Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Glenn,

Hope all is well after that nasty storm and sorry about the loss of power, esp. in the middle of July no doubt. [] Were you able to save everything in the fridge by doing the freezer/fridge switch-a-roo?

Nick,

Battle damages on your transmitter gives it more personality, I think I'll just take your word on that rather than try it out myself.

jreue,

Looks like JPEE steered you in the right direction looking for bent/misaligned parts on the head. Good eye on catching that mixer arm.

This morning I'm heading out to a new field I found yesterday (one with zero trees ). Doesn't look like rain this morning and the temps are only 78 now so looking forward to some nice flying time.

Mark

JPEE

Hello Mark,

You have to have lived that issue with slightly bent head parts and as I posted twice for me. I am glad Jreue got it and he has to be one happy guy today and even more when the parts arrive!

Nick, I sure hope your radio is not on the blink. Sometimes when I move a servo the others might "twitch" a bit but certainly not move, you'd better be real sure that is not going to be effecting everything. Hope it cools off a bit for you too.

Glenn.............................where are you?

JPEE

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

The storm damage here is alot worse than I originally realized, and I actually was very lucky to get my power back when I did...

Some people are not going to see their power restored until Thursday!

I was going to post and catch up last night, but my cable was completely out, no TV or internet...I guess they are still fixing wiring/cables/electric lines...

I should be able to post more tonight and get caught up...

Glenn

jroo

JPEE,

A few days ago, you mentioned your new 'super charger' you had. Which one do you have?

evdreamer

Mark,

How did the new field turn out?

Glenn,

That is good the storm didn't affect you too much.

I did some more tuning on the Velocity today. It is finally flying good again. The tail barely drifts in a hover and it doesn't drift while moving. My engine is also tuned for the hotter weather. It only took a gallon of fuel to get it there. I hope I can take it to the field on Friday or the weekend and test it out.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Nick,

good luck on your flight with the Velocity this weekend - glad to hear you were able to sort things out with it.

My new field is great and I feel real comfortable there, just open space. Basically it is a large fenced in area that looks like it used to be a pond but was filled in. Guess it may eventually be converted to shopping plaza's but for now it is my flying area.

This morning I was able to work on some flips (back and front) and a few rolls. Also did a couple of large loops (and it was nice not having to worry about a tree waiting in hiding ). Have to say it was nice getting back to some good flying.

I don't know about you guys but when I head to the field I have in mind a variety of manuevers I want to practice, but sometimes I find that I don't get to do them all b/c I start goofing off - not that there's anything wrong with that. But it was nice to get to do all the things I wanted to try out for once.

Glenn,

Glad things are looking up for you. That is really terrible to hear that some will be without power until Thursday, and the heat index is still in the upper 90's for you guys - I can't imagine. []

Be safe and stay cool,

Mark

JPEE

Jreue.
http://www.rcdude.com/servlet/the-11...615i-6S/Detail

It is two chargers in one. Or you can link them internally and charge 2 ea 6 cell packs as if they were a 12 cell pack thus making the balance in all 12 cells equal. It does so much more, read what it can do.

Nick, glad it is coming together for you.

Glenn, glad the worst is over.

Mark..........great flying there son. NO TREES

JPEE

rotarydoc

Hey guys,


Had a bad day today...nothing serious...just a bad day at work, then no flying, all the places were occupied, then a project I am doing turned to crap ...replacing a battery on an iPod touch...

I've had it, going to call it a day, and look forward to a better day tomorrow, and I'll catch up with everyone then!!

Glenn

jroo

Hey all,
Ordered my mixing arms for the 250 and they shipped yesterday; so maybe tomorrow.

Just FYI for all those with an iPhone 3G. I would not upgrade to the 4.0 OS. It is horribly slow and induces instability in a majority of the app's I use. Apple does not provide a way to downgrade back to 3.1.3, so you essentially have to hack it back with 3rd party applications. It is a complete PITA and took me 3 hours last night to successfully find the correct configuration to downgrade successfully. 3GS users are not as susceptible to the massive performance issues due to the faster hardware, but from what I understand, there is a performance hit.

evdreamer

Mark,

That is cool you have a nice field.

