Flying, not flying...

I really do love the RCGF Engines. The only engine that really gives me trouble is my Evolution 10cc... Though the 26cc RCGF Engine on the Pulse is acting the fool. 

Pulse XT60. Ran fine but like I was running gravel through it... It ran fine last week... I do like the silencers, they do seem to bring the noise down a lot. 

The field was pretty busy! A lot of people were there, lots of helis mostly.

The wonderful Eflite PT-17 Stearman.

Flew beautifully!  Flew sideways... too windy. Flew one battery.

Once again I spent a lot more time than I should working the Evo 10cc. She started wonderfully, ran fine, took off and flew around, super sensitive elevators, and went to idle, noticed it got very, very quiet... dead stick landing went fine. For some reason she would not idle all of the sudden, no matter what I did... Spent over two hours, finally started idling fine. Brought her in for landing, and I slowed too much, pushed the throttle forward and she took too long to respond and stopped flying a foot off the ground, and, of course, ripped off  the gear. No other damage. Resetting the crash clock...

Busy Shop Day

I had a lot of things to get done in the shop today. My last post was about the Mile High RC Silencers I installed on the RCGF 26cc equipped Pulse XT60, but I also installed the replacement RCEXEL CDI from RCGF-USA on the RCGF 10cc engine on the stik, and setup the Eflite Stearman on the iX12.

The dual silencers on the RCGF 26cc

The new ignition on the RCGF 10cc is under the cover. One of the possible causes of the left aileron twitch that lead to the 720-deg/sec snap roll the other day is ignition noise. The wire covering on the original sparky wire was gapped in places, so I replaced the CDI, and I tossed a torrid (ferrous ring) on the ignition power lead to further isolate the receiver from the CDI. We'll see if this makes any difference.

I haven't flown the Eflite PT-19 Stearman in over a year. Not sure I flew it at all last year? I opened the hatch to see what I have for a RCVR, and found an "older" Spectrum AR600, and an Orange 3-axis Stabilizer System. The Gyro wasn't set up... no idea why. So, I set it up. It works fine! I have it setup on the iX12 to allow me to switch it off in flight. The AR600 is nice, two antennae, but no telemetry. With the iX12 and its sweet telemetry skilz, I am all about the telemetry now, so will probably replace it with a new Spektrum AR620.

My Eflite PT-19 Stearman, all set!

I so need to get out and fly something. Overcast and cloudy tomorrow, but light winds!

Mile High RC Muffler Silencers

The RCGF 26cc engine on the Pulse XT60 is of course a bit loud (less loud now that I put the muffler back on... it was falling off and lost a screw, so I think that is one reason it was so loud at RC Aces last week). I decided to buy a pair of silencers from MHRC, having one on the MX-Bach's 36cc RCGF engine with its one big pipe. It took out the high pitched pops and gave the engine nice tuned sound. The larger silencer fits it perfectly. I know the smaller ones are just a touch big for these pipes at 14.4mm (they fit a pipe with a 14.4mm ID), as the OD is 14.4 on these pipes. But I had an idea, and this seems to work. We'll know when I can fire up the engine. I know the tip will fit inside the pipe, and that the outer edge will be flush with the pipes outer edge. it won't go in. I suspected that the silicone attaching tube would fit just right on the pipe, and that the silencer doesn't care if its in the pipe or the silicone. I also needed some guarantee that the silicone tube would not get blown off. This is what I came up with.

A piece of painter's tape to help keep the drill bit from wandering too much.

Drilled an approx 1 mm hole.

Put a M2 short hex screw...

In the hole. Snug, not gorilla-tight.  Repeated on the other pipe.

Pushed the silicone tubes onto the pipes, having already used hot water to press the silencers into the silicone tubing and set an electrical tie around them. I then used the supplied ties to put one above and one under the protuberance created by the screw. Snug, doubt they will blow off. Now this will increase the exhaust manifold pressure a little, so I will lose a few RPMs, but this plane is over powered and will tolerate that fine. I won't be surprised if I have to make a few adjustments to the needles or idle end point settings. 

UPDATE:  They actually do make a noise difference, with no noticeable performance loss!

Reciever or Transmitter not seeing Dual Rates on Dual Elevators

Here's a new trick! I was setting up a new AR8010T on the Sbach with dual elevators on my iX12. The radio is set up as "Dual Elevator - Single Rudder", and they both respond without a mix to the elevator stick. This looked fine, but then I set up the dual rates/expo, the RT elevator (on the ELV channel) responds appropriately to the dual rate set, but the LT elevator (on Aux2 channel) acts like a toddler totally unaware of the dual rate changes.

Is this a setting problem? I worked for over an hour trying to come up with a solution even mixes, including switching to "Single Elevator -  Single Rudder". Nothing works. Next day off I am going to start over with a fresh New Model in the radio and see what happens. If that doesn't work, it's up to the advice on the interwebs, and a call to Horizon Hobby.

Very curious, indeed.

UPDATE 1:  Well, I figured it out. But it shouldn't have to be done this way.  I should be able to set DUAL ELEVATOR-SINGLE RUDDER in the Wing Type Menu and that should  mix AUX2 to the ELV(RELV), just like setting DUAL AILERONS makes AUX2 the Left Aileron, but that wasn't working. I decided to look back at my DX8 and the settings it has becasue it's also DUAL ELEVATOR. I knew it was a mix, as HH had helped me set that up a few years ago. It is set at DUAL ELEVATOR for Tail Type. One thing I realized is that the RATE was at 100%/100%. Oops... Was that it? On one of my trials I set them that way on the iX12,  but there must have been some other setting wrong. So I went back to the iX12 and short story, it works! I don't care why, but it works.

Here's what I did.
1. In MODE SETUP Set the WING TYPE to DUAL ELEVATOR -  SINGLE RUDDER
- This allows me to subtrim the left elevator separately
2. In MODEL SETUP, go to CHANNEL ASSIGN, and make sure AUX2 is INHIBIT.
3. Go to MODEL ADJUST and select MIX1.  I mixed ELV > AUX2, Rate 100%, Trim On, Switch ON

Voila. That was it. Why this didn't work before I have no idea. But it works now.

UPDATE 2:  After I told Adam Maas on he FB iX12 Owners Group a few details and my wondering about the LEL and how to get it to talk to AUX2, he realized my problem.

"That's your problem there. You're running your elevator on AUX2, not on LEL.The rates are applied in the Elevator function, not to the Elevator Stick.

Go to System Setup->Channel Assign->RX Port Assignment and change whichever channel has AUX2 to have LEL.

The RX Port Assignment menu tells you which receiver ports are assigned to which function and lets you shuffle them."

So I went, made a copy, and in that copy removed the mix, and instead did the port reassingment, and that was all it took. Done!

Frsky Lotus Gimbal Stick Ends

I fly using the finger-thumb pinch method as this provides the most stable and precise control on the sticks. I find the stock sticks too small in my fingers, and have always switched the gimbal stick end to an umbrella/mushroom stick head. I learned of a third option called Lotus shaped stick ends and found these FRSky ones at ProgressiveRC which arrived today. They are MS compatible with Spektrum and Futaba, any M3 sized stick end. I really like the way these feel and function!

Programming Airplane Flight Modes (Three Idle Settings) iX12

My Hangar 9 Pulse XT60 is overpowered a bit with its RCGF 26cc gas engine. This makes it fast and powerful, especially with the thrust produced by its 3 blade prop. Even at idle she produces thrust. At low idle she can be unreliable, bog down, and die. Endpoints above that run well, but produce too much thrust. I need a way to have a reliable but slow flight idle, and a stable even if briefly, landing idle. After asking on the Facebook iX12 Users Group, I decided the best option was using throttle curves with different idle settings, set to a switch. This has so far turned out to be a great option. 

I set up the iX12 three position Switch B (traditionally the heli Flight Mode Switch) with a Flight Idle 6% above true idle, an Approach Idle set at 3% of true idle, and a Landing Idle set at actual idle. The Landing Idle is low enough to produce little to no thrust, tries to bog down, but usually will not stop despite threatening to. I chose 6% as this was a reliable slow RPM position that allowed an acceptable in-flight idle speed. 3% is simply 50% of the Flight Idle and is there to allow a step-down transition, and the Landing Idle that is slow, boggy, but will usually keep running. Using the Flight Mode Setup panel I was able to change the Call-Outs to reflect these new settings. 

The video walks you through how to do this!

Volts (Pressure), Amps (Gas), and Resistence (Loads)

Volts is the pressure in the tank, Amps is the actual gas (also volume), and Ohm (resistance) is loads, including the diameter and length of the "tubing" (wire), and resisters along the way (loads, like lights, motors, radios, etc).

Ohm's Law.   Voltage = Amps x Resistence (V = I x R)