evdreamer

Mark,

That is good you have been working on your inverted orientations.

Glenn,

That is good Sandy and the Nor'easter were't that bad in your area.


I only have three more classes left in one of my electronic classes and one more electronic lab this semester! The rest of my classes end at the second week of December.

Nick

evdreamer

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I had to work, so I missed out on the big meal. The extra pay is nice though. I took advantage of ExperienceRC's 13.5% discount and bought the parts I needed to fix up my Furion 450.

JPEE

Hi Nick,

Sorry I have been quite. We are still in Arizona and will be coming home soon. I have been flying and having tons of fun with our RZR car driving all over the mountains viewing old gold mines and Indian grounds. We did go home for Thanksgiving and it was an in and out thing. 600 mile round trip for the day. But family means everything to us.

Here is the field here in AZ.................. it is very nice

JPEE

Happy Birthday today to a great guy.

JPEE

evdreamer

John,

That looks like a fun place.

Glenn,

Happy bday.

Nick

evdreamer

Guys,

I haven't used my CAD software in awhile, so I decided to design a swash leveler for my Whiplash. The swashplate on the Whiplash and Furion 6/Fury 55 are smaller than normal swashplates, so normal swash levelers won't fit. I found out the company I bought the software at now offers 3D printers, but I have no idea how much that would cost. That would be cool to have around! Here is a PDF image of the leveler. If you click on the part you can spin it around.

evdreamer

I flew my Furion 450 for the first time today after the repairs. I first tried using an old Align battery, but it didn't have enough power to spin the motor. Then I used the battery that caused the crash in the first place. It had enough power to fly, but the capacity must be a lot less. It flew pretty good. I lost one of the see saw screws in flight, so I am surprised that it still flew good. Luckily I had a spare screw.

JPEE

Hello Nick,

Just got home last night from AZ. I could not try looking at your CAD drawing while on the road. But now home I got it opened but cannot make it move in 3D? That is cool your going to make a "1 off" swash leveler! Crap man, sell them on the Forum too if they are that rare.......

Glad to hear you at least got "A" flight out of the old bird. I tried to explain to the guys in AZ how important a "storing charge" is on your batteries. Crap man, they charge and leave them in their boxes for days and weeks. I saw a guy go up three times with batteries that had been laying at full charge and all three were as you explained low on their C rating and as he went up they didn't last while under load.

When I got to AZ I flew the 700 and there was a growl like the noise you get from a loose canopy, I just ignored it. Then next time out it got much worse so I landed and brought it home for the day to check it out at home when we came home for Turkey Day. I thought perhaps the main bearing were gone but yet I felt no slop? I bought the bearings, tore the heli down to find "nothing" wrong with the existing bearings? So I took it back and took her up and the growl was louder yet.......so I set her down immediately and shelved her. I have a hunch the motor or bottom motor shaft block bearings are gone. I have over 100+ 15? or so flights so she is due for some over hauling. I sold my plane (Apprentice) in AZ as I was board with it. I just need something new. OMG I still have my Bixler in the box lol. I am really not a plane flier but I do like having one around.

Take care

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Guys,

Life's been busy the past month...I started a new job and have been in training mode since the end of October but now I only have 8 more days before I am done with training and can start my shift - going back to 3rds now that my son is older and in pre-VBK, so he's in school from 8:30 to 3 which gives me plenty of time to get sleep. It has been an exciting transition for me as the hospital is only 7 minutes away rather than the 40 minute drive I was doing.

I have been trying to keep up on the forums but its been hard plus I've been taking advantage of my training schedule and getting flying in with the 500. Really practicing on the inverted orientations plus messing with tail slides and throwing in many more piro's into my regular flying routine, just to break up the normal ciruit flying. I did have a close call while practicing my inverted so found an old mcpx for sale on HF and got it...at least it helps me warm up and I can practice my tail in which is my weakest link right now.

JPEE,

You look like you had a great time out in AZ...nice to get a break every now and then!

Hope you can tack down that growling noise...can't believe you had your 700 for a year now, how time flies.

Nick,

Glad that your Furion didn't give you any issues with the missing seesaw screw.

I bet your looking forward to next week when your classes are over.

I took a look at your CAD drawing...I had to enable the 3D movement before I was able to move it around and see it from all sides. Very cool program and if you get it at the right angle it shows a light source reflecting off the surface. Now, you take the CAD drawings to a metal fabricator (or machinist) and they grind and cut a block of metal to the specified parameters to make a prototype?

Glenn,

Sorry I missed your birthday so happy belated birthday! Hope you got some cool stuff.

Happy December!

Mark

evdreamer

John,

I thought about selling the swash levelers, but I haven't asked for a quote yet to see how much it would cost to make one.

Good luck tracking down the noise on your 700. I have been thinking about selling my Furion 6 pretty much ready to fly. I have a bad cell in the main battery pack and I really don't want to buy a new battery, since I fly the Whiplash more. I still need to list my Velocity 50 too. Once school is out I should have some more time.

Mark,

It sounds like you are enjoying the new job.

I am glad the Furion 450 stayed together without the screw too because there were a couple of neighbor kids that enjoyed the little show that I put on.

Yeah, I am looking forward to when school is out. I am burned out working full time and going to school full time. My boss hired a new person to work on the weekends, so the evening guys can finally get a weekend off once in a while. I don't know if I told you guys, but I have been designing a new LiPo balancer. It has a higher balancing current than most chargers on the market including mine. A large part of the parts are surface mount, so I could keep the circuit board costs down. I just need to write the software and test that before I buy the board and the parts. I already designed the circuit board, so I hope I can get a prototype before Jan.

I have been converting the 3D model to a 2D drawing, so a local machine shop can make the leveler for me to my specs. I have been thinking about making it out of aluminum or plastic if it is cheaper.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Nick,

Good luck with the heli sales...don't forget that many will try and get something before Christmas so don't wait too long.

Don't know if you guys have heard but all the GensAce batts have gone up in price...some by close to 50%. My 2600's for the EFL were $36 when I bought them over the summer and now they are $55. Plus with all the Pro sponsership I've heard that they have given lots of batts and so everything seems to be out of stock for now. Sooo, take care of your current Gensace's because replacements may be out of reach soon. This is with both Hobbypartz and Xheli...don't know any other places that sells them.

BTW Nick,

What's the difference between the balancers that the chargers use and a simple Blinky? Is one more superior then the other? Don't know much about balancing...I just hook up my Blinky to the lipo and keep it on while charging and take it off when it stops lighting. I don't use the charging port that came with my charger as my charger is a simple 80 watt with built in powersupply from Xheli. According to the Blinky instructions once the LED's stop lighting all the cells are at the same voