clovus

MC, Don't risk ruining the motor. I'd pull it apart and see what you can do.

clovus

Crawf_

Hi guys

Anyone know whether a particular LiPo could cause a radio glitch? Today at lunchtime I maidened the AcroMaster and I'll post the whole story later (very successful!) but the first batt I used was one I bought on the weekend - a Power Plus 3s1p 3000mAh unit... had about 4 or 5 glitches in the space of 15 minutes flying time.... first time it happened I brought it in and checked everything... made sure the Rx was away from the ESC and motor etc... but it happened a couple more times (I took a chance and kept flying... just didn't let it get too high or far away) when that battery was finished I flew again twice - each time with my old LiPos - 2200 mAh units and there were no noticable glitches... could just be co-incidence and maybe there was something in the area when I flew the first pack which wasn't there for the last 2 packs...

Any thoughts or things I could check before the next flights?

Crawf, out...

inflex

Most probably coincidence... -however- it's possible that perhaps your lipo's voltage is dropping too low and causing issues... how was the flight /performance/ compared to your 'good' packs?

digitalimages

Crawf

Wouldn't have anything to do with the pack not having a balancing lead would it ? I mean one cell being low, or hwoever they go.

Cheers

clovus

Machette,

What happened with the XF? How'd you go? I just fibreglassed the firewall on mine last night ready for my BL motor again. Should fly better now. With full throttle it was twisting and distorting.

Got 3 flights on the mini pulse xt yesterday - before and after work and a quick lunch time flight. Had two already today as well.... I love autumn weather..... If I finish early I'll try this afternoon again.

I'm after a new charger that can handle 4s and maybe 5s lipos. Any ideas?

clovus

maiden-crash

Hi clovus, the swallow advance and swallow 2 can both handle 1-5 cell lipo's, and they got a bunch of other features, only difference between the two is you can plug the swallow 2 into a wall outlet.

Regarding the motor, I tried pulling the thing apart but it wont budge (the grub screws are out.) Any ideas? And is there a way to replace the tiny magnet bit that broke, or do I just take the broken part out? Thanks.

tam popo

Hiya guys - just placed £130 order for motors, servos, esc etc for Strykers from Robotbirds of London - great service!! I had everything researched on motors but the guy advised against my choice and suggested Hyperion O/runner instead (2500Krpm etc), £5 dearer but he was right - near vert climb rate and will even fly with NimH as back-up. Its advice like that I was looking for. I feel great, but I know some bar steward will spoil my day[]

Crawf_

Hi all,

It turns out that a friend of mine had taken some video of me flying my Ultrafly Extra 300S on the morning of the final terminal crash.... she sure was a nice bird... Er.. the plane, not my friend... [:@]

Enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL_CpTrxKbk

Crawf, out...

Crawf_

If anyone is interested in seeing my build pics for the AcroMaster, here's a link to my Flickr photos.....

http://flickr.com/photos/crawfs/sets/72157600163895367/

Crawf, out...

goopy

Aw, she looked to fly pretty well - a damn sight straighter than my battered XF anyhow! A shame Crawf [:'(] but I look forward to reading how you go with the Acro I'm in the market you see.............. [sm=50_50.gif]

PS, trimmed about 5mm off of the prop-shaft and voila! no more bad vibrations. Going down the coast tomorrow, I'll see if I can get some piccies or video.

Crawf_

Maiden flight - Multiplex AcroMaster

Based on lessons learned from the UF Extra, everything was double and triple checked before take off. Slight breeze, maybe 6 to 10 kts from the south.
Servo travel and expo were "dumbed down" as much as possible. Still not used to anything other than hand launches so the ROG is always scary but also cool.... taxying is pretty easy thanks to the tail wheel linked to the rudder.... the grass at my field is not smooth but is fairly short so the AM lept into the air at about 70% throttle and 30% up elevator.....after that usual *** maiden knot in your stomach, I started to get the feel for her.... as per prev post, I did experience some kind of glitch or interference after about 2 minutes of flight so I brought her down to check for any problems. landing was nice and slow and smooth... no damage (whew!)

Nothing obvious so I just moved the Rx as far away from the motor and ESC as physically possible and made sure that no wires were lying across the Rx antenna wire... BTW I am running a base loaded antenna mounted to the bottom of the fuse.... has worked flawlessly in the slinger prior to this... took off- same as before, literally leaps into the air..then cut the throttle back to about 40 to 50% still had a few more glitches so I kept her pretty close .... did mainly slowish circiuits just to get the feel of things.... eventually had to bring her in again as the hi/lo tone from the motor told me that the batt was about to run out.... this time the landing was a little hot and the LG ripped clean out of the bottom of the fuse. Other than this there was no damage - prop still OK...

I had brought some medium CA and kicker with me so the LG was re-attached within 3 minutes - just enough time to change batts and take off again. First flight was with the new 3000mAh LiPo and the next couple would be with 3s1P 2200mAh units. the 3000mAh incidentally is about 20% heavier than the 2200mAh.

Interestingly I experience no further glitches.... although having said that, the motor is pretty quiet and at this point I started to get more adventurous and flew farther and higher than eariler... this thing handles beautifully....very similar to the Extra... had minor issue re CoG after changing from the 3000mAh to the 2200mAh batt but still easily managable...

Landed OK at end of battery

Not too happy with the wheel pants - in fact I took my pants off.... hehe.. wheel pants... so it'll be interesting to compare results later.

Crawf, out...

digitalimages

Crawf

Very comprehensive photo set there ! Looks like a nice plane.

