IMPBA proposal

[bzubee]

I told this guy maybe he should be banned from launching any model boats. Or maybe take ballet leason to learn how to be a little graceful while walking with his boats.

 

[TRUCKPULL]

OK guys I meant this to be sarcastic.

But Bill Z. is pushing a proposal on the FE guys that feels about the same.

He has not looked at all the options yet, that would control the problem.

-Radio power (Pull Off) switches on the outside of the hull.

- Rules for the driver of the dead boat (radio)

- Rules for the operator of the retrieval boat.

-ETC

Larry

 

[HTV Boats]

As Andy reffered to the incident at Brandon where I believe Gary Erwine picked up an electic boat and it started running in his hands. Good thing he wasn't holding anywhere near the live end. He threw it back in the water and was prepairng to beat it with an oar. (must be a NAMBA safety procedure) Funny as it looked, no harm done but a lesson indeed.

Also brings up experienced pit people who know the equipment their launching. Grab someone who has never held a rigger or Gas boat cause you need a pit guy in a hurry, not the best idea. Again in a hurry is the culprit.

Mic

 

[HTV Boats]

OK guys I meant this to be sarcastic.
But Bill Z. is pushing a proposal on the FE guys that feels about the same.

He has not looked at all the options yet, that would control the problem.

-Radio power (Pull Off) switches on the outside of the hull.

- Rules for the driver of the dead boat (radio)

- Rules for the operator of the retrieval boat.

-ETC

Larry

In full size boats I know F-1 tunnels have an ignition cut off on the cowling so a rescue boat can hook the pull ring if the boat is running and the driver is not consious or capable. We cannot send a retrieve boat out for a wild boat. Picking up a dead boat that could run again a shutoff would be nice.

For a positive shut off of a wild boat a shotgun may cure the problem.

Mic

 

[Terry Keeley]

OK guys I meant this to be sarcastic.
But Bill Z. is pushing a proposal on the FE guys that feels about the same.

He has not looked at all the options yet, that would control the problem.

-Radio power (Pull Off) switches on the outside of the hull.

- Rules for the driver of the dead boat (radio)

- Rules for the operator of the retrieval boat.

-ETC

Larry

See post #17...

 

[tnrcboatracer]

I was at London and was the District director when a 15 pound scale boat that was milling went out of control and hit someone launching their boat in the water. The boats impact broke that persons leg and sounded awful.

A 5lb. return spring would have prevented that.

Larry

I beg to differ. THe 5 lb spring will wear out the battery pack more quickly. Your proposal seems to be a tit-for-tat approach. If a throttle failsafe for nitro is required, how about the same for the FE. DO away with the ESC, and go back to a servo controlled rheostat with the failsafe spring as proposed for the Nitro. As for falling on the way to the launch zone, how many other competitors slipped? Perhaps you shouldn't be launching boats.

 

[TRUCKPULL]

JON

Read post #22

It was me and one other person that fell in the mud walking on a down hill slope.

Larry

 

[Don Ferrette]

A fellow IMPBA member and avid FE racer sent me the link to the same "discussion" over on RumRunner Racing. What I did find most interesting was the post from Joe Ford of Castle Creations, one of the premier FE suppliers-

"Gents...the ONLY way to do this with a 100% certainty that it's going to work is with a loop as seen in the first pic of this thread, or using a Deans Ultra connector in the same manner. No amount of switches will work. Power must be COMPLETELY removed from the system. This is what happens when you trust a switch...this is 3 weeks after the bandages came off...bandages were on for 4 weeks...so this is 7 WEEKS LATER...1st-3rd degree burns, 2 debriding sessions, and a whole lot of pain. I will spare you the pics of the inside of my leg. This happened when I turned off the switch on one of our controllers...the receiver made the ESC go full bore and unfortunately, right after it sent that signal, the car was dropping down onto my leg. I don't want to know what the ginsu blades you guys use on your boats would do in the same situation...it won't be pretty.

 

BTW guys...forgot to mention, doing this will not void any warranty on the ESC as long as you do it in an ACCEPTABLE MANNER. No 30ga wires, no 10ft strands in between, piss poor soldering jobs, etc. Keep the wires as short as possible...shorter the better. If you're extending more than a few inches it would be beneficial to put an extra capacitor in the system near the battery leads to help deal with current ripple. Castle does not mind these hard wire setups...we do mind the switches...why we don't put them on our controllers in the first place."

Sure opened my eyes a little...........

 

[Bill-SOCAL]

Now that FE boats will be rendered 100% safe as long as the retrieve boat operators have been trained how to remove the boat with a running motor from the water, where to look for the plug, how to hold the boat safely while pulling the plug and stowing the plug so it can be returned to the owner, we can move along.

