The new motor, a DYS D2836 880kv 70g from Amazon arrived on time today, and when I got home from work I installed it with no drama. I had first tried to see if my ESC programming card would work with this Sonic 60A ESC (generic, quite old actually), but nope. I have two of the same card and neither one turned on, even when I added a reciever pack to the circuit. The original prop shaft fits (4mm), is true, and the prop with the sweet aluminum spinner has been installed.
I had nothing to lose, so fired it up and it runs AWESOME! Prop tracks clean and the spinner with no wobbles. Very nice motor!
Checked CG (3.25-3.5 inches) and its a bit nose heavy. Adjusted the battery aft and now just a hair nose down. Perfect. A couple of cosmetic chores, and off to the field as soon as I get a day off. So glad this debacle is done. Special thanks to John Hayes for the stunning wing repair (and I won't forget the Guinness!).
By the way, thinking of naming it the "Its always something...".
I've spent so much time this past week on the Alpha Sport 450 since I got the wing back from John, that I have lost track of where and why I started on this last little adventure, but I ended up where I should have started...
I share these misadventures because I want you to know we all have them in this hobby. For me, most are self induced thru laziness, lack of skill, or carelessness, often a combo of all three. "There is always something", (I think the difference between nitro/gassers, heli pilots and electric pilots is how much "something" we are willing to deal with. I am at that level after a week of shenanigans where I am not going flying today because I am totally a shit magnet right now and I don't think I could emotionally handle a crash. I am totally up against my something limit).
The jist is that the original ESC, a 40A Hobbywing more than a decade old, just quit working the other day. One moment fine, the next a paperweight. Since I like to use what I have on hand (I am cheap), I used the closest thing I had, a 60A ESC. This works fine with the 450 sized motors, just a lot of reserve for a sport flyer, and not much weight difference. Tested the setup with all the electronics on rhe Alpha, awesome all worked fine the first time. Took a half an hour to tuck it all in and make it all pretty, went to fire it up, dead as a doormat. Nada. Checked everything, nothing wrong. Pulled it out, tested it again still nada. Fine, I have another one, also 60A but a smaller profile. Tested, works fine. Installed. Still works fine.
But I felt a vibration and noticed that there was a wobble in the prop. Inspection revealed that the motor shaft at the prop end had bent in that crash, actually in the fall from the Ent from which it had impaled itself upon. Inspected the motor and there was an almost undetectable shaft bend, that magnified when the prop shift was in place. Easy peasy, I have changed out motor shafts, and I happen to have a baggy full of them.
Its easy. Pull the mount X-plate off the back. On the back end of the motor, the shaft is secured with a c-clip. Slip that off, careful not to shoot it across the room. You can now pull the outrunner shell off the back. You are now holding the inner workings in one hand, and the outrunner shell with the connected shaft in the other. On the side of the top of the outrunner there are usually 1-2 lock screws. Remove them. You can now tap the shaft out. Simply reverse the process with your new shaft. Which I don't have... the ones in the baggy are a mm too small. WTF, I have never had a motor smaller than a 450 sized. So I just put it all back together.
Still trying to be cheap (there's my problem right there....), I have another motor, unlabeled, but looks a bit squatter and a bit wider than the 450 outrunner. Looks like maybe a little more powerful. Let's try that!
This "new" motor has a mounting plate that is about 0.5mm off from the 450. Its really not that much bigger a motor. But this won't fit my firewall, which is that 450 sized. Here's a idea! Lets spend a lot of time and energy, let's build an adapter firewall out of ABS plastic, drill it so that both sets of mounting screws fit: the 450 ones off the firewall secured to the new firewall at the end of the extenders, and attach the new motor to that firewall. Took a while to fabricate: cut the ABS, drill the ABS, install the motor (works fine connected to the electronics in testing), install the firewall, attach the motor. Quick spin, all works! But the prop shaft is one of those that bolts to the outrunner shell, not attached to the motor shaft, and its a touch short. I happen to have a slightly bigger one that fits! Replace the old with the new. Attach the prop. Now I can't use the original aluminum spinner because the new prop shaft is not drilled for the center securing screw, but I have what is probably the original Alpha Sport red spinner NIB. I attach that. But the stock self-tapping screws that secure the cone to the base are crap and one head-strips just trying to screw it in. Spend a lot of time and cursing to remove said stripped screw, and replace with nice 2mm regular hex head.
