Michael Heer
Jul 28, 2004, 09:00 AM
!Introduction
| spec2
| @908744
|> <b>Weight:</b> |< 26.7 oz.
|> <b>Length:</b> |< 15"
|> <b>Beam (width):</b> |< 6"
|> <b>Design Type:</b> |< Vee
|> <b>Hull Type:</b> |< ABS Plastic
|> <big>INCLUDES:
|> <b>Transmitter:</b> |< Aquacraft by Futaba 2-channel
|> <b>Radio Gear:</b> |< 1 servo, 1 ESC
|> <b>Battery:</b> |< 6-cell, 1100mAh NiMH
|> <b>Charger:</b> |< AC, not peak detecting
|> <big>REQUIRES:
|> <b>Tx Batteries:</b> |< 8 AA
|> <b>Manufacturer:</b> |< <a href="http://www.aquacraftmodels.com/boats/hcab12main.html">AquaCraft by Hobbico</a>
|> <b>Stock #:</b> |< HCAB12**
|> <b>Available From:</b> |< <a href="http://www.towerhobbies.com">Online at Tower Hobbies</a>
The Hobbico Reef Racers are sold as an RTR ("ready-to-run") -- although perhaps a better designation would be "RTF" ("ready-to-float") -- radio control boat. The package includes a transmitter and a boat with almost everything it needs to operate (just needs 8 AA batteries for the transmitter). The boats come assembled with motor and drive train already installed in a one-piece hull with one-piece top. The top is held on with two hinges in the back and a socket ball mounted to the top of the hull that plugs into a grommet in the front of the top deck. Receiver and speed controller and a servo to steer the boat come already connected and installed. The buyer only has to install the 8-AA batteries into the transmitter and charge the 6-cell, 1100-mah battery pack with the wall charger that comes as part of the package. (PLEASE READ THE SAFETY NOTE BELOW.)
There is no assembly! The charged battery is secured with Velcro into the battery tray in the boat. There is a page of decals you can use to custom decorate your boat. If you want to race, or simply run multiple boats, they sell boats in six different colors and each comes on a different frequency. I wanted to see them race and have multiple boats together. So, I got four of the boats with a blue, yellow, red and purple boat. The other two colors are orange and white. The supplied motor is a water cooled 380 electric.
@908745:A boat as it comes in the box
@908746:The transmitter, charger and battery pack
@908747:The sheet of self-sticking decals
@908748:The instruction manual
@908749:Spare parts to replace the propeller
@908750:This lid lining helps keep the water out of the boat.
The radios are quality Aquacraft products made by Futaba. They come complete with servo reversing and dials for adjusting the trim tabs for steering and throttle. For once I read the instructions before I started and I connected two battery packs to two of the wall chargers. Next, I started to cut out decals to add to the blue and yellow boats. I checked the battery packs for warmth after about fifteen minutes, thirty minutes and fifty minutes and found they were cool, not warm to the touch. I got busy with installing the decals on the boats and when I next checked the battery packs it had been an hour and twenty minutes total charging time and the batteries and the chargers were both hot.
The boats are available on 6 separate frequencies -- with a different color for each channel -- and all on the "ground use only" 75mHz frequency band.
!BOAT OPERATION
!!Testing Time
The Velcro for the battery pack was pre-stuck to the Velcro in the battery tray in the boat. With a cool charged pack I attached the Velcro to the pack and secured the pack in the tray in the boat with the included Velcro strap. I turned the boat on, pushed the top deck closed on the blue boat, and put the boat in my pool .... ready to race around the pool. Initially it was steering in the wrong direction but a flick of the servo reversing switch and left was left and right was right. (This turned out to be necessary on all four boats.) The boat also was going a little left with no steering input by me. There was a trim tab on the transmitter that operated by twisting it and I was able to adjust the boat’s steering so that the boat went straight with no touch on the steering wheel. There was also a twist adjustment for the throttle and I didn’t initially find any use for it. Speed was initially on the slow slide and I figured I would need to cycle the battery pack a couple times to get it up to full speed. The boat turns sharply and only goes in a forward direction (no reverse). I played around for a minute or so and then moved the throttle trim tab. Suddenly the boat kicked into high speed. (So that is what the throttle adjustment is for!) I had terrific fun for about eight minutes until the boat slowed down and I knew it was time to stop. A little water (about a heaping tablespoon) had gotten into the hull and I used a small piece of sponge and a couple paper towels to remove this water as per the instructions.
!!Motor Cooling!
When I was installing the battery pack I noticed there was a small pipe on the back bottom of the boat behind the propeller, a water intake. Inside the boat I noticed the metal pipe came up and wrapped around the motor and then lead to an exit pipe in the top side of the boat. When the boat was going slow I noticed nothing coming out this side exit but when the boat kicked into high gear water was coming out the side exit in a regular stream. A pretty efficient forced water-cooling system to keep the motor from getting to hot in high-speed operation! I wasn’t aware of this feature before I got the boats, but it works very well.
@908751:This is the cooling intake for water (between the prop and rudder).
@908752:The water is forced around the motor in this tube and cools it.
