Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] More Batteries....power configuration?

[SeaLordOne@aol.com]

Shipmates,

Dan makes a simple but profound point...boats run on 12 volts.  If you stick with 12 volts, you can purchase almost everything you need off of the shelf...lights, motors, pumps, cables, connectors, etc.  Even more importantly, you can learn all you need to know to design, operate and maintain your electrical system from reading boating books.

When I built the Undaunted back in the early 1970's, I began by reading old submarine novels.  They were not much help.  Then it dawned on me...a submarine is a boat.  A specialized boat, but still just a boat.  So I began to read books about boat building.  I discovered that the boat building literature will give you most of what you need to know to design, build, operate and maintain a submarine.  For the rest...there is Psubs.

My watchwords for designing Undaunted II will be KISS and COTS (keep it simple, stupid, and commercial off the shelf [products]).  The only thing I want to fabricate is the hull.  Almost everything else will be from a boating store or a dive shop.  That is how the British and Germans made many of their midget submarines during WW II, that is how Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea made the Nautilus, and that is how I intend to make the Undaunted II.  Bolt together a complex arrangement of off-the-shelf parts, and then fabricate a hull to go around them.

If you haven't surfed the boat building literature, I recommend you do so.  A large portion of what you need to know to build a Psub is already there.  The information on electric boats is particularly interesting.

Doug Farrow