JPEE

Hello Nick,

So glad to hear you were not seriously injured in your fall. When the weather is like you need to stick your car..............I think you will now huh?

A tip from the old guy. If your going to do base floor molding, crown molding up at the ceiling, and new doors or door jams you "should bring that all in and let sit for two days and the wood acclimate to the moisture level in the house. Failure to so so can................let the wood expand or contract thus leaving doors that rub and molding that pulls away in the corners or pops loose from the wall if it grows with a hot room. You can use MDF (saw dust and glue) moldings but only in room where there is water present as the steam or water that gets on the floor makes the stuff swell and come apart as the saw dust leaves the glue. When you install a new door it have to have a 3 degree relief on the side that goes in when you closed the door so it does not bind on the jamb. Let me know via email if you have any questions.

A day early but what the hay.......................................HAPPY BIRTHDAY................TOMORROW!

evdreamer

John,

Thanks for the advice and the birthday wishes.

I like the motorcycle card

Lincoln is in the middle of a bad snow storm.

Nick

JPEE

Hi Nic,

I hope your well with all of the flu crap going around! Hope your Birthday was a great one!

Good luck on your updating of the condo, that will fun to make it just the way you want it.........

Just loaded to go flying tomorrow. Packed up my Mavic Done, 500,600 and P-47


JP

Aframomum

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Hi guys,

I cannot believe it has been 28 days since I last posted - where has the past month gone??!

Nick - I'm very sorry to hear about your bike incident, luckily the damage was minimal and you didn't get hurt. Congrats on your new house and it sounds like you have quite a bit to do. But it is enjoyable knowing its all yours! And oh yeah, Happy Belated Birthday!!

JPEE - hope you had a chance to get some good flying in with your Mavic, 500, 600, and the Jug.

Wanted to give you guys an update on the space coast happenings: SpaceX did a successful hotfire test of their new Falcon Heavy rocket and are planning an actual launch February 6: https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/2...y-test-launch/
Should be quite a show with 3 boosters coming back for a landing.

Now on to other things. We have been busy with the house (as you can imagine lol). I was able to put up ceiling fans in the bedrooms, storage racks in the garage and the 2 bedrooms, and started work in the garage attic cutting up boards to place over the risers to serve as both a crawl space and storage area. This way I have been able to start moving some stuff from the garage into the attic thus giving us a place to park the car in the garage. I also took the opportunity to go on the roof to have a look around and inspect the vents and other things up there.

I've already started on a future to do list for the coming months: First and foremost I want to expand the sprinkler system since the installed one only covers the front and half the side yard. So tying into it I can run pipe to get the back yard and keep the grass there alive. Second, I want to install a section of guttering to keep the rain water from running off the garage and making a mess at the base of the garage door. I saw a house down the street from me did something similar and it looks real good. A little further down that list I would like to install an attic ladder since my attic currently is just a cut out and having to place a folding ladder underneath it and then 'hop' from the ladder to inside the attic gets tiresome, esp with boxes in tow!

Mark

JPEE

Hello Guys,

Mark,
Sounds like your really adding your families touches and needs to the new home and garage. A work on the attic ladder. Here in Los Angeles the law requires the ladder door to meet the same fire code for the ceiling of the garage. What does this mean, if your ceiling is 5/8" drywall and lets say that has a 20 min fire rating (I forgot that stuff since I retired) so does the closed ladder door. When I got mine it only had a 1/4' plywood piece you would see when it was closed. So we had to push up the ladder frame up 5/8" more between the ceiling joists so when we added the drywall the ceiling was flush and held the same fire rating. Just saying............
BTW, once we did that the closing springs would not lift the and close it all of the way so I had to add two more light duty springs to pick up the extra weight!. Then........................on two occasions I went up the ladder and it lifted and closed with me in the attic all alone, glad I had my cell phone. Just saying............ :-)

I recently did the motor upgrade to my 700 in the MD500 scale body. if you recall Phil could fly his with only one 6S 5000 pack. So I took one of my batteries out and wide open could barely lift off. So I found that he had a different motor so I got a matching one and installed after I got here. The motor is 1/8" taller and I had already ground out the fuse so my old motor would clear. So this really too some thinking to work out this extra 1/8" sticking up. Under the 700 where the skidds were in the fuse kit they give you shims, so I took two of the 6 on each side out and lowered the heli in the fuse, ground out the last part of the canopy but because the I dropped the heli inside the fuse now the freaking tail servo rod was slightly bound rubbing the fiberglass boom :-( After pooping it in and out a bunch of time I.... Z bent and bowed the rod to clear everything and lifted her yesterday in 12 MPH wind. I made a few slow fig 8s and some circles and she was fine but I landed at 3.9 per cell and wanted out of the wind and called it done. I am pleased with how she came out. BTW I was flying at a 100% flat wide open line in the transmitter and she handled well.

