Speed Sensor Anyone???

[Ramius]

Yes! lol You are 1000% correct! It is one of my biggest fears considering all that it has taken to build a 3mm in diameter working video periscope. The working torpedo tubes are 3/8" and the Eagletree pitot tube is smaller than a pencil. There are only 4 torpedoes and provisions for 6 so two "dummy" holes would be just fine. To be perfectly honest I have no idea what pressures to expect, what pressure sensor to use, etc. My knowledge and "expertise" is in television and helicopters. Do you think using a depth sensor for pressure would work? If you look under the schmatics section I posted a depth sensor project. I do not know if you can imagine my son and his friends thinking I was some kind of "mad scientist" pouring water into a 3' high acrylic tube with wires sticking out the bottom! Both the missiles and torpedoes operate with compressed air after one fellow model submariner who was using Este rocket motors had a mishap. He fired a missile underwater and once it broke the surface tension, made a quick left turn, over the back yard fence, went through a screened in patio and set fire to his neighbors couch with his neighbor taking a nap on this couch! Just as an FYI, my sub is the Typhoon, 6' long and 8" in diameter, similar to the one in the movie "The Hunt for Red October" thus the screen name "Ramius". Yes I do speak some Russian and been to Russia several times. Anyway, I have a video text inserter to show all the information possible. Speed is the one "sensor" I have not been able to solve and I strongly doubt Eagletree would wish to part with any information. Thank you for your ideas and please continue giving them. They really do stimulate the creative process! Best, Ed

[Demon]

About the speed sensing, having NO experience in this field, I'd stick the pitot out the sub nose for optimum performance, maybe 1/8" out, just enough to get clean waterflow. I put the side pitot anywhere you feel like it along the side, maybe along the bottom to hide it, where the surface is perpendicular to the front tube.

Using a fake torpedo hole would not have clean waterflow, the nose would already have cut a wake and changed water pressure.

To calibrate the whole thing, I'd run the sub submerged at periscope level (so the front tube gets clean pressure) at full speed between 2 buoys at a given distance. Then I'd time how long it takes to cross the 2 buoys and calculate the speed, knots would be best.

It all sounds so easy sitting here in my basement.

Ed, this is your thread; feel free to post videos/pics of your project. I've been dreaming of making a submarine since I got into PICs, with fantasies of an aircraft carrier with working air cannons and aircraft that can be launched. The landing part would be a tad harder, maybe go for a Japanese design so I don't have to worry about that part. LOL

Robert