Looks great! Let's fire it up! All looks good, advancing throttle, and then the motor screams and slows down, so I shut it down. Try a couple times, same thing, won't reach full throttle without screaming and slowing down, and on the third try shuts itself down. Won't run now at all. No magic smoke, that's good... There was a time when I knew what this was that was happening, but not today*. Crap... did I burn out the ESC??? I removed the entire apparatus, motor, new firewall, extensions, and connected the original motor (fine, just bent shaft). Whew... everything works, ESC is fine. So its the motor.
* I think it was ESC timing... The new motor has 14 poles so will need high timing setting. Will need to break out the programming card.
And here we are. I am where I should have started but I have been nickle and diming myself to death and was trying to save money and maybe upgrade the motor that didn't need upgrading just replacing. I bought the 880kv version of this little motor that produces about 243 watts (oddly specific) which would be great for this plane. I won't have time until maybe Sat night as I go back to work, but I hope this is the end of my Alpha Sport 450 adventure.
When I arrived, at Silver Lake, NH, before I unloaded the gear, I wanted to use the trunk space to take the electronics cover off of the Dragonforce 65 and bind the reciever, following my transmitter debacle of the other day. All went fine, stuffed everything back in the compartment and sealed it. Loaded all the gear in the trailer, hauled it a quarter mile into the state park to my spot and got set up. Radio on, turned on the DF65, and nothing. From the car to my spot...
Reopened the compartment turns out the battery lead came out when I stuffed it all back in. Easy fix, all good to go!
The winds were not consistent but the speed was good and no bad gusts. The sun came out, I was in a t-shirt and my waders. Life is good. Its like that one perfect golf swing when you about to quit. You are suddenly reminded why you do this.
The Jonesway Dragonforce 65 is my first sailboat, and it is simply the best. Its bigger brother is the Dragonflite 95. If it sails half is well I would love one, but it is rather expensive, so I will likely never own one. Both of these are class racing boats and my DF65 is qualifying (there is a club in Nashua. NH, but they meet ON Saturdays, and I am usually working; someday. I updated the sails and hull art with the craftsmanship of @Start1969 Italy. I love this little speeder and it sailed well today.
Changed to the Volantex Hurricane 1m racer. This is a recreational boat, not a class racer. I modified it by installing an external power switch. The switch is nice, waterproof, but hard to tell when its on or off (flushed is on, raised is off, but raised is 1 mm). I must have left it on last time as I drained the LiFe battery and had to NiMH cheat to recharge it. Once charged I bound it and set it away. That was two days ago.
Today I turn it on, and nada, opened it up, everything looks good. Decided to rebind and voila, problem solved. But curiously failed to bind twice. Is it the reciever or my iX12? More on that later (related to my Alpha Sport and its reciever, same make). This reciever has been quite reliable.
It continued to work fine, even after swapping boats back and forth. She is not much of a sailor, but is pretty on the water. I think a quality set of sails would changeover the water and when underway. The main has too much sail at the top causing quite a twist under all conditions,, and it can't be made tighter with rigging.
Everything settled down and I simply enjoyed the sun, water, and the boats.
At home, relaxing, last 2 says of my 10 day staycay, waiting for a replacement reciever. That's likely my next story.
I have always flown Spektrum. Like religion, for many of us who started without on our own it wasn't a conscious choice, we were born into it. When I went looking for a real transmitter, Spektrum was just there. With my DX6, DX8, and DX7S, I was fine. Simple, efficient, as were my needs. Always seemd to work great (suspicious brown outs and related crashes not withstanding). When I wanted to upgrade several years later, for no particular reason, I again chose Spektrum, and for it being the top of the line at the time, I went all in for the Spektrum iX12. I mean, come on, it was red and came with a hat!
I would and to this day never fully trust it. I had wierd issues, even had to send it back to Horiizon/Spektrum (top shelf service). It wouldn't always boot from cold and dark, and the only way to get it to when it glitches like this was to pull the battery. This was so common I installed a switch. (Curiously after side loading the reinstall of Airware I think that has stopped being a problem).
