Member postings for Bob Cotsford

As Martin said, it's an engineering task. You could either make new trunnion blocks with an offset fork or new sideplates with altered distance from pivot to cam. The travel of the screwjack and height of cam cutouts to circuit board must remain the same in order to trigger the limit switches.

SmogHog?

Not on an Acer Aspire there isn't Chris! Reading this thread finally nudged me to buy an SSD for my laptop. It's not a bad spec, i7 2.4Ghz, 8Gb of RAM, 1 tb disc but it does get a bit sluggish starting up,running scans, installing updates and, oddly, starting Companion. In part this will depend on whether the schools have just emptied, slowing down internet access nationally, but I TaskMaster Manager shows high disk usage at times so I ordered a Samsung 860EVO 1TB disc - I was taught if you're going, go BIG

It's not the hardest of jobs even without a disc access panel. Clone the system using a USB-SATA cable, battery out, 18 screws to loosen the bottom of the case, 3 ribbon connectors and lift the bottom clear. One more cable then two screws to remove the disc carrier. Reverse once the new disc is in, then cross fingers and switch on.

Now the only questions are - in how many ways will I cock this up and how many of the 18 screws will be found when it comes time to reassemble it?

In all my time flying RC, from single channel superhet up to the modern day, I've never before come across a battery meter or warning that is set to go off after the tx has lost connection or stopped working. It sounds a bit silly really when what you want is a warning that the battery level is dropping to the point where you will lose control whether through your own negligence or a battery fault. Who cares if the battery is damaged from over discharge after you've just lost n hundreds of pounds worth of model? Apparently only Spektrum.

Thank god the days of having to monitor your battery voltage as you fly are long gone, eh?

That's my understanding too, though it would take a large collection to exceed the £12k capital gains tax exemption allowance!

As an example, our field has a public right of way along one hedge which is behind our parking area and pits and is quite clearly demarked, being well trodden. The flying area is marked by plastic barrier on steel poles. Signs warn the public of model flying in the field. Most disinterested dog walkers stick to the path keeping the cars and pits between themselves and the flying area. Most but not all. Typically these exceptions are also happy to let their dogs run free in fields of sheep. I suspect the dogs have higher IQs than their 'owners'. Should we expect and allow for dogs running free across our clearly marked flying field where all sizes of model are being flown?  If that is the model flying becomes impossible without airport style security fencing!

Edited By Bob Cotsford on 11/01/2020 10:59:00

When I was young then I was wage limited to .40 size models, then as I reached more senior positions I progressed up the ladder from .60, .90 then eventually 40cc petrol models at which point the size of models was dictating the size of my car. As I started the downhill slope the larger models and then IC in general was shed and now I'm back to .30-.60 size models with electric power and getting smaller by the year.

Wouldn't it fall under Capital Gains tax, not income tax? You have a 12k allowance for capital gains from what I can make out of the HMRC web site, so that would take a massive stash to exceed that. From what I have seen top end kits from TopFlite, Royal, Pica or japanese MK kits appear fairly regularly, those I've watched on E-bay fetch around £200 give or take £50 with Mk coming at the top end, Flair scouts are somewhere similar, outside of these it's a lottery. Could be £25 or £500, it's in the lap of the Gods.

Edited By Bob Cotsford on 10/01/2020 19:28:06

The ones I've seen have a solid plug in the end. If you have access to a lathe you could drill them 6mm for the pin and then cross drill and tap for 4mm grub screws to hold them on.

For liteply saw 3/4 of the way through with a hacksaw blade, fill the sawcut with PVA or epoxy glue and bend the side to shape. Actually it might be as easy to make the fuselage in two parts, the straight front and the tapered rear, and just glue them together. There's no great load on the rear fuselage as it's so short.

As a point of interest I used E-calc the other day to get predictions for a model I'm putting together (Eflite Deuces Wild, Emax BL2826, 60A esc, 4S) and found 12*6 and 11*8 APC-E showed similar power/current estimates (680/660W respectively) but of course the 8" pitch gives a higher S&L speed.

Edited By Bob Cotsford on 08/01/2020 16:59:28

Yep, score, crack and soak in glue for the sharp bend. There's no reason why you shouldn't curve the sides if that's what you prefer and you have room inside for whatever bits you're putting in the fus. I'm guessing that the parallel sided fuselage was to accomodate the old full size servos.

I got taken in by reviews of the Riot XL, I didn't rate the accessory or flying qualities very highly and quickly sold it on. I now have a Wot4 ARTF on 4 cell power and wouldn't swap back. OK it's a little bit more expensive after buying a power train but it flies so much better that I don't think there's any real comparison.

As for my Wot4 foamE, it's probably 50% packaging tape and Gorilla glue after several years of abuse but it still soldiers on and still puts a grin on my face.

And my late lamented Little Bit (not to be left out!) in electric guise, 2S ok, or as Piers commented, 3S manic. The jokers at Lithhorne insisted it looked like an aviating envelope, hence the stamp

According to this thread Futaba are 2.5mm, same as RS Components 5A ones. JR are 2.1mm, or RS Components 1A ones.

there are different sizes of centre pin with those DC power plugs, I think they are defined by that inner pin size, eg 2.1mm

and I thought it was only me who had that effect

Wing peg? Are you making it a two piece model then Nigel?

Hi DS, I've used FrSky 4 channel Sbus decoders in each wing half on several models to reduce the number of plugs and sockets, and I also have a few XPS X10+ boards that predate the FrSky redundancy stuff. From the other RC forum. I've used them in 40cc petrol and .90-1.20 4 stroke glow models with complete success. The only drawback is that they put out a 9ms pulse rate so digital servos are essential. I did think about two receivers, one in the wing and one in the fuselage but that needs either a power lead between the two or a second power supply. As I have some Ashlock harnesses going spare I went for a redundant setup in the wing.

There's an Sbus thread around somewhere that lists a variety of alternate brand decoders.

Looking back, I've been using these for around 4 years!

I agree Andy, with RSSI announced through audible warnings ground range checks only really show up major issues such as intermittent connections. It sounds as though no-one has tried a setup like this yet!