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Barryorbik

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Everything posted by Barryorbik

  1. Its a good idea to never run these 'oriental' irons and heat guns at full output as they are only rated at 220V AC and we are (nominally) still at 240V AC, so the elements will have a very short life if over run. I set mine to 3/4 max output and they then last a reasonable time. Secret to soldering success is a clean, well tinned soldering iron bit, clean component and wire connections, and a decent rosin based flux paste to prevent oxidation. Barry
  2. I had the skin cancer on my leg removed this morning in a 45 minute fairly painless procedure, and just have to wait up to 4 weeks now to find out if it was a bad one. The most painful part was having to pay out almost £5.00 to park in the hospital car park for an hour!! Hope all goes well for you Martian, and remember guys, if anything seems a bit odd get it checked out quickly. Barry
  3. I was called for my AAA test couple of years ago - and apparently I had the internal body structure of a 20 year old (pity I had to give it back!!), but trying to get a PSA test was a totally different matter. I too go for the annual well man tests at our doctors, which are carried out by a practice nurse, and they cover diabetes, blood pressure and BMI - but not PSA!! I have to take up a doctors precious time for this test, which seems a total waste of resources, as surely the practice nurse has the required skill to take a blood sample. Now a small spot of what was dry skin on my lilly white leg decided to erupt into an angry bright red spot a month ago, which then formed a hard crust with a red ring around its perimiter. Fortunately my well man check up was at this time, so I showed the eruption to the practice nurse who said it did not look like anything serious, but it might be prudent to have a doctor check it out. The doctor checked it and said he did not think it was anytghing to worry about but put me on the cancer pathway with a referal to the hospital. After a wait of two weeks I now find I have skin cancer!! ,so am now awaiting an operation to remove the appendage, but during the check the consultant also found a number of dry patches on my forehead and temples, which fortunately are pre-cancerous, so a cream has been prescribed to deal with these. As I am very light skinned I have always tried to limit my time in the sun, word indoors throughout my working life, and wear my Tilley, and factor 60 sun cream, even on cold overcast days, and never wear shorts etc, except in the gym or swimming pool. I have suffered sun burn (through my lighter clothes) on a couple of occassions, but have never had a su tan or been on a sun bed in my 68 years on this earth, provingskin damage can happen to even the most careful people. Oh the joys of getting old!! Hope you all have 100% success in getting your tests and subsequent treatments. Barry
  4. Just read that Mr T has grounded all 737 8's and 9's in the USA. Barry
  5. Just a quick observation Denis, if he only uses one series current limiting resistor then would need all of the LED's on to calculate its value from (Voltage to be dropped/ total LED current), but if only a couple are then turned on, the resistor value would need to be different. I suspect like you that the control unit already has the current limiting resistors for each LED built in Barry
  6. Another important point Gary is that the manufacturers normally recommend not bending the legs too close (3mm away minimum) as it can break the seal to the LED, or in the worse case the wires may snap off, as these days they are made of steel, which is not as malleable as older copper ones. Barry
  7. The resistor can be fitted anywhere in the LED leads and is not polarity conscious, but do you know the value and Wattage of the resistor you need? To work this out you would need to know the LED voltage and current. If you post the supply voltage and the LED ratings on here, I am sure some kind person will calculate the resistor value and Wattage rating for you. Barry
  8. Nigel, The adhesive lined heatshrink is the one I use for motor/esc and battery connections as it is the rubbery type, and although slightly thicker once shrunk, the internal glue gives extra protection, and provides a watertight seal around the joint as well. Barry
  9. Keeps the hovercraft fanceirs happy too Piers !!
  10. David, Have a look at E Bay, item number 122976395367 which is for two 1 Hz flasher IC's which need no external components and all for £2.09 inc p&p. Barry
  11. Electrolube switch cleaner should remove the oxidation but then it is a good idea to smear the contacts to prevent future oxidation with vaseline or (genuine) 3:1 oil, as it has an oxidation inhibitor . The switch contacts are on a printed circuit board and I once tried to repair a JR transmitter that had WD40 sprayed into it but it had penetrated into the circuit board and made it conductive, so the transmitter was a write off. If all this fails a new switch is the only option. Barry
  12. When the existing ESC cable lengths are insufficient, it is always better to extend the power input wires and keep the three motor wires as short as possible. The reasoning behind this is that extending the power input wires will, through losses in the extension cables, introduce additional resistance into the circuit, resulting in a slight reduction in the voltage and current available to the ESC but with 'reasonable' cable lengths and use of suitable cross-section extension cables, these can be made pretty insignificant. The three motor wires provide high frequency pulses to the motor windings and extending these could lead to increased electrical noise in the aircraft and in extreme cases, the additional inter-cable capacitance and resistance caused by the extended leads can cause motor timing or other issues. I hope this helps some but if you keep the power input wires to the ESC below 300mm you should be OK but always try to keep all of the ESC wires away from other internal wiring, to reduce the chance of introducing radiated electrical interference into the other systems within the aircraft. Barry
  13. Saw a new one on the Weston park swap meet for £15.00 which I thought was a bit of a cheek. Barry
  14. I use www.myweather2.com and select the nearest golf course to the flying field and it gives you hourly forecasts of the temperature and the feels like temperature(wind chill), wind direction, average speed and gusts, cloud cover, rain fall amount and I find it much more accurate and relevant than the BBC's efforts. Barry
  15. Good job you only did that on the black and white TV's Geoff,as the colour TV CRT's used three guns and had 25kV DC on their final anode. Never risked it myself but apparently there was sufficient energy available there to kill a fully grown bull !! Barry - retired but still alive TV engineer!