Glad it flew OK for you - can see what you mean about the wheel pants !

Cheers

clovus

Goopy,

Sounds like you need a visit to the Casa Del Clovus and see if any of the shiny trinkets I have take your fancy. I've got a few kits in waiting, but my rate of spectacular but fatal crashes has diminished somewhat, so it looks like it will be a while before they're brought into duty. Gissus a call to discuss the finer details if you want.

clovus

edit: You're welcome to fly the mini pulse XT, its a sweet, sweet thing! But beware, you'll definately want one after flying mine. Its the XF but more. More of everything. More precise, more accurate, way faster, glides better, inverted, knife edge.....lovely!

goopy

You had me at "shiny trinkets"! I'm away for a couple of days, but totally free all weekend.... I'll give you a call.

Crawf_

I think I may have discovered the cause of the "glitches" .

I had another 3 successful flights on the AcroMaster before work this morning and encountered a couple of glitches again... on a different LiPo this time, one of my older ones (2200mAh).

Still kept flying but kept a close eye on it....

Inspected it when I got home and noticed that I had accidentally used the 30A ESC instead of the 40A one...
I charged the LiPo for 15 minutes to 11.0V )and then put the power meter on and at WOT it showed 32 A and 320 Watts... it also seemed to have much more grunt than on the other ESC although this could be my imagination.....

So I plan to run the tests again tonight after work with both the 30A and 40A ESCs and compare the results....

Crawf, out...

inflex

Hey everyone.... got a nice parcel today, full of lipos

Got some real monsters in too, 6S2200-15C ... lots of power there, 735W+ ...Sadly I've sold out of them already and can't play with them myself (see, this is why being an R/C store is bad!)

Hey Ozrc... I got in a pair of 2S1300-15C's for you if you want one for the heli...

Paul.

ozrcboy

Paul,

Hopefully you saw my email off list.

Everyone else:

You may recall a mate flew my old (his new) Electrafun into a tree where it became stuck. Although I checked on the tree every couple of days, one day I turned up and the plane was gone without a trace. My friend stuck a note up on the tree explaining he had lost the plane, please call this number etc. A day or two later, someone called him up to give him his plane back. That's all it took - the person just needed to know how to get in contact with him.

Oz.

inflex

Probably chewing around in the greylists at the moment, should get it in ~10 minutes time.

It's probably not a bad idea to put your contact number or email address onto your planes. Good idea to post up the 'lost' notice, perhaps we should carry one for each plane we have "just incase"

Paul.

ozrcboy

Greylisting - that's so 2005. We still have it on our email scanning server but I found its effectiveness plummeted in 2006. Still I know this is what you do by trade so I doubt there is much I can tell you about it.

inflex

Ozrcboy,

Simple delay-based greylisting + automated white/black listing seems to work quite well here, went from ~60,000/wk down to 4,000/wk, though that number is rising again as spammers setup 'proper' email servers rather than using shotgun systems. For the most part I'm finding that GL + RBL's can help a lot of easing the backend load. Solutions like SpamAssassin and other 'content sensitive' type filters are more and more landing in my bad books due to high CPU overheads and excessive maintainance requirements. What'd be nice is a brand new mail protocol . In the end, it's all a never ending game isn't it.

... meh, I shouldn't be bothering to explain anything as I know you already know too *laugh*

Paul.

Crawf_

Oz,

Did I miss something?
What led up to this post?

Crawf, out...

digitalimages

Crawf,

think you may have been in Adelaide when that happened.

I emailed you re the DX6

Cheers

tam popo

Greyling? Is that a new colour of pigeon post like we have here - progress eh! Whatever happened to snailmail!!
________________________________________
Truth - 30 years ago I saw a programme called Tomorrows World where they forecast the "paperless office" to come soon - still waiting![&o] My clain to fame is I was the first person in UK to operate a works computer for Times newspaper. No Screen, just punched tickertape you had to read "holes"
_______________________________________
New Hyperion motors just arrived - half physical size of stock F27b but 3 times power output. Yum yum. The dark side beckons Luke[8D] Had to have re-think on Predator when Tx left on in living room and fuse shot across room, breaking motor mount. Wife scared shoeless!! So now imagine - its an ME262 fuse and tail section, a large foam wing (336 sq in area!!), 480 motor and lipos - calling it Frankie Stein Byee, building to do!!

ozrcboy

They say necessity is the mother of invention and this morning I've shown it to be true. After a restless night I got up to a brilliant flying moring and went to collect my TX which had been charging overnight. As I went to grab it I realised what I was restless about (probably) - I plugged the tX into its charge pack, but didn't plug the charge pack into the wall - crap - there was no time for a 60mAh trickle charge.

I took the TX battery (dead flat) out to the tool box and started flicking through my plugs - Dean's obivously doesn't work, JST is wrong, LiPo balancing plug - good fit. I'm all thumbs as I strip wires and solder it all together. I finished solder 2minutes ago and the tx battery is now on a 1.2A charge from the Swallow.

So - a male 3 cell (4pin) LiPo balancing charge plug will perfect accomodate the little JR TX battery in the middle two pins - cheap way to make yourself up a lead for your swallow - I'm going flying - see yas

Oz

dabvid

hey guys regarding the swallow charger i worked out that the stock ef charger charges at aroung 1.8 amps because it charges 600mah in 20-25 minutes. what rate do you guys thiunk it is safe to charge the nicads and nimhs at. also will it work if i get a new esc and put on a 3 cell lipo but dont push full throttle at all, and if so how long will the battery last.
regards,
dave