Cheddar Proteus Steam Plants

[Guest]

Hello all of you, :bonjour:

First thank you to allow me to join you.

I am new on the group, and I already have a question for you...

I have a tug boat of 1.45 meters lenght, A TID. The ship was fitted with an electric motor and I have decided to convert it with a steam plants.

Fortunately I found a complete new never used proteus plants from a local RC dealer, my problem is the box is complete but without any documentation and manual for fitting all the stuff.

Can you help me in the project.

Tks in advance

Francis

[Guest]

Welcome to the forum!

Its great to have a fellow boat builder on the Forum...im not the best person to give you help with this problem, But I know a man who can! Check out Bunkerbarge... he is a moderator and has a live steam tug.

If anyone can give you sound advice its him!

Bon nuit

:thinking:

[Guest]

Hi Francis and a warm welcome to the forum. A Cheddar proteus is a serious piece of engineering and it should be taken very seriously!

Although Cheddar have ceased trading the business has been split up to a degree and I know that part of the business, I think the engines, has been taken over by Stuart Turner models and one of the family members has continued the boiler production.

Possibly a good place to ask the question is a forum that deals specifically in model boats and that is here:

http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/Forum_1.htm

If you don't come up with any manuals then ask again and we will have to go through one or two things for you to start off with. It is a big subject though!

Have a look at my steamer build in the Construction section to give you some ideas of the things to be considering.

If you put "Cheddar" into thier search engine you will come up with a lot of usefull links to people in the know and I'm sure one of them could help out with a photo copy.

[Guest]

there was verry little info with a Cheddar proteus Ive got one so what do you need to know , they where suplied ready built the only things to remember is dont run it without water in the waterpump.Ill look out the info I have it may take a few days though. in the mean time if you have any questions just ask. what part of the country are you in.dont /north south as I may be able to point you to someone who may be able to help.

dont hold your breath for Stuart Turner models to supply spares I got one or two bits when they first took delivery of the cheddar stuff and they had doubled the price , then sent the wrong stuff and for the last two years have been stocktaking so cannot relise parts. Jerry Watson who sells on e-bay, has some of the day to day bits O rings etc and will also do referbishment of engines and boilers, Clevedon steam

clevedon.steam@virgin.net

Peter

[Guest]

Tks to all of you for your super fast answer, to reply to Crash93, I am leaving in Belgium. I already send a mail to Clevedon and I am waiting for a answer.Stuart then will be my last choice, but I think as they have their own production business, they don't want to push to far the cheddar models.

Nice gallery Bunkerbarge, I will visit the forum modelboatmayhem to see if they can give a help.

Any info or manual can be send on my E-mail vc.francis@gmail.com

detailled picture of installations will be probably also a great help.

Tks Francis.

[Guest]

You can see in the gallery some picture of this tug boat.

[Guest]

Another point to look out for is AIR you need to let air in for the burner to work , so all the doors side gratings top gratings need to be made to work if not the boiler will sufecate another hint is I dont know if you are using a gas tank or cannister(disposable) if you intend to run in cold weather it can be an idea to fit your separator in the same are as the gas to bring a little warmer and also as the engine/boiler is one unit try to make it so it can be easy to remove for clean and service this can be done verry easy and on the mounting point try to keep it as low as you can ,if the engine is lower than the shaft , you can use packing blocks under the engine and leave the boiler lower all on the same base this stops roll.

I have sent you a e-mail ....Peter

[Guest]

Good morning all of you,:music_too

Back home today, Thanks for the info I receive from Russ, Richard and a special Thanks to Peter who send me by mails doc's who was missing for the Proteus plant.

The only think I am still have to find, is the way to refill the boiler automatically. As Stuart is not producing an ABC, is someone have a plan or a diagram to build one? The Proteus engine is fitted with a water driven pump.

Francis

[Guest]

There is actually a thread on the Modeboatmayhem site at the moment where one of the members describes how to make your own boiler level controller.

To keep the plant relatively simple I have opted not to bother with boiler level control though and I am relying on a manual pump to do that. The thinking being that I am going to have to come in every half an hour or so anyway for the purpose of pumping out the seperator tank so I am going to use that time to also pump up the boiler.

Level control does not seem to be the most reliable with the ones that use the sight glass for level feedback, such as the Cheddar unit, quite often gets confused by air bubbles in the glass. I believe the one on Mayhem uses a differrent level feedback system though so it may well be worth looking into.

[Guest]

I go and have a look

[Guest]

John Woodruf from Cheddar Models use to say (before he brought out the ABC unit) that you would run out of oil befor you ran out of water so you did not need big water tanks, I have been looking at using mecanical oil pump , but the more you put on the engine the more power you loose , the easy way to do it is to just have a servo to operate the pump valve and turn it on every so often ,just a case of getting to know what your boiler uses.

Peter