That certainly seems to be a good simple system, even I can follow it.
Cheers Colin.

Sorry I thought you had produced a new version.
I have produced a couple of diagrams which indicate what I believe are your requirements. I have not added the fuses and switching units as this is a personal choice.
I use Ubecs and they can handle up to 6amps which is more than adequate for a few servos and escs.
I suspect your smoke and sound units are 12v so should be OK of the 12v battery.
As regards a common earth (-ve) connection between the two systems I would not connect the two systems 12v and 24v in any way. My main concern would be the internal connections in the ESC and S1 to earth. As each battery performs different tasks, and I believe you know to keep the high current from the signal wires, I cannot see how you could use a common rail to any advantage.
I may have this wrong in which case please let me know so we can discuss further
dave976

Colin,
The motors run on 24 volts and I am series wiring two 12 v batteries to supply the 24V. The 24 V pos (red Lead) from the battery goes to a junction block(not labeled), then thru telemetry modules to the ESC's and hence the motors.
cheers

I am trying my hardest to follow this but am greatly confused, from sketch supplied the motors have no positive feed?
I thought I had a basic grasp of electrics , but it looks a bit over complicated. KISS, I was taught.
Especially with modern radio systems with multiple channels being programmable.
Baffled oldy, Colin.

Wonderful idea! I had not considered that. Thank you!

ToraDog,
To handle the different currents, still connect the Ground bus to the battery common, and designate one side of the hull as the high current side return, and the other side the low current side return.

Good Luck

Daave,
Scroll down to my early post for the block diagram.
I thought about using SBUS for all the extra channels, but I had the receivers and I like the redundancy of multiple receivers. I use this set-up in my other models and am happy with it( ie, I am a dinosaur and slow to change).

That's great. No block diagram attached??
Interesting to see you are using the Sbus and am wondering why you are not just using I rx and sbus which will allow for multiple channels in addition to the 6 or ten on the rx. I will draw up a diagram from this info and we can then discuss how this meets your requirements.
dave976

Dave,
I'll try to answer all your points. I expect to use at least 3 receivers, but 4 are possible. This will give me 8 channels/receiver. I'll KISS it as needed. There are two drop down converters planned, 12 to 6 volt, and 12 to 3 volt. Again, as needed. The radio will be powered by the house 12V via 10 amp BE/VR's. Each of which can power 2 receivers. Depending upon the servo amp loads will determine the # of BE/VR's used. The ESC's are from Modelbau-Regler in Germany. I have use these numerous times and find them to be very reliable, absolutely silent and easy to program, when needed to be.They are 12-24 volt, 60A constant, surge to 100a.
Smoke units will be the oil type(Harbor Models) which draw about 2A max each. I have not fully decided upon the sound systems yet, so specs are in the air.
I attached a rough block diagram to my earlier post.
The V/A telemetry module are FrSky. They report voltage and amps used and the accuracy can be user selected. The connections are very simple. It series installs in the Pos and Neg leads from the battery. It then connects to the receiver via the SBUS and the module can be daisy chained together, they can be combined with other modules as well, ie, GPS, Altitude( although I do not expect to need that one😋). The radio will allow many modules to be used. My current thinking is one per motor, and one for the house battery draw.

Hi Tora Dog
Interesting project and one that requires some careful planning for the electrics. I can understand your desire to keep the wiring to a minimum but you also need to consider the Radio and ESC signal wires and the need to keep these separate from any high power equipment wires.
It would help if you could advise the specs of motors you are using and the ESCs ( Voltage, max current and/or wattage). I am unfamiliar with the V/A tele module so some general info and connection details would be welcome.
I am intrigued that you intend to use 4 receivers but believe we have discussed this on another post in the past, but 4 would seem to be a lot.
The aux items do not seem to be high current apart from the smoke generator which in my experience need its own direct fused/switched battery supply if using the heated coil. If it's the mist variety and needs 24volts the power use is not that great.
I believe you could achieve the same results with far fewer drop down converters than shown, unless you are following warship redundancy duplicated circuits?
Perhaps you could draw some block diagrams of each component and indicate its purpose and how it is to be controlled ie
Motor- battery ??v powered -controlled by ESC fed from ??v battery and Rx 1 (say) used to drive the prop.
With this info it would be possible to draw up a series of units and then decide how to connect them all together.
Good to see you are planning before starting to install and hope we can help further
dave976