So yesterday it decided that it would not progress past the Airware splash screen. I tried for hours. I finally got to the frustrated notion the nuclear option was required. I had backed up my aircraft files earlier in the week (or HAD I?), so reinstalling Airware was needed and should be easy to do. This would require a rebinding of my entire fleet of aircraft, helicopters and sailboats, but I had no choice.
I found that the Airware software was not available on Google Play as advertised. I went to Spektrum, "MySpektrum" more precisely and learned they don't support it with updates, and that they know there are issues for some getting it from Google Play. But I could download an APK and sideload it. There was a very exact and easy to follow set of instructions on how to do so. It was nice of them to provide this option.
To insure a clean install I would uninstall Airware. This is where I learned that I wasn't allowed to uninstall Airware. Both the Force Stop and Uninstall icons were grayed out. I have no idea how, but somewhere along the way I went down a rabbit hole trying to unlock it, and when I did it was surprisingly easy, but I have no idea how I got there. I uninstalled it.
Here's a shocker. Following each step by step instruction provided, which was more complex than it should be, I installed the APK. Scratching my head I felt I must have done something wrong. But no, I had actually caught a break: the instructionss matched exactly what my iX12 showed on its screen, and everything just worked.
It booted perfectly, and has ever since.
This is where I discovered that when I thought I had backed up my model files last week, I, in fact, had not.. crap. I did something wrong and nothing was saved on my dedicated SDcard. I did not want to go through setting up all my models again especially not the MXBach, which has some complex mix I will never do again to get two servo elevators to work. What I had done several years ago was to accidentally save my files current at that time somewhere internally, and for some reason, those babies loaded! All my helis, my complex mixes, and all but my most recent additions were there. Curiously, for the second time, the Cubby was not though it is one of my oldest planes.
I still need to rebind everything, and make new models for the sailboats, but my now my suffering was avoided.
Its probably my imagination, but I think the iX12 is working better. I am still going to replace it with a Frsky x18 with a Lite XJT module, and then all my recievers until I die, once I find some joney my wife doesn't know about. Which pretty much means I will die with the iX12 un my hands.
Cote on a flat piece of wood, sure, no problem. But it seems I will never mast the art of applying tight cote over a frame. My friend John doesn't appreciate just how wide the expanse is between our cote skill levels is, that makes me swoon at his work. I need to have him teach me. For now, after many tries to fix the cote on the top of the Cub, this is where I quit and know it will not get better.
If I try to snug those corners the edges peel up and/or I will get shrink-burn wrinkles along the edges. Tried different heats, air gun and iron.
Complex shapes like the smooth area at the front of the vertical fin. I can't master the "almost melt and stretch" technique required.
For me the issue is heat management. My Hangar 9 iron finally burned out and yesterday I got a digital one. This may help.
And see those little sets of 3m or so wrinkles on the horizontal stab. Have never managed to shrink them out.
To power my iCharger 208B when out at the field I decided the least expensive and easiest way was to revisit the simple battery tap off my car a 2012 Lexus CT200H. The idea is a set of leads from the aux battery in the way back of the car to a set of female banana plugs that will allow the male banana plugs from the iCharger (not the power supply) to tap power from the battery. For safety I wanted a fuse and found instead a nifty 10A breaker.
For completeness here are the parts, all from Amazon:
Redwolf 10A marine breaker
Making the cable
The parts. The cable, breaker, solder and flux,
Estimate how much of the cable to remove to easily fit the breaker inline. I sanded the insides of the O-ring connectors, and the cable. I didn't have a butane torch, so tried using my air solder thingy at its max setting of 480. I now have a butane torch after a run out to Wallyworld because yeah, that air solder thingy might melt off your hand, but it barely warmed the heavy duty copper O-ring connectors. Go with a simple butane torch, that baby melted the solder and boiled the flux within a couple of seconds. By the way, for some reason Wallyworld stocks them in the camping section.
Shrink wrapped the ends for a clean professional look.
To heep the battery cable from splitting further I secured it with a wire tie and then shrink wrapped that to make it look smart. I think it came out grand! This was much cleaner than when I made one myself last time and that had no breaker.
Installation in the CT200H
The battery that controls the aux systems when the car is not running in the Lexus CT200H is located in the way back on the right under the trunk deck. This is NOT the massive LiPo for the drive train. Remove the decking and the ccorner facing by simply unsnapping and unscrewing the large finger screws. Leave the battery in place, no need to do anything but expose it.
