Mailing List Archive

Mailing List: cavers

Message Display

Scott,

Do  yourself a favor and start using a better scooter.  Remember your life
may depend on your scooter's ability to get you out.  The way I see it,
your already pushing beyond the safety limits of your scooter.  You have
three choices:

1:  Get a new gavin scooter with lots of burn. (Contact George @
trey@ne*.co*).   Tow your Mako behind you as a backup.

2:  Get a used gavin.  Tow your Mako behind you as a backup.

3:  Get another Mako (each diver) and tow one behind you.  In this case the
second scooter would not be considered a TRUE backup since your too far
into your burn.  A backup should be able to get you out from max.
penetration or the next scooter depot with margin.

Don't compromise what is already a poor and fragile design of the Mako by
introducing additional failure points.  Any additional connections into the
scooter would be potential leak areas along with the ridiculous cable
routing problems, buoyancy problems, fluid drag and snag points your
adding.  Just trying to envision what your dreaming up is making me cringe
with fear.

My recommendation is do option 1 and do it right or not at all. No cave is
worth dieing for. - JT


At 03:28 PM 8/12/2000 EDT, ScottBonis@ao*.co* wrote:
>Hi Guys,
>
>I'm looking for experience or opinions on an idea before I take off half 
>cocked and possibly do something dumb.
>
>In exploring new a cave, it looks like my buddy and I may be overreaching
the 
>limits of the battery capacity of the Mako's we'll be using.  I'm thinking
of 
>using a 3/4 inch aluminum plate in the nose of the scooters so we can drill 
>and tap holes for water tight electrical pass throughs.  The wires from the 
>motor and the battery would be brought outside the scooter body and
connected 
>together with a wet mate connector.
>
>This is so when the battery gets too low, I could hook the batteries from a 
>light canister onto the motor and keep on going.  The motor is set for 24 
>volts and I could easily wire the two batteries in a waist canister in 
>series.  The Mako batteries are 17 Amp-hours @ 24 volts and each waist 
>canister would be an additional 7 Amp-hours @ 24 volts.
>
>Any thoughts?
>
>Thanks for your time.  Take care and safe diving,       Scott
>

Navigate by Author: [Previous] [Next] [Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject: [Previous] [Next] [Subject Search Index]

[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]

[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]