Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Moving day hath arrived. I'd done enough prep work on the inside and everywhere else so that it was time to get things mobile.

I backed the trailer right up to the cradle and winched it underneath of the hull. Once it reached a certain point, the boat slid right off of the cradle and onto the trailer bunks.

The cradle held together quite well through the entire process. Good cradle, good cradle.

With the cradle torn down, I maneuvered the outboard into place. I am going to shift all of the large boards up onto the top of the scaffolding to lift it into the bed of my pickup. Yesterday, I received the serial number of my new outboard and it will be in and mounted on the boat next week.

The good news is that the scaffolding will be coming down tonight. We will have the driveway back. Mostly.

A very good sight indeed.

An even more good news. My kicker is in today as well and will be delivered. I went with the Tohatsu 8HP because it is a 2 cylinder 4 stroke engine. I expect it to push my boat quite well for trolling.

 

[Teamster]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

That will be a great kicker,......

Are you gonna use a tie bar to the main motor for steering or use the handle??

If using the handle cut the end off of a whiffle ball bat to slide over the tiller handle for a cheap extension,...

Also are you mounting controls at the helm??

Or using a something like CONTROLLKING for throttle control,...

Heck, You might be able to make your own controllking style thing and run it with you touch screen deal,...

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

The main goal of the PLC is to get NMEA 0183 sentences from my Lowrance chart plotter and to use them with one of these either mounted to the kicker plate or connected with cables that would be installed inside the storage compartments.

It is a 6" actuator with potentiometer feedback. It is IP65 rated which means that it can withstand a direct water jet without harming it's operation.

My PLC can take GPS course data from the chartplotter and with the feedback from the actuator then control the steering of the kicker. I plan on 2 modes of operation. Direction tracking or path tracking. with direction tracking, I hit a button and it attempts to maintain the current heading. Path tracking would use the autopilot sentences and would try to keep on a route between waypoints.

I also plan on using a smaller actuator for the throttle and I might be able to use a ControKing servo (looks like a standard RC servo to me). My PLC will put out PWM (pulse width modulation) which is what controls many RC servos so that might be the route to go.

Having an intelligent control in a boat really opens up a world of possibilities.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Having an intelligent controller in the boat really opens up a world of possibilities.

^^^Fixed it for ya, so now it's appropriate on ALL boats, not just high tech electronic control gizmo laden boats like yours.

Hope it applies to all of mine when they're splashed w/ me at the helm There will be no high tech gadgets though

I followed most of what you're saying about the PLC, et al. Sounds like a great plan & that you know what you're doing, & will make it happen.

Pushing the boundary outward

Congrats on the progress onto the trailer & re-claiming at least some of the driveway...

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Death of a BBE...

The skin is off of the BBE. It is covered in fine glass particles and will likely be put to rest although I can pull it up my hops columns and hose it down.

With some well placed timbers, getting the old outboard up into the truck wasn't too difficult.

Disassembly of the scaffolding.

With the boat back in the drive and on a decent slope, I hosed out all of the insides. It drained like a champ and is pretty darn cleagh of the itch dust.

I'll back the boat in tomorrow to do some gelcoat work and other tasks, but for tonight, it is just sitting pretty on the trailer.

Another week or so and I'll be wrapping it up completely.

 

[Teamster]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

I'm sure the controlking is little more than a rc servo,.........

 

[BILLGREEN]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Hi been reading your thread finding it great.. But dont leave me hanging pls finish it so i can see how it turns out thanks bill

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

I'm sure the controlking is little more than a rc servo,.........

You are correct, their entire system is certainly more than an RC servo. The RC servo is the actuator that controls the throttle. Inside of their remote unit, you will find a PIC processor or similar that sends PWM (pulse width modulated) signals to the servo. A guy I used to work with started Lynxmotion which used PIC processors and RC servos to make simple robots. Industry also uses PWM signals to control motor drives and since my PLC has functionality in that area, it will be a simple task of using a PWM output and controlling the duty cycle based off of current speed.

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Well so concludes another productive weekend. I did get the deck painted and it went very well. I know that there are a lot of different deck coatings out there, but I decided to do some experimenting. In lieu of Kiwi Coat or one of the others, I picked up a gallon of Behr Deck Over and went with that. The glass on the floor of the boat was 1708 fiberglass which has a decent texture to it. After a good sanding, the Behr spread and adhered quite well. Time will tell. It seems that the biggest complaint is staining.

So here is the deck in Gettysburg blue. This is before setting the center console in place. The edges of the paint on the sides of the cap suck. I still need to mask if off and touch it up but the floor is now able to be walked upon without any issues.

