Building an 'Improved' Wallace RC 1/16 scale KAIRYU Suicide Submarine Kit, Part-10

A Report to the Cabal:

Still working the WTC-2.5/KAIRYU cylinder ... Man! Will this thing ever be done!

Spent the last few days soldering up wires that run between the foreword and after dry spaces as well as those leads that connect the nine-Volt power supply to the sail mounted wireless video camera and single white navigation light. I guessed wrong on the amount of extension I needed between the ADC-1 servo three-wire harness and the receiver three-wire harness, so there I was: soldering in yet a third extension to those leads. Ugly! But, it reaches now.

I got the entire WTC system to work on internal power now, and every servo and device is doing its job (well ... all but one): The angle keeper is driving the stern planes in the right direction and nulls out at a zero pitch angle; The fail-safe has been dialed in to drive the ballast tank servo to the 'blow' position when I turn off the transmitter ... waiting the proper seven seconds first, of course; And the ST-10 speed controller is responding in accordance with stick direction and displacement and its startup protocol seems to be in order (touchy bastards, those ST-10's! Skip Asay should be tracked down and whipped!).

The only fly in the ointment is the automatic depth controller: the damn ADC-1 I have hooked up here cannot be set to null out the midship planes at any point shallower than three inches of water over the extended periscope. A big issue because, under the plastic periscope head will reside the wireless video camera transmitters antenna -- if that is underwater I have no video and audio downlink! Damn! Tonight I'll break the ADC's pressure transducer free from its circuit board and will experiment by placing various resistive valves between the pins -- maybe I'll luck into a value that will fox the thing into nulling out at a point where the periscope head projects high enough out of the water to get that downlink. Stay tuned, sports fans.

Though I won't be able to do it in time for this years SubRegatta, I'll equip this model with the small, aerial torpedoes that the KAIRYU's were supposed to be equipped with as designed. These boats were not initially conceived as 'suicide' craft: it was not until the later stages of the war that the unavailability of the special torpedoes required by these tiny submarines, that the tactical implementation of these coastal defense weapons shifted from weapons launching platform to weapon.

Incidentally, the KAIRYU miniature submarines were just some of the things that awaited our troop ships when the time came to invade the Japanese home islands. The KAIRYU, KAITEN, speed boats, and mine carrying underwater swimmers had one major target on their minds: Troop Ships. Troop ships that would be attacked out at sea, within the breakwaters and pier-side. It would have been a bloodbath!

My Dad was training for the Invasion when the atomic bombs fell. The Invasion of the Japanese Home Islands never came to be. Thank goodness!

Thank you Doctors Heisenberg, Einstein, Fermi, Oppenheimer; and General Grove. My Dad thanked you all his adult life ... I thank you all.

And to hell with the idiot history rewriter's and moral cowards who to this day grieve over the nuclear destruction that brought an end to Japanese military rule.

Remember, boy's and girl's: Each time this country has employed a nuclear weapon in anger -- that weapon achieved the tactical, strategic and political objectives sought.

Soon, this country will use nuclear weapons again in anger ... I only hope that that action will not be initiated by yet another sneak-attack on American soil and blood.

(If you wish to be removed from the Cabal Report, simply send an e-mail and I'll accommodate you).

We now resume our normal Programming:

Just about ready for an initial plunk into the kiddi-pool in the front yard; time to see how much fixed ballast weight and foam I need to keep this thing from rolling over. Just about everything's installed, tested, and dialed in (except that damn ADC-1 -- it is set too deep).

However the wireless video system, the little WTC and camera, are just under the bow of the KAIRYU. They'll be installed later and the boat re-trimmed. No biggie.

Soldering is one of the basic skills needed if one is to have any chance of being successful in this game. Here I'm splicing one more length of three-wire conductor in order for the ADC-1 wiring harness to reach all the way back to the opening of the after dry space.

What you need to solder includes a 15-25 Watt soldering iron with small tip, nonacid rosin, 60/40 solder, and some sort of holding fixture. Calloused fingers are a prerequisite.

Soldering, like any chore is done efficiently and correctly only if you understand the process, know the materials characteristics, and have experience. Here I've laid out the basic elements of a wire terminus -- the hookup wires, pins, and housings, for two types of 'connectors':

To the left is a Futaba 'J' type, and to the right a Tamiya type connector. I'm simply taking an existing made-up J connector and splicing its wires to the lead running from the forward bulkhead (this will make up to the wireless video camera). Note the three pieces of heat-shrink tubing used to isolate the bare wire connections. The hookup wire used here is small-gauge, two-wire 'speaker wire' used to interconnect home entertainment systems -- you'll find this stuff by the roll at Walmart.

