HobbyPartz Adventures!

On 12/19/11 I ordered a Hobbywing Platinum 100A V1 Brushless ESC from Hobbypartz.com. They didn't ship in in their promised 1-2 days so it ran inot the holidays before I was able to get them to ship it after contacting customer support. It arrived, or I should day, the package arrived today, 1/4/12. The mailer shipping label shows it to be a Platinum 100A ESC, but its a Platinum 70A HV Opto (I need the BEC). And the packer even initialed it... Okay, no problem, really, it happens, but its annoying when it's their business and I have had to work with their CS more than any other shop's.

It took 15 tries to get in the CS queue, after several busy, and several disconnects after 20 or so rings. I've been waiting going on 25 minutes on hold for CS, and I'm still waiting. I am going to ask them to ship the right one now, rather than waiting for this one to get back to them. I'll cough up the $5 for Priority Shipping to get this one back, but honestly, I wish the right one could have come as its the only thing keeping me from flying the  Sopwith.

I post this because I have found that even well before the holidays shipping from Hobbypartz takes about a week to leave the warehouse in LA, and another week to get to my house in Mississippi. I usually plan on 2 weeks at least for parts to get from them, which would be okay if they didn't promise 1-2 days to ship... Now going on 30 minutes on hold... I'll update this later and let you know how it goes. UPDATE: After 40 minutes I gave up, and decided to send a post on RCDiscuss, which will take a couple of days and a few exchanges to solve...


UPDATE (12/5/12): Got an RMA number from Eric at Hobbypartz,, and t pay for the shipping.He didn't say if they would ship the correct part. Replied asking him if they were planning on it. I'll be shipping the wrong part out tomorrow Priority mail.

UPDATE UPDATE(12/5/12): Yup! I send him the tracking number and he'll send the part right away. Excellent!

UPDATE (12/6/12): Mailed mine out today, and sent the del conf number to Eric at Hobbypartz. He quickly sent me the shipping number of the part he's shipping.

UPDATE (12/7/12): Curious. The correct part arrived today, with the Delivery Confirmation number Eric gave me yesterday. It had to have been shipped earlier. Hmm... if another one arrives, I'll return it.

Hobby King Sbach 342 v2

A while back I saw my first Sbach 342, and I really liked its sleek lines and agressive tightly wound packaging. That was a foamy, from Parkzone or the like. I thought it would be really great if there was a small balsa version. I found a 1400mm one at Hobby King, but thought something smaller would be nice, around 1000mm, as space is getting to be a premium in my hangar, and the tails were snapping off the 1400mm Sbachs. Unfortunately no one had a single good thing to say about the 1000mm HK SBach as it was way tail heavy and had such high wing loading that you couldn't add any effective nose weight. Then v2 came out and addressed this problem, and more positive reviews are rolling out. Curiously the v1 is still on their website, so do be careful.

Today I decided to get the Hobby King Sbach 1000mm v2 with a Turnigy Park 480 850kv (275 watts), giving me a roughly 1.8:1 power to weight ratio. I have an Art Tech 40A ESC recovered from my ArtTech Diamond 2500 glider, and will swing a 10x7 APC prop to start with. I have some T-Pro MG90 metal gear analog servos and some Fusonic MG-D-9g digital metal gear servos coming... will need to decide which to use. I would like to use the 3S 2200mAh batteries, but not sure they may be too big. I'm pretty excited. She's a wicked nice plane, and I suspect there will be a few things to sort out, but hopefully she will prove a fun sport aerobat!

Re-wiring the Sopwith

I have yet to successfully fly my beloved Hangar 9 Sopwith... my second attempted takeoff ended in a broken plane. I rebuilt the wing last week, and today rewired the wing guide wires, and installed the new HURC 5065-04 motor, a 60 sized motor I should have started with. I am still waiting for the Hobbywing Platinum 100A ESC from Hobbypartz.( I ordered it almost 3 weeks ago, and it took 10 days before they shipped it, and yet it still hasn't arrived. I have stopped buying from Hobbypartz if I can avoid it as they never ship in 1-2 days and nothing takes less than 10 days to get from California to Mississippi). Its the last piece I need to fly!

The guide wires snap on this plane with any torque, even if they are loose. I saw someone who used light springs to allow for some give. I secured the springs with a piece of dental floss so if it comes unhooked it isn't lost. Worked great!

I shortened every line. Since some were snapped from the crash I was going to have to replace the wires anyway. Here's one of the small springs in place. I bought a pack of 10 Kleinschmidt Extension Helical Springs on eBay from mjs-depot (great price, quick shipping, gonna order some more).

Passed the floss through the spring and through the eyelet connected to the stanchion. Left slack to allow the spring to extend. The hemostat keeps the floss from slipping out while I manipulate it.

Tied a loose knot.

Clipped the bitter ends and voila!

All 8 are sprung.

And they look great!

The new motor awaits its ESC.

It will go on the left (airplane's right) in this motor box.

More to follow!

Cornell Rewinged

The other day was crazy windy. We flew only a couple flights, and they were a lot of work against a heavy cross wind with 10 mph winds and 20 mph gusts Stupid fun flying. So it was a great time to take my Eflite PT-10 Cornell up! Kenny Chandler, the only other flying fool, asked me why I hated the Cornell... then as I headed out to the flightline crabbed his camera and said he just had to film this!  (Here's your sign... but I was being bold!). Touchy cross wind takeoff in a plane that begs to roll the upwind wing, flying 45 degrees to the wind to run down the center line, kiting around turns near the tree line. There's always a nice burble on windy days along the tree line at the south end, and I flew into it. She rolled the wing nearest the tree line down hard, I compensated, she did it again, I over compensated... a nice pilot induced oscillation, tip stall, POWER, stall, crashes onto her wing. But it was a WILD ride!

