evdreamer

Mark,

That is cool you ordered the 500.

Glenn,

Sorry about your friend.

That is cool Justin is sponsored.

Here is one of the screens of my battery management system that I have been working on. I just need to work on the gauge pointers. I have another version of this screen with bargraphs, but I like the analog version better.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

That is a cool looking display.

I like the color scheme, looks very easy to read.

I think that layout would look better than bargraphs.

Glenn

JPEE

Nick,
Congratulations on the battey management board. That screen is so easy to read. I absolutley love the layout, it remeinds me of a car instrument dash.

Glenn,
Justin licks butt out there with the Compass forsure. I hope when is going on tour a around thw wolrd he remembers his old friend Glenn lol.

Mark, CONGRATULATIONS on that the new 500! That some kinds good, loving, understanding wife you have there to encourage you to enjoy your hobby as does mine. My wife packs my field luch and sodas and then goes over my check list to make sure I an not forgotten anything.

Here is something you guys might like. It is a picture of every airplane made on earth.
http://www.aviastar.org/index2.html

JPEE

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

My wife doesn't pack a field lunch for me yet, guess I have to pass at least 10 years married first before I can ask for that right?

Thanks for the congrats on the 500 everyone - I can't believe this will be my 2nd one this year. I am quite excited to say the least.

I got a chance to fly this past weekend and it was oh so nice. Not quite as long as Nick's 3 hour record but I'll take what I can get. I have been practicing on the sim more inverted hovering and found that nose in is much easier then tail in (at least for me). Had the chance to try this weekend and it went reasonably well - just held it for a short bit several times but am getting more comfortable with it.

Glenn,

My condolences, hope all is well with you.

Mark

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

My friend that passed was a co-worker from my last job, which I left about 4 years ago...but I knew him for about 20 years, and although we weren't real close friends, I still knew him pretty well.

It was no huge surprise, he's been battling stage 4 stomach cancer for about a year and a half...but still sad when his day came. Horrible way to go, I felt so bad for him.

Thanks for the kind words on his passing.


Mark,

Glad you finally got some well deserved flight time in! Keep up the practice on the inverted, that's basically how I got started, just a step at a time, and lots of sim time helps too....funny, I am more comfortable tail in. You and my buddy at the heli field are both more comfortable nose in...

JPEE,

Yeah, I don't think Justin will forget me if he ever makes it "big time"....at least I hope not!



It's downright chilly here, finally! I'm not complaining one bit either! I just need a little time to adjust...sure came suddenly...it's going to be in the upper 40's here tonight!

Didn't help that it was windy and rainy today too...quite miserable....supposed to have some nicer weather by the weekend...and I have to work Saturday...[]

Oh well...get it out of the way, and there should still be some decent flying days still left before it gets too cold.

Hope you guys get to fly some this week.

Glenn

JPEE

Hey Guys,

After having the 450 Pro lay on the bench for almost two weeks due to time contraints, I just got her back in the air right now 7:29 p.m. California time in the RAIN. Now that was only a hover and a small low fly around the back yard with all of the flood lights on but I could see the blades were tracking and she sounded sweet. Of course a real test of course will be in sky.

Glenn, what a "B" it was to run all of the wires outside the frame....all in a armor so they dont rub and cut themselves as they came through the lower sides of the frame. I had to drill two small holes through the frame to make places for wire ties to hold the ESC. Now is resides on the outside of the heli for more air to pass over it and to have access to it. The best part of this whole thing is that now I can pull 4 screws and the entire TT and tail block in the frame slides out for quick recovery and repair without having to deal with moving wires to do so.

JPEE here in Calif in the rain[&o]

evdreamer

Thanks guys. I just have some finishing touches on my second screen. Then once my circuit board comes I can start trying to send live data to the display.

Mark,

That is cool you are doing some inverted hovering.

Glenn,

It is getting cooler here too. It has been in the lower 50's when I am getting off of work.

Sorry you have to work on Saturday.

Nick

evdreamer

Here is my second screen. The controller for each battery will data log the Voltage and Temp and display it on this screen.

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Wow, must be getting cool all over. Ah, fall is here.

I think we have been hitting the mid 60's at night. It's funny, a little cold and you see everyone breaking out the sweaters down here - thin Floridian blood.