One obvious concern remains how to safely remove the FE boat with a runaway motor from the water, something that a safety plug will likely do little to help. Perhaps we can require the plugs to stick out the bottom of the boat so they can be safely accessed during retrieval!!

Oh well. Moving on....

I hardly ever see much discussion over the problem of run away boats due to loss of RF link, loss of receiver power and so on. Seems like the perfect time to propose the following items:

1) that ALL boats be equipped with a loss of RF failsafe, either built into the radio or a third party device.

2) All boats should have a loss of receiver power failsafe that will kill the engine in the case of power being lost to the receiver. This could be electronic or a spring that closes the throttle when the servo loses power. This may require the use of coreless servos which "float" and move freely when there is no power to them.

3) a positive means to kill the engine independent of the throttle servo. Many times the engine cannot be killed causing a delay in the race or making for a dangerous retrieval of a boat with a running motor.

FE boats should also be required to have the loss of RF failsafe. They will already generally kill the ESC/motor if receiver power is lost.

Many of these are already recognized and implemented by a number of people. Why not put them into the rules as requirements in order to elevate the safety of our hobby? As I was told, arguing against obvious safety measures is tantamount to wanting people to be injured.

 

[Buckshot]

This is like say playing russian rullet but instead of 1 bullet in the chamber 5 bullets, any of you F/E guy's want to play, i don't think so , and let me no how hard the ins. carrier laughs before they cancel the ins. for plain stupidity , come on guy's think about what your asking.

Very well said.

Apply some care and common sense ........... and a good pair shoes.

Common sense is no longer common.

-Buck-

 

[Bill-SOCAL]

A fellow IMPBA member and avid FE racer sent me the link to the same "discussion" over on RumRunner Racing. What I did find most interesting was the post from Joe Ford of Castle Creations, one of the premier FE suppliers-

I saw this too. First impression is that it has little bearing on the FE issue. It was a car that ran wild when he shut off the receiver power. Somehow the ESC went wild at that point, Joe dropped the car into his lap and it literally "burned rubber" on his leg. OUCH!!!

Other than pointing out that Castle controllers can do odd things when power is lost to them I am not clear how this relates to the FE issue. And that is not a slam to Castle. All of my CC ESCs will randomly power up the motor, even when it is stopped, if I shut off the receiver power. The receiver is dead, it cannot be sending a signal, so the fault has to be in the ESC.

 

[Bart Drieghe]

Now that FE boats will be rendered 100% safe as long as the retrieve boat operators have been trained how to remove the boat with a running motor from the water, where to look for the plug, how to hold the boat safely while pulling the plug and stowing the plug so it can be returned to the owner, we can move along.
One obvious concern remains how to safely remove the FE boat with a runaway motor from the water, something that a safety plug will likely do little to help. Perhaps we can require the plugs to stick out the bottom of the boat so they can be safely accessed during retrieval!!

Oh well. Moving on....

I hardly ever see much discussion over the problem of run away boats due to loss of RF link, loss of receiver power and so on. Seems like the perfect time to propose the following items:

1) that ALL boats be equipped with a loss of RF failsafe, either built into the radio or a third party device.

2) All boats should have a loss of receiver power failsafe that will kill the engine in the case of power being lost to the receiver. This could be electronic or a spring that closes the throttle when the servo loses power. This may require the use of coreless servos which "float" and move freely when there is no power to them.

3) a positive means to kill the engine independent of the throttle servo. Many times the engine cannot be killed causing a delay in the race or making for a dangerous retrieval of a boat with a running motor.

FE boats should also be required to have the loss of RF failsafe. They will already generally kill the ESC/motor if receiver power is lost.

Many of these are already recognized and implemented by a number of people. Why not put them into the rules as requirements in order to elevate the safety of our hobby? As I was told, arguing against obvious safety measures is tantamount to wanting people to be injured.

Bill , the problem with 2) is that , when the RX gets wet ( or servo or battery) , the servo will stall and no matter what kind of spring will get that carb closed . Try it with an old servo and you'll see what happens , you won't be able to move the servo as it has stalled .

Besides , a spring , very nice idea however it puts a lot of strain on your servo meaning it has to "work" alot so it will drain (unnecessary )power of your battery

I have a spring on my ( gas) carb and i do have a powerful servo on it . When my direction comes off my carb , it will close , when my battery looses power , it will most likely close my carb , when my rx is wet /short circuit , the spring will NOT close my carb .

Just my two cents .

btw , what pisses me off a little is the " its not because the europeans see a need in it that we have to do it either " . True , its not because something in europe is mandatory that the Americans have to do it too .

But then again , if the americans would have a look at it , even better ,improve it than we'd all have a benefit of it .

Bart

 

[Speed Jr.]

Boy, I wrote a whole page worth of a comment for this thread but I decided to delete it for the fact that I know it would really piss some people off. So Ill say this;

Im staying high and dry, and you can take your 5lb spring and shove it!