@908753:The cooling water exists the boat through this vent in the side.
@908754:Here you see all the main components in the boat.
!!Steering Dual Rates
The second battery pack charged was for the yellow boat and when I went to run the yellow boat it went full speed from the very start. I noticed that the yellow boat initially wasn’t turning as sharply as the blue boat had turned. On the transmitter there is a dial marked DR, which reminded me of dual rate in my planes. Turned one way the steering becomes very quick and turned the other way the turning is much slower. I moved it for faster response in my now tiny swimming pool. The yellow boat ran for almost ten minutes as I did a little throttle management (not much).
@908755:Here is the steering servo and the connection to the rudder.
@908756:Turning around a buoy.
The next day I went to the San Joaquin Delta with a friend’s son, Tyler Kamp, and we took the blue and yellow boats with four charged batteries. More space was better, but we had a fairly strong breeze and waves were several inches tall in the sheltered area where we operated the boats. The boats stay fairly dry if you are very careful to close the top deck on the ball into the grommet as tightly as possible and push the lid smoothly down on the sides.
!!Taking on Water...and right back running!
About a spoonful of water entered the boats on three of the battery packs but didn’t adversely affect the operation of the boats. However on one battery pack I hit a wave hard after launching off another, and the lid popped open and the inside of the boat was basically 60% filled with water. I slowly drove the boat back to the dock, turned off the boat, removed the battery and poured the water out of the hull and then sponged and paper toweled out the rest of the water. The receiver comes in what appears to be a balloon and the wires come out the end and it is tied off there. The receiver had stayed dry. The speed controller seemed unaffected by the moisture. I reinstalled the battery, turned it back on, carefully closed the top lid and was back in action. We had great fun and spent about 35 minutes operating the boats on the delta.
!!Sealing the Boats to Help Stay Dry
+908774:Sealing the lid...and also notice how nicely the boats self-right.
A quick review on how to seal up the boats because this is an important step to keeping water out of the boat. As mentioned above it is a one-piece hull and a one-piece lid. The lid is connected to the hull with two hinges in the back of the boat. On the inside of the lid there are strips of what appears to be thin black rubber-like material that rests on the raised lip of the plastic hull. When the lid is closed tightly this keeps most of the water out of the boat. On sharp turns this “deck line” is below water level and in waves it is possible to leap out of the water and nose into the next wave. To get the best seal I lower the lid over the hull and gently push down and forward on the lid and press firmly down in the front to get a tight fit of the socket into the grommet. Since starting to do this carefully I have gotten only a little water into the boat. As mentioned above the receiver is protected inside a balloon and speed controller is sealed in a black rubber like covering.
In a couple of runs we have had boats get fairly full of water and still keep working. The excess water slows them down and they ride lower in the water as well so you know to bring it in to empty. Careful closure of the lid pressing it tight (not much force used) to the hull and sliding forward to the ball joint prevents this in about 9 out of 10 runs. The bigger the waves or the more quick turns you make, the greater the chances of taking on water. As stated above that has not caused any problems with the equipment in the pool or in the Delta.
To the average spectator it often looks like the boats are going to shatter against the side of the pool. They go very fast for a small pool and two feet from the wall they look like they can’t possibly miss the wall. However a sharp turn of the wheel and the boat is quickly going in the opposite direction. Or, simply let go of the throttle and the boat slides to a stop before hitting the wall. For the novice boater I encourage throttle management (going slow) until they have command of the boats left and right. After that is mastered I encourage them to increase the speed slowly and master the figure 8 or circle in the middle of the pool. When they become confident they are free to use the full throttle and the full pool. While my pool is great fun for one or two boats it is a bit small for racing or operating any more then that.
!Boy Scouts and Pool Boats...YEAH!
To shoot some video of all the boats operating together I planned a day with a troop of boy scouts coming over to my house with their families for a Bar-B-Que, swim, race and swimming merit badge day. For the boats the boys would get to operate one for a minute and then when they had all done that we would go to a three lap time trial and the fastest scouts would go to elimination races in the nearby (Three house away) Delta. The winner of each elimination round would advance to the championship. The batteries would charge on my smart chargers while the scouts swam or had lunch. It seemed like a good plan in my mind. I was going to videotape the elimination races and finals...I didn’t plan to videotape the “time trials.”
!!“THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN OFTEN GO AWRY.”
<i>(Ah the immortal words of poet, Robert Burns...so true!)</i>
!!!"You don’t need to go full speed while you are learning to operate the boats.”
I don’t know how many times I said that but it was a bunch! It mostly seemed to fall on deaf ears.
<i>"Warp Factor 10 Mr. Sulu,”</i> seemed to be the throttle response sought by most of the scouts as soon as the controller got in their hands.
We had lots of high-speed wall skims and the Blue boat had four hard smashes straight into the side of the pool. These usually caused the top lid to pop open but the first three did nothing else to the boat. The fourth one dislodged the battery and the boat hit a wave and filled up with water. No problem, right, just drain it. But this time the motor wouldn’t run. The rudder still turned but nothing from the motor. (Cause found and easily fixed later....)
