The 'What did you do in your workshop tonight?' thread

[Alky6]

Ok another day at the field and not flying because of the wind. So on my way home I had a thought I need something that can fly under these conditions. So hopefully this solution will do the trick or at least let me know if I am going in the right direction. I had built a scratch built plane in 1994 it was a copy of an UltraSport with some changes. Going pull all the radio gear and install the best and fastest servos and very good 3 Axis gyro and set it up with very high gain. Or as high as the plane can tolerate. Will see how will this works.
View attachment 105492

Looks like a fun project Snoopy!

 

[Snoopy1]

Hopefully I can get the engine running today. It is OS75 so it should have enough power to push through the wind. Once I get the engine running properly will take it out on a calm day and test fly it and set all the trims and get it flying straight and true. Then I guess get the gyro installed and start playing with it and see how it works and after that start flying in some wind.

 

[Snoopy1]

Looks like a fun project Snoopy!

Yes it will be the test the plane is built like a tank compared to days planes and heavy. I think that will be an advantage. When I remember back when I was still flying it it flew like a pattern plane, fast and penetrated the air well. Like I said time will tell. If it works I will get to do a lot more flying.

 

[49dimes]

I like the looks of that ! Pretty darn fast too. If those batts are holding up to EDF loads....the pricing was out of this world for that size battery!! How many cycles you have on them so far? Haha...and here I sound like an expert on batteries now...

lol.....Have 4 cycles on each batt. They stay a bit warm after a flight but not hot. I should bring my infrared gun and see what the temp is. Just holding the pack feels like very warm water to the hand so 110 degrees or so. I just cruised around my last flight and had three HS bursts (touch and go's) and was in the air for a full 5 minutes and had 62% of the pack left! The HS is not that bad either for a 50C pack.
A 70C pack I think would put it over 120mph. Would love to try the new generation Graphene's @70C but pretty pricy. These HRB's seem to do nicely however with this EDF. Watched the vids on these HRB's and the I/R seems high but should come down as they break in. We will see......

 

[49dimes]

We had a guy at the field flying a T-Rex 550 helicopter when he heard the wind blow his Extreme Flight 60" Edge off the table. When he turned to look he crashed the heli. Not a good day.

Dimes, at least the damage wasn't as bad as when the stand fell over with your 50cc Pilot Edge on it. You have to look on the bright side of these things.

Doug......Your memory is too good for someone who's lost their mind . Thanks for reminding me ......Yea.....My back was to that one too . And all video evidence has been destroyed to protect the guilty .

 

[AKNick]

From what I read it sounds like the battery ports are basically a suggested port to help distribute power evenly. Power can be added to any port. Just like Futaba. There is no failsafe set in place that I could find. So if one of your batteries shorts out it will effect the whole system unless I'm mistaken. Pretty rare for that to happen, but it's not an isolation circuit from what I can find.

Well I figured out a couple things. First off that receiver has four dedicated power inputs, meaning it's not labeled as one of the channels which is a nice knowing you are not using up a channel for a battery input. Second, the receiver will operate at like 2.5v which is pretty low... I don't think the servos would operate at that voltage? I don't see any mention of a iso circuit... boy would that be the new rave if it was incorporated into the receiver.

 

[Snoopy1]

Well the OS 75 runs and it runs good. Had to put a new #8 plug in then everything was good. Man OS built some really good engines in its day. Idles good good transition and top end up 11250Rpm love it. Can’t wait to get out to the field and fly it again.

 

[Snoopy1]

lol.....Have 4 cycles on each batt. They stay a bit warm after a flight but not hot. I should bring my infrared gun and see what the temp is. Just holding the pack feels like very warm water to the hand so 110 degrees or so. I just cruised around my last flight and had three HS bursts (touch and go's) and was in the air for a full 5 minutes and had 62% of the pack left! The HS is not that bad either for a 50C pack.
A 70C pack I think would put it over 120mph. Would love to try the new generation Graphene's @70C but pretty pricy. These HRB's seem to do nicely however with this EDF. Watched the vids on these HRB's and the I/R seems high but should come down as they break in. We will see......

View attachment 105494 View attachment 105495

How and when are you measuring your IR. Got a good meter a about a month ago and it has been a real learning experience. Not much info out there about it and the few people that seam to talk a lot about it are not knowledgeable on the subject. One thing that I have learnt is to take the readings at the same state of charge and the temperature at room level, otherwise it will be all over the map and nothing makes sense. So what I have been doing is when I get home I will charge the batteries to storage charge and then let then sit for a while and then take the readings. These numbers are repeatable and a lot more consistent, and they seem to be trending. One thing after having this meter I also have PL8 charger that gives a IR reading while it is charging it’s ok but just something to look at they are way off when you trying to set a baseline, and change throughout the charge and the rate of charge.
One question there is a way to calculate the C rating of pac with IR numbers been trying to find this info but have not been successful do you know how to do this by any chance if not where look for it.

 

[49dimes]

How and when are you measuring your IR. Got a good meter a about a month ago and it has been a real learning experience. Not much info out there about it and the few people that seam to talk a lot about it are not knowledgeable on the subject. One thing that I have learnt is to take the readings at the same state of charge and the temperature at room level, otherwise it will be all over the map and nothing makes sense. So what I have been doing is when I get home I will charge the batteries to storage charge and then let then sit for a while and then take the readings. These numbers are repeatable and a lot more consistent, and they seem to be trending. One thing after having this meter I also have PL8 charger that gives a IR reading while it is charging it’s ok but just something to look at they are way off when you trying to set a baseline, and change throughout the charge and the rate of charge.
One question there is a way to calculate the C rating of pac with IR numbers been trying to find this info but have not been successful do you know how to do this by any chance if not where look for it.

I have an I/R meter built in to the multi meter I have. Don't use it much because it will only read a 2S pack ( or 7.4 volts). I need to make an adaptor for 3S and higher packs that will limit voltage to 7.4 volts. The I/R is accumulative across all cells but read across the first cell in the pack. So reading a 6S pack with it (using adaptor) is not getting a true reading across all cells in the pack. Only the first two. So I need an I/R meter myself lol. Your PL-8 charger should calculate the c rating using I/R??? http://www.jj604.com/LiPoTool/

 

[acerc]

I can highly recommend the Demon Cortex gyro. Pricey, but works great.

I second the Demon Cortex. I have one of them in two airframes now and it takes the boxing match with the wind away. But don't think for a second you can quit flying the plane, the Cortex does not in any way have that kind of effect.