Chipping away

Hovering the EXI 450 in the garage...

The weather improved, but I wasn't able to get out to a field, so I hovered in the garage. The EXI is still having blade tracking problems, but the CCPM and cage are set up sweet; I have never figured this one out and have wondered if its something in the blades themselves. Well, don't you know, I get to find out... In hovering, I brought her down near the trash can, she bounced and just winged the can, but this chipped the ends of the blades enough to delaminate them. And I had just been wondering how I have had this heli for months and she still had her original blades!

I put some new fiberglass ones on, rechecked the CCPM and everything looks good. The Feathering shaft and the main rotor are fine. these blades were nicely balanced out of the bag.

I hope the tracking issue is gone with the new blades. It was off about 0.5 cm at mid throttle, even with a nicely tuned CCPM. The feathering shaft is straight and the pitch is right on. We'll see if these new blades resolve the issue. I plan to fly a few packs tomorrow! The weather looks good! I am excited to get her out.

Frankenheli

I am wondering if Frankenheli should get the 4 blade rotor head? The larger rotor disk will stabilize her more being that I won't have a FBL system in, though I have been toying with the idea of getting a BeastX for her. It would be one way to get a stabilized flybarless heli without buying a two blade FBL head. Hmmm...

Gyros!

I am excited that Hobby King has shipped my GA-250 mini-MEMS gyros. These little pretties are getting good press as a $10 MEMS gyro, a relabel of an Assan gyro. Yup, $10! I had mine backordered, and they are already NIS! I need to think about getting a few of these little puppies!  BUT WAIT!  Looky at what I found when I went to get the link for the GA-250s!  HK has another MEMS gyro, a programmable one, for $70! The Turnigy mini-MEMS with programming box. Very nice... Must consider...  I had purchased another Detrum GY48V, an inexpensive piezo, but of course the moment I ordered it I got the email telling me HK was shipping by backordered MEMS. A guy on Helifreak crashed his Blade 400, and being on some tough times he was upset about the crash and not being able to fix it. While he wasn't seeking sympathy, the HF's banded together around him and he is essentially receiving a new Blade 400 in parts pieces! I am sending him what he needs for a Milton Mod (which I am trying on my 250, and my other helis as well probably), and will be including that GY48V, since I don't need it. very happy for him!

Weather...

Sucks... Haven't been able to fly all week...

WOW! What A Day! (Small things matter).

Wow, what an incredible afternoon this turned out to be!

5 wonderful things happened.

1) I have been re-working my Radd's since I lost my mojo, and today, with the help of my newly stalwarted training gear I hovered out of ground effect, and in control!

2) I flew a heli and broke nothing! Several times!

3) I went through all five of my 3S 2200 mAh packs!

4) I parallel charged 4 of them at 2C and nothing exciting happened! (But the fans were sprinting on the PSU...)

5) I never talked back to the little voice in my head that kept me honest, cautious, and my heli unbent!

Today was a GREAT DAY!

Making stronger what is wimpy...

And I don't mean me, which could use some de-wimpyfying...

I have been doing the Radd's School of Rotary Flight Curriculum, and have been skittering around. It was a bit difficult because the wires on my training gear were too thin to bear the weight of my 450, so it was either thumping around or coming into hover. So today I went out to Home Depot, bought some dowel, and connected them to the wire rods using shrink wrap (yellow), and a piece of dense closed cell foam in the center to keep a bit of flex in it and to act as a shock absorber. It looks good and it works great! It supported the 450 so well it skittered like a June bug all over the garage, where before it would simply lean over threatening to kill itself with a blade strike if any aileron or elevator command went its way.

Wimpy wires, mighty dowels, brought together by yellow shrink wrap. 

One piece all the way across, the other divided.

Closed cell foam Gooped onto the center plastic connector and to the long dowel.

Flattened by the heli, it flexes well when lift is applied at all. Allows for a great skitter as required to complete Radd's.

E-flite PT-19 Cornell

Well, I bought another plane! Geez, will this ever stop, its like crack...

I have loved this plane since I was a kid. I was one of those who flew the original Cox U-control (line control) 0.049 version of the PT-19 Cornell. It's a classic, and this E-flite version of the PT-19 is on sale for $69 at Horizon Hobby! Here's a pic from xplaneguy on rcdiscuss. The larger is the new E-flite PT 19, and the little guy is the old Cox version. Great pics!

Here's a very nice reveiw on RCDiscuss by Micheal Heer.

The E-flite when it was first on the Horizon website had an optional set of landing gear that was more scale. I am trying to find those. Nice addition beside my PT-17 Stearman.