Because of all the scouts and wanting to keep things moving I set it aside and switched to the Red boat for the scouts to use for practice. One scout did a great job of controlling the boat and was actually rounding the pylons in the pool at full throttle almost from the beginning. However, after his time was up the next scout had the classic problem of not knowing the boats left from its right when it was coming at him full speed and he managed to hit the wall straight on with the bow of the boat twice. The next couple of scouts hit the wall at full throttle four more times. The only damage was a little chip to the red paint but no permanent damage to the boat. The lid does pop open when the Red boat slams into the wall as well. The Red boat’s battery ran down so I switched to the Yellow boat.
+908775:A scout's first minute of boat operation.
The first scout to operate the yellow boat was our best operator yet and the next few actually started slow while they learned how to steer. All of the scouts got in their practice runs. I put the batteries on my chargers and the scouts continued to arrive with their families. I ended up with 11 scouts working on the merit badge and others working on water related requirements for Second and First class. Meanwhile the wind came up and was quite strong and I knew from experience there would be whitecaps on the Delta. We had a great lunch, free swimming and diving and a lot of time working on the merit badge. Because of the wind and double the number of expected scouts working on advancement, we didn’t get back to the boats until late in the afternoon after most of the scouts had left. A wire from the controller to the motor on the Blue boat had come unplugged when the boat hit the wall and I repaired that by plugging them back together. It was good to go. I didn’t accomplish the racing and videotaping I wanted but the scouts and families all had fun and many earned their swimming merit badge. The videos of all four boats operating would have to wait for another day. Several of the scouts and their dads got information about where they could buy the boats locally and I gave them directions to R/C Country in Sacramento.
!!Crash Dummy's Damage Assessment
The good that accidentally came from the scouts “races” was that the boats went through a far more rigorous impact test then I ever would have put them through on purpose. The Blue boat with four hard smashes and one complete filling with water had a bullet connector between the speed controller and the motor come loose. Once reconnected it worked fine. The Red boat hit the pool wall straight on at least six times at or near full throttle. Only damage is minor paint chip as shown in the picture below. I don’t recommend this type impact for these boats but they all survived these unintentional crashes and were still fully operational.
@908757:Four full throttle collisions straight on and only chipped paint.
@908758:This is just a portion of the scouts and family at my house.
@908759:Water spraying over the bow in a turn.
It was poor planning on my part to expect the scouts to master operation of the boats in one minute...especially set on full speed and fast turn settings. While about half of them fully understood how to control the boats, it takes more practice when the DR control tab is set for sharp turns. With the tab set for sharp turns I had no trouble missing the pool walls but I found it a challenge to make quick turns around the buoys at full speed. We learned it was a lot of fun to just operate the boats in the small pool and not try and race without more experience.
!OPERATION BY ADULT RC NOVICES
@908760:My wife and friends ready to operate the boats.
Over the Fourth of July weekend my wife and I went up near Lake Tahoe with some friends from our church small group and we shared a house for the weekend. They were all RC novices so I brought the boats with me to let them play with them. The lake where we played with the boats had seaweed growing about the first 100 feet from the shore so we had to go out a ways to avoid it.... We had one boat get tangled in the seaweed but everyone had fun playing with the boats.
@908761:Launching the boat.
@908762:It need not be too gentle.
@908763:I use a spin toss.
@908764:Landing upside down the boats self-right.
+908776:The adults having fun operating the boats.
@908765:Blue boat filled with water, unable to move, but still floating!
@908766:Blue boat is stuck and others tried to help.
@908767:Here comes the rescue canoe.
@908768:An antenna grab.
@908769:Bringing the boat to shore.
@908770:The weeds really had a hold of it.
The above pictures clearly show that the boats are virtually unsinkable, the blue boat was totally filled with water and snagged by seaweed that was anchored to the bottom of the lake. Yet it floated until rescued. A special thank you to Professor Bjeldanes, from UC Berkeley, his wife and children for rescuing the blue boat from the grasp of its evil arch-enemy, Seaweed. As we say at Cal: "GO BLUE!"
!!REPAIRS
The chipped paint on the red boat was touched up with Model Master Guard Red and you can’t tell it was ever chipped. The grommets on the red and blue boats were replaced with grommets I had on hand. My round grommets came with old standard size servos. Although the flange is slightly smaller they seem to work fine. These replacements were done as the grommets on those boats didn’t work as well as they had before all the collisions with the pool walls. Purple and yellow boats are still with original grommets and they have had as many runs, just fewer collisions. Replacement grommets are sold by the part with the ball link and are listed under parts in the instructions. Surprisingly, hinges aren't listed as a replacement part and I can see those breaking over time with lots of use, especially by children. The hinges on my boats are still working like new.
@908771:I have removed the damaged grommet and touched up the paint.
@908772:Red boat is good as new.
