Refurbishing Yacht Christina from Technotoys, vintage 1970

[Petr OsipovParticipant @petrosipov45629]

Hello,

While my clyde puffer kit is still in production by Mountfleet, I thought I will refurbish a 40 cm toy yacht to reach 2 goals:

1 – get a "driveable" vehicle for the local club meeting season start on 12th may

2 – get a boat which my daughter could drive without risking to sink a very expensive puffer, and get it already this summer

The boat itself is very old, it was probably a high end toy back in the 70es. It is equipped with 27mhz propietary RC system, solenoid-based steering, and needed 4x C battery, and 4x AA battery. Motor also drives a pump

The boat I got was nearly gone to the trash can – I brought some trash out, and met my neighbour who was going to toss the boat into the bin. Outside, the boat looks more then ok. Inside, it was damaged and dirtied alot, as the batteries were left in place for probably 20 years or so – so ran out, rusted away. Same also happened with the battery inside the control.

So, my plan is now two-stage:

1) Get her running. For that, I carefully removed all the equipment inside, and removed most of the crusted stuff from the batteries. The motor runs well, and will stay there for now. Solenoid gear is now out, and replaced by a simple 9g servo. I will use the AA battery case and fit 2400 or 2700mAh NiMh cells there. Missing C-type batteries will be replaced with lead tyre weights at 1-1 basis. A 3 channel simple RC from Reely would be added, using an ESC from Modelcraft. I would probably add some LEDs inside the cabin.

2) When the boat is driving, I will take the outside. Probably stripping the paint down (it has some scratches anyways) and repainting her. Then place a new brass screw in place, rebuild all fittings outside, add running lights, hide many screws, and replace railing with soldered brass. Also replace the mast with a brass construction.

[Petr OsipovParticipant @petrosipov45629]

[Petr OsipovParticipant @petrosipov45629]

So, I fitted the boat out today, I was lazy to go to the cellar to fetch the 3 channel RC sender and receiver, so used the 4+1 channel Jamara Compa X4+1 from the snowberry, on 40 Mhz Channel 4. I ran it for 5 mins in the bathtub, and it was tight. No water ingress, trim is all right, and it moves and steers well. I however found out that nearly all my rechargeable AA cells are dead, I used usual AA Batteries for the trial. I ordered a big batch of Chinese AA 3800 mAh cells, lets see if they live up to expectations. I will get some more cells tomorrow in a store.

[Petr OsipovParticipant @petrosipov45629]

So, the weather was really summer today, so I took my family and the boat, and drove to the Regattasee lake near Munich. It is one of the main RC Boat lakes in Munich area, actually even the google map shows a guy with a large RC ship there

No other RC guys were there, but several people were already swimming, the water was very nice indeed!

The boat went into the lake, and was a pleasant, but not too fast drive. A bit too much bending in turns, but not too dangerous. Speed, as said, not too fast, but this makes it a good drive for my 5.5 years old daughter, or for a beginner like me. Steering forward works fine, turning radius is low and response is swift. Steering backward is nonexistant. In 2 hours we used down one 2400 and one 2600 mAh battery pack, and started another. My daughter was taking over the steering many times for longer periods, and mastered the steering well. Even my wife had a 5 minutes run, and enjoyed it. Only my 4 months old son decided against

One problem I noticed. At idle, telemetry was showing normal 5.1-5.2 V at the battery pack. When however giving some trottle, the voltage fell down to 4.3-4.4V, even at low trottle. Is it normal for NiMh cells, or does it indicate too heavy current due to a antiquated motor (motor is from original 1982, I found a build date on the boat)

Here is the Lady Alice as a Captain

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