Barryorbik

Looks as though Erfolg has lol!

This is a picture of a trainer that my mate Barrie Gilbert (on the left in the photo) designed and made for me to prctice my fixed wing on. It had its very successful maiden last Tuesday. The project started as a wing from some long lost/forgotten model that had been languishing in Barries loft for years. Then I gave him a foam FMS Cessna 182 cowl which he designed the fuselage to fit. Wing area/stabilizer and tail area and moment dimensions were taken from a Wilga 2000 foamie that I have. It uses a 3S 2000mAh pack (because I have lots of them from my 450 helicopter fleet) and a 25A Align helicopter ESC and an unknow brand of outrunner motor of approximately 3kV, driving an 8 x 4 electric prop. It is not quick to take off, but it does get a move on once airborne and handled the breezy conditions very well on Tuesday. Have fun.

I know your embarrasment Dave. My poor SKYARTEC Cessna 182 had to survive 8 years of rough and tumble in the garage before I got around to flying it. By the time of its maiden it had already had the tail fin repaired twice, the engine cowl had been cracked and repaired, one flap was broken in half along with the elevator. I recently joined a predominately fixed wing club (having been flying helicopters for 10 years), but when I took the Cessna for its maiden/ it looked a real mess compared to all the other prestine wooden and foam models on display. Somewhat amazingly it flew brilliantly, but I still feel more than a little embarrasment when assembling it before carry it to the flight line. I did consider covering it in solarfilm etc, but decided instead that could effect its flyability, so I to just fly it like I stole it and when it finally meets its (inevitable) end, it will be replaced with another foamie that will hopefully get a less hanger and transport rash. Have fun.

Steve made the mistake of referring to the bellcrank as operating the Ailerons too - not the Elevator. Apart from that it was easy watching but I'll bet it will not be flight tested as the undercarriage looked very flimsy, and the plastic airframe must be brittle too. I had a Wenmac plastic control line model back in the day, but it was far too heavy to fly properly and needed a smooth tarmac play ground to have enough ground speed to even lift off !

Ian, I have been flying helicopters for too many years to remember and have flown all sizes from the Blade micro's up to a Trex 800, but I still prefer the 550 (old 30 class) size, as they are more convenient to carry around etc and have much lower 'running' costs, but unless you are performing extreme 3D manouvers do not loose any flying ability over their bigger brothers. Obviously there are many makes and styles of 550/600 helicopters around, so your flying preference will be well catered for. As for 'selling up', you will most probably find that you return on investment will be extremely poor. Currently the Trex 500x combo kit with digital servo's, a decent motor and esc, and its flybarless controller (less batteries) is on sale at £855.00, but I doubt a newly built unflown for sale on the BMFA or E bay would fetch more than £500.00, so second hand used one would be nearer the £250.00 mark. As with everything you pay your money and make your choice, but I would suggest you find someone who is willing to let you fly their 700+ sized helicopter before you finally commit, as I am sure we have always longed for something bigger or better then regretted buying it later. Barry

Erfolg, Sounds as though you are almost ready to print the puppy dog off the Micro SD card that came with the printer. Unfortunately many people have had problems with the Netac Micro SD card that is supplied suddenly crashing and upsetting the machines firmware, so I would suggest using it to get the machine set up initally (it has the machines firmware on it plus a couple of test prints). Then get a 16mB - 32mB from a reputable maker, e.g. SanDisk etc, to store your sliced designs on. Get one with the adapter to make the Micro SD card into a standard sized one, so you can use it in the standard SD card slot in your main PC or Laptop. Most important step is making sure everything moves freely in the X,Y and Z directions without binding or slop, then set about levelling the bed (warm it up to 60C first) using a piece of printer paper. Have fun. Barry

As with adopting any 'new' technology or machine there is a fairly steep learning curve. I had an Ender 3 Pro for my Birthday in February and after carefully building it up it worked straight out of the box just like Johns. I have since spent about £35.00 upgrading the original machine by changing the bed levelling springs to silicon rubber blocks, fitting a dual drive gear extruder, that is better with rubbery filaments lite TPU or TPE, and better Capricorn filament guide tube and glands. The 3D design programme that I use is Tinkercad which is pretty intuitive, and the slicer programme I use is Cura. For lots of ideas Thingiverse has loads of items aready to download and print. It has certainly kept my little grey cells going during this lockdown and gives another outlet for creativity. Barry

Charles, Why not drop a line to Dave Fisher, of 'flying fish flying school' fame. He is a very experienced F3C and F3N helicopter pilot and is always a really helpful guy, but I would have thought a 700 Goblin with a lower headspeed would do it easily. On my Mini Titan (450) I just did loads of practice first with the normal -100% -0- +100% pitch curve on mine (giving -12 to +12 of blade pitch), but with a 75% head speed to 'soften' things down a little, however, if it is windy on the day of your test, up the head speed a little (10%-15%) to compensate. Barry

Thanks Gary, will take a look now, then hopefully happy days!

