.
>
> I then took the boat out for the first submerged maneuvering.  The
> vertical thrusters were very effective for depth control, pitch and roll
> control.  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.  They worked great.  While removing the VBT simplified dive
> operations, it did result in loss of freeboard of about 1 inch.  This is
> a downside of removing the VBT as the freeboard was already quite low.  I
> just have to be careful when opening the hatch.  I opened and closed that
> hatch throughout the day and only took splash one time when a boat came by
> I did not see.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.  He
> had to surface using the MBT. Why these thrusters failed is a mystery.  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.   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.  This
> failed as aft horizontal thrusters were not responsive.  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.
> This explains why we lost horizontal thrust but not vertical.  After
> getting the boat back on the trailer, I tested the vertical thrusters.  They
> would barely turn even when giving them full power.  My first guess was
> that the air pressure compensation system failed and the thrusters were
> full of water.  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.  After turning them off and on for about five minutes, the
> starboard vertical thruster stared working correctly.  I kept switching
> the port vertical thruster off and on and all of a sudden, it began working
> correctly.  When I had the motors apart, I put a multimeter on the wires
> going to the brushes and found it showing 35VDC.  At this point the
> control signal to these motors was 2.5V so voltage to the motors should
> have been zero.   My guess is that the MK motor controller is acting up.  But
> it is strange that both the vertical controllers would fail.  Also, if it
> were  bad motor controllers, then why did they both start working again.  This
> is still a head stumper for me.
>
> Also towards the end of the day, the OTS underwater communication stared
> acting up.  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.  The underwater commns had been working
> great for the previous 7 hours.   I was also having trouble about this
> time with the VHF radio that Alec gave me.  Again I could not receive.  When
> I get a chance I am going to see if the connection to the antenna got
> disconnected.
>
> 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.  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.
>
> 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.  When they are working, they are
> great.
>
> All in all, I was very happy with the changes but have a few kinks to work
> out before I take her out again.  Now if I could just find some clear
> water to dive in, I would be a happy camper!
>
> Cliff
>
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