!SAM, SCOTT, KC, DOMINIC AND MATT
@908773:Back row: KC and Sam, front row: Dominic, Matt and Scott
Our neighbors, three houses over, live on the Delta and I had Scott and his older brother Sam and their friends operate the boats for one video. They had a lot of fun in the process and they managed to strip the gears in the purple boat’s steering servo in a three-way collision right near the start of operation. The red boat needed to have its antenna repaired so it was out of action for that day. Over the course of the past month there were a good number of boat-to-boat collisions and this damaged servo gear and the two replacement grommets were the only damage from operation. I am only sorry I wasn’t zoomed in on the collision as that was quite a hit to the rudder and a fast “sinking.” The Stoddards and friends were the operators in the last video below when all four boats were operating once again as usual.
+908777:The Stoddards and friends boating on the Delta.
+908778:Transmitter trim tabs let you go from mild to wild! Lo res
+908779:Transmitter trim tabs let you go from mild to wild! high res
!REFLECTIONS AFTER A MONTH OF OPERATION
Sealing the boats up to keep out the water is more a matter of pushing smoothly along and down on the lid top, especially at the grommet, it is not a matter of brute force! Take time to get the ball socket firmly in the grommet!
The throttle trim can be used to slow the boat down. You can set one transmitter throttle tab on high and the others just down a little and you can catch everyone else in the straight away. But that would be cheating and a boy scout is honest…eventually.
But seriously, the throttle trim tab is good for adjusting the speed range. I finally learned to set them all on low for beginners. After they learned how to steer I would then have them increase the speed and sharpen the turn radius. Remember this if you let children or slow learning adults (like me) operate your boat.
Have your buddy get one also! These boats are fun to play with by yourself, but they are a blast with two even if you aren’t racing. On one run mine went under one boat like a submarine diving and popped back up on the other side of the boat my friend was operating. I have seen boats skim the wall and do a roll in the process and they just self right and keep on going. In the Delta one friend used my boat as a ramp and did a jump as he went over me. The local kids have done that a number of times.
If you have a good smart charger use that instead of the wall charger that currently comes with the boats. It will recharge your pack in about half the time of the wall charger and has the safety shut offs.
On really hard collisions the boats will pop open and sometimes fill with water even so they can usually be driven back to shore slowly and need not be rescued. Our "rescues" were caused by seaweed and a loose bullet connector. The rescues were performed by swimming (twice) and canoeing (once) and then...
*I tested the recommended method in the instructions:
*Put a fishing line through a tennis ball.
*Cast or throw the tennis ball over the boat...the tennis ball will snag the boat.
*Slowly drag it in.
It worked! Most runs had no troubles at all and needed no rescues but it is best to be prepared.
!CONCLUSION
The Reef Racer takes a lot of abuse and keep on going. When they are going you are having fun! Despite repeated collisions with walls and popping open on hitting big waves, all four boats worked fine until the day I videotaped on the Delta. Red boat’s antenna needed to be repaired because of a mistake made by a youth in picking it up the previous day and that repair has since been done. The purple boat’s steering servo needed a replacement gear after its collision and that has been done (Futaba 3003 servo replacement gears). After a month plus of operation I still get a kick out of operating a boat by myself but it is even more fun with friends or to see children or teenagers playing with them. Using the trim tabs to make them slower boats and slower turning as well allows younger children and those not use to operating R/C vehicles to operate them successfully. I really appreciated the versatility they have in the transmitter for speed and turning radius. With the twisting of two trim tabs the controls go from mild to wild!
Because the boats do take on some water (usually a spoonful or two) in operation I would not recommend running the boats in salt water but I didn’t try it so I don’t have a full report. I just know from flying planes on slopes above the ocean that radio gear and salt water generally don’t mix.
So far I have been unable to sink a boat. Even when they have popped open and the bottom hull has filled with water the top keeps them above water. Even an accidental cannon ball dive on one by a scout didn't keep it under. But I don't recommend jumping on the boats!
Finally, almost every time I ran the boats I had people wanting to know where to buy them and how much they cost. I know that several dads made trips up to Sacramento and purchased one from R/C Country and others checked them out on-line at Tower Hobbies. The boats and the transmitters work great!
<a href="http://www.ezonemag.com">E Zone</a> member Harris Douma e-mailed me with a simple hop-up that he uses with his Reef Racer. He switched the battery pack to a two cell Apogee 1570 pack. The boat is lighter, faster and will run for fifteen minutes. I will have to give that a try! My thanks to Harris for the tip who spotted this article while it was up on the board for advance review and editing.
<div class = "dashed"><p>
Reviewers note: In the "Stoddard" video the boy asking his mom if they could get one was not staged. He simply wanted one and asked his mother and I understand he will be getting one. The "pounding sound" in that video was a boy hitting a big rock with a rock. Sorry, I didn’t catch it at the time as I didn’t even notice it in person but it is a little annoying in the video. I just gave the boys the boats to operate and told them to have fun and not worry. However, after the big collision they decided on their own to avoid further collisions. <p></div>
!AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON CHARGER SAFETY
The instructions tell you to closely monitor your battery pack when it is charging and check the temperature at least every 15 minutes. This is an important warning not to be ignored! These wall chargers do not automatically shut-off and they warn you not to leave them plugged in overnight. I am keeping the Tamiya plugs on the boats and batteries and I have made a couple Tamiya plugs to use with my Smart chargers so I can charge the boat’s batteries out where I am running the boats.
