rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Nick,

Cool on the new project for the saline content of the fish tank...I used to have some salt tanks, and they are high maintenance!! I don't think mine were as extravagant as Mark's sound, I just had mainly fish, and some anenomes, crabs, stuff like that...

I did acheive the very difficult (so they say) accomplishment of a very small salt tank, a 10 gallon....with some clownfish, and an anenome....it's so cool to watch the clowns play and frolic in the anenome, which is poison to the other fish; the clowns are immune to the venemous tentacles....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyYW0mr-e7k

It was fun....but I grew tired of watchin' $50 bills floating at the top of the tank....I'm sure Mark knows what I mean....lol...

Mark,

I breifly considered my insurance, but then ruled it out...I have a high deductable ($500) which would not make it worth making a claim...I found a gread deal on a discontinued shed, got it for half price at Home Depot....$299....so I won't be hurtin' too bad...just alot of work to demolish the old one, and get rid of the foundation for it...

Now....if I can just put it up this quickly....lol...it is an easy shed to build, and looks nice for the price!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwAKjzyZBkE

I have also had people "sneak" up behind me when I'm flying and scare the livin' you know what when I realize they are right behind me, I know the feeling!!

JPEE,

Sounds like you have quite a project going there....

How are you at building sheds?? LOL LOL...

jreue,

Welcome back, sounds like a nice vacation!


Well, I'm certainly not missing any flying....winds today are outrageous....tonight's forecast is for 35 MPH sustained, and 60+ MPH gusts....I'll be real lucky if the power stays on, since the ground is soaked, and the tree roots are not-so-firmly embedded in the soil....[X(]

Glenn

evdreamer

Mark,

I talked with the guy about his fish tank and he wants me to design something like what is commercially available. He wants me to monitor a few things with the water, control the amount of salt water and fresh water that goes to his sump, control the sump pump, drain the sump after awhile and refill it, control the water temp, have him be able to program in settings, control the lighting, and make the lights follow the tank like the sun.[X(] It sounds like my teacher will do most of the hardware design and I will do most of the programming.

Glenn,

That is good you found a shed at a decent price.

Nick

Aframomum

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jreue,
Welcome back to the states! Please tell us you have a few pictures to share of jolly ole England.

Glenn,
Looks like you have a bit of work ahead of you with the shed debris removal. Is the foundation concrete and in that bad of shape to need replacing? Hope the job turns out to be easy in the long run. Were you below that snow/rain line and just got rain? I'm sure you guys are sick of the snow now!

JPEE,
So what kind of renovations are you doing - did you gut out a room or something?

I hear you on the rhino packs - did you get them from Hobbycity?

Presently I'm using the Turnigy packs (from HC) and they come with a XT60 plug already assembled. I wound up cutting it off and putting on my own EC3 connector. Seemed a bit of double work if you ask me, cutting off one plug to put on another.

Nick,
Just out of curiosity what size tank is this you are working on? The commercially available units that control all the parameters you discussed are quite expensive so I can understand a DIY-type setup.

As Glenn mentioned salt-water tanks do get expensive. I had a 20 that I had constructed an overflow system with a sump, had metal halide lighting over it, had a medical IV pump (off ebay) to slowly dose calcium and other chemicals into the tank - all to support a bunch of frags of SPS (or small polyp stoney corals). It really was a nice setup but I lost everything when we lost power during a snowstorm (this was in Ohio). It was a bit of a crushing experience to say the least. []

But anyway, we all learn from our experiences and if your going to live in areas that experience power outages you get yourself a back up generator or battery-powered backup. Enough of my lessons in life!

Take care,

Mark

evdreamer

Mark,

I can't remember the exact size, but I think it is at least a 20 gallon tank.

Nick

JPEE

Hello Guys,

Nick,
Thats sounds like neat project to get involved with and with the teacher too. This will be a great learning experience for you for sure.........good luck.


