Happenings around micro boats in Slovenia
By Miha Holc, December 2002

Trent asked me at the 2002 LA SAW's to do an occasional article for the microhydros.com page. In this, and other short articles (around 4 per year) I will try to describe happenings around micro boats in Slovenia. In this first article I will describe what is currently going on in the winter time here in Slovenia. There are quite some interesting things people are doing as well as some exciting hot stuff on hobby shop shelves! Here are our classes: Mini ECO: 5 minutes run time around triangle 6 or 7 of 500 AR, 700 AR or any NiCd or NiMH AA (Alkalines) cells Sealed can 400 type brush motor Underwater prop Mini Mono 5 minutes on NAVIGA oval 6 or 7 of 500 AR, 700 AR or any NiCd or NiMH AA (Alkalines) cells Sealed can 400 type brush motor Surface prop Mini Hydro 4 minutes on NAVIGA oval 6 or 7 of 500 AR, 700 AR, 800 AR or any NiCd or NiMH AA (Alkalines) cells Any motor Surface prop Mini Hydro:    As you maybe know Gregor Vida desinged very interesting shovel nose and published plan here. Quite some people began building it! Jernej from Maribor, Slovenia tried powering the little thing with very cheap motor: long can 400 size for a mere 4.9 ?, that is around 5 USD!! Video is here, runtimes with NiCD AA cells 1000 mAh are about 7 minutes! VIDEO    Gregor said that he is working on the mold for very custom unlimited mini hydroplane. It will be very interesing battles between different unlimiteds and riggers in our Mini Hydro in the coming season! Mini ECO: There is also very much interest for our Mini ECO class. Mostly 6 to 8 competitors are competing on the race although the number of total competitors is much higher. In good year the developement in the hulls went from normal V bottom ECOs to raised middle bottom ³flying‰ type minis which are nowadays standard in bigger classes. Lap number increased from 17 to 23 and now with flying type ECOs it is expected even higher number. Rumors are that good setup Mini ECO would beat ECO Start class ECO (500/600 sealed can motor, 7 Sub C cells and plastic prop)! This mini flying ECOs behave like their bigger brothers Ë this means very high speeds for relative small power (speed 400 sealed can!) but interesting is that these small things can turn on a dime! Mini Mono: Mini Mono (stepped monos, 400 sealed can motors) class seems curently uninteresting since there are no good hulls on the slovenian market. Hobby shop news:     There some exciting motors coming from Czech Ë MP Jet. To us there is especially interesting 35 20 series which behaves very similar to Hacker B20 15L but is slightly havier. The most interesting thing is that it has segmented neodym magnet rotor and that it is dirty cheap Ë below 50 USD! Another small and rpm friendly motor comes from MEGA Ë 16/7 series, 5 turns. I got no specs, but like all mega it has 6 pole rotor. It weights only about 50 grams! TMM Compro 18e-3ph controller can handle both motors well. Here is the pics of both motors and controller compared to closed can 500 type motor which seems huge in size but does not come close in performance! Also very interesting are these gold plated connectors. I will soon test their resistance. They come in 1.8 , 2.5 and 3.5 mm sizes. For those who constantly have problems with water in the hull are those two, very neat, small and very light brush motor controllers. Wrapped with red anodized heat sink they are coated with protective coat. Manufacturer claims they just need to be dried out after ³flood in ³