  16. One other thing BEB is it might be useful to increase your initial expo on the cyclic functions (Elevator and Aileron) to around 40% initially (unless you have the reaction times of a Ninja that is!). This will help to soften the area around hovering which is a skill you need to develop quickly as it is used primarily during landing. As an example one of our clubs 3D heli Gods uses 60% cyclic expo on all his helicopters and most of his flying time is spent performing tricks and trimming the grass, whereas, I only do loops and rolls and general thrashing around and have 35% on mine. Hope this helps. Barry
  17. Hi BEB, I have not programmed a Taranis tx but it is the general rule not to put any expo on the rudder when using a FBL unit, as it needs 'solid' linear inputs or you may find the tail constantly drifts or feels very loose. Other than that your initial settings look OK but if you ask ten helicopter pilots for their set up, the chances are every one will be different. Have fun. Barry
  18. This seems like a good weekend to return to the build BEB - with the mini Beast from the East upon us and glad you have not had to remove that Jesus bolt!! Barry
  19. Even less intelligent life on earth now! Barry
  20. BEB, Sorry to be the (potential) bearer of bad news but if you have a conventional swash leveller tool the head is the last thing you fit, as the leveller slides down the main shaft and rests on the swash plate. My normal method of assembly is put together everything (the frames, tail, install the motor fit and skids etc), so you have an almost complete helicopter but without the head, then fit the servo's, ESC and G Pro but do not connect the servo's to the G Pro yet. Connect the three swash servos to your servo tester and set them to their (theoretical) mid travel point. Fit the servo arms and then the servo to swash plate links, initially adjusted to the lengths shown in the manual. An important point here is the plastic link ends have an 'A' moulded into one side and this must always be on the side away from the swash arm as the ball links have a biased and if fitted the wrong way round they can fail or come of in flight, which makes things very interesting and some time messy! Then connect the swash servo's to the G Pro (remove the leads to or uncouple the motor first) power up the G Pro and start to program it to set up the manual "0" degree swash position and this is when you (ideally) make any minor adjustments to the servo to swash links to get the swash plate level. You may need to use a very small amount of servo sub trim in the transmitter to get it absolutely level, remove the leveller and then fit the head and main blades with the motor still disconnected. You then programme the G Pro to give you the collective pitch and cyclic deflections suggested in the manual. Have fun but it is a very steep learning curve which will tax your concentration and flying skills but should give you back that rush that comes from achieving a new skill. One final comment is "a happy helicopter is one that does NOT wag its tail" Barry
  21. The next issue though BEB is that all the 'wings' rotate at high speed, so carefully balancing the blades, including those tail blades, will help reduce the vibrations which can so badly effect the stabilization unit if excessive. Like yourself, I thoroughly enjoy building helicopters because the engineering quality is normally high and the fit and intricacy of the build, plus the setting up and in flight tuning just make the hours/days fly by. A well built and set up helicopter is still a lot more of a challenge to fly than most fixed wing aircraft but the rewards repay the effort spent. Have fun and keep up the good work. Barry
  22. Devcon 1 a slight correction as the Jesus bolt is actually the one which holds the main rotor head block to the main shaft and if you have a look on Youtube and search for "Jesus Bolt Helicopter" there is a video of an American guy who either forgot to put his Jesus bolt in or it fails on hos Raptor 50 - its with amusing but the outcome could have been very serious. Barry
  23. Hi BEB, Not sure what it suggests in you transmitter manual but its a really good idea to make sure you set up a motor throttle cut to zero and I would suggest you move the motor out of mesh with the main gear whilst setting up the G Pro, as having the main blades unexpectedly spin up to 3,000 rpm and the tail rotors at four times that can cause serious injuries. Hardest thing with helicopters is getting the tail to feel right and most of the experienced helicopter fliers at our club with Trex 470's have ditched the G Pro for Vortex or Beast X FBL's, as they failed to get the tail right with the G Pros. Enjoy the challenge. Barry
  24. Rob, Maybe one of those battery powered multi tools would do the nose hair and any others that need trimming while your at it ! Their male model looks a bit hairy, so I'll bet he uses one! Barry
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