Uncover the right post safety cover; it simply lifts up and doesn't come detached. It will however keep trying to fall back into place, quite annoying.. Simply remove the nut attached to the battery connectors. I put a work towel behind the negative post in case the nut decided to challenge my patience and fall back there. It did not.
Close the red cover and replace the decking, and you are done!
The XT60-EC5 adapter is because they don't apparently make one to female banana plugs (why are they called banana plugs?), and I can easily make an EC5 m feale -banana plug female, I have a couple female plugs from over a decade ago when theynused to come on batteries. I have now depleted my supply. That blue EC5 you see actually secures and covers the two banana plugs. I CA'd them onto the larger EC5 housing (that would normally house male EC5 plugs). It has a EC5 plug on the other end that will connect to the adapter that comes tomorrow. I'll post a pic of the whole somewhat Rube Goldbergy thing when I test it.
There it is comfy in its little home all set to go. Trunk floor simply falls over the top.
I decided that the solution. To my field charging problem is to revisit i stalling taps off my Lexus CT200H starter battery. Its a small 12V 35-45 Ah battery, but I run the engine while charging so it keeps it charged, I read this also increases the voltage to 14V,
I ordered these today. I could have just cut off the XT60 and solder on banana plugs, but I am not in the mood to build the cables as I did last time. I also think this is safer. I have plenty of EC5 to banana plugs I have made over the years.
I will simply pull the battery, screw on the taps, and voila, battery power for my iCharger 208B.
I found this little credit card sized gem of a 10A circuit breaker that w will install o. The negative side just short of the XT60 plugs so I have easy access to it.
I think this will be clean elegant, safe and efficient.
On getting back home with the Alpha Sport 450 wing, I took a good look at my Alpha Sport. Crikey, I have neglected it... Spent some time fixing and cleaning up a few issues.
The motor mount did take a beating. The sides of the compartment are warped out, the motor mount all twisted. I removed the motor and ESC for the first time is some 15 years.
The firewall is a bloody mess. When I say that up until recently it had never been crashed, while true the OEM front gear wasn't sturdy for non-paved style runways and ripped out. I installed a much sturdier one and have had no issues since, but this required building up the firewall. Its a mess and I think the mount blind buts are loose and the wood they are secured to unreliable. The easiest thing to do was to fabricate a new firewall to epoxy over the old one. Curiously this works without interfering with the land gear mount. I installed this and tomorrow will reinstall the motor. I trimmed the mount extenders to accommodate the loss if depth. Changed the prop, pretty sure thismone is at least 10 years old and it looks it. I have a gray APC 10x7 on hand but have a couple black ones coming soon. Tomorrow we'll see what sideways BS will surely challenge me, and get the engine back on. Then cleanup and repair worn cote, reinstall the wing and yes, it may very well be the first plane I fly at Flying Tigers in Derry, NH.
Spent some time in a conversation with Google Gemini (their AI) and learned a lot I hope I knew and forgot about how the opto kill switch is not an IBEC.
The diagrams for the RCExl Opto Kill Switch look like this:
The RCEXL Optical Kill Switch does two things. It uses a light junction to separate the hard wire electrical connections so the 20,000 volts of noise generated by the spark plug do not flow back into the receiver and electronics interfering with them or frying them altogether, AND it serves to kill the power to the ignition. Power to the OKS passes through, so my 2S 7.4v LiPO would send up to 8V to the ignition, if the light sensor inside the is on. Here's how Gemini explained it:
The RCEXL unit has two sides that are "optically isolated" (connected only by a beam of light inside the chip) to prevent electronic interference from reaching your receiver:
1. THE RECEIVER SIDE: It plugs into your receiver to get a signal and a small amount of power just to run the internal LED and the "gate."
2. THE IGNITION SIDE: It has a "Battery In" and an "Ignition Out" lead. You must plug a battery or regulator into the "Battery In" lead.
What happens when you flip the switch:
1. Switch On: The RCEXL unit closes the circuit, allowing power from the ignition battery to pass through to the ignition module.
2. Switch Off: The unit breaks the circuit, cutting off power and killing the engine.
I had my circuit like this:
This works, but apparently it allows interference noise hardwired back into the circuit. Options are a separate battery (two battery system, nice in big airplanes) or one battery and an BEC. Note that with this setup the RCEXL unit LED did not light up... so I think the RCEXL is bad.
