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

[BalsaDust]

 

[acerc]

All this FAA crap almost got me depressed. But I decided that I had to good a time at Fall Nall to give in. So I am going to continue on in this wonderful hobby until told I can't, hoop's I can jump through, 400' I can manage, someway it will continue. So! Today I did some much needed work on the box trailer aka toy hauler. Added new shelves up front for the three small bipes and oriented some fasteners for three mono's on the floor. She is almost ready for the field, almost because five of the six on board will need to be charged and checked. The Eagle will stay in the shop other than coming out for an event and the Challenger will get mounted above the mono's when the time comes.

 

[49dimes]

So where ya been my brother from a different mother? Glad you're back from the deep, or the black lagoon or wherever you were. You flown your new photo/video taking apparatuses yet?

You are really into the camera stuff. Interesting what we can do now days on our planes. Pictures from the little camera are looking good. Keep us informed.

Been tied up a bit and will continue until next week sometime. I did get the chance to get it in the plane and functioning. Looking at getting the wheels up next week sometime and a video done. This is a really cool little device and it operates with its own remote control.
I was very happy that it installed in the plane with ease and is accessible for USB cable connections with out having to remove it from the plane. It comes with its own 400mah 1S lipo but you could solder on a pigtail and plug it in to the receiver for power if using a BEC at 5 volts. The "ribbon" lead to the camera pod is what caught my attention for installing in a plane. It is about 6.5 inches long and you can actually order longer "ribbon" pods for it too. Up to 12 inches! Here is a picture taken from a short vid I made when checking it all out.

 

[stangflyer]

So keeping in rhythm with the "Awesome Video" thread, I started working on my H-9 Marie Mustang tonight. Since the DLE 35RA is still mounted and has been test run a couple of weeks ago, about all I need to do is start putting servos back in the plane and get everything set up. I almost....ALMOST, could have it ready to fly tomorrow. But mother nature is being a real "B&%$#" right now. Rain, wind....wind....more wind....more rain, more wind, more rain.....clouds, wind and rain and wind and rain. UGH!! Oh well, she can't stop me from still enjoying myself. I said that earlier didn't I? LOL

The fuse as it started out earlier....

She's a bit of a mess right now, but I will get her lined out.

I will start by getting the rudder and elevator servos installed and dialed in....

Really not too difficult that is for sure. I have two extra open servo bays that were initially used for the onboard glow driver when she was sporting a Saito 180. And the other one was...hmmm, I honestly don't remember. Oh well, nothing too big to worry about I guess. I will be using the trusty Hitec Aurora A9X on Marie. I flew her with it before, no reason it won't be sufficient again.

I have enough channels as I am going to pair up the flap servos. I really could have paired up the elevator but I needed a bit more precision than the HS645 analogs would allow combined on a "Y". Wow, this is really tough fellas. Analog servos that are beyond belief slow. And "Y" harnesses and old school setups. Eeeek, How spoiled we all have become with faster, more powerful and more precision made servos and hardware. I am certain the Behemoth DS Stang will be up to todays standards. I just can't imagine doing this kind of a setup on something that size. LOL

I will probably get to the servos in the wing tomorrow and finish up the plane for a maiden flight when the weather offers more favorable conditions. Until then, I will be ordering parts and working on planes. Dang, I have a good life. LOL

 

[acerc]

LOL! Don't seem that long ago a HS645 was a top end, but then again not long ago I could remember long ago. What? See, age at it again. I do remember a time, long ago, I swore I would never want or need anything larger than a 60ish inch w.s.

 

[stangflyer]

LOL! Don't seem that long ago a HS645 was a top end, but then again not long ago I could remember long ago. What? See, age at it again. I do remember a time, long ago, I swore I would never want or need anything larger than a 60ish inch w.s.