Yesterday I redid the wing, and today the cote. Getting the cote right was tough as I learned how to use the heat gun (LOVE the heat gun for cote, but there is a very very thin line between shrink and melt...). I decided to redo the cote on the vertical stab... that was a pain in the ass and I redid it 3-4 times. The left side still isn't right, and I was too tired to take any pics... the wing came out pretty good though!

Pre-repair with the cote removed, underside right wing. The wing is broken clean through aft, a couple ribs and the leading edge spar, held together here by the top cote. I carefully peeled the S of U.S. off and would replace it later. 

Repaired the ribs and spars. The wheel box was shattered, though you can't tell from the pre pic. I had to remove the sheet balsa, reconstruct the box with the existing parts, build a new roof under it and then re-sheet the balsa. In rebuilding the cracked spars I used the technique below to add supporting wood behind existing structure.

I use popsicle stick wood, Dremel sand some arcs to reduce weight.

The wheel box is re-sheeted.

And the underside cote is done nice, clean and snug, using my newly developing heat gun skills. I did the underside easily, but the topside took a couple tries. I also put the S back on and made new periods.

But it too came out near perfect.

The dihedral is spot on, no new twists that I can see. The new wheel box is sturdy.

She looks great, though I wish the left side of the vert stab cote looked better... next time.

No pics, but I decided to change the motor. I had a HURC 2836-09 driving a 10x8 Master Airscrew powered by 3S 3300. I think this was a marginal power setup. I decided to change to a HURC Power Up 450 motor Kenny Chandler had given me. for a few more kv and 50 more watts of power without any more weight up front (remember she has the metal motor mount, so front end weight is an issue). I think she will fly a tad better, and can even handle a 4S if I want to. Hoping to fly her tomorrow!

UPDATE (1/1/12): Went back this morning and redid the left side of the vert stab, and it came out wonderfully. I also took a moment to strengthen the structure of the frame, which you can see through the cote in the pic of the right side.

Bad ESC update

Turns out Ray was right. He responded earlier to my my badESC post noting maybe the ESC throttle limits hadn't been set. He was right! I installed the replacement ESC and it did the same thing, alarming and not functioning. So I set the ESC throttle limits. After binding the receiver turn everything off and remove the bind plug.Turn on the transmitter, then move the throttle to high/full. Now power up the reciever. After the first start tones finish, within two seconds of turning on the receiver, pull the throttle back all the way. Let the ESC startup finish. It should no longer alarm, and the ESC should function properly. It works fine now! Thanks, Ray!

I NEED MORE POWER, SCOTTY!

The good news is that my Hangar 9 Sopwtihfits in my new car. I traded in my Lexus IS 350 for a more economical, and while smaller, roomier Lexus CT200h. Now I don't need to borrow  my wife's crossover anytime I want to fly more than one plane, and driving to the field doesn't cost me $10 in gas. I actually like this car better than my IS, and I loved my IS.

Its a tight fit, but it works! I was able to get my Eflite Pulse XT25e, my Electrifly Cosmic Wind, my two PDYSysytems carriers, my battery charger box, and my radio box all in there. Very nice!

The bad news is she still flies like a pig... She took off from the middle of the field and this time rolled left despite full right aileron and then right rudder, and back into the ground. She bent her motor mount, broke her prop, cracked the cowl, knocked a piece of the mock motor out, and broke her wing. When the wing twisted, the wires snapped, again. Looks like I lost a turnbuckle to boot. Vinsen was there and he echoed my concerns since the first flight, that the motor is not powerful enough. She has a 14x8 prop, lifts off, but doesn't seem capable of controlled flight, just waffles. I ordered a true 60 size motor from Heads Up RC. The plane is stock recommended for an Elite 46, which my installed HURC 4260-06 motor is a replacement for. Many builders have done fine with the Elite 46, but most are recommending steppjng up. Since her power has been bothering me, I opted to buy aHURC 5065-04 motor, which is equivalent to a true 60 size motor. I also purchased a Hobbywing C-Platinum 100A ESC, to upgrade from the installed 70A ESC. I wonder if I should step up from the 14x8 prop? This motor has a lower KV, but I am also going to ramp up to 6S from the 4S I had tried. My fear is she will just crash harder...

Thunder Tiger eHawk 1500

Yesterday was a marginal day flying at BMF. Very windy, which limited our flying. I did take the Hobby King ASK2100 up. We know how she flew last time we tried that.

I flew her a couple of times... but she hated the winds. Her wings flexed  and bent in flight, her tail twisted, and she was a bucking bronco between being carried by gusts to following her own lead when her control surfaces twisted in flight. It wasn't any fun, and every flight ended in a tip stall. I gave the controls to Paul Minnick. Immediately after launching her she kited up and backwards, then flipped nose down as she shot over the pits. He cut power to avoid the pits, clearly having no control over her, and she simply drove herself into the ground. He felt awful, I felt it was inevitable. She was a terrible aircraft. So I removed the receiver and gave all her parts to Greg Reed, who loves a challenge.

I still love my Diamond 2500, but I am done with foamy gliders. I need a new glider, less than 2 meters, power, and not foam, for a low price. I like T-tails, but that means fiberglass (or heavy foam like the Diamond), but I also like V-tails. I found this Thunder Tiger eHawk 1500 at Tower Hobbies for a very reasonable price. I couldn't find any legitimate gripes about her. I watched several vids and liked the way she flies. I will build her stock but want to work on giving her separate aileron servos (don't know why they didn't do that) when I can figure out how to make the cuts in a new servo tray. She needs spoilerons or will be challenging to land at slow speeds. She should get here by the end of the month. Looking forward to her and learning how to program V-tails!