Nose Cone Mounting

Ideas about mounting the nose cone to the hull go here.

I just had a random idea about the nosecone. Could we put that rubber gasket we were talking about on the lip, fit the nosecone over it, and then just clamp it down with like a really big hose clamp or something?

if we put a hose clamp on the outside, it will create a lot of drag. If there is some way to secure it on the inside, that would be great! I was actually thinking about ways to clamp it from the inside. Like some sort of tension device.

hmm, maybe a snap ring, but i dont know what material we could make it out of. and it would have to be huge.

Hahaha giant hose clamp ftw.

We've talked about these flipper latches for other things, what about a flipper latch to mount the nose cone to the hull? Epoxy should be able to hold the front latch onto the nose cone. Not an expert on epoxy, I just know it's hard to tear adhsive things off in shear. Anyone have more experience than me with epoxy to say whether this approach holds water or not?

How would we mount the flipper latches to the inside of the nose cone? I think the problem is that the nose cone is a rounded surface. That is a recurring theme in difficulties with the sub

agreed, but there are two solutions to that when dealing with the rounded surface. One would be to create an insert to glue in first, and then attach the flipper to it. The second would be to gob a bit of extra epoxy in, and let it fill the gap itself. sloppier, but possibly workable.

also, depending on which area of the nose cone we mount to, the curvature isn't that great as it runs from nose down a wall of the sub.

Thoughts?

big gob of epoxy is a bad idea. if we use a spacer of some sort, would that get in the way of the view of the pilot?

Also, I can look at my resources and try to see what other teams did.

Alrighty. I went down to lowes today to talk to the hardware people and see what they had to say. They thought (not engineers, so we might want to run numbers) that epoxy would hold the latches. They recomended a silocone epoxy that's used for fish tanks. Rated to seal and hold together a 30 gallon fish tank. That's a fair bit of force on the walls. He said that it would have no problem bridging a gap of the curvature either.

And if we do it towards the sides it shouldn't obstruct view. Sadly they don't have any flipper latches there that I could look at and play with, but we're still playing with ideas.

alternately, he did have a good suggestion if we want to go back to bolts to hold the cone on. He pointed out a cotter pin and bolt setup they have much like this.



The difference being that it has a smooth head, no threads, and multiple pin locations so we can adjust it. This would be much faster to attach and detach, and the bolts have a larger cross section making them harder to shear or pull through the plastic.

Scott...I like this idea. If set up correctly the failure point will be the pin and not the screw fastening the nose cone to the sub. You also have to take in mind how much fastening* do we need for the nosecone to be snug enough to the hull. Im sure this can be done with a tighter fastener (shorter shaft lol).

Additionally with the sub in its current state i feel this would be an easy test set up. I think we still have a nose cone with fasten holes so just buy some bolts and run it to a wall to see what happens. worst thing is you break a cone...but we have a mold and can make more

I have been looking for hardware to attach the nose cone the last few days. There are a few latch designs that would work but, I think they will need to be attached with bolts. After the failed epoxy test, I don't think we should use adhesive. I like Scott's idea to use a bolt and cotter pin. Maybe a wing nut would clamp tighter, and still be relatively easy to remove.

Hi Matt, thanks for looking into it.

The rubber we used was really stretchy. When you stretch it, it deforms and makes it easier for the glue to come off. How much are the rubber latches? I think we should at least try a set of them to see how it works.

I use that glue on my shoes at work. The rubber sole comes undone and I glue it to the polycarbonate part underneath the sole. With the nail glue, the shoe holds up better than it did when it was brand new.


one concern is that walking on the shoes is a compressive force, while holding the nose cone to the hull would be a tensile force on the glue. Perhaps we should buy a set of rubber latches and a set of cotter pins and try them both out if it is not too expensive.

You said the latches look like they require bolts? Can you post a link?

http://www.aboveboardelectronics.com/southco/pdf/5-3-2.htm
The link above is the best latch I could find. It's nearly all rubber, with stainless steel mounting plates. The design of this latch should provide enough tolerance to be used on the curved surfaces of the sub and nose cone.