I've seen the Wavemaster in just about every hobby store and really like the boat but didn't feel the urge to get one because I've read that they were rather slow. Recently, I stumbled onto the FastElectrics.com web site and found a upgrade kit to improve the speed so I went ahead and bought one. I'm building the boat initially more or less to stock specifications but with an eye to the future performance modifications.
The kit does not have too many parts and should be simple to build. The outboard motor is completely assembled and the hull halves are already attached.
The first thing to do is to attach the motor mount to the hull. Since I'm planning t substantially increase the power, I am first going to reinforce the mounting area by gluing a piece of scrap fiberglass material to the transom of the boat. This will help stop any flexing and give the mounting screws more material to dig into.
I used the factory supplied screws to attach the motor mount as they were plenty long enough.
The piece of fiberglass is about 3 mm thick. I used some 30 minute epoxy and clamped it into place
I took apart the motor to see what was inside. The motor is a standard 550sh unit . I was surprised to find that the motor did not have any suppression capacitors in place.
I soldered some capacitors to keep motor noise from causing problems with radio reception. I also broke in the motor using instructions I found in a issue of RC Boat Modeler magazine. Basically, the motor is run on four cells and the brush end of the motor is dipped into a glass of water for 3 seconds so that the brushes are covered. It's then sprayed with motor cleaner and dried out. After that the bearings are lubed and comm drops are applied. According to the article, this makes for a stronger motor.
I took apart the lower leg to see what was in it. The flex cable runs inside of a silicon tube and the prop shaft is supported by two main bearings.
I replaced the silicon tube with a section of carefully bent 3/16 tubing. This should help support the flex cable when more power is applied but testing is in order. I also replaced the 2 lower bushings with some 5x8mm bearings from Tower Hobbies. I've read about the bushings wearing quickly and I hope the bearings will correct this.
The kit comes with this plate to mount the steering and throttle control servos. I'm going to replace the throttle on/off servo with an ESC so I will use only on sevo.
Here is my layout or the electronics bay. I'm using a homebuilt ESC in the front servo holder. The battery bay is big enough for 7 cell packs and deep enough to hold two packs.
The electronic bay is covered with this cover. It's not water tight by any means but will help keep water off when running normally. In the event of a blow over, it's not going to help much.
The cover holds the antenna tube in place and also houses the on/off switch.
Since I added a thick support plate for the motor, the supplied steering linkage came up short so I had to make a slightly longer one.
The hatch is held by Velcro fasteners and also has some foam tape to help keep water out.
Anything painted red has to be fast and I wanted my boat to be fast so I painted it red. I didn't use many of the included stickers that came with the kit but I did "try" to use the front windshield stickers and failed miserably. I could not get them to lay flat without wrinkles. I ended up destroying them as I tried to work with them. I ended up just painting the windshield and outlining it with some pin stripe stickers I got from the local auto store.
I would like to make my own stickers so I could slap a MarineRC sticker on the side. I'll have to ask the local club members to see if they have any ideas on how to make them.
The center cowling is simply held on with four small tabs of velcro which seems to hold it surprisingly well.
I ended up making a new ESC (Electronic Speed Control) that will handle higher currents (72 amp continuous!) then the one I usually make. I don't need the extra capacity with the standard motor but again, I'm planning on replacing that motor with a more powerful one.
The boat is now complete and ready for it's first sea trial. Once I get all of the bugs out of it, I'll start modifying it for more performance.
