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Hi Guys, I happened to pop in for moment and caught this discussion. It was an issue that I pondered much due to my location here in the sub-tropics. Remember that Alec dived his boat here in S. Florida at some point. His comments were along the lines of "100 %" humidity, basically,..rain. Check with him as to how bad it was or wasn't. Conclusion I came to at the time, was to keep the interior hull surfaces accessible and "wipe able", massively circulate the air via fans, collect condensation and any splash in some sort of sump for disposal. That disposal need not be as fancy as what the fleet boats did, (overboard blow) but something to dump out on the surface on occasion. Regards Joe From: ShellyDalg@aol.com Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:24:27 -0400 Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Condensation Reduction Means To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org Hi Brent. Thanks for the bedliner info. The more I read about it, the more interesting it sounds. Have you tried to remove any of it yet? I'm wondering how difficult it would be to replace and/or repair.
On the inside foam thing, it seems like a lot of work and expense for what you get. Once that stuff is applied, it will be a real pain to take out should it become needed for a repair or future modification. I can't imagine how hard it will be to chip that stuff away while sitting inside a little tank, with all the ribs and linkages etc.
I remember a thread quite a while ago where some one had to remove some foam for a retro-fit and they were saying it was a huge mess. Was it on "Aquarius" or some other hi-tech expensive sub? Can't remember just which one but it sounded like a very expensive and difficult process.
As for moisture inside the sub, I don't think there's any way to avoid that. For my sub, I'm just going to make it easy to remove the water once it dribbles down to the lowest point, and make sure I can see all the corners and nooks to monitor for corrosion.
With your plan of flooding the sub regularly as a training exercise, it seems like reducing any chance of water hiding in tiny places would be a better solution than trying to prevent condensation from forming.
All boats get wet on the inside, it's just how it is. Making it easy to clean and dry out is the key to reducing corrosion. It might be possible to add "blanketed" insulation at a reasonable cost that could be removed easily, aired out, and dried between dives. That would add sound deadening and maybe help keep you warm a bit.
As for smoothing the interior, could you make curved sections of foam that fit between the ribs, coat them with the bedliner stuff, and make them removable so cleaning would be easy. You could hose off the foam pieces, dry them off, and just snap them back in after cleaning out the sub.
I know that a steel tank will flex and move as it goes through pressure cycles, with temperature changes making it even more pronounced. If you have that foam applied to the inside, I'd worry about separation and/or cracks where water could hide and be very difficult to detect.
I like the idea of the bedliner stuff deadening sound when applied to the outside. Pretty interesting stuff.
Frank D.
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