I also have a list of stuff I want to try at the field, but I usually forget half of them once I am in the air.

Glenn,

Sorry about yesterday.

Jreue,

Good luck with the 250.

Nick

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Today is off to a better start....so let me get caught up here....

Mark,

Sounds like you found yourself a real nice field there to play in....and no trees to reach out and grab your heli out of the air...

I would love to find a place with no trees at all, since I fly alot in the evenings, the treeline kinda makes the heli hard to see against...it's easier to fly it up above the treeline, but not as much fun. I have a bad habit of flying low...never been much on the super high flying some guys like....

Glad you are getting settled in at work, at home and on the field!

jreue,

I have always wondered about metal head parts, and what would happen to them in a crash, as you have seen...and fortunately, it was bent enough to notice...what if it was just tweaked a tiny bit... it might cause some weird flight characteristic that could be hard to pin down...

Almost makes you want to go back to plastic in some ways..it usually just breaks, rather than bends.

Thanks for sharing your experience, I have always wondered that...metal is definitely stronger, but when it does bend, it might cause some headaches for sure...

Thanks for sharing the iPhone iOS4 info...I can't upgrade anyways (jailbroken iPhone..). but I have heard about the drag on the phone's resources, and more battery drain as well...

Since we are on the iPhone subject...I have an old 1st gen iPod touch, and the battery is getting rather weak, doesn't hold a charge like before...so I figured I'd make a little project out of it, get a battery, and install it....

I have heard/read that it's not an easy task to get the back off of one of these...but my lord, I had NO IDEA how hard it would be. They gave me little plastic tools to pry the back off with, but they are a joke...waayy to soft to do anything...and the website even says so...

I ended up using some metal feeler gauges to slip under the back, and ended up scratching the heck out of the thing, before I FINALLY got the back off...what a nightmare!!

At least it was only an old iPod, and not my 2nd gen, or my iPhone.

Lesson learned...if I need a battery for my iPhone, I'll take it to the Apple store and fork over the $79...way well worth it, just to avoid the aggravation!

Nick,

Glad the velocity flies good now, sorry it cost ya a gallon of fuel for tuning/setup...[&o]

Hope you get a chance to really test it out this weekend.

I think my weather here might actually be decent, they are saying highs in the mid 80's...which is much more like normal...so maybe I'll get a gallon of fuel and fly the SDX some this weekend, now that I have it tuned in pretty close, last time out it was running well...

I am going to fly tonight, if I have to use a parking lot somewhere...lol...been like 5 days since I've flown...going crazy!

Glenn

JPEE

Glenn,
I know you sold the 400's and parts but wanted to share this info anyway as it
might serve you well later on. When I rebuilt my 450 Pro tail blade grips I needed the smaller bearings of the two that are in that grip. Well as it turned out the LHS was out of stock. But as I looked through all of
my inventories I found small bearings in a Blade 400 pack. Well after checking the size and mic-ing them then were the same bearing 3x6x2.5mm. They are the Eflite tail box bearings that support the tail shaft. So in a pinch you
can cross over.

JPEE

evdreamer

Glenn,

I have been trying really hard to get my Velocity flying again after the second crash. I got the morning off to go to a big heli fun fly in a couple of weeks. Now I just have to keep from crashing it until then. That is the same fun fly that I crashed just a few days before the fun fly.

That is good you have nice weather again. Have fun flying.

Nick

JPEE

Nick,
I hope you get the Velocity off and flying perfect in time to go to your Fun Fly! Just be careful till then and hot dog the 600 a bit if you need a rush.

It has been very nice here in Cali today, warm with a cool breeze.