Glenn,
I put one of those (like shed) sheds up 12 months ago at our other house. I built a foundation out of cinder blocks on the ground in the "load" areas so it would not sink into mud during the rainy seaon here LOL. Then a sub floor of pressure treated 2x4s with a plywood overlay. I did this for one reason only. I wanted the floor that you see in the video off the ground so rain water would not soak up into my objects that were stored. I also built the sub floor and foundation a 1/2" undersize to the shed, that way rain water drips off the sides to the ground and wont run under the plastic floor of the shed. I also had a buddy there to help with the roof panels as they needed some tweaking to get the locking screws in to place. Can you build this alone, yes, should you... no.........get a buddy to hold the walls until you have two connected so they will stand alone. Then the roof sections as I said. Good Luck!

Mark,

Yes I have gutted the kitchen to the bare walls. So everything will go back ah-new. Along with this kitchen work we are having (done by others) all of our ceilings re-drywalled over the existing to close in the old acoustic texture which we dont like which has aspestos! So when done the ceilings will be smooth as are the newer homes today. So I have built a small kitchen in our garage so we can eat of course. In the next two weeks before the drywallers get here I'll have totally empty the house contents into the garage. We do not want that dust in everything we own.
After the last earthquake I bumped out my garage and it 840 sq. ft. So we can store everything from the house in there and I suspect have some room left. That along with the little kitchen I built and a 42" TV I mounted on the wall we are pretty set, and of course I set a section of the garage aside so I can get to any of my toys at anytime I will bring the RV right close to the garage door and we can lounge in the garage and then sleep in the trailer a few steps away. This is the plan. But if we get cabin fever we can drive to our other house about 15 miles away but...........none my RC STUFF is there and its boaring, no TV, no computer. no Forum accept by my iphone. So I am not sure how this will work in the end. We will be out of the house for 30 days and wind up somewhere. While we are out of the house I will able to fly every day with nothing else to do Oh, did I mention we were considering on flying out and staying at Glenn's back shed but it looks like thats out now since its collapsed.

JPEE

jroo

Few pics of London. We stayed our friends in Richmond Surrey outside of London proper. It is a gorgeous little town. We spent 9 days taking walks, eating amazing food and drinking some great beer and wine.

jroo

Flew today for the first time since we left for London. Got 2 battery packs in on the Blade 400 and man, I have to tell you, something has just happened when I hit battery pack #30. Ijust 'get it' now. I take off with much more confidence and just fly without worries. I'm not doing anything crazy, but this sure beats just hovering and being paranoid about crashing... I flew packs #39 and #40 today. I did some forward flight for the first time; flying in front of me from left to right, then turning, then back. Man....just awesome.

To add to that, you could not beat the weather here in Tejas. Crystal blue skys, about 68 degrees and zero to a very slight breeze. The 400 just purred... Idon't think you could get any more perfect.

evdreamer

Jreue,

Good to hear you are starting to do some new stuff with the heli.

Nick

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Kinda quiet here, just checkin' in...

Jreue,

Nice pics of England....must have been a great time for ya'll...

Glad to hear things are "clicking" now....it will get better and better from here out...until you get "bitten" by a setback...but you'll bounce back from that too...such is the roller coaster of this hobby...enjoy while you are on "top" !!

Mark,

WHEW!!! Dodged a bullet this last one...NYC and New England got hammered....I got just a dusting and mostly rain here...thank goodness!!!!!

Nah, the platform for the shed is only wood, but it's fairly large, and will be a headache to remove and dispose of (10' x 10')...not a huge deal like concrete would be, thankfully!

I went in today and started clearing stuff out...pretty major destruction...I like skylights...but not wide open to the sky!!![X(]


I went up to work today...took the MSR, and the Quark...got one pack each... had what I thought was an issue with the MSR, and broke the tailblade on the Quark (styrofoam) on my shoe when I landed..

