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Got a set up you would like to share - or info etc.. write a small article and we will publish - just e-mail it in
 Got next year sorted yet? Let us have your events calendar and we will publish it.
9th July 2010
- It is the start of a busy couple of weeks for us. Tomorrow - the 10th - sees the start of the Weymouth International Marine Modelling Festival, and we will be there as usual. The following week is full and then we have a free weekend before going oop north for the MPBA national Championships at Bridlington. All this means of course that we have limited time available to fill orders... we will but not for the next week and then it will be catch up! Apologies for the inconvenience but you just gatta have fun....(must be a song there somewhere, now let me think). When we come back we hope to have more new products available from our growing supplier base! Until then happy boating and happy holidays.
26 June 2010
- I have been provided with an updated version of the FE speed records. These have been uploaded in updated saw page
26 June 2010
- I have been provided with an updated version of the FE speed records. These have been uploaded in updated saw page
21 Jun 2010
- Below is a bit about my pleasure activities, Now a bit about products... We have some ne ESC and motors in from MAytech which are looking good. Etti are producing hulss in kevlar and those are coming in to stock, New Etti B2900 5200 XL motor coming shortly and of course their race cells which are magic. TFL have some new ARTR hulls and we are trying to arrange delivery of some of those and lastly the Leopard motors are coming and we have some coming for evaluation. There is more - just check the shop front page!
21 June 2010
- Well it is a little while since I wrote anything so I thought I should. In the last month I have enjoyed racing and a win in SWAMBC mono 1 at exeter. Last Sunday there was a boat show there also and we (SWAMBC) gave a demo of FE boats. Turns out that my slow mono1 is as fast as one of the hydro 1's - not sure what that says!. I did also run my reconficured apparition cat - it now has the "race " setup with the 2770 motor - really fast!! the downside is that I ran it with a 37mm prop and puffed one of my 3 year old lipos. It has now been safely disposed of. I also ran the U7,, that gave me a real buzz. it is running a feigao 540 L 13 with a 36mm prop and it really tramps and looks good. A fair few pics have been promised so fingers crossed. Boy does it look good on the water!
25th May 2010
- A bit of a bad weekend. Our ISP had a problem with their servers and the site was out for about a day and a half. susbsequent to that one of the tables in our shop data base was corrupted by the outage and had to be fixed. Thats done now and we are back. To the best of our knowledge no data was lost. Apologies for any inconvenience
05/05/2010
- Just a quick update! It was good to go racing ( now just over a week ago), the weather was fairly kind and it was great to renew friendships et. I decided to race so did not take the shop! The Lake at Yeovil was like open sea and extremely challenging. My Eco was virtually half throttle all the way and still finding it difficult to cope. The hydro was great but even that suffered and I lost my mono 1. It hit a wave wrong, went about 10 feet straight up and then dived straight down and never came up again. It was probably stuck in the mud and maybe will bob up again some time - but there will be no one there to find it.
The website was at its busiest ( apart from the microsoft incident) with 142000 pages served nearly 4800 a day so thank you all for your support. We have now (just) passed 3.5 million pages served since I started counting properly.
On the products front The New Genesis cats second shipment has arrived and is going fast. ETTI have brought out a neat little lipo charger which works in conjunction with their balancer. More new products from ETTI include thin wedge rudders with water pickup, A new version of the Sabre in Kevlar, 5800mah 2s lipo cells and more - for a full list check the shop. Before leaving ETTI I should say that they have some new tapered eco shafts available here .
HOR are now doing the 180 amp version of the Seaking and they will be arriving shortly. Also we have a new range of ESC's coming from Maytech called the Tigershack ( I think they meant Tigershark but hey ho). Take a look in the shop - you may be missing out !.
Until next time, I hope you all have fun!
20/04/2010
- We have been a bit pre-occupied this month as we decided that we had to register for VAT. From there getting the site working so that we could verify information at the backend was a major upheaval - sorry if it caught you. We are still working through items and updating costs in line with VAT, so if you spot a price that you think is unreasonable please do ask us. Currently we are working on the tenshock products.
On another tack - racing starts in the South West this weekend with the fist meeting at Yeovil, we will be there and may even do some racing.
Talking of Tenshock it seems that people are cathing on and while we have been supplying their hulls and ARTR boats for some while, they have not been that popular. That should change as I see that Hopf are now offering Tenshock ARTR boats. Anway back to work.
