Build Your Own Submarine

Nerobro writes "There's a group of geeks out there who are bound and determined to build their own submarines. In fact, there's a large group who have been successful. The most interesting is Cartsen Standfuss's CSSX-1. There is a mailing list, owners group and sizeable archive of information at psubs.org."

Comments

They better be careful

[TerryAtWork]

they don't build their own coffins too.

This is more dangerous than home built aircraft.

Re:They better be careful

[KillerLoop]

no, you won't, this is germany after all.

Re:They better be careful

[The_K4]

Actually, the way the subs work (most modern anyway) is that they pump WATER into the air tanks, compressing the air and creatting a pressure (and making the tank HEAVIER). When they want to surface they let the air PUSH the water out. If you sub is well designed you only need to OPEN the drain to let the water be pushed out. Most subs DO have compressors to add more air pressure (and there for empty the tanks faster and more completly) however they can surface with out these (in the case of a major power failure). Whenyou were to compress the air in your tanks you don't change your boyency (because the air comes from somewhere so your totall MASS is the same. They way you change your bouency is to ADD something (usually the most avaliable thing is water). Also most modern subs have a way to drop excess weight, like propellors and engine parts via explosive bolts (again for emergency procedures). I'm sorry, i hate to inject some REAL knowledge about subs.

Jules Verne

[hey!]

Impressive as the linked submarine is, it's just like a military boat: a steel cylinder. As useful as such a thing may be as a weapons platform, I can't imagine anybody riding in the thing for pleasure.

My own fantasy of a personal submarine comes from the Nautilus in 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. The most important feature: a glassed in drawing room, furnished with overstuffed chairs and oriental rugs, from which I can survey the unfolding panorama of the sea as I smoke seaweed cigars and sup on lobster tails whilst I plot my revenge on humanity.

No, you just have to worry about nastier things!

[reality-bytes]

Structural failure leading to implosion!

Even at just 100 meters depth, you don't get much warning of a hull failure. One buckled plate becomes a total breach in about 1 second.

Deeper than 100 meters, I'm told that the water entering a breached hull hits you rather like a steam-hammer with most unpleasant results.

These things are great so long as you keep positive pressure (the difference between tin-can and crushed tin-can). However, keeping that pressure is probably defined as a 'blood-difficult' thing.
An automatic buyancy system is a great thing to have in an emergency unless the only thing it drags back to the surface is submariner soup

Fair play to this guy for having a go; he's definately got guts. I seem to remember that Germans used to be rather good at building these things.

As for homebuilt aircraft, barring structural failure, in an emergency you tend to have one major thing on your side: Time

Re:No, you just have to worry about nastier things

[BLAG-blast]

Please note that 100 meters is roughly 300 ft or so. These depths were "challenge" even for WWII submersibles, and those beast were after all advanced.

Two points here: 1) the diameter of the cylinder dramatically effects the crush depth. 2) They have been vast improvements in steel working, producing steel that is many many many times strong that steel in 1945.

I would think twice before going below 10 meters (30 ft), for escape could get very tricky, if not impossible.

Small subs carry bail out gas, if the people in the sub have to leave the vessel they will pressurize the sub so it the same pressure as the outside water, then they can easily open the hatch and return to the surface. Some submarines allow you to do this and go scuba diving (up to a certain depth) then return to the submarine (of course it's flooded so you've gotta have some way of emptying it, either high pressure air or a pump).