I mistakenly though that I had a problem on the MSR, when I was looking at the servo operation...but it turned out to be normal...I guess I'm just spoiled by the Quark and bigger helis and the way they fly....the MSR really seemed to be lacking in forward flight....

The Quark was good, but the tail was a bit skittish...I think I'll go back to standard settings for indoors....it behaved better indoors like that before...you can adjust the gyro and tail settings for "advanced pilots" to a more aggressive setting....but I think it's a bit too much for very calm indoor conditions.

I may tinker with them tomorrow a bit...

Hope everyone is doing well...

Glenn

Evan T.

Hey guys long time no talk! How is everyone? I flew the b400 yesterday for the first time in like three months! i was kinda rusty but im gonna start flying again now that its warming up a little bit! its been really rainy and windy also though, not good for helicopter flying! Ill try to keep yall updated!

evdreamer

Glenn,

That is good you didn't get a lot more snow and were able to fly some.

I have been working on the aquarium electronics all weekend. I can only work on the menu system, since I don't have any of the sensors. I am using a 16 button keypad to scroll through the menus and enter in the data. Then I am using a LCD to display everything. I just have to add a couple more things for the user to be able to program and the menus will be finished.

Evan,

Good to hear you are still flying the B400.

Nick

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Nick,

Sounds like you kept very busy over the weekend with the new aquarium project....and sounds like you made good progress....seems like an interesting project, and good practice for ya...

I put the MSR away, and concentrated on the Quark a bit today. I basically went over it, and balanced blades (I know...they are FOAM...but it helps..) and rechecked all my settings, and set the gyro up since the tail was a little whacky in the shop.

Hopefully it will fly real nice next time out....the MSR is somewhat disappointing to fly compared to the very well behaved Quark....

EVAN!!

Man, I thought you were gone for good!

Glad to hear that you are still flying the B400 after quite a break there...it will come back to you soon....won't take long before you are right back where ya were before...

How are the reptiles, and the RC cars doin'?

I've been hating life up here with the really harsh winter we've had....have not been doing much with the helis at all....but soon, the weather will break...and daylight savings is in 2 weeks!

Keep us posted...

Glenn

Evan T.

Glenn,

i had to get rid of my reptiles because i didnt have time for them anymore. my cars still get run alot though i dont have to have perfect weather to drive them!

rotarydoc

Evan,

Sorry you had to get rid of the reptiles, but if you didn't have time to take care of them, then that was a good thing to do. I remember gettting tired of feeding all my snakes, so I gradually got rid of mine as well...they are not the most fun of pets, they don't do much but lay around...lol..

Cool that you still enjoy the cars....I know what you mean about the weather...I hate waiting for those few perfect flying days, when the wind is calm, and the temps are nice. I have to admit, the best time I have ever had in RC was back in the days when I raced electric buggies, we had an INDOOR Off Road track, so we could race year-round, even on the coldest winter days and nights, it was very cool! Our track held the Northeast US regionals....that was an awesome event, we had over 300 entries, people from Maine to Virginia...

Hope you get some weather nice enough to fly again soon.

You'll have to try to get us some video if you get the chance....

Glenn

HeliStyle

My Feedback: (2)

hey guys I have a question I have a old am 27mhz radio and receiver sitting around but are missing crystals, cam I just buy any matching pair of crystals as long as they are am and 27mhz?

rotarydoc

Hey HELI!

Long time no chat!

You should be fine with some new crystals. They are normally sold in pairs, I believe, it's been a while...lol.

I think you have to stay with the correct crystals for that make of radio...ex. Futaba crystals for Futaba radio, JR crystals for JR radios, etc.

How are things up in CT? TIRED OF WINTER yet???

How is the heli flying going?

I'm waiting for spring here, can't come fast enough!

Glenn

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi all,

Haven't been flying at all, instead have been getting caught up on some yard work. Kinda got hounded last year by our HOA on the appearence of the yard so am trying to get a good head start before all the darn weeds come in and take over. [:@]

Maybe this weekend I'll be able to get some flying in.

