Electronics

Choosing the electronics for a RG65 is like choosing them for any other yacht you want them powerful light fast and reliable. My target purchases were a drum winch which needs to be able to provide about 3.0Kgcm and a total sheet travel of 15cm in less than 1s and weigh less than 40g. It however does not appear that anything like this exists and the only winch I found approaching this is the GWS Supertec s125-1T winch which weighs 63g with the drum only provides 12cm of travel. The winch only turns 350 degrees even with the epa adjusted to 120% but it does appear just about fast enough although I am possibly running it over voltage with it connected to a 2 cell LiFePo4 battery providing 7.2V when fully charged. This short travel means that the sheeting post needs to be positioned 10cm from the gooseneck pivot which is a bit close but should work OK. During out of the boat testing this winch appears to; work well, has good resolution and does not get excessively warm. There is a digital version of the same servo which I have had a look at but although specified to rotate at the same speed appeared to be slower. It is slightly more powerful and programmable meaning that it should be possible to adjust it to rotate 380 degrees giving the desired 15cm travel.

I think that the stearing servo needs to provide about 2Kg.cm torque and weigh about 15g. Being a no money RC sailor I bought a cheap digital 16g Eurgle servo on eBay for £5. These are a no frills servo and have nasty stiff connector cables put appear to work very well

I use a Eurgle 3 channel receiver which is small and light which is essential in this class.

For the past year I have been using LiFePo4 batteries. You can charge these at highish currents which helps when you have forgotten to put them on the night before they don't lose any charge when left on the shelf and provide a similar voltage to a 5 cell NiMh pack. The 700MAh pack I chose only weighs 44g and can provide all day sailing on a single charge. I use the Flysky 2.4G 6-Channel Transmitter to keep the cost down. I have being using one of these for a couple of years now with no problems at all. It does need some PC skills to programme, it is very plasticky and could do with an exponential setting for the steering servo but at the cost I would not be very upset if I dropped it in the lake

The receiver has been glued to the central bulkhead with a little bit of hot glue.