I showed a friend here my Mavic and fly it yesterday too...yes in the wind and he ordered his today! A day before his 550 Hexa came down with a $200.00 Sony (not damaged) camera but did break one Hexa arm in the crash. He said he was flying and BAM she just leaned over and then fell to earth. So seeing what the Mavic can you and you the superior video and photo abilities he bought one.


see you both soon, take care

evdreamer

John,

Happy birthday!

That is good to hear the new motor is working out.

Mark,

It sounds like you are getting a lot done with the house.

Nick

Aframomum

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Happy Birthday John!!!

JPEE

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the Birthday wishes, it was the big one....70!

Charging up the Mavic Pro for some possible airtime tomorrow if I get my chores done...he he he

Watch in 1080 mode

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

Congrats on the big 70!

You know, I hope when I reach that age I am as active and physically fit as you are - you really make it look effortless my friend. Well done!

I don't know if you guys had the chance to follow last Wednesday but SpaceX was successful in launching their new rocket with its 'starman tesla' cargo, and retrieve 2 of the boosters back at the cape. You can read about it here: https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/0...asteroid-belt/

Super exciting times!!

Mark

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

You had yourself quite an ordeal with getting that motor to fit in the frame - glad it worked out for you. The 700 looks stable with a rock solid tail, enough for a satisfying end to all your work.

You should ask if you get an advertisers coupon for your friends Mavic purchase?!? lol

I don't think there is a fire code for the attic but I'll check as most of the ladder doors have a thin piece of ply. I'll have to make sure to bring the cell when I venture up there after installing my door. lol

Did you get your chores done?? ha ha

Mark

JPEE

Hello Mark,


Thank you for the very kind words about how this old timers kept his manly physique good looks, oh wait a minute...... you didn’t say that that, I guess I am being a bit pretentious on my behalf LOL. Seriously, I do take care of myself and to be quite honest I always pictured being 70 years old being out fitted with a cane or a walker. I am just totally blown away that at 70 I am so active and I don’t mean just doing just carrying a lot of weight like propane bottles out to the truck, still getting up a ladder to the roof of the RV and being so very agile. Another part that others would be jealous of is, I can eat anything I want no restrictions and I hardly gain a pound, we'll save the baby food for the later years LOL.


Yes I stayed right on top of the space X launch thank you and watching those two boosters come in and land right next to each other was just incredible, breathtaking in fact. I remember saying to Judy..... it looks like it was animated because it was so flawless as they landed on the barge or the ground don’t recall.