Above is how I will be doing this circuit. I purchased a RCEXL Opto Kill Switch with BEC (see below). from Valley View RC. Curiously they are the only place that carries this.
Apparently this (above) is the OPTIMAL way to do this. It protects the circuit by filtering out the feedback, and offers a kill switch. I have one of these on the Pulse XT60 (need to see if I also have a RCEXL switch as this would be redundant).. Pictured below is the Tech Aero one I have, and is most recommended, in that its one of the few out there. Problem is its over $70 delivered, which is why I went with the RCEXL one. IBEC's, especially one with a LED indicator light, are very hard to find, and nothing under the Tech Aero price.
I did drop by the workshop to check a few things, like do I have a IBEC. I have a UBEC but Gemini did not recommend this with the kill switch, and it added more complication to the circuit. I built a little holder to secure the receiver pack, and removed the RCEXL kill switch. I will likely return the one arriving today from Amazon as I don't need it, and am waiting for the one from Valley View, coming by some dude on a bike from Indiana, maybe 3-5 days? Tomorrow I may try firing up the engine without the kill switch, wiring in directly to the battery through a 5V regulator. I am concerned that the touchy EVO 10cc will try what little patience I have left (hence today a day of rest).
Seriously. This is my third build of the Ultrastick 10cc and this one has been one pain in the ass after another. It has been three days of total immersion: I get started and hours go by before I realize it. Today was build final, but I have, yes, some issues to resolve before its a wrap.
My shabby workshop in my garage from the1700's
(yeah, my apartment is in a house over 250 years old).
The tail assembly looks great, but it was one little thing after another. It starts with my habit of replacing CA hinges with pin hinges. Lets just say I should have stuck with the CA hinges. Despite perfect dry fitting, once the epoxy went on nothing went as planned. I am honestly am some what shocked at how clean it looks. The discerning reader will note the cote patches and kindly say nothing about them...
I was so annoyed at the process I was prompted to put this missive here as a reminder. See that space just aft of the vertical stabilizer? There was one in the front too, with the deep attachment point in between. Seems the epoxy lifted it and let it slide back a couple of mm, despite my taping the entire thing down. This, of course, placed the rudder-fin joint back a couple of millimeters, making the tail assembly a couple of mm aft, which it bore grudgingly. Yeah, its been that sort of build...
The dual switch assembly went in, also with a few minor issues. One of which I found the wiring for both switches to be Y'd together into one Futaba style connector to the receiver. One is supposed to be receiver, the other ignition. This switch came from the last Ultrastick. Did I do that? It does have one Y;d lead for the lead from the battery to the switches, but the outputs should be separate. This issue became obvious when I was trying to wire in the optical kill switch: there was no lines from the switch to a connector for the kill switch power input. If I did that weird Y, kudos as the solder work was so perfect I wondered it if came that way, how could that possible work, and how did I set this up last time? I am still not sure I know WTF is happening...
At the end of the day this is what I had, the optical kill switch not installed at this pic.
Because this is only 17 seconds of flaming hotness You Tube made it a short, and I can't figure out how to get teh embed code for a short, so you'll have to click the pic for the video. Sorry for my tone, I had had enough of cockamaemee BS.
Then there was this little gem. I expected a tube from the electronics bay to the rudder control rod exit point, and likewise on the elevator side. The first segment of the tubes is visible, but the wire hit every frame as if it was NOT in a tube. Took forever. I had no idea where it would come out, but the rudder, then elevator exit points popped thru when I finally got the rods there. That likely was because there was a least a tube at the end, or it would never have exited. WTF? Well, it works... The control rods are cut to exact length so you have to use the metal clevis provided. Which led to this problem...
Sorry for the video quality, doing a two-handed thing one-handed. None of the metal clevis's fits tightly enough. I had to crush them all down more tightly then screw them in, and secured them with a littler CA (one still came apart today). FFS. This was true for all of the small gauge clevis's, I didn't use the large ones.
So, that was yesterday.
