Hi all,
I recently bought a Hawk Aqua Scout DPV for $80 (ebay). It's really nothing special, but $80 to play screw around a bit couldn't be passed up.
I took it out to the water, and its battery lasted only about 20 minutes before it struggled to pull me along. Well, it struggled to pull me along anyway, but much more so after 20 mins.
So - now it's time to make a pet project out of this! What I'd like to know is what I can do with it to improve performance.
It comes with a SLA 12V 7AH battery, but I'm thinking about attaching a 12V 12AH (or higher if I can fit it in). I'm not too sure about the specs on the motor and what I can do there. I'm also thinking about replacing the triggers with a variable rate one, so I can have, well, variable speeds! Just think, I can go slow or slower!
Other ideas include adding a small LCD that shows current charge. The challenge there, of course, is to seal it properly. This won't add a lick of performance, but will certainly add to its "cool factor" .. and hey, doesn't matter how fast it goes then!
Anyhow, any ideas? I won't be too heartbroken if it floods/catches on fire/mutates/etc, but I'd like to see what I can do. At the very least should be an interesting project.
I recently bought a Hawk Aqua Scout DPV for $80 (ebay). It's really nothing special, but $80 to play screw around a bit couldn't be passed up.
I took it out to the water, and its battery lasted only about 20 minutes before it struggled to pull me along. Well, it struggled to pull me along anyway, but much more so after 20 mins.
So - now it's time to make a pet project out of this! What I'd like to know is what I can do with it to improve performance.
It comes with a SLA 12V 7AH battery, but I'm thinking about attaching a 12V 12AH (or higher if I can fit it in). I'm not too sure about the specs on the motor and what I can do there. I'm also thinking about replacing the triggers with a variable rate one, so I can have, well, variable speeds! Just think, I can go slow or slower!
Other ideas include adding a small LCD that shows current charge. The challenge there, of course, is to seal it properly. This won't add a lick of performance, but will certainly add to its "cool factor" .. and hey, doesn't matter how fast it goes then!
Anyhow, any ideas? I won't be too heartbroken if it floods/catches on fire/mutates/etc, but I'd like to see what I can do. At the very least should be an interesting project.