No kidding right? And I swore "not long ago" I would never fly anything smaller than an 80" wingspan plane. Marie? Heh heh....she isn't even that. LOL. Oh well, it is a Mustang. That is all that matters. Dude, remember the HS5645MG's? Now they were the "schnizzle" not long ago. LOL

 

[stangflyer]

After taking Little Mister to the puppy park and shampooing the plane room carpet, I figured I would start getting the servos installed into Marie's wing. Really nothing difficult there. Unscrew the hatch retaining screws and get busy installing the flap and aileron servos. When I first assembled this Mustang some 5 or 6 years ago, I upgraded, (yeah..upgraded..lol) the hardware from the original. By today's standards it all is about the cheesiest I've seen. But it worked so, yeah. She flew well and my last flight on her was good. No problems and the plane was pretty much perfect. It's amazing how being stored in an attic for 4 or so years can take a toll on a plane. Thing I dont understand is if the buyer bought it turn key and was going to fly it, why'd he strip it? Including the control linkages? Anyway, will be pretty simple to put everything back the way it was. There are "tell-tale" indicators. Lol. So now with all the hardware back in place, I can start putting in the Hitec 645's. There is one definite upgrade I will do to Marie as I did with the Blue Nose. A single TDRC multiplex plug for all 4 servos, (2 aileron-2 flap) and the 2 retract servos. It is so much cleaner, (and easier) to make one plug in connection than 6. Less fuss and no hassle of keeping servo leads organized.



I will get back in a few with more photos fellas.

 

[stangflyer]

So I now have the flaps reconnect, set up and dialed in. I had to go back in to my radio and reprogram the channels. I had forgotten the flap servos will need to rotate opposite of each other for proper flap deployment. I guess I'll have to go back and reprogram the elevator channels. They too, like the flaps and ailerons need to rotate opposite of each other. Guess I'll have to piggyback the rudder and power ports on the receiver. This is the primary reason I bought the new MZ32. A guy runs out of channels real quick on a setup like this. I know the Behemoth DS will be no different. Thankfully I will be using much better quality programmable digital servos on that one. So channel count won't be quite as crucial. The HS645MG's are good strong servos. Just a little noisy and not all that precise. But they will work just fine for this application. I slowed the servo speed down to 4.0 up and down on the flaps so they don't just "pop" down. I may have to do a fine tune of more or less speed. But that can wait. I also set take off and approach flap yo about 20 degrees. And full landing flap is at about 50. I may have to change those after I consult the manual for proper deployment angle. But again, it's good enough for now.

Next I will get the ailerons all buttoned up. More to come.

 

[stangflyer]

Ailerons servos are now in, control linkages connected and ailerons dialed in with triple rates and expo. I added the expo because I wanted to soften the deflection without affecting the total throw. Triple rates because I remembered this Mustang is very agile but can be lazily flown to poke holes in the sky. It really is a very nice flying warbird for it's time. I really am getting exciting to put her back on the roster for maneuvers. I'm going to try to get the retract servos installed and set up. Probably not tonight though. Time for some dinner. Not much more to go and she'll be ready.



The whole objective of buying back and getting flight ready the lil Blue Nose and Marie is to get refamiliarised with flying these high spirited Mustangs. I can handle piling up the Lil Blue Nose. I can even handle Marie going down behind enemy lines. It would suck profusely. But it would literally kill me to lose that Big Stang like my friend Kevin did.

More later gents.

 

[Jetpainter]

Ailerons servos are now in, control linkages connected and ailerons dialed in with triple rates and expo. I added the expo because I wanted to soften the deflection without affecting the total throw. Triple rates because I remembered this Mustang is very agile but can be lazily flown to poke holes in the sky. It really is a very nice flying warbird for it's time. I really am getting exciting to put her back on the roster for maneuvers. I'm going to try to get the retract servos installed and set up. Probably not tonight though. Time for some dinner. Not much more to go and she'll be ready.

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The whole objective of buying back and getting flight ready the lil Blue Nose and Marie is to get refamiliarised with flying these high spirited Mustangs. I can handle piling up the Lil Blue Nose. I can even handle Marie going down behind enemy lines. It would suck profusely. But it would literally kill me to lose that Big Stang like my friend Kevin did.

More later gents.

We had a guy crash a newly finished glassed and painted Top Flite P51 a few weeks ago on it's maiden. It looked pretty tail heavy.