Nick,

Have to say your projects are amazing...the battery management system looks really good.

I have been working some on the sim with the inverted hovering, I just need to get comfortable with the real thing...and that takes lots of practice.

JPEE,

That wiring job looks good, and will make repairs easier to do. Sometimes a neat wiring job isn't the greatest thing for this particular heli - trying to take anything apart can be a real bear.

Hope the rain lets up on ya soon.

Glenn,

Hope the weather clears up for you this weekend before you have to go in to work. I'd imagine 6 day work weeks have to royally suck but as you've said it is just once a month and better to get it over with.

Look at some of the goodies that were waiting for me when I got home from work tonight: Yep, my 2 6S batteries I ordered from HC. And the excitement builds...

Now all I need is the tail servo (Futaba S9257), step down for the servo, KBDD paddles, Boca ceramics for the M motor, and various screws from this place I found on HF (just want to try out some different screws to satisfy my curiosity).

Just a few questions now: KBDD has paddles for both the 2.5 and 3mm flybar. I suppose the 3mm is the one that comes with the ESP? I also noticed the 6S batteries use the same gauge wire as the 3S (12AWG) - did you guys use EC3 or EC5's (yep, I decided to stick with the EC connectors )? Any kind of step down for the tail servo, as long as it brings the voltage down to around 5.2V?

Trying to tie up loose ends before placing my order... [sm=spinnyeyes.gif]

Thanks guys,

Mark

rotarydoc

Hey Mark,

I can see your excitement building...I remember that well...

My stock flybar measures a tad over 3mm, about 3.16mm...so I guess it's safe to say you will need the 3mm paddles.

I used EC3's...although there is certainly nothing wrong with going heavy duty with EC5's, except that they are considerably more difficult to unplug....I found that out when Justin asked me to unplug his one day...pretty tight...which is good...but might get old. I have had zero issues with GENUINE EC3 connectors, I don't like the HC ones for something as important as a battery on my 500!!

I use the Align step down on the 500....never had an issue, I think it drops the voltage to 5.1 or something in that range. Installed it, and forgot about it...the old "set it and forget it" slogan from Ron Popiel works here for me...lol...

http://www.helidirect.com/align-51v-...tor-p-7099.hdx

Congrats again...and have fun with the build...for me, that's half the fun!!

Glenn

jroo

Nick,

What language are you using to program, specifically for the display.

James

evdreamer

Mark,

That is cool you got your batteries.

James,

Right now I am just sending bytes of information from my computer to the display, so it is like machine code. It is quicker for me to develop that way for the display. I mostly program in Assembly language. I think it is right above machine code.

Nick

jroo

Nick,
Impressive man. The only assembly I've done was in college, and I'm happy to say I don't have to do it again. Although, it is nice to be that low level sometimes. What microcontroller are you using?

rotarydoc

Nick,

That screen looks great...professional actually!

Great job, keep up the good work.

I don't know much about assembly and machine language, other than what I read in a computer book long ago, that they are the basic building blocks for micro controllers and such...good that you are studing and learning all that stuff..

Glenn

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Nick,

Looks like you and James have a language of your own!

Glenn,

Thanks for the 500 answers - I'm still in the air about the EC5's, guess I'll pick up a pair and see how difficult they are to separate...I remember how a pain the deans were so don't want to go down that road again.

Can you believe my sim finally went on the fritze last night?! I had an old version of G2 (the one with the 12 pin serial connector on the controller - yeah, old ), so I really have been needing an upgrade. Am currently looking at Phoenix, looks really good and like the idea of using my DX7.



Looks like my 500 was shipped from HongKong this morning - may get lucky and have it in a short bit.

Mark

JPEE

Hey Mark,
Let me throw a nickles worth of info at you. When I bought my 3,000 mAh 45C 6S brick battieres for the 500 I could not solder on EC3's, the dia of the wires wouldn't let me do it safely. So I used Deans and then a made a pigtail for the heli over to EC3's to the ESC. While there is a step down in wire size I have never had an issue nor have any of the connections gotten warm. I fly 6 minutes all in idle-up generally. Another reason I did this is I have 5 chargers set to accept Deans. So when charging comes around for my 6 large packs for the 500-600 I throw them on my big chargers. Then I can either use pigtails later on those chargers for the 2250 packs with EC3's or use my other chargers that have the EC3's on them. The last benifit to all of this is, I can fly 2 ea 2250s on the 500 with a EC3 "Y" series connector or pop that off and fly the 3000 packs. They key word for me is "versatility". I can also attest to I NEVER EVER trust a soldered joint on any battery I buy, I pull them off and re do them all. I have found numerious cold joints or half soldered joints.