You wanna run electric? Im not going out in a boat to pick your live boat up. U get it. (I have experience)

And for people slipping and falling, S@#t happens man, live with it. Be happy you have a pond to run at.

Larry Jr.

 

[Andy Greene]

Boy, I wrote a whole page worth of a comment for this thread but I decided to delete it for the fact that I know it would really piss some people off. So Ill say this;
Im staying high and dry, and you can take your 5lb spring and shove it!

You wanna run electric? Im not going out in a boat to pick your live boat up. U get it. (I have experience)

And for people slipping and falling, S@#t happens man, live with it. Be happy you have a pond to run at.

Larry Jr.

I agree , but with one exception, I will go pick em up- Have had a few "come on" in my hands including my own. Even if you tell someone it could happen it doesn't prepare you for it, but you learn pretty quick and hopefully all your fingers are still there. That said , I run fails safes in all my boats(nitro), will it help ALL situations- NO. Will it help some- YES.

So if someone wants to tell me I HAVE to run them for the safety of the sanction- so be it, as I already do anyway.

The addition of a return spring is about as useless as the F/E guys running the safety loop under the hull though.

Bill , being as safety minded as you are saying, something really bothers me is the fact that 2 times you have said you have been at races and watched someone got in the recovery boat to retrieve a RUNNING nitro or gas boat-

I'm not sure what club your running in, but that should NEVER happen PERIOD. Don't watch it next time- STOP it.

It seems every year about this time when rules proposals and cabin fever are at their peek, the nitro/gas vs F/E stuff gets rolling along, and every year they grow a little further apart instead of remembering one thing-

We are all running boats for the same reason- no matter what makes em go !!!

Hope the water thaws out and you guys get it all worked out.

Andy

 

[Rigged]

the problem with a failsafe for Nitro/Gas boats is... if you lose voltage, a signal loss failsafe is useless since it needs power to work. 5lb spring? Im not running a 130+oz servo on the throttle just to be able to keep the throttle open.

IMO an ignition kill failsafe should be mandatory in gas boats. Id have to say 80% of the runaways ive seen with my own eyes were due to complete loss of voltage within the radio system.

 

[Mark Poole ModVP]

So......this thread was started by someone who did not like a proposal so he came in here an tossed out a "sarcastic grenade". My personal opinion......lock this thread until the facts about this can be sorted out and talked about in a sensible manner.

One more example of someone who just needs to think before typing.

 

[Mark Bullard]

Ok the problem is very simple. Gas and Nitro boat are very dead in the water when their motors are stopped. No retrieve boat goes out went we have a wild boat. The electric boats just like cars do have a problem with their motors coming back on with loss of radio signal. This is just the way it is. So with this said all electric boats need a power cutoff loop on their circuit period. You can put the cutoff between the battery and speed controller or the controller and motor. I work with electric motors, VFD's and other controls every day. It is not uncommon for motors to have a safety disconnect mounted close to the motor if the starting of that motor is not in sight of the motor. And if you have to work on that motor or the equipment it drives you must tag and put a lock on the start equipment to prevent the motor from being started.

So whats the problem FE guys, lets put the power cutoff loops on the electric boats for the retrieve boat drivers and everyone will be safe.

 

[Doug Smock]

It seems every year about this time when rules proposals and cabin fever are at their peek, the nitro/gas vs F/E stuff gets rolling along, and every year they grow a little further apart instead of remembering one thing- We are all running boats for the same reason- no matter what makes em go !!!

Andy

It's a shame but it's true.

IMO

This is a FE thing, it should have been left where it started.

Nothing positive is going to happen here, this thread should go away, or be left to die on the vine.

If you FE guys want to write a proposal addressing IC safety do it. I'll focus on our own issues. <_<

Bill, you can get a membership and all the information here http://www.impba.net/

See ya at the pond!!!

Doug

 

[Scott Norris]

Now I remember why I don't look at IW much anymore.

 

[Bill-SOCAL]

the problem with a failsafe for Nitro/Gas boats is... if you lose voltage, a signal loss failsafe is useless since it needs power to work.

Hence my second point that a loss of power failsafe should also be used. I use one. My radio handles loss of RF with its internal failsafe (and also low voltage) and I have a small loss of power failsafe that kills the engine if the receiver ever loses power completely. I also use coreless servos on throttle that have very low resistance to movement when the radio is dead. The spring on a Zenoah is more than adequate to close the throttle when the radio is off.

Im not running a 130+oz servo on the throttle just to be able to keep the throttle open.

Wow!! I use normal servos with an average of 50 to 60 inch-ounces of torque. Why do you need so much servo power on the throttle??

IMO an ignition kill failsafe should be mandatory in gas boats. Id have to say 80% of the runaways ive seen with my own eyes were due to complete loss of voltage within the radio system.

We are in total agreement here.