The Tamiya connector I'm building up right to the pins. First I crimp the pins to the pre-tinned wires, then solder the pins to the wires, then slip the polarized connector housing in place over the pins.

I have some rather outrageously long hemostats I use to help me coax cables into the conduit tubes of my WTC's. Here, that task has already been accomplished: running the wires from the forward bulkheads ADC-1 and power-switch back aft, through the ballast tank conduit tube and into and out the back end of the WTC's after dry space, ready for hookup to the devices on the equipment rails. One more item, still coiled up in the tube, is the three-wire lead from the ballast tank servo.

One final test before committing the main battery to hookup to the speed controller and voltage regulator: affirming, with a Volt-ohm-meter, that polarity is correct and that I had the right wires hooked up to the power-switch poles. You do this first: if you have the polarity wrong (some of the wires have barely readable insulation code colors), and hook it up to your expensive ESC, you might likely fry the thing.

Measure twice, cut once!

... And marvel of marvels, I got it right. The first time! Now it was safe to make the hookups to the after dry space electronics.

I know that Adam Carlson is on the hunt for information on the two Japanese aerial torpedoes that the KAIRYU and other Japanese midget submarine were to use. In the case of the KAIRYU one weapon was to be tucked under each 'wing.' Chris Knutting is doing the same, so between these two guys I should get enough good dope to draw up a proper plan of the weapon, build masters, then tools, and finally parts so I can equip my model with these external weapons. But, this will have to wait till after the SubRegatta, simply no time between now and then to put torpedoes on this thing.

The APC-1 (depth keeper), located in the extreme front end of the forward dry compartment, works by sensing the water pressure around it. For this reason, to work right, it has to be located well forward of the submarines center of rotation (located between the center of gravity and center of buoyancy). On this model the center of rotation is longitudinally located at the center of the ballast tank. Hence the need to go through all the trouble of putting the ADC forward and routing all its wiring aft. Next time I'll simply pull the pressure transducer off its board, and run it, with a set of wires (it uses three) up forward instead of the whole assembly -- would make life a whole lot easier!

Here I'm using a water filled length of flexible tube, one end made up to the gauge sensing port, to determine the 'depth' of water where the planes center. Raising the tube increases the depth, lowering the tube reduces the depth. Remember: pressure of a fluid is a consequence of its height, not amount of fluid.

The interface point between the WTC's pushrods, projecting out of their respective watertight seal housing, and the control surface pushrods are the snap-connected ball-and-socket joints. The terminus between all three (midship planes, rudders, and stern planes) sets of linkages are Du-Bro ball-and-socket connectors; a steel ball makes a snap-tight fit to a corresponding nylon socket. These connections are backlash free and offer several degrees of angular displacement between the opposed pushrods.

Close-up on a 'pushrod adjuster.' Made up to the control surface pushrod, the pushrod adjuster is fabricated from a length of tube that sleeves over the pushrod. One end has soldered to it a wheel-collar whose set-screw is used to secure the pushrod adjuster to the control surface pushrod. The other end of this device terminates in a ball-coupler that mates with the WTC's pushrod cup-coupler.

Note that the central WTC pushrod makes up to a forward running control surface pushrod. Further forward, out of sight here, the pushrod splits into two units, one for each of the two midship planes. You can see here clearly the rudder and stern plane pushrods leading back to their respective yokes. Also seen in the center is the aluminum intermediate drive shaft that interfaces between the WTC and propeller shaft. One-half of a nylon Dumas dog-bone at each end of the intermediate drive shaft mates with Dumas couplers, one on the WTC's motor/gear shaft, the other coupler at the forward end of the propeller shaft.

The two WTC mounting saddles (foundations) have been CA'ed into the hull. Note that brass rod hooks are used to secure the rubber bands that hold the WTC in place in the hull. A vertical brass pin glued under the WTC, projecting up through a hole drilled into the bottom of the WTC's ballast tank insures that the cylinder is fixed in place and will not roll or move back and forth on its saddles.

I'll install the little wireless camera-transmitter into the small WTC seen here. That WTC mounts under the bridge well in the sail with its lens looks out through the porthole set into the leading edge. I'll run a length of coaxial cable from the camera to an antenna set into the top of the periscope. When submerged and running at periscope depth the above water antenna will be sending video and audio information back to me -- I'll be wearing a set of 'virtual goggles' equipped with headphones. You won't be able to miss me, I'll be the silly looking fat guy wearing a Huny-I-Shrank-The-Kids headgear.

The access bulkhead of the video system WTC mounts an equalization valve, a coaxial cable stuffing gland, and two lugs that pass electricity from the Nine-Volt battery in the main WTC.