Today wasn't as bad, but time flew. I went in at around 930a, looked up and it was almost 2p, blinked and it was 630p. Hadn't even bothered to stop for lunch (and I had skipped breakfast). 4
I finished up installing the electronics, (will get a pic tomorrow), and mounted the engine. I installed the optical kill switch. When I turned on the power to the switch the LED didn't light up. Checked to make sure my switch assignment was good (Gear to H button on my iX12). Checked to make sure the ignition switch worked and had power by swapping it to the receiver. It did. So maybe the LED is bad or the kill switch is, though one means the other as I don't have a spare LED. So I ordered a new one that will arrive tomorrow. I don't think the status of the electronic ignition matters, but if the new switch doesn't work, maybe? All of this, mounting the engine, unmounting it as I drilled the throttle control rod tube whole too high, remounted it. I also painted and gas proofed the firewall. All of this seems to have take more time than it should.
I did take a moment to paint the prop tips. I did the classic red strip on white background, but it didn't go well and re-did it as just white. Not sure I will bother with the red center stripe.
I pulled the DC-3 from the loft. Haven't flown this in years... started thinking about it last night. It doesn't like grass for take-off and landings, so I haven't been able to. It tended to lift off before it had quite enough airspeed to stay aloft because of the grass. Now that I have access to a geotex runway, that may not be a problem. Its a simple foamie. Pic tomorrow.
And now I am starving...
Tomorrow I will install the new optical kill switch. I hope it just works. Then will come the challenge of getting the EVO 10cc engine to start, run and tune easily... not looking forward to that. I may take a day off depending on weather and go fly or sail or both.
This was the state of my Apha Sport 450 wing after my controlled flight into a line of trees that proved closer than advertised. The right wing leading edge had a fractured as martial loss not as impressive but seious as well. Repairing this requires skills far beyond mine, yet I was loath to abandon what is my first true rc aircraft.
On a whim I approached John Hayes, a friend from SNHRCC. I knew he is a master builder, and I felt if there was any hope,i t would be him. He agreed, and a couple of days ago I dropped it off (and experienced the wonderland that is his workshop for the first and I hope not last time). Two. Days. Ago.
He sent me these pics today:
The right wing. Can't even tell where the damage was.
This is the repaired left wing. Are you kidding me? Its literally new. This is a rare level of skill.
He will cote them and let me know when to come-back it up. I just can't wrap my head around how well this repair has come out. I am just so impressed by John's skills as a builder, just so please with the outcome here.
Thank you, John. You are giving me my baby back.
My Alpha Sport 450 back when I got her over a decade ago.
I described the debacle that was "simple repairs" to my Hacker MX2 in last night's post. I had to replace the bad aileron servos, and it required a lot more than it should have. The new servos required new servo arm extensions, which I had to manufacture. Overnight the CA did bond, and I easily put a single screw into each to further secure them. Once I got that done, the rest was simple. A little time to make sure the ailerons were level and zeroed, and everything is grand. No more jiggy shit. Returned the gyro after having to make a better bed to secure it in after mining the foam to get the servo wire extensions in place. That rectangle under the fuse is where I had to cut to gain access to pass the wires.
Staying in the spirit of the theme, the Cubby decided that there was no adventure in simple. It easily bound, that wasn't the problem. The problem was the connector was a massive EC5, which in my ignorance I used when I first started in the hobby (the Cub is one of my first planes, over a dozen years old). I have since changed to EC3 on my 4S and smaller batteries and aircraft.
The problem with EX connectors is that some are "push in ", and some are "pull thru". To seat the metal connector into the blue plastic housing, you either push it in, or pass the wire thru the connector before soldering the metal connector, and then pull it back in to the plastic housing to lock it in place. I sadly have a mix of them. And even if you get that right, being g able to push or pull it to lock it can be seriously difficult. When it is, I find heating the connector and letting the heat soften the plastic as I push (or pull) it into place. This usually works. Its one of those simple things that is just never simple. I wonder if XT connectors have a similar problem? I have never used them. Traxxas connectors difficulty is getting the solder to stay bonded to the metal. I now have a bottle of flux that might help with those. I use them on my heli receiver packs for nopartucular reason.
So I had to replace the EC5 with an EC3. Went thru a couple just trying to get the damn things to lock and stay. I also ended up extending the wires between the ESC and the battery end connector.
Patched a few hangar rash issues in the cote, and she is once again shiny as she can be. There are some areas of melt wrinkled corners of cote that I can fix later.