| spec2
| @908744
|> <b>Weight:</b> |< 26.7 oz.
|> <b>Length:</b> |< 15"
|> <b>Beam (width):</b> |< 6"
|> <b>Design Type:</b> |< Vee
|> <b>Hull Type:</b> |< ABS Plastic
|> <big>INCLUDES:
|> <b>Transmitter:</b> |< Aquacraft by Futaba 2-channel
|> <b>Radio Gear:</b> |< 1 servo, 1 ESC
|> <b>Battery:</b> |< 6-cell, 1100mAh NiMH
|> <b>Charger:</b> |< AC, not peak detecting
|> <big>REQUIRES:
|> <b>Tx Batteries:</b> |< 8 AA
|> <b>Manufacturer:</b> |< <a href="http://www.aquacraftmodels.com/boats/hcab12main.html">AquaCraft by Hobbico</a>
|> <b>Stock #:</b> |< HCAB12**
|> <b>Available From:</b> |< <a href="http://www.towerhobbies.com">Online at Tower Hobbies</a>
The Hobbico Reef Racers are sold as an RTR ("ready-to-run") -- although perhaps a better designation would be "RTF" ("ready-to-float") -- radio control boat. The package includes a transmitter and a boat with almost everything it needs to operate (just needs 8 AA batteries for the transmitter). The boats come assembled with motor and drive train already installed in a one-piece hull with one-piece top. The top is held on with two hinges in the back and a socket ball mounted to the top of the hull that plugs into a grommet in the front of the top deck. Receiver and speed controller and a servo to steer the boat come already connected and installed. The buyer only has to install the 8-AA batteries into the transmitter and charge the 6-cell, 1100-mah battery pack with the wall charger that comes as part of the package. (PLEASE READ THE SAFETY NOTE BELOW.)
There is no assembly! The charged battery is secured with Velcro into the battery tray in the boat. There is a page of decals you can use to custom decorate your boat. If you want to race, or simply run multiple boats, they sell boats in six different colors and each comes on a different frequency. I wanted to see them race and have multiple boats together. So, I got four of the boats with a blue, yellow, red and purple boat. The other two colors are orange and white. The supplied motor is a water cooled 380 electric.
@908745:A boat as it comes in the box
@908746:The transmitter, charger and battery pack
@908747:The sheet of self-sticking decals
@908748:The instruction manual
@908749:Spare parts to replace the propeller
@908750:This lid lining helps keep the water out of the boat.
The radios are quality Aquacraft products made by Futaba. They come complete with servo reversing and dials for adjusting the trim tabs for steering and throttle. For once I read the instructions before I started and I connected two battery packs to two of the wall chargers. Next, I started to cut out decals to add to the blue and yellow boats. I checked the battery packs for warmth after about fifteen minutes, thirty minutes and fifty minutes and found they were cool, not warm to the touch. I got busy with installing the decals on the boats and when I next checked the battery packs it had been an hour and twenty minutes total charging time and the batteries and the chargers were both hot.
The boats are available on 6 separate frequencies -- with a different color for each channel -- and all on the "ground use only" 75mHz frequency band.
!BOAT OPERATION
!!Testing Time
The Velcro for the battery pack was pre-stuck to the Velcro in the battery tray in the boat. With a cool charged pack I attached the Velcro to the pack and secured the pack in the tray in the boat with the included Velcro strap. I turned the boat on, pushed the top deck closed on the blue boat, and put the boat in my pool .... ready to race around the pool. Initially it was steering in the wrong direction but a flick of the servo reversing switch and left was left and right was right. (This turned out to be necessary on all four boats.) The boat also was going a little left with no steering input by me. There was a trim tab on the transmitter that operated by twisting it and I was able to adjust the boat’s steering so that the boat went straight with no touch on the steering wheel. There was also a twist adjustment for the throttle and I didn’t initially find any use for it. Speed was initially on the slow slide and I figured I would need to cycle the battery pack a couple times to get it up to full speed. The boat turns sharply and only goes in a forward direction (no reverse). I played around for a minute or so and then moved the throttle trim tab. Suddenly the boat kicked into high speed. (So that is what the throttle adjustment is for!) I had terrific fun for about eight minutes until the boat slowed down and I knew it was time to stop. A little water (about a heaping tablespoon) had gotten into the hull and I used a small piece of sponge and a couple paper towels to remove this water as per the instructions.
!!Motor Cooling!
When I was installing the battery pack I noticed there was a small pipe on the back bottom of the boat behind the propeller, a water intake. Inside the boat I noticed the metal pipe came up and wrapped around the motor and then lead to an exit pipe in the top side of the boat. When the boat was going slow I noticed nothing coming out this side exit but when the boat kicked into high gear water was coming out the side exit in a regular stream. A pretty efficient forced water-cooling system to keep the motor from getting to hot in high-speed operation! I wasn’t aware of this feature before I got the boats, but it works very well.
@908751:This is the cooling intake for water (between the prop and rudder).
@908752:The water is forced around the motor in this tube and cools it.