I bought one a couple of mpnths ago from HK, to upgrade the original one on one of my 450 sized helocopters, but the programming card was on back order and still is!!) so all I was able to programme without the card was the throttle range. So far (in a very limited number of flights) it has been reliable and seems to run pretty cool, but I would love to be able to set up the slow start functions etc.

"Have you eaten Grandma" by Gyles Brandreth is a good book to read if you have any doubts about punctuation or good grammar. I am never perfect, but some of the gaffs you see on forums etc. are classics. Barry

Simon, Sorry, just had another look at your photograph and it does look like Orange so it's a x3 multiplier giving a value of 27K.

The resistor colours appear to indicate its value as 270K Ohms so your meter should read something close to this value (when the resistor is disconnected from the circuit) and its probably rated at 1 Watt, but it is hard to tell the body size from the picture. Barry

Trevor, be careful not to spray it onto printed circuit boards though, as it will be absorbed by the fibres and results in internal short circuits in tghe PCB. A friend sprayed his new and very expensive Futaba transmitter board, thinking it would help protect it in inclement weather condition, but it actually destroyed his transmitter.

I was amazed that they did not use top quality control gear in it - if it was going to be worth that much !! I saw it on Quest (CH12) last night.

I just purchased two 3S 2200 30C Turnigy (blue) packs from HK, and as a normal procedure I check their ESR on receipt with a Wayne ESR meter, and these are the first packs I have ever had where all of the cells in each pack were perfectly matched. Normally one cell in a pack has a higher ESR than its pack mates, which limits the overall C rating of the pack. Often a 40Crated pack will end up with an actual ESR value of 25C or less, but these calculated out at 29C. Their performance in a 450 helicopter last weekend in strong winds proved they were excellent packs. Barry

I have seen and increase in their delivery speed of late too, which seems to be linked to them charging postage now. Barry

Malcolm, I have been flying, crashing and repairing helicoptersfor over 10 years and the main reasons for bad vibes are a bent main shaft, bent feathering shaft or if it is flybarred, a bent flybar or non centred paddles. Then you can add on out of balance main blades, bad tracking main blades or tail blades or any of the bearings associated with the head and mainshaft. The best advice I can give to anyone starting out in helicopters is to find a local club with a helicopter expert to check it over for you, as these are difficult enough beasts to master and it is made much more difficult (and expensive!) if you are learning on the job, but well worth the effort when you finally do. Barry

Nice to see someone else with a Mini Titan DD. My three are all converted to flybarless now with mini V Bars and Align FBL heads, and they fly so much better than when they had flybars on. Main advantages of the change are increased flying times resulting from lower head drag, and more flight accuracy and response as the FBL heads have less parts and therefore less slack in the head control components. The little MCPx's are great fun to fly the garden, but sadly I made a big mistake as I failed to get any new batteries for mine at Weston Park last year, so my flight times now are less than two minutes before they BEC out!! Stay safe and keep enjoying rediscovering the thrills and inevitable spills of helicopter flying. Barry

Well done Dwain at it all helps to keep the boredom at bay. My helicoter fleet have undergone extensive maintenance (much needed with the two hacks!) since this virus stopped us flying the things. Hopefully with my two weekly schedule of discharging my battery packs to 50%, then recharging them fully, before discharging again to their storage voltage, the batteries wil survive this prolong period of inactivity too!. As Captain Ted says "tomorrow will be a better day" but lets hope this weather lasts until we are let out again. Barry

Hi Cliff Looks great fun but have you got any details of the pole you used and the bearing/attachment arrangements. Barry

I received a plastic bagged package from Banggood today and it smelt of disinfectant, so maybe our customs or theirs are decomtaminating parcels too - just in case!! Barry

Carlos, As the throttle potentiometer responded to switch cleaner my suggestion would be to dismantle your transmitter again and put a few drops only of 'genuine' 3 in 1 oil into the potentiometer. That will help stop the silvered elements within the potentiometer oxidizing again. Long term a replacement potentiometer/gimbal is the safest option as a helicopter with the blades spinning uncontrollably is not fun!! Definately set the throttle cut to 0 as even a low throttle setting will cause lots of destruction if mother earth intervenes in your flight plans. Barry

Not tried it myself but a few of the even older members at our club swear by diesel fuel (the sort you put in your car not the free flight stuff!) for freeing badly stuck piston rings. Apparently you may have to leave the piston in the stuff for a few days but it is supposed to clean the gum or oil off really well. Might be wrth a try. Barry

We live in an all electric powered house and theoretically all the energy goes in the storage heating system but I am always confused about the amount of steam coming out of the vents of gas powered systems. Surely that steam contains heat that could be recouped via a condenser system and fed back into the system to improve its efficiency? Barry