1/12 Bud owners!!!

[abx131]

Has anyone made any drastic improvements to the sh@3$$ty radio box in these things. They leak like a strainer and I am wondering if anyone has any improvements to this. I have already cooked one receiver and almost lost another.

[Watercadet]

Plasti dip! It is that liquid rubber stuff that is used to make handels on tools and the like. I got it at Home Depot. With every thing out of the radio box except the push rods and seals, I poured a little on the side of the box with the hull vertical and rolled the stuff arround for full coverage, everything except the bottom of the box.
Adam

[decoy706]

Small Tupperware and $100 worth of water-resistent electrics and a good bailer

[Watercadet]

Small Tupperware
Did you cut out the radio box? I have two hulls and cut out one but the opening is so small that I couldn't find any thing that would fit in it.
Adam

[Hydro Junkie]

What about building a new box out of either 1/8th or 1/16th plywood? It can't be any worse than what's already there

[Watercadet]

I tried that too. The thing is that the stock box extends under the deck laterly. So any box that could be made out of wood would just drop down in would not have enough room for the electronics. Tried it.
Adam

[Hydro Junkie]

Just a thought. Another reason I build my own :D

[BoatDoc]

the antenna seal is the one of the biggest problems. i never had a chance to figure out a good way to seal that box before the big crash.

[riche]

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LX9162&P=ML
this will fix the antenna..

[Watercadet]

Shoe Goo will fix the antena

[abx131]

I found a small tupperware type container that will fit the radio box. It will take some mods to install but I think it will work. I will let you all know if it works.

[riche]

I think that you are going in the wrong direction.
The radio box as it is gets little water in it as long at the boat doesn’t come to a complete stop and sit in the water. (And when it does stop in the water kiss the servos goodbye… you will be taking them apart to dry them out!!!)
I would just seal the recover and batteries with balloons. Get some new pushrod seals. Don’t forget there are 2 seals for the steering one coming out the radio box and one out the transom. I would not worry with the transom so much….
Then it is a radio switch and the antenna…
That is the easiest way that I know of…. Any other impute guys?

[Watercadet]

Mine is known to on occation...have what some might call... an accident... or a FLIP! I kinda would like to keep running after that so keeping the water out is priority. The lid and pushrod seals are not the only things that leak allong with the switch. The tray is joined to the deck underneath. This joint is just about as spotty as you can get so that joint needs to be addressed. Otherwise the tray can be cut out and a tupperware style or other box can be made. My problem was that the radio equipment wouldn't fit in a custome box so I used plasti dip to seal the joint.
Adam

[abx131]

There is hope! The tupperware container is working. Using a dermel tool I cut off the rolled edge along the radio box so the edge was flush with the deck. I cut off the top edge of the tupperware and epoxied it to the deck over the radio box. There was a little bit of sealing to do around the four corners which are rounded but I now have a water proof lid that pops on and off with no problem. the floor of the radio box I coated with fiberglass resin and sealed it up tight. I need to replace the boots on the stearing and throttle control rods but it is a 100% better than the factory set up and added hardly any weight.

[riche]

that was a pretty good idea...

[abx131]

For those of you interested, The tupperware container is one of those disposable tpes by glad or zip lock It is 3.5 by 5 inches and cost $4 for a six pack of them. When I get it done I will get photos out. The whole thing fit under the cowl and is not visible. I am syked to test it, but it will be awhile.

[abx131]

Well here is an update: The first couple of test runs have proven to be quite sucessfull. Again my lake of choice has real boats on it so it gets a bit choppy and the rc box stayed fairly dry. Still some minor leaks but that will be fixed. Over all there was a little added weight in the rear but I have discovered it handels better in the chop like this. I was acutally jumping some waves made by the wakeboarders!!. It eventually got washed out and drowned the carb but the rc box bairly had a drop it it. I had a question about batteries. The miss bud uses 4 AA totaling 6volts. Is there a 6volt camera battery or something that can be used that weighs a lot less?? The other idea would be to split the batteries in to pairs and stuff them in to the hollow area of the front sponsons. Traditional batteries add way to much weight.

[Hydro Junkie]

There are six volt camera batteries, but would they have enough amperage to run the receiver and servos for the course of the days running? Also, they are somewhat spendy compared to AA's. Have you considerred NiMH's? They're smaller and lighter, but they do take special handling

You live on Lake Sawyer don't you? And it's Saturday, aren't you supposed to sleep in till after 11:00?