OBTHW I would be hapy to provide you pictures of my 500 build so you have reference at hand both with the wire run inside or outside as I have them now.

Nick, boy oh boy your project is really coming along...well done son!
JPEE

choppersrule

Mark,

I was snooping around and seen that your sim went on the fritze. If it's in the budget, I'd highly recommend the Phoenix Simulator. It's the best on the market for helicopters.
There's over 150 helis and airplanes on their menu. And to answer your question, YES they do have Align helis: Trex 250, 450 Pro, 450 SE, 500 Sport and 3D, 600 electric and a 700 nitro.
I'm on version 2.5V, they have released a new 3.0 Beta version with a 550E and G3. Not sure whatelse though, I haven't downloaded it as of yet.

I'm with JPEE on redoing solder connections from the manufacture. It's mass production and things get missed. As far as battery connectors, the only ones I've ever used were Deans connectors. Even on my 600 and I've never had an issue with them ever. And those that whine about being hard to pull apart, need to go to the gym once in awhile.

Good luck with the new 500 inbound.

Dave

evdreamer

James,

I have a quite a few microcontrollers. I have one Parallax Basic Stamp2. That is how I got started programming microcontrollers. I learned to program in Basic with that. They have some good books on programming and some simple electronic circuits. Then I have a good selection of Microchip's microcontrollers. I like all the resources and support they have and their programmers are pretty cheap. All my current projects use a Microchip microcontroller. I like the higher level progamming better, but I am so used to assembly I just stick with it. I wrote a lot of routines in assembly to do the same stuff that I could do in Basic.

Mark,

Sorry about your simulator. If I could do it all over again I would go with Phoenix also.

Nick

rotarydoc

Mark,

+1 on Phoenix, the only way to go!

Glenn

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Dave, Glenn, Nick, John...thanks for your help.

I was browsing on HF Phoenix forum last night and found lots of info on settings and so forth for specific models. Looks like I'll be going with Phoenix over RealFlight, just have to wait till next payday - kinda went over this time with the 500 purchase.

I also resolder my new connectors as well, just b/c the Turnigy/Flightmax batteries usually come with a connector I don't want to use...and nice to know about the cold/bad solder joints from the factory. Dave, guess I'm one of those guys who have to hit the gym cause I have a heck of a time with those pesky deans. lol!

JPEE,

Pictures would be great. I've been going over the posts from November of '08 when you, Glenn, Jeff, and Carl all started building yours (gee, I think I was just flying a simple Blade cp back then )...saving most of the pictures I am coming across so to get most every angle I'll need!

Gotta run now - have to take apart a toilet that my son decided to send a bath toy on a vortex of flushing fun!! Ah, 22 months!

Mark

jroo

Mark,
I give a +1 on the Phoenix Simulator as well. I absolutely love it.

jroo

Mark,

I started with the Parallax one too, but the Java version. It was nice to program in a higher language, but I could not stand the development environment. I am use to using a real IDE such as Eclipse, and what they shipped with was a POS in my opinion. I even offered to assist in writing a Eclipse plugin for them, but never really got a response from them.

The Sun SPOT is absolutely incredible. You pretty much have the entire j2me stack at your disposal for the microcontroller, whereas the parallax version was extremely limited. The onboard sensors, leds, and built-in 2.4Ghz 802.15.4 radio gives you a super jump-start on pretty much any project.

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

So has anyone had a chance to fly this week?

Weather's been very windy so the heli has been grounded for the time being. And no sim... []

Mark

JPEE

Another fully typed page of my post friggin dropped again when I hit submit BARRRRRRRRF

evdreamer

James,

That is good you like your Sun Spot software.

Mark,

I haven't flown this week. I think my circuit board comes tomorrow, so I will be busy for a few days with that.

JPEE,

Sorry. I have started saving my stuff when I type something long.

Nick