@908753:The cooling water exists the boat through this vent in the side.
@908754:Here you see all the main components in the boat.
!!Steering Dual Rates
The second battery pack charged was for the yellow boat and when I went to run the yellow boat it went full speed from the very start. I noticed that the yellow boat initially wasn’t turning as sharply as the blue boat had turned. On the transmitter there is a dial marked DR, which reminded me of dual rate in my planes. Turned one way the steering becomes very quick and turned the other way the turning is much slower. I moved it for faster response in my now tiny swimming pool. The yellow boat ran for almost ten minutes as I did a little throttle management (not much).
@908755:Here is the steering servo and the connection to the rudder.
@908756:Turning around a buoy.
The next day I went to the San Joaquin Delta with a friend’s son, Tyler Kamp, and we took the blue and yellow boats with four charged batteries. More space was better, but we had a fairly strong breeze and waves were several inches tall in the sheltered area where we operated the boats. The boats stay fairly dry if you are very careful to close the top deck on the ball into the grommet as tightly as possible and push the lid smoothly down on the sides.
!!Taking on Water...and right back running!
About a spoonful of water entered the boats on three of the battery packs but didn’t adversely affect the operation of the boats. However on one battery pack I hit a wave hard after launching off another, and the lid popped open and the inside of the boat was basically 60% filled with water. I slowly drove the boat back to the dock, turned off the boat, removed the battery and poured the water out of the hull and then sponged and paper toweled out the rest of the water. The receiver comes in what appears to be a balloon and the wires come out the end and it is tied off there. The receiver had stayed dry. The speed controller seemed unaffected by the moisture. I reinstalled the battery, turned it back on, carefully closed the top lid and was back in action. We had great fun and spent about 35 minutes operating the boats on the delta.
!!Sealing the Boats to Help Stay Dry
+908774:Sealing the lid...and also notice how nicely the boats self-right.
A quick review on how to seal up the boats because this is an important step to keeping water out of the boat. As mentioned above it is a one-piece hull and a one-piece lid. The lid is connected to the hull with two hinges in the back of the boat. On the inside of the lid there are strips of what appears to be thin black rubber-like material that rests on the raised lip of the plastic hull. When the lid is closed tightly this keeps most of the water out of the boat. On sharp turns this “deck line” is below water level and in waves it is possible to leap out of the water and nose into the next wave. To get the best seal I lower the lid over the hull and gently push down and forward on the lid and press firmly down in the front to get a tight fit of the socket into the grommet. Since starting to do this carefully I have gotten only a little water into the boat. As mentioned above the receiver is protected inside a balloon and speed controller is sealed in a black rubber like covering.
In a couple of runs we have had boats get fairly full of water and still keep working. The excess water slows them down and they ride lower in the water as well so you know to bring it in to empty. Careful closure of the lid pressing it tight (not much force used) to the hull and sliding forward to the ball joint prevents this in about 9 out of 10 runs. The bigger the waves or the more quick turns you make, the greater the chances of taking on water. As stated above that has not caused any problems with the equipment in the pool or in the Delta.
To the average spectator it often looks like the boats are going to shatter against the side of the pool. They go very fast for a small pool and two feet from the wall they look like they can’t possibly miss the wall. However a sharp turn of the wheel and the boat is quickly going in the opposite direction. Or, simply let go of the throttle and the boat slides to a stop before hitting the wall. For the novice boater I encourage throttle management (going slow) until they have command of the boats left and right. After that is mastered I encourage them to increase the speed slowly and master the figure 8 or circle in the middle of the pool. When they become confident they are free to use the full throttle and the full pool. While my pool is great fun for one or two boats it is a bit small for racing or operating any more then that.
!Boy Scouts and Pool Boats...YEAH!
To shoot some video of all the boats operating together I planned a day with a troop of boy scouts coming over to my house with their families for a Bar-B-Que, swim, race and swimming merit badge day. For the boats the boys would get to operate one for a minute and then when they had all done that we would go to a three lap time trial and the fastest scouts would go to elimination races in the nearby (Three house away) Delta. The winner of each elimination round would advance to the championship. The batteries would charge on my smart chargers while the scouts swam or had lunch. It seemed like a good plan in my mind. I was going to videotape the elimination races and finals...I didn’t plan to videotape the “time trials.”
!!“THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN OFTEN GO AWRY.”
<i>(Ah the immortal words of poet, Robert Burns...so true!)</i>
!!!"You don’t need to go full speed while you are learning to operate the boats.”
I don’t know how many times I said that but it was a bunch! It mostly seemed to fall on deaf ears.
<i>"Warp Factor 10 Mr. Sulu,”</i> seemed to be the throttle response sought by most of the scouts as soon as the controller got in their hands.
We had lots of high-speed wall skims and the Blue boat had four hard smashes straight into the side of the pool. These usually caused the top lid to pop open but the first three did nothing else to the boat. The fourth one dislodged the battery and the boat hit a wave and filled up with water. No problem, right, just drain it. But this time the motor wouldn’t run. The rudder still turned but nothing from the motor. (Cause found and easily fixed later....)