UPDATE: I was mistaken regarding the landing gear... They are available on the CMP PT-19 sold by nitroplanes. Its a nice looking model, but the drawn on detail makes it a bit cartoonish. I like the look of th E-flite model better, to say nothing of the price! Those optional struts are very overpriced at $55, one hopes for a pair.

Storage

A poster on Helifreak, JC Paint Workz was asking about how we store our stuff. Here are pics of how I organize my parts and equipment. My field boxes consist of my portable charging station and my PDY box. Makes it easy to go: grab these two boxes, toss in the appropriate LiPos, grab the a/c and go!

My PDY Systems Toolbox which I use as my field box. Next to it is a set of plastic drawers from Walmart on wheels for big junk.

I keep my spare parts in Plano tackle boxes that are labeled for each aircraft that has unique parts. I put only the ones I am taking to the field in the PDY. I can fit two plus my spare hardware box (the little one, has nuts, screws, etc. I throw all of these together for all my a/c in one tackle box. I have a larger one I use for connectors, wires, etc, but I don't take that to the field). I also have one set of blades for all my helis and props for all my planks in this top section. I don't carry extra booms, but if the exrra 365mm blades fit, I think the booms will too. The drawers are more or less organized by function, like electrical, tools, build materials (like Goop, Tri-Flow, wire ties, CA, etc).

The top toolbox is my portable charging station (see here).  Below that is a Craftsman non-portable toolbox I keep my batteries and electrical supplies in.  The bottom is a larger set of Rubbermaid drawers from Walmart, without the wheels to better distribute the weight to the floor.

Top shelf is for discharged batteries. Middle drawer for charged and stored batteries (I use the iCharger Storage function to discharge batteries to around 3.85V for storage if not used for more than a day or two). Bottom drawer is electrical supplies. You can see the Plano with my connectors and wires (I keep the wires and connectors from any device I trash).

The top drawer is where I keep the Plano's for a/c I am not taking to the field.

To the right of my work desk is a set of plastic drawers, also from Walmart, that I keep junk in. I have a few other odd bins on my desk and under my work bench. 

My Heli's go in an aluminum 450 case.

I can fit a 450 and a 250 in here, along with my Dx6i.

I like this setup. I don't have a lot of space but I make the most of it.

In support of Eric, the Nitroplanes CS Guy

I posted this on RCDiscuss in the Nitroplanes CS forum after reading some nasty posts from customers.

SUBJ: Thanks, Eric, for doing a job that must suck (the rest of us, chill...)

At the risk of sounding like a Nitroplanes/xheli/hobbypartz/nitroplanes evangelist, I hope you will take a moment to think about my comments here.

I was thinking as I was reading some of these CS request posts about how frustrated we pilots get when things don't go as planned. I expect things not to go quite as well as I wished, but add to that the difficulty getting through to CS described and experienced by many of us, and it gets hard sometimes to be patient. I read comments by users that I hope would never occur face-to-face, taking out their frustrations out on Eric, and it annoys the hell out of me.

Eric is a guy just like us, who goes to work and does his job, one I have no idea why anyone whould choose. I am sure, like the rest of us, there are days he has his A game, and days when he brings his B game. I am sure he does what he can for us. I am also pretty sure he wishes there were more of him, (assuming he is really one guy, and not a bunch of people at NP under the same name). His job is to get to as many of us as he can, and to try to do right by us. We will tell him our troubles, give him good and worthless info about our problems, and expect him to move the world for us. Some of us will lie to him, abuse him and his company, rob from them and rarely thank them when they come through. Some of us blow things up, burn them out, and find other ways of abusing their products, and expect them to compensate us. Some of us have expectations that can never be met, even if he was the owner of the company. And yes, every now and then he or one of his "minions" screws up. And yes, sometimes we get the short end of the stick, usually through no fault of his. But more often than not, Nitroplanes comes through when our concerns are valid, our expectations appropriate, and the info we provide useful to solving the problem. He doesn't have any control over most of the things that piss us off. The customer isn't always right, and I have never seen Eric treat us the way some of us treat him. While we would like it to be, its not all about just you, its about all of us, waiting our turns. Please keep these things in mind when you work with CS.

Put your order number in your email. Sends pics, vid, whatever will make it easier for him to help you. It can be a PITA, but if you want quick results, get him what he needs to help you. Realize how many CS requests he gets (I understand, not our problem, but really, if you want much higher prices they'll be glad to hire more people), and wait your turn. If he misses your email, send him a kind bump.

Thanks Eric, for doing what you can and not going postal on us. You have helped many more of us than have missed out getting what we need, and I for one appreciate it. Sorry you job sucks, but man, "choose your rate, choose your fate".  I just hope you are an RC pilot too, and can fly off that stress!

BZ