[abx131]

Yeah well I start work at 4:30 in th morning so on weekends sleeping in is until 7am!! They do have some strange lake hours here. Yesterday I was out on the lake in a row boat hooked to a bouye and I ran the bud around me. I had my 3 yr old with me when another rc boat ran into the side of us. My 13 year old neighbor brought out his riptide and nailed us. His batteries died. Also I have a black lab that goes nuts when I run my boat. He tries to swim after it.I loose track of him from time to time and I clipped him across the back at full throttle and flipped and stalled!! Being black he blends into the water too much. He was fine, didn't even make a sound but I had to race him to my boat for I thought he would chomp on it!!

[Hydro Junkie]

Obviously the row boat survived, how did the Riptide fare?

[abx131]

I had to bring it in to him. It looked ok though. Why didn't they design rc units to run on 9volts they are smaller and lighter.

[Hydro Junkie]

Now stop using common sense. You should know by now that there is a conspiracy between electronics manufacturers and battery makers. The electronic companies design products to use as many batteries as possible to keep the battery makers in business. You should have learned that at Christmas when you were still a kid, or at least a teen :D

[abx131]

Well I think Im going to try relocating them to the front of the boat to lighten up the back. The radio box is way too cramped.

[Hydro Junkie]

You do realize the side effect of that, don't you? That will lessen the prop weight, letting the rear half of the boat fly easier. You might get a few more MPH out of it. Just don't go too far forward. You don't want to go much past the rear of the sponsons or the sponsons will start to plow and really slow the boat, if not worse.

[abx131]

Im thinking more about the area on either side of the engine. I think it would work better.

[Watercadet]

4 AA alkalines are 6v but they don't stay at that voltage for long. 5 cell NiCad or 5 NIMH are the way to go. I use a 5 cell nimh pack that weighs less than the 4 AA's and has 1450 MAH. 6v's of punch for the servos and it will last all week. It is only slightly larger than the 4 cell cage that is stock. I re-arranged the layout in the box and now the COG is just a hair behind the turn fin.
Adam

[abx131]

What other mods have you done? That is not the stock pipe!!

[Watercadet]

That is a MACs pipe. The stock one is simmilar to the MACs so i wouldn't run out and get one over the stock. What else have I done? Well here are some pics.

[Watercadet]

That is a MACs pipe. The stock one is simmilar to the MACs so I wouldn't run out and get one over the stock. What else have I done? Well here are some pics.

[Watercadet]

Here is the bottom

[Watercadet]

And the .18 rear exhaust with water cooling...

[abx131]

How fast do you think it goes? What brand of motor???

[Watercadet]

It is a XTM .18. A fairly good motor as far as I am concerned. It comes in the Xcelerator stadium truck. XTM are the people who make the 24.7... the first oversized big block for the T-Maxx. It is air cooled but I also passed 1/8" brass tube through the bottom two fins and hooked the water cooling up to that. I don't have a speed for my boat. no GPS or radar. I did run it next to my full sized boat where we got to 35mph and the water got too rough for the model. There was a lot more in the model even at 35 but the water was covered with wakes from full sized boats. I used the table on here: http://www.props4u.com/prop_chart.htm
and at 25,000rpm (I think that is conservative) with a x437/3 (2.072" of pitch) at the time that puts it at 39.2. I have a 1735 on there now and will see it the motor will spin that much pitch. If so that would put it at 44.4.
Pretty good in the seat of the pants.
Adam

[abx131]

It looks good! Does it all fit under the cowl or did you have to modify it?

[Watercadet]

It fits.

[LuvEvolution]

just wondering..........is the .18 the biggest size motor you can squeeze in there, or has anyone tried a bigger swap? I kinda had an unfortunate head to head with a rock(guess what won that one?). so I've fixed it using pro bond resin and bondo, and an old mastercard(yes you read that right) to repair the crack under the left sponson. while I was at it, I removed the old rounded sponson tips and added 2 inch sharp tips. also removed is the front wing which is now relocated to the cockpit where the small wing was and extra flotation was added in the sponsons. all the mods are done and I have to say, it looks pretty sweet now......just needs a coat of paint and I'm back in business. if it doesn't work, at least I covered my butt and ordered a new hull from my local hobby shop. let me know what you think of all this.

[Watercadet]

The .18 will bolt right up and the exhaust will work. The bigger blocks have problems with the stock mounts and exhaust clearence. I saw a while back that someone was making a small block .21. I don't see why that wouldn't work. Sounds interesting what you did with yours. Any pics of the build up?
Adam

[LuvEvolution]

unfortunately, I don't have any pictures just yet. my mom has a digital camera though and I will take some before and after paint. I'll post them on here as soon as I can get them done.