OHOs first dip into the water (Thunder Tiger Avanti)

[Oh How Original]

This might get a bit long winded, but basically, for a while now I've wanted to try a different route as far as RCs go.
Now my large scales are sold up and I've bought the Yeti and enjoying that, I wanted to expand, so having researched around a little bit, I stumbled upon the Thunder Tiger Avanti and decided that was the one for me.
Having used my friends Proboat Shockwave, I realised that was a bit too fast and unstable at speed, coupled with quite a weak ESC.
So, what do I think so far, 6 packs in?
Well, it's definitely a little slow on the top end, it would be fine for a youngster, but for someone a little older, it has become a little boring in a straight line.
It more than makes up for it in the handling department though.
Very agile and I haven't actually flipped it once yet, to my surprise.
Very enjoyable boat.
I have had some slight issues with my LiPos becoming hot, despite being more than double the amps needed.
So, a higher kv motor has been ordered, which hopefully will help, because I won't have to mash the throttle quite so much.
At least, that's the theory.
Anyway, my first official trip to the boating lake, I used my friends brushless Proboat Shockwave and also his petrol powered Spider.
Petrols aren't going to be for me, this will be a purely electric ride, at least for the near future.
I also bought a new DSLR, so it gave me a chance to test it out taking some photos and such.
Below are some photos of the various boats and things, not to mention my first trip in a little rowing boat to rescue them both, my friends petrol cut out, I tried pushing him with my Avanti and simply mounted his, so ended up in the water myself, thankfully, not getting my feet wet!
Hope you enjoy the pictures and the videos and as always, comments/shares etc... Are all very welcome



















One of Rays petrols getting ready for some wet goodness!



Ray, emptying the water from his boat, while his fuel tank leaked, with a fag in his mouth!



Ummmm, how does this one work?!



And at one point my little Avanti decided to try and pull all the weeds from the entire lake, damn good effort.



And finally, me on my rescue mission :rolleyes:





The boats in the video below all belong to my friend Ray.

[Oh How Original]

After much mulling it over, I decided to add a new motor to this, for several reasons.

My original motor and the ESC are really cool after 3 straight packs, but the speed isn't blistering and the LiPos are getting hot because I'm on full power for almost the entire pack.

My thinking is, if I go up in kv, I won't be hammering the throttle so much and hopefully that should help with the LiPo temps.

I've added a cooling coil round the motor, made by me so it's not the neatest job in the world but it was my first try.

Obviously, having a bit more speed isn't a bad thing either.

Both my motor and ESC can handle 4s, so I'm guessing the extra kv, on 3s, won't overload the ESC in anyway, again, especially as I won't be on full power all the time.

The new motor is also almost double the length (the red bit of the old motor was purely for cooling and wasn't a working part of the motor) so that should help a lot in effiency (I hope) but only testing will really answer my questions.

The old motor was 1900kv, on 3s, gave me 21,090rpm.

The new motor is a 2630kv, on 3s, should give me 29,193rpm.

An 8,103rpm jump is quite a lot, but I plan on testing slowly and building up, it won't get hammered from the get go.

I'll also have my temp gun to hand to check everything at roughly 60 second intervals.

Fingers crossed for some testing next week!

[Oh How Original]

Well, a bit of a disaster all round today, in total we had 8 boats there and only 2 came back actually working.

Well, strictly speaking mine works, but it isn't suitable with this new motor.

Gave it a run and after 30 seconds, the motor temp was at 40C, assumed this was about as hot as it was going to get, ran it again for 30 seconds or so, it had moved to 52C... Ran it for another minute straight and it had shot up to 83C!

I also noticed the ESC had got warmer than normal too and the LiPo was still warm (which was the main reason for the swap) so all in all, a bit of a fail.

I am going to have to consider what my next options are, but realistically, I don't want to end up with silly amounts invested and so far I'm up to about £230.

If anyone has any recommendations, I'm all ears.

[Oh How Original]

Here we go, another little boat installment from us, hope you enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mny66LSDUwg

[Oh How Original]

First time trying out my DSLR at videoing, so you'll have to forgive the out of focus points and such, but wanted to upload it to see how it looked on YouTube.
All handheld and not the best footage around but once I've messed with some settings it should come out a lot better.
(the one at the start is his Proboat Shockwave)

[_sOnGoKu_]

nice post friend! i just subscribe to your youtube channel

[Oh How Original]

I've been struggling with my PC for a few months now, finally received my new one today, so I've done a small bit of editing to see how it handled it and thought I would upload it
Ray didn't have the best of days here, first his large scale petrol boat wouldn't start, then he had some electrical problems, he forgot his brushless boat and his nitro kept cutting out, his adjustments to the prop pitch made it very very unstable to turn, resulting in a good dunking!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVcZ...ature=youtu.be