Just to take the tease away from my previous post.
As many of you know, I focus on 1/48 scale USN builds. I have 2 Fletcher destroyers, and an icebreaker, to name a few.I haave always admired the Dido class of light cruiser and tried to find a hull for a build, but that fell through. next in line, and it is a very close second, is the Atlanta class light cruiser. There were two infamous ones, the Atlanta and the Juneau. Both were lost at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. The former was decimated by another USN cruiser and scuttled, while the latter was seriously damaged by a Japanese torpedo, but managed to retire. while retiring, Juneau was hit again in the same are by a submarine launched torpedo and disintegrated. 10 out of 650 crew survived, none of the 5 Sullivan brothers did.
My build is the Juneau. I hope to post a build of her. Please be patient. It will take time...

cjanik001,
Many Thanks. your answer is what I was hoping for.
Yes, I use circuit breakers and fuses extensively. I had not illustrated them.
I had considered the idea of tapping 12V off each of the series wired motor batteries, however I wanted to dedicate the motor batteries. As such, the "house" battery. Besides, I think that I will be adding ballast even after 3 or possibly 4 26amp/hr batteries are put into place.
My thought is to run a 10 gauge grd lead around the hull. My motors draw around 5a each at stall and the rest of te circuits are in the 1-3a range, if that. Many circuits will not be in use simultaniously, so I think I'll be safe.

I have been employed in the electronics industry for the better of 40 years, and we have built many applications with multiple batteries, split batteries, or multiple power supplies within the same application. There is no problem with making a single ground application for the circuit.

If you are worried about short circuits, protect each voltage leg with a fuse or circuit breaker sized for the actual current the leg will carry.

You indicated that there will be 2 battery sources a 24V source, (2x12V), as well as a single 12V battery. Connecting the (-) side of the 24V source ( bottom Battery -) and the 12V (-)
together is perfectly fine.

Another option could be using the two 12V batteries in series, making a 24V supply, and then tapping off between the two batteries as the 12V source. The bottom (-) terminal would then be the common ground for both supplies.

Hope this helps

Also to answer you other question, yes it would be ok to have one single common running around the hull, and then adding each device to it. Just make sure the wire is big enough to carry the sum of the currents for each device.

Hi All,
I appreciate the feedback from all of you. here is my basic block diagram.Note that there are numerous sub-systems that will run of the House 12 V supply that are not yet added. They include R/C multiswitches, smoke systems, sounds systems, and LED's. I have not shown circuit breakers/fuses, and the S in the box equates to Volt/Amp telemetry modules.
My "plan" is to use two 12V batteries in series to supply dedicated 24V to the motors, via ESC's. All other requirements will be met by the dedicated "House" battery(s), 2 in parallel if needed.
What I am wondering, is whether I can run a common GRD, wire around the hull (11'4") and attach all neccesary GRDs to it rather than running masses of individual GRD leads back to terminal blocks. Also, should the 24v system be GRD'd to the 12v system as well?
Thanks again for your inputs.

If you’ve two batteries, 24v and 12v, then there is absolutely no harm in connecting the grounds of both together. If the 24v is 2x 12v in series, then obviously those two batteries are kept in series to make the 24v, making a common ground here would create a short.

Depending on what you’re powering though, it may be best to only have one main battery (going with the voltage of highest power device, eg the motor) then regulate up or down for the ancillary devices (like lighting, water pump, whatever is on the other voltage).

Stephen

Hi Shipmates,
I personally would not connect all grounds together, mainly because if you connect an additional device wrong it may damage other devices connected.

Found these little devices that can drop voltages:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08M38578T/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?

Regards Roy

Hi ToraDog,

If only it were simple!

Without more information about what you are planning it’s not easy to answer your question. Any chance you can share a simple block diagram showing what is going to be connected to each battery? Failing that, a list of what is to be powered from each battery.

Graham93