I hope I’m not being boorish but I got to fly by MD 500 yesterday three packs in a row and yes it’s done and she flies like a dream wide open at 100% throttle and just flying with pitch. A couple of days ago when I went out I was only at 95% head speed and I pushed it up to 100 yesterday and acts the exact same, the 5% mean nothing. I mean I’m flying around at a scale speed and then I Pitch up for a full 12 degrees and she climbs but not real fast for sure with the low heads speed. Yes, it was a delight to fly and then I put one pack through my 600 with a higher head speed of coarse and I flew a little harder which was also just as fun. I got two packs through my Mach 25 racing drone and to be honest I’ve been having trouble tracking it in the sky and I have had put Day-Glo orange props on the front and Day-Glo green on the back which helped a bit at best. The shape of the fuselage all being red is very confusing for me when it’s whizzing by for my orientation. So I buy these sheets of Day-Glo orange and Day Glow green from the hobby shop that are peel and stick. They come 24" x 5" wide and look like a vertical blind if you get my drift. Then I cut off what I want in the shape I want in peel and stick. So that’s exactly what I did on the front of the Mach 25 and put the green decal over the front third of the fuselage. Now I can see it so I was whipping around pretty good. Now the bad news, you might remember I got my new DX9 for my birthday. I bound over my Radian glider from my DX6i to the new DX9. All looked well on the bench everything worked so we got ready to launch. I launched and I had Phil on the transmitter to trim it out for me. We had all flying‘s services level and trimmed "on the bench" but as it took off it started to climb.... he had to push the elevator slider adjustment all the way forward to get the plane to level out. As he came around and started coming back towards us for no apparent reason it went into a death spiral! Just before it hit the ground it pulled out and he got control again and we brought it in and landed safely. We have to assume we had a brown out! Phil no longer uses spectrum receivers.... he uses Hobby King orange receivers on every jet, airplane, helicopter, quad hexa etc. and has never had a brown out. We were not that far out (200 yards) that a brown out should have occurred. Seems reasonable to assume as spectrum is known for that unfortunately which is why I moved over to the AirTronics years ago. But now they are no longer made or repaired I have to start thinking of the future thus the Spectrum. It could’ve been that the BEC in the ESC couldn’t give enough power to keep the receiver powered up for that moment and that’s why there was the brown out. It’s a $230 plane which came close to being scrap. So I’m moving over to the orange receiver and hope that helps. I flew that glider all last season for five months on my DX6i and I never had a problem, not one! That’s said another friend here that has a drone called a Chroma made my Horizon and uses built in Spectrum and he also has a Radian Glider or I should say HAD a Radian which suffered the very same issue second time out in the desert where we Fly but in a different direction on the compass. Then he had death spiral and was nearly totaled his Chroma drone but was salvageable with a lot of epoxie and glue. That happened to him there where we fly and then again miles away. He is flying his drone and then for no reason it took off a bit to the right and strain down and splat, I was there to see this happen twice now. He flies a Spectrum DX6i the model that came after min. I feel confident that with my plane, his plane and his drone all doing the same thing it is a brown out issue.
UPDATE: I have been doing a lot of reading and find this is not unusual for these brown outs. In fact Horizon give you three ways to set up your tx to rx for fail safe for BROWN OUTS in the DX9 manual. In short you can set it if there is a brown out to fly and keep the last input, or you can set it if signal is lost it will have level elevator and a few degrees of rudder so it flies in a large circle until it regains signal and more. Phil just brought me an Orange HK rx and we'll rebind and set that puppy up again. Oh, and Horizon sells a Castle capacitor that goes in line between the ESCs input to the receiver. If low voltage is detected, rather than a brown out the capacitor kicks in for that moment so there is no brown out.
Here is Mach 25 green addition with decals.

evdreamer

Mark,

I got to see the landing of the boosters at work. That was pretty cool.

I started working on my house too. Half of my doors don't shut properly or have a really bad gap around them. I don't know if it was due to settling or bad craftsmanship. I reversed the direction of my pantry door because it was hard to open my door to my furnace. I got the trim off my closet door to rehang that to fix the gap. Then I will fix the gap on my bathroom door this weekend. My kitchen GFCI outlet has been tripping at night and I was having a hard time figuring out what was going on. When I bought the house it was stuck closed and wouldn't trip. I replaced the outlet and thought there might be a screw in the wiring. Then I found out when my bedroom fan is turned on it would trip the kitchen outlet. I have to figure out why that is happening.

John,

That is good your plane didn't crash. I haven't heard about the problems with Spectrum. I always used a receiver battery and a regulator with my bigger heils. Then I had a 5V monitor with my Hitec transmitter to tell when the Voltage was dropping.

I got my motorcycle out a couple of weeks ago. It got up to 50 degrees and the roads cleared up. There were quite a few motorcyclists out enjoying the weather. I was able to bend back my shift lever with a hammer and the help of Youtube.

Nick

JPEE

Nick,
Here is what I have decided on the Spectrum problem. Because she flew fine all last season, in may heart I don’t feel the brown-out was the main issue but rather a bad bind from me with the new transmitter and here’s why. Spectrum gives you three way to bind in preparation for a brown-out. I think not knowing that the receiver and DX9 had that capability when she bound the elevator and rudder were out of center and that was the brown-out recovery position meaning, when she browned out the rudder and elev radically changed their position and locked in causing the drop and spiraling down action we saw.
I have ordered an in-line CC 10 amp bec that will be tied to the battery rather than use the bec from the esc to start with much like you used. Then I will rebind and used the recovery mode of 2-3 degrees of right rudder and level elevator so.........if there is a loss of signal the plain will stay up and circle until the reconnects.

I have been flying my Mach 25 still beginners mode as shown above in a previous post and to be honest I doubt (but I am still aiming to try) I will ever have the eyes with age and bi-focals and wear the Fat Sharks. I do feel confident doing fig 8s and I might put the camera back on and let a friend wear the Fat Sharks while fly around. :-)

Good luck on honing your carpenter skills on your home. There is always so much self appreciation when you take on tasks like that.