Because of all the scouts and wanting to keep things moving I set it aside and switched to the Red boat for the scouts to use for practice. One scout did a great job of controlling the boat and was actually rounding the pylons in the pool at full throttle almost from the beginning. However, after his time was up the next scout had the classic problem of not knowing the boats left from its right when it was coming at him full speed and he managed to hit the wall straight on with the bow of the boat twice. The next couple of scouts hit the wall at full throttle four more times. The only damage was a little chip to the red paint but no permanent damage to the boat. The lid does pop open when the Red boat slams into the wall as well. The Red boat’s battery ran down so I switched to the Yellow boat.
+908775:A scout's first minute of boat operation.
The first scout to operate the yellow boat was our best operator yet and the next few actually started slow while they learned how to steer. All of the scouts got in their practice runs. I put the batteries on my chargers and the scouts continued to arrive with their families. I ended up with 11 scouts working on the merit badge and others working on water related requirements for Second and First class. Meanwhile the wind came up and was quite strong and I knew from experience there would be whitecaps on the Delta. We had a great lunch, free swimming and diving and a lot of time working on the merit badge. Because of the wind and double the number of expected scouts working on advancement, we didn’t get back to the boats until late in the afternoon after most of the scouts had left. A wire from the controller to the motor on the Blue boat had come unplugged when the boat hit the wall and I repaired that by plugging them back together. It was good to go. I didn’t accomplish the racing and videotaping I wanted but the scouts and families all had fun and many earned their swimming merit badge. The videos of all four boats operating would have to wait for another day. Several of the scouts and their dads got information about where they could buy the boats locally and I gave them directions to R/C Country in Sacramento.
!!Crash Dummy's Damage Assessment
The good that accidentally came from the scouts “races” was that the boats went through a far more rigorous impact test then I ever would have put them through on purpose. The Blue boat with four hard smashes and one complete filling with water had a bullet connector between the speed controller and the motor come loose. Once reconnected it worked fine. The Red boat hit the pool wall straight on at least six times at or near full throttle. Only damage is minor paint chip as shown in the picture below. I don’t recommend this type impact for these boats but they all survived these unintentional crashes and were still fully operational.
@908757:Four full throttle collisions straight on and only chipped paint.
@908758:This is just a portion of the scouts and family at my house.
@908759:Water spraying over the bow in a turn.
It was poor planning on my part to expect the scouts to master operation of the boats in one minute...especially set on full speed and fast turn settings. While about half of them fully understood how to control the boats, it takes more practice when the DR control tab is set for sharp turns. With the tab set for sharp turns I had no trouble missing the pool walls but I found it a challenge to make quick turns around the buoys at full speed. We learned it was a lot of fun to just operate the boats in the small pool and not try and race without more experience.
!OPERATION BY ADULT RC NOVICES
@908760:My wife and friends ready to operate the boats.
Over the Fourth of July weekend my wife and I went up near Lake Tahoe with some friends from our church small group and we shared a house for the weekend. They were all RC novices so I brought the boats with me to let them play with them. The lake where we played with the boats had seaweed growing about the first 100 feet from the shore so we had to go out a ways to avoid it.... We had one boat get tangled in the seaweed but everyone had fun playing with the boats.
@908761:Launching the boat.
@908762:It need not be too gentle.
@908763:I use a spin toss.
@908764:Landing upside down the boats self-right.
+908776:The adults having fun operating the boats.
@908765:Blue boat filled with water, unable to move, but still floating!
@908766:Blue boat is stuck and others tried to help.
@908767:Here comes the rescue canoe.
@908768:An antenna grab.
@908769:Bringing the boat to shore.
@908770:The weeds really had a hold of it.
The above pictures clearly show that the boats are virtually unsinkable, the blue boat was totally filled with water and snagged by seaweed that was anchored to the bottom of the lake. Yet it floated until rescued. A special thank you to Professor Bjeldanes, from UC Berkeley, his wife and children for rescuing the blue boat from the grasp of its evil arch-enemy, Seaweed. As we say at Cal: "GO BLUE!"
!!REPAIRS
The chipped paint on the red boat was touched up with Model Master Guard Red and you can’t tell it was ever chipped. The grommets on the red and blue boats were replaced with grommets I had on hand. My round grommets came with old standard size servos. Although the flange is slightly smaller they seem to work fine. These replacements were done as the grommets on those boats didn’t work as well as they had before all the collisions with the pool walls. Purple and yellow boats are still with original grommets and they have had as many runs, just fewer collisions. Replacement grommets are sold by the part with the ball link and are listed under parts in the instructions. Surprisingly, hinges aren't listed as a replacement part and I can see those breaking over time with lots of use, especially by children. The hinges on my boats are still working like new.
@908771:I have removed the damaged grommet and touched up the paint.
@908772:Red boat is good as new.
