Old Friends at MCRCC Fall Fly-In

I was fortunate to be home this weekend when MCRCC held its Fall Fly-In at Bob Miller Field in Gulfport, Mississippi. Kenny Chandler and the MCRCC boys put together a nice show. The field was gorgeous, the planes beautiful, and the weather could not have been more perfect! Luke, Aidan and I went by and I ran into a lot of my old friends. Kenny Chandler, Ron Johnson, Bill Page, Greg Reed, and Dickie Ober. I saw Jerry Gollott, Paul Verger, Al Warburton making rounds. It was good to see these guys.
 
Kenny, you did awesome! Bravo Zulu!

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Syma Saga: Replacing battery and motors

My original, now about three years old, Syma S107G was having power problems: it had enough power to hover a few inches off the ground and that was it. I bought a replacement 1S 240 mAh battery, and removed the stock 150 mAh battery installing the new one as it was a cheap and easy repair. Its really easy if you can solder. I removed the canopy by unscrewing the two side screws on the canopy. Identifiy the battery wires and cut them close to the battery one at a time (so as not to short the battery and risk explosion), leaving the wires into the circuit board long. I soldered the new battery leads, covered the solder points with shrink wrap, stuffed the wires and battery in, and replaced the canopy. Charged it, flew it... This didn't solve the power problem, still couldn't get out of hover.
 
I figured it might be the motors... I found a pair of replacement motors for about ten bucks on eBay. I removed the canopy again, and examined the frame. I could see that the were a bunch of wires from lights going to the canopy and the motors from the circuit board. The board is attached to the bottom part of the frame, and the shafts, gears and motors are attached to the top part. Two screws, one fore and one aft hold the top to the bottom. I removed these and without cutting any wires I found the motors and their wires. The front main motor has a blue and red wire, as does the tail motor. The back main motor has a black and a white wire. I cut the wires close to the motors. The motors are held in place by a tab on the frame. I slightly pried the frame apart and using a pair of needle nose pliers easily pulled the motors out one at a time. The new motors slipped right in (they each have their pinions in place, came that way) and fit nicely under the tabs. I carefully soldered the wires back together, rather long now since I cut them long from the circuit board and the new motors had long wires. Easily done. It might have been easier to solder the wires, then install the motors. Stuffed the wires in, taped the battery in place, and replaced the canopy. Charged the battery and away she went! Flew perfectly! Problem solved!
 
Pictured above are the old motors. The black and white wires are the back motor, and the wires were very long to start with. Their magnets make them stick together.
 

 
Here's a half way done pic. Wires to the lights in the front of the canopy limited how far it could go from the frame, and the frames had their wires. The red and blue wires have been soldered and I used a small piece of electrical tape over the solders as I didn't want the heat from shrinking the wrap to part the solders, the wires being so thin. Here I am about to solder the black and white wires, jigged in the hemostat. You can see that the parts are all leashed to one another by wires. This looks hard but was incdibly easy!
 
I have two of these now, and they are so much fun to play with! Check them out!

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