Tomorrow I have a buddy coming over to set his swash. Yesterday I worked with and FAILED big time. To go back a step, he had it bound to a DX6i and then moved over to a DX7 and that's where everything turned to poop. I know from personal experience that you "cannot" just transfer the numbers from a DX6i to a DX7 radio, one to another. The problem came when all of a sudden he did not have 12+ and 12- and then it got messy. When I moved his sticks for cyclic the servos moved to fully eachvway to their potential. But when I moved the throttle from mid stick to high they did not travel as far as they did when I closed the throttle from mid stick. I went through the head over and over and over trying adjust from the bottom up and to no avail! I could get 8+ but like 18 - so set it aside for the night. Tomorrow I am going bind the heli to my DX7 and see how that goes and build from there just in case his radio has an issue. I did check his monitor and the throttle is nearly centered but the ail and pitch are not. I will re center the servos without a radio turned but just let the ESC power up and see where they go without any input.

JPEE

evdreamer

JPEE,

I am thinking about maybe optimizing the mechanical setup on the 600 sometime soon, since the Velocity is pretty much done. I am wondering how close it is now before using the mechanical calculator.

That is good you have nice weather also.

Good luck with your friends heli.

Nick

JPEE

Thanks Nick, I just sat through Finless's 500 build to refresh my memory, holy cow did I forget some short cuts. Tomorrow should go real well now that I am refreshed forsure!

It would be interesting to see how you came out before the use of the calculator, check your skills mister..

JPEE

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Well, I got one flight in tonight, I guess that's better than none. Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow. Friday nights are usually the best, everyone is out doing something else I guess....so I'll try tomorrow and Friday. Then it looks good for the weekend finally...

JPEE,

Sorry to hear that B400 is being a PITA, and I know all about switching radios...I was caught off guard by how much work was involved when I switched over to the 9503...half was learning the new radio menus and such, and the other half was realizing that settings on each radio are completely different...as you know..good luck with it...

Thanks for the tip on the B400 bearing sizes and the 450 Pro's. My LHS B400 parts selection is pathetic, so they probably wouldn't have them in stock anyways... I have come to the realization that if I don't have it in "stock" it's going to be an online thing for me....I will think VERY HARD before I ever drive to Hobbby Hangar on a weekend again...that last 4 hour plus journey was enough for me...most if it sitting in traffic...[:'(]

Nick,

Sounds good now that you have the Velocity all good, to move on to the 600 next...cool that you have that calculator down now too...

My iPod touch project is a complete failure. I will NEVER try to open or repair one of those again....I was struggling as it was with getting it open...then the battery is glued in place...so I took a feeler gauge, and slipped it under the battery to pry it up....all seemed fine...until I looked closer...

I accidentally sliced the main ribbon cable running from the upper PC board to the lower one...[X(]

No fixing that....so I took a nice working iPod touch that had a weak battery, and turned it into scrap metal....[&o]....it would have made a great heli tach to take to the field too....

Well, one thing's for sure....glad it wasn't my iPhone....and I WILL take it to Apple and gladly pay to have the battery replaced!!

Very user unfriendly service on Apple stuff !!!

Live and learn.....

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

Cool to hear you got to fly today.

Sorry about your iPod. There was a kid in my class that took an iPod apart. Can you buy a new ribbon? That sounds like what I am going through at school with a capacitor meter. It isn't working and there are no obvious signs of a part being bad. So far I have spent 3 days trying to trouble shoot it. Least I was able to fix a function generator. That was easy because a resistor and an IC was burned.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

The iPod was an experiment, but I had hoped it would go better that it did....experience is the best teacher, if I had it to do over, I'm sure I could avoid most of the mistakes I made...but it was just a bad experience...unless you did it for a living, it would be hard to get good at it.

I'll get over it, I have another one, and it's a newer nicer one anyways. But I sure learned a lesson...

Sorry you are having such a time with the cap meter...is it a project for school, or just broken and you are trying to fix it?

Sounds like some of the troubleshooting I do at work....we have many components in cars now that are basically sealed control units, and we have no way of really diagnosing them, other than to check inputs and outputs...there is definitely some guesswork and parts replacement at times.

Guy next to me just had a satellite redio issue, the signal would fade in and out while driving...we tried substituting a good antenna off of a new car, but that didn't fix it. We called the tech line, and they said to try the satellite DLP box (like a cable TV box)...so we ordered that. It came in, and it did end up fixing the problem, but it could have been in the radio itself, or the antenna lead, or wiring, etc.