!SAM, SCOTT, KC, DOMINIC AND MATT
@908773:Back row: KC and Sam, front row: Dominic, Matt and Scott
Our neighbors, three houses over, live on the Delta and I had Scott and his older brother Sam and their friends operate the boats for one video. They had a lot of fun in the process and they managed to strip the gears in the purple boat’s steering servo in a three-way collision right near the start of operation. The red boat needed to have its antenna repaired so it was out of action for that day. Over the course of the past month there were a good number of boat-to-boat collisions and this damaged servo gear and the two replacement grommets were the only damage from operation. I am only sorry I wasn’t zoomed in on the collision as that was quite a hit to the rudder and a fast “sinking.” The Stoddards and friends were the operators in the last video below when all four boats were operating once again as usual.
+908777:The Stoddards and friends boating on the Delta.
+908778:Transmitter trim tabs let you go from mild to wild! Lo res
+908779:Transmitter trim tabs let you go from mild to wild! high res
!REFLECTIONS AFTER A MONTH OF OPERATION
Sealing the boats up to keep out the water is more a matter of pushing smoothly along and down on the lid top, especially at the grommet, it is not a matter of brute force! Take time to get the ball socket firmly in the grommet!
The throttle trim can be used to slow the boat down. You can set one transmitter throttle tab on high and the others just down a little and you can catch everyone else in the straight away. But that would be cheating and a boy scout is honest…eventually.
But seriously, the throttle trim tab is good for adjusting the speed range. I finally learned to set them all on low for beginners. After they learned how to steer I would then have them increase the speed and sharpen the turn radius. Remember this if you let children or slow learning adults (like me) operate your boat.
Have your buddy get one also! These boats are fun to play with by yourself, but they are a blast with two even if you aren’t racing. On one run mine went under one boat like a submarine diving and popped back up on the other side of the boat my friend was operating. I have seen boats skim the wall and do a roll in the process and they just self right and keep on going. In the Delta one friend used my boat as a ramp and did a jump as he went over me. The local kids have done that a number of times.
If you have a good smart charger use that instead of the wall charger that currently comes with the boats. It will recharge your pack in about half the time of the wall charger and has the safety shut offs.
On really hard collisions the boats will pop open and sometimes fill with water even so they can usually be driven back to shore slowly and need not be rescued. Our "rescues" were caused by seaweed and a loose bullet connector. The rescues were performed by swimming (twice) and canoeing (once) and then...
*I tested the recommended method in the instructions:
*Put a fishing line through a tennis ball.
*Cast or throw the tennis ball over the boat...the tennis ball will snag the boat.
*Slowly drag it in.
It worked! Most runs had no troubles at all and needed no rescues but it is best to be prepared.
!CONCLUSION
The Reef Racer takes a lot of abuse and keep on going. When they are going you are having fun! Despite repeated collisions with walls and popping open on hitting big waves, all four boats worked fine until the day I videotaped on the Delta. Red boat’s antenna needed to be repaired because of a mistake made by a youth in picking it up the previous day and that repair has since been done. The purple boat’s steering servo needed a replacement gear after its collision and that has been done (Futaba 3003 servo replacement gears). After a month plus of operation I still get a kick out of operating a boat by myself but it is even more fun with friends or to see children or teenagers playing with them. Using the trim tabs to make them slower boats and slower turning as well allows younger children and those not use to operating R/C vehicles to operate them successfully. I really appreciated the versatility they have in the transmitter for speed and turning radius. With the twisting of two trim tabs the controls go from mild to wild!
Because the boats do take on some water (usually a spoonful or two) in operation I would not recommend running the boats in salt water but I didn’t try it so I don’t have a full report. I just know from flying planes on slopes above the ocean that radio gear and salt water generally don’t mix.
So far I have been unable to sink a boat. Even when they have popped open and the bottom hull has filled with water the top keeps them above water. Even an accidental cannon ball dive on one by a scout didn't keep it under. But I don't recommend jumping on the boats!
Finally, almost every time I ran the boats I had people wanting to know where to buy them and how much they cost. I know that several dads made trips up to Sacramento and purchased one from R/C Country and others checked them out on-line at Tower Hobbies. The boats and the transmitters work great!
<a href="http://www.ezonemag.com">E Zone</a> member Harris Douma e-mailed me with a simple hop-up that he uses with his Reef Racer. He switched the battery pack to a two cell Apogee 1570 pack. The boat is lighter, faster and will run for fifteen minutes. I will have to give that a try! My thanks to Harris for the tip who spotted this article while it was up on the board for advance review and editing.
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Reviewers note: In the "Stoddard" video the boy asking his mom if they could get one was not staged. He simply wanted one and asked his mother and I understand he will be getting one. The "pounding sound" in that video was a boy hitting a big rock with a rock. Sorry, I didn’t catch it at the time as I didn’t even notice it in person but it is a little annoying in the video. I just gave the boys the boats to operate and told them to have fun and not worry. However, after the big collision they decided on their own to avoid further collisions. <p></div>
!AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON CHARGER SAFETY
The instructions tell you to closely monitor your battery pack when it is charging and check the temperature at least every 15 minutes. This is an important warning not to be ignored! These wall chargers do not automatically shut-off and they warn you not to leave them plugged in overnight. I am keeping the Tamiya plugs on the boats and batteries and I have made a couple Tamiya plugs to use with my Smart chargers so I can charge the boat’s batteries out where I am running the boats.