My first post but so much time spent researching on this amazing forum I thought I would share details of my build.
I tried to keep things as simple and as low cost as possible for this build to get riding as soon as possible. I will start to experiment with a few things now I’m riding with a degree of proficiency.
The board is a cut down windsurf wave board, originally 86 litres. I was concerned it may be a bit narrow and low volume but no trouble at all, It sinks like a short board when you get on but as soon as you press the trigger and go it is all very stable for getting to your feet.
I wanted to use off the shelf water tight enclosures rather that attempting to glass in a watertight compartment. I didn’t quite have the thickness to fit them under the deck but they are pretty much flush and are out of the way of your feet when riding so has worked out ok and is easy access to get the batteries out.
I have a kill cord which energises a 5V relay to cut the receiver signal to the ESC. I have found that the motor runs on for a second after the signal is cut so I have not been using it.
My one issue has been the receiver antenna. This currently comes out the top of the ESC box at the back. To get going I have to sink the nose of the board quite deep to get the antenna out of the water and then nail it to get on the plane straight away. I’ve got an extension now to route to the bow but not fitted yet, the soldering looks very tricky!
I’m new to 3d printing and haven’t quite got my printer dialled in so some of the prints were a bit poor. I filled the aft clamp with epoxy. The forward part of the clamp is just a fairing and underneath is a moulded epoxy glass strap to take all the load. I’m not sure if anyone else has done it this way but it works well and there is no need to worry about the strength of prints and how long they will last
I have forced cooling (no pump) coming in the front mast clamp fairing and exhausting at the bottom of the mast. It seems to work but I have no idea how much flow I’m getting.
The prop duct is printed and wrapped in carbon. for the three connecting struts I put a hollow in the print and inserted 2 x 10mm carbon flat bar to provide strength in addition to the carbon wrap. It all needs faired and painted a bit better!
I made the duct undersized and turned the prop down to suit. This made it easy to achieve a small clearance between the prop and the duct with a good bit of end plating. The prop to shaft connection is really poor as supplied. I’m yet to attempt to drill out the centre of the shaft to fit and M4 securing screw on the centre. It is the standard prop Maytech provide. I’ve not got much to compare it against and I am aware that its gets some bad reviews on here but it performs fine as a starter. It doesn’t seem to be happy absorbing power above 80% on the Maytech remote but this hasn’t been an issue for me… yet. I have no data regarding speed and duration yet and have no onboard logging for current so I am flying a bit blind.