Then I had a navigation system issue once...everything worked great, except the little voice that tells you when to turn, and that you just missed your exit, and is "re routing" ...lol...didn't work. I didn't really know what to do, so I called tech line on it. They said to replace the navi unit. It costs $4500..[X(]....and it's evidently very fragile...it has a sticker on it that says "SCRAP IF DROPPED"...lol....so don't drop your new $4500 navi unit!!

So....I replaced it. When the screen came up, it was in Japanese. The unit they shipped us was for a Japanese version navi system. So they shipped us another one....same thing...

Then we had to call Denso in California, and they finally shipped one that was in English.

After all that, the problem was still there...no little voice...

I wasn't sure what to do. I grabbed another car, and swapped the nav unit out of that car in this one, and it fixed it....then I thought about it....the map DVD was in the unit from the other car...so I tried it in the new unit....and that fixed it!!

All that time and effort, and the map DVD was bad.... $13,500 worth of navi units.....[X(]

'nuf said!!!

Glenn

rotarydoc

Nick,

The ribbon is part of this;

http://www.ifixit.com/iPod-Parts/iPo...tery/IF132-002

Not available, and cost-prohibitive...

It's a write off.....learning lesson...

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

This quarter all I am doing is fixing broken/non working electronics. People bring in their electronics that don't work and we fix them. They only have to pay for parts. The electronics department also has equipment that doesn't work and I fix that too.

That was an interesting navigation problem.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

I should have sent you my iPod project...lol...

In my auto mechanics class in high school, we had a program like that. Me and another student rebuild an Oldsmobile Cutlass 350 V-8 engine. It turned out good. It took half the school year...lol...one class at a time.

Good that you are gaining experience with that kinda stuff.

I didn't fly today. Maybe tomorrow, I'm counting on it.

I am thinking about going to MHA on Wednesday or Thursday evenings, just come home after work, pack up and find something to eat on the way.

Hope you get to fly soon.

Where is your big fun fly? You aren't going to IRCHA, are you?

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

I also plan on flying tomorrow.

I would like to go to IRCHA, but my fun fly is East of Lincoln. There is a pretty big heli crowd out that way.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

Sounds like your fun fly should be cool.

Alot of the guys at MHA are going to IRCHA, but there is no way I'm going...not the way work is right now.

That trip would cost a bundle....

Hope you get some good flights in tomorrow.

Glenn

JPEE

Hey Guys,

I hope you both get to fly tomarrow and this weekend too.

An update regarding the EXI 500 swash mix I was trying to nail.

Synopsis;
My buddy wanted to switch his EXI 500 from his DX6i to his new Dx7. In doing so as stated before you cannot transfer the curves and sub trims from one radio to another, each radio it

unique unto itself.

For the life of me I could not get his swash to center where I could go full throttle to closed throttle and stay to where the pitches would not be 7+ and 17-. So I sent him home last

night and re-watched YODA Finless's videos and soaked up a lot I had forgotten since my last heli build. I am proud to say that after watching the videos, pulling out my Trex 500ESP

manual for a guideline and basic linkage lengths she came out **** up today. It is funny how much better things go when you are not tired and are refreshed and don't bank on the

knowledge you "think" you remember off the cuff, cause your wrong. I got that puppy within a 1/16" at the top of the head and when the throttle was closed I stayed on the pins and

the swash had room to move under cyclic rotations and I had a constant 13+ and 13- which I toned down in the swash mix from 60% to 55% and everything was spot on at 11 on each

side for a noob. One of the biggies I missed from memory was I had forgotten to take his throttle and pitch curves to textbook liner, that was what was killing me, they were all over

the place where he had tried his hand at improving his hovers LOL.


Another battle won. Some guys say when you crash your heli it was a case of "dumb thumb's". I would call this a case of "DUMB-AH HOE" which is Apache for stupid mistakes, LMAO

on this one boys.

JPEE