You guys take care. JP

evdreamer

I hope everyone is doing well. The snow has finally melted and the temperatures are reaching 60 degrees. I had a great day riding my motorcycle and enjoying the weather. I saw my first McClaren 570 driving home after work yesterday. That made my day and I had a big grin for awhile afterwards.

JPEE

Hello Nick glad to hear all is well at your end! Yes there’s nothing like a nice day being on your bike breeze in your face and then a treat to catch the 570. Look at the price tag on that baby, you better start saving up now.$$$$$$$$$

I just got a great deal from AMain on batteries. They give scratcher’s when they ship and order. So on my last order I got one and scratched it off. It was for 25% off three battery brands and one was GEN-ACE! I am still flying some Gen’s from 2011! Yes they are a bit flat and no 3D but my 600 will get 5-6 min flights before the battery onboard alarm sounds. So anyway I bought 4 new 6S 5000 mah and with the discount, in short it came to my 4th battery was free as was the shipping!!!!!! We are getting ready to go home in a week or two, I really wanted to wait for Black Friday in Nov before I bought new packs, but they never give 25% off even then so I made my move now.

Take care and I am always glad to hear from you and Mark as well.

JPEE

evdreamer

John,

I hope one day that I could be successful and afford a car like that. I have been motivated my successful people on social media recently and have been working harder and investing more aggressively. Hopefully next year I will have the capital to start a couple of side gigs I have been working towards.

That sounds like a great deal on batteries.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi John and Nick,

I haven't been very active as this past few months have been difficult - I lost my mother last month to difficulties from cancer.

Just need some time to recover...

Take care guys,

Mark

JPEE

evdreamer

Mark,

I am sorry to hear about the passing of your mom.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi John and Nick,

I wanted to express my thanks to both of you for the condolences. It has been difficult, but things get better with time.

We invited my dad to stay with us for a week. It was a nice visit and helped all of us. We even had a chance to go to the Kennedy Space Center. He is thinking of another trip sometime in July which we're looking forward to.

Just wanted to give an update.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Mark

JPEE

Hello Mark, I hadn't heard from you in sometime with a Forum referral so I logged in and there you are. We hope that life is coming around and things are getting easier for everyone in your family. That must have been wonderful to have your Dad come stay for a week and spend time to and share memories, not to mention...................for him to spoil his grandson! Ok then lets keep this light............. Sometimes fly on Saturday morning up at the Dam with4 other guys that fly the hand launched carbon fiber gliders that no motors, thy are just so feather light the smallest of a thermal and up they go! Well, I have been taking my monster Radian glider up and I do ok, but shes big. The other place they fly is up on the ridge above Jasons house (my Ca. fly buddy). There they just let go of the plane and off she goes. Last year I fly my Bixler with them but it was tuff to land on top of that ridge because it is narrow, make a mistake and it hike down the side of the hill with Rattlers! So that Bixler is so heavy with hot glue repairs LOL I just order another one with FLAPS so I can slow her down and have more control. It should arrive tomorrow! Shot of that just been working around house and looking towards AZ time with the gang in a few months. My grandson is turning 17 next month and carries straight A's and is team capt of his track team, he is good boy. We just bought a new car so we are giving him out 2006 Ford Fusion with a whopping 71,000 miles! That should run him for many years to finish high school and on to the community college.

We hope to hear more from you when your up to it.

JPEE

evdreamer

Mark,

That is good to hear you enjoyed your visit with your dad.

John,

Hopefully you are enjoying the new Bixler.

That is nice of you to give your Ford to your grandson. I got my parents old Impala in high school and that way I could focus on saving for college and invest the left overs.

I have been busy at work with my first major project. My house has turned into a major financial nightmare. I don't feel like explaining it here.

Nick

JPEE

JPEE

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Nick - I wish you well with your first major project at your job. And I'm sorry to hear of your house issues. I hope you find a solution to your problem soon and it doesn't cause you too much grief.

JPEE - I am still here, I think the time helped.

Your new bed slider is very nice and should come in handy when you are moving all of your equipment. BTW, that was very kind gesture to your grandson and I'm sure he'll be very appreciative of it. Are you taking any of your gliders to AZ with you? Your video of the dam was interesting, it seems like a nice quiet place to fly.

Mark