Anyone with some more pictures please submit them for the Gallery page.
Allan
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New technologies?
It has been a while since we wrote anything about what is happening out there.
Lets start with Lipo's. Lipo cells have come a long way over the last few years with discharge rates moving rapidly from 20C and now up to 80C constant, whilst the weight has overall dropped. It is still a fair assumption that light cells will not be as robust and will have a higher internal resistance - but that is not the case across the board. Suffice it to say that in our opinion you mostly get what you pay for.
LIFE cells are becoming more popular and available in a wider range but there is nothing startlingly new for FE racers.
Motors! In general motors seem to be improving, there is a huge choice and that leads to competition. You pay your moneyy and take your chance! Yet again we think on the whole you get what you pay for. Feigao have changed their motor build and they now obviously have some sort of magnetic core in the coils. The larger Feigao's that we have seen in pieces have the noticeable change that the Magnets are now wrapped in a Kevlar bandage. The Etti 4 pole motors have seen a range increase and most noticeably the introduction of 36mm dia motors that have more torque than their little brothers. There are "new" variants popping up also A new 4 pole motor manufacturere is starting production and there are variants on the outrunner with a solid case available. Which is best? Who knows but as we said above - in general you get waht you pay for.
So new cells capacity is the biggest thing with 5800 and 6000mah cells being available within Naviga legal weight bounds. This means more load on motors, more stress on ESC's and higher speeds. All these lead to equipment failure. My Demon Hydro runs regular peaks of 100 amps ( that is recorede and visible on playback - instantaneous could be significantly higher) on 2S so is it time to turn to 3S within the same weight? Same motor speed - lower turn motor, lower current but Higher voltage so actually lower stress on everything. we think so BUT finding 20C cells in 3S with the right weight is getting more difficult. Maybe we need a rule change - 8 minute races, higher cell weigh ( say 350 grams) or something similar. We would love to hear you thougts.
If you have any comments on this piece please feel feree to share your thoughts - nip over to the board and do it while you are still thinking about it!
Happy boating
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Lipo Technology
Well we thought Lipo technology would give us a solid stable base to work from. That now looks to be incorrect with 25C being available last year and then 30, 33C and the latest email is offering 40/70C (40 C constant and 70C burst). They are heavier but as they become available and the usage of lower ratings drop of we will be forced to look again at the racing rules. It would be simple if it was just C ratings but capacity is increasing, different compounds are in use so weight per "C" is also reducing.
Quite apart from the 40C we have also been offered 6000AH but as you would expect these are outside the current weight limits.
One of our Customers has been testing some new 5200 Nom cells for us and these come out at 5100 within the set existing parameters. but some cells are also showing a lower low end voltage. These are good cells and there is a 5300 version - the 25c are lighter than Visleros but the visleros seem to provide nearly 10% more than the spec..
So whilst we'd love to be able to give a definitive suggestion it seems that some difficult negotiation will be there somehwere in the future. We'd enjoy seeing your thoughts and feedback!
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2009 Naviga Cell rules
It looks very much like Naviga have now agreed cell rules for 2009 and they are much as discussed previously - i.e. 7 cell nimh/ 2slipo/ 3s2p life or 14cell nimh!!/4s lipo/6s2p life - max weight 280 gms (2s) etc and the lipos can be 2p. Full details can be found on the Forum.
Coincidentally Flightpower have announced Marine power cells and several manufactureres are offering reduced weight cells. Danlions have re-badged their Vislero cells but the weights, capacities and sizes remain the same.
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SWAMBC have updated their rules this year. The most notable change ahs been in FM4 which used to be BB700 8.4 turbo motor and 12 cells (any hull). Last year new cell capacity meant that motors were burning out , that coupled with suitable speed controllers becoming scarce as everyone moves tp brushless AND the poor quality of NIMH cells meant that something had to be done!
Formula 4 has been altered as follows:
Motor: Mega ACn 22/30/2 (1770rpm/volt) ONLY
Drive: Any drive form may be used.
Hull: Any hull design or type.
Batteries: Lipo 4S1P, 20C minimum rating, 5000mah nominal capacity.
Weight: Minimum of 2kg with the boat in a racing set up, including its batteries installed.
Duration: 7 minutes plus a 10 second “Mill Time”
Course: Clockwise around the outside of the “M” course, or as the water permit or dictates.
SWAMBC Rules
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