As an added touch, I also painted the cap at the base of the front rail. I figured that I needed to get the surface roughed up if I expected paint to adhere very well, so for prep work, I masked off the area real well, draped up some drop cloths (for all the good that it did) and sandblasted the exposed gelcoat. It roughened it up very well. The Behr Deck Over paint adhered well and appears to be quite solid.

I set the console in place yo hold up the new cover.

Another view. I am planning on pulling the center bulkhead compartment cover and shooting it with gelcoat. I don't care about the texture so I don't have to sand it down smooth.

I set the front storage area hatch in place to see how it would all work. It is going to give about 12 cubic feet of storage under the deck

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

One of the last things that I needed to do was finish off the transom. The original transom wasn't cut square at the top and I followed it as a template. So I had to build it up like Stratos did originally. After some snafus, I got it to a place where I'll be able to sand it down tomorrow night and shoot gelcoat on the transom and some other items.

Sooo.... After another really long productive weekend, we got out the boat cover since it is supposed to rain tomorrow. I really don't care for one size fits all boat covers, I found a place that recommended a specific model of cover from Carver covers. This thing fits like it was custom made.

I'll have to put a stand in the front and back, but this thing is sweet.

My Tohatsu will deliver tomorrow and my local dealer will have my 175 E-Tec delivered as well. By weeks end, I hope to splash this beastie. I even have a name for her, but that will be unveiled at a later date. I'm a bit superstitious but I really feel that if I give this boat a really meaningful name, that she'll always take care of me and will never let me down.

 

[jbcurt00]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

1 gal of Deck Over did 2 coats?

Because DeckOver is sort of a thick paint (right?) to try & cut in along the edges, did you mask & it seeped under the masking or you didn't mask along the edges of the deck?

Great progress again this weekend, well done...

Don't love the blue, but it does look good on the deck.

 

[Teamster]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Will the touch screen controller be up and running for the splash??

And will the 6 inch actuator have a long enough stroke to steer the kicker fully both ways??

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Yes, the deck over did 2 coats. Actually, I only used half a gallon so far and it is pretty thick but the abrasive material is pretty fine. Nothing like the Rustoleum deck coating. I really don't have that much of an area to do. I didn't mask the deck when I painted it. For the front deck, I used duct tape because it holds up under sandblasting. I am sure that vinyl electrical tape would also hold up well.

I can go from 2" to 12" on the actuator for the same price so I have options when I get to that point. I'll be getting a servo this week to see how well I can control one from the PLC.

 

[clenmenttohn]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Edit: Spam...

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

A good day. I received my Tohatsu 8HP 4 stroke kicker motor. Cute little motor. I set it on the transom to see how it might fit with the main outboard. I'll have to use a plate.

I also sprayed gel coat onto the transom and splash well. I'll post pis tomorrow. It was my first time with gel coat and it went better than I had expected. The temps were in the 70's so I mixed it with 2% MEKP. I sprayed 3 coats before spraying the final coat with wax in it. We then covered the areas with drop cloths and blankets and ran some heaters. It didn't take long before everything was nice and smooth and NOT tacky! It has orange peel as expected, but I don't expect the transom to be perfect, just better looking than before. As for the splash well, I just wanted a better finish than the oxidized gel coat that was there before. It looks great not.

Pics tomorrow. With some light sanding I'll be ready for the outboard on Wednesday or perhaps Thursday.

 

[Teamster]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Does the kicker have power trim and tilt or will that be part of the plate??

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

All manual trim and tilt. That'll have to be part of the plate.

 

[Teamster]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

Any idea which plate your looking at???

I know plenty of guys with the Panther Marine trim n tilt plate because they make offer one that in Ranger specific,...Never know any trouble with them,..........

And I see lot's of the CMC ones as well,...........Never know those to be problematic either,..............

 

[bakerjw]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

I picked up a Panther Lightweight 4-Stroke Motor Bracket 55-407AL. They seem to have a good reputation and the unit give me 42 pounds to spare. My Tohatsu is 90 lbs and it is rated for 132. We'll see how well it works.

 

[greenbush future]

Re: Stratos 1850 possible rebuild?

What a nice, classy job you have done on this boat. I was shocked to see just how small your boat actually was, looking at the interior (transom stringers and floor), I would have bet it was a 23 footer at least. The boat as finished by you, should last you forever. You have really done some nice work on this rig. Curious to see how the gel coat works for you. It's a bit scary doing a job like that when you don't have the experience. Did you end up getting a new gun to lay that stuff down? I think you would have been disappointed if you just painted the stern.