Gotta run now but just wanted to check in,

Mark

jroo

Out of control!

Just got done with packs #41 and #42

Weather here was just too good to pass up, so I went down to some baseball fields right next to my work for some flights with the 400.

It was fairly windy but I felt confident. Spooled her up, took off with confidence and Iwas off. I flew 2 packs with the second being WAYout of my normal comfort zone. I did mostly forward flight in front of me; going back and forth with some nice graceful turns at the endpoint. I 'm always shaky on my first pack, and midway through the shakes go away and Ibegin to get in the zone. Iwas just all over the place on pack 2, just loving it.

Holy hell what a blast. I'm on fire!

jroo

Hey guys. I will be attending this event here in April. I do have a question though. It says $20 Pilot landing fee. Is this open for regular guys to just fly? How does it work? Ican't imagine a bunch of helis just all in the air at once so there must be some sort of 'order' for the chaos.

I here there will be some pretty famous people there including Curtis Youngblood and possbily Jamie Robertson

jroo

Just ordered my first AMA membership. Hopefully now I dont have to worry about getting sued if I chop someones face off.

evdreamer

Jreue,

They probably have "stages" on the flight line for a certain amount of pilots. Then there is probably a line to go fly at each stage. You should give the contest host a call and see if you can fly there. You will need AMA, which you just ordered. They will be making a nice profit at $20/landing, but they probably have to pay for everything for the guest pilots like transportation, loddging, and food.

JPEE and Glenn have both been to flying events, so they would probably have a better idea.

Nick

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

I went to my big fun fly here in MD, but I didn't fly....so I can't say what it would have cost had I choosen to fly. I'm also not sure how it works with your event jreue, but for the event I went to, there was a flight line for the "experts" and then there was a separate area for the less gifted/experienced fliers to tune/practice without getting in the way of the pros and expert guys there.

On the expert flight line, it was basically wide open, with about 5-6 guys flying at a time, side by side, all well spread apart, but not as far apart as I would have imagined.... I didn't see any collisions, but there were times when they were not too far apart!

On the separate tune/flying area, it was a rather small place, with trees in the back, for people to practice, setup, and test helis.

I am not familiar with the term "landing"....I would assume that would be the fee for flying in the event, but whether that would be all weekend, or one day, I'm not sure...

But, if you do fly, you will need the AMA card, for sure.

It should be alot of fun for you whether you actually fly or not, I know I enjoyed mine, and didn't even fly!

The club that sponsored mine says that the one big event covers half of their operating expenses for the entire year....

Oh, and BTW, it was totally free for me to just come and watch, no admission fees....

Glenn

rotarydoc

jreue,

Here are some pics of the Fun Fly I went to....

You can see the practice area in one, a couple of the main field, and one of some of the pros there, Bobby Watts, and Kyle Stacy and his dad....

Glenn

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Figured I'd bring this thread back to the top.

So how's everyone doing?

Glenn,
Has that snow started to melt yet??? I certainly hope so! I guess you've been busy with the shed demolition. The heli fly-in looked really great - bet you had a lot of fun with that one. I've only had the chance to go to planker fly-in's but maybe one day I'll get the chance to see a heli one myself.

jreue,
those pictures of England looked really nice - it sounds like you had a nice relaxing time. Congrats on your skills progressing with the 250.

JPEE,
looks like a bunch of work with that kitchen renovation. How's it going now? Hopefully your still not living it 'rough'!

Not much going on around here. Having slightly warmer weather but more winds to accompany it so flyings been at a standstill for the time being. But that gives time to tinker with other projects.

Mark

JPEE

Jreue,
I have to say +1 on everything Glenn said! Fee to watch, two flight lines, but nothing about landings, tons of sponcers selling heli stuff and the best damn hot-dogs and burgers with ice cold Coke LOL