Tim Kearsley

Just like to say thank you to @Geoff S for the pictures and description - earlier in the thread - of changing the RTC battery on the Horus - very useful! I've just replaced mine, after getting warnings at startup, and it is indeed a bit fiddly. I managed to chip off a small piece of the plastic surround of the battery holder (it was very brittle) in my ham-fisted attempts to free the old battery but it seems to hold the new battery OK still. I reckon the battery had lasted about 2.5 years, as others have said.

One thing I'm finding a bit odd is that with the battery (3S, 2200mAh) in the position shown, quite well back, I'm still needing to add 20g of weight at the tail to achieve a hang angle of 16 degrees. Does that sound a bit off?

My apologies, there is indeed an assembly doc with the Razer head, which I'd mislaid! Panic over.

Thanks Rich. No, there was no doc in with the Razer head. A couple of pics would be perfect. 👍

I thought I'd better post a pic of progress to date. I still have to install the motor but it's getting there. Apologies for the complete lack of originality on colour scheme but they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

Sorry guys, one more numpty question! I've balanced the rotor blades using Chris's excellent YouTube video. When it comes to mounting the head what order do things fit in? There's the cap-head bolt, Nyloc nut and a half-nut. How are these used in fitting to the head? Is it Nyloc nut first, then half-nut and the remaining thread screws into the head or vice-versa or the half-nut under the head? Thank you.

"What doe sit indicate to me, that the claimed ranges are all over estimated, by a margin." We seem to go over the same point again and again and again ad nauseum. All the quoted ranges (for EVs) or mpg (for ICE vehicles) are overstated, usually substantially. The WLTP is essentially a lab-derived value, intended mainly as a comparison between vehicles, not as a measure of real-world range or consumption.

Thanks very much Rich. I understand the general principles of adding weight to the lighter blade (thanks to your original article in RCM&E). It was just the magnitude of the weight I need to add which bothered me! I wasn't sure if adding PVA would be enough. Many thanks again.

Well, my Revolver build has been going well. The fuselage is built and covered and only the closed-loop rudder connections remain to be done. So I thought I'd make the rotor blades. I thought that too had gone well until I weighed them! Two of the blades are within a gram of each other. The third is..... over 5 grams lighter!! I'm bemused, to say the least. I can think of two possibilities: 1) I've not sanded a consistent profile, though I pasted templates on each end of each blade and thought I'd followed them reasonably accurately. 2) The balsa is of a lighter grade in the lighter blade. I'm building from the Sarik short kit and I must hold up my hand and say that I forgot to weigh the supplied 6mm balsa to check for consistency. Any thoughts how to proceed? Thanks.

The website mediabiasfactcheck.com summarises The Daily Sceptic thus: "Overall, we rate the Daily Sceptic a far-right biased quackery level pseudoscience website that frequently publishes false and misleading information regarding covid-19 and science in general." Full article here.

The Daily Sceptic? Really? I read science articles not the ramblings of a right-wing, anti-vax conspiracy theorist. If rather have hot needles stuck in my eyeballs than have that rubbish pop up in my inbox.

It's those that challenge those obvious truths that have the political or financial motives, or are unable to understand fairly basic science.

Thanks chaps, as always, much appreciated.

Sorry guys, one more question - I'm new to working with Depron. The hinges for the rudder on the Revolver (mylar I presume?) - what adhesive do you use for fixing them? Does thin cyano dissolve Depron? I know UHU Por is one of the recommended adhesives for foam but it's a contact adhesive I believe, so not suitable for wicking into a furry hinge?

I also built the Brian Taylor Cessna 120, from the Sarik short kit. My model is based on a real aircraft, which was owned by a friend of a clubmate. A few pics attached.

Yep, history will probably call them the Climate Wars.

"I have thought that many are just opposed to so called Big Oil, Big Pharma, without understanding the potential consequences of them not existing now or in the past." More to the point, what are the consequences of them carrying on as they are now? It seems to me there are a huge number of people who are either not capable of, or unwilling to, realise that carrying on putting carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse bases into the atmosphere poses an existential threat to humanity, i.e. a threat to society existing at all. I think there's a global pandemic of ostrich-itis, i.e. head in the sand syndrome. Politicians have no interest in anything beyond the next election, big industry is only interested in profit. Western society is completely unsustainable but there's no appetite to make the massive changes that are necessary. After all, why have any concern for the world our grandchildren will inhabit when doing anything about it might entail inconvenience - one less foreign holiday a year or eating less meat?

"It gets around the future ban on pure ICE vehicles." I'm sure you've hit the nail on the head there Shaun. Sounds like the real reason for such stupidity.

That's just about the daftest idea I've ever heard of! If you're going to have all the pollution and emissions of an IC engine than just use it to drive the wheels for goodness sake, not add another layer of inefficiency by using it power a generator!! Someone at Nissan needs a psych evaluation.....

I don't think there's any surprise in finding that real-world range is substantially less than WLTP range. I guess the same is true of petrol and diesel vehicles. The real problem with all these quoted ranges is that there are just so many variables that affect range that meaningful comparisons are next to impossible. My Tesla Model 3 Performance, over the life of the car (3.5 years and 16,149 miles) has achieved 281 Watt-hours per mile, or 3.56 miles/kWh. The battery is nominally 75kWh, so simple arithmetic gives a range of 267 miles. But that depends on weather, driving style, the topography of the route etc, etc. I suppose WLTP has the advantage that, because the parameters of the testing are very specific and controlled, the quoted ranges are comparable between vehicles. But it's a mistake to think anything close to the WLTP range will be achieved in real life.

All the best Matty, you've made a huge contribution to this forum in the past and no doubt you will continue to do so. Here's to a speedy recovery.

Thanks Rich. I'm thinking a magnet at the front with a peg to ensure alignment.

How are Revolver builders securing the canopy? I've installed two button magnets at the rear but unsure what to do at the front. Another magnet(s) or some sort of locating peg? Thanks.

It's just getting silly isn't it? If you do the maths, getting to 60mph in 1 sec is about 2.7g. Why would you want to expose yourself to that unless in a race, on a track? Such "cars" have no place on public roads. As I said earlier in the thread though, any time-lines quoted by Musk have no credibility so I wouldn't be holding my breath for this one!

Got you. I seem to remember from reading about it a while ago that it uses compressed air "rockets" to achieve that sort of acceleration as it's pretty nigh impossible to achieve sufficient traction from tyres to do it. I have to ask "Why?". My car is listed as doing 0 - 60 in 3.2sec and, frankly, it isn't a particularly comfortable experience. Doing it in less than a second - no thanks! But there will always be the wealthy who just look at the numbers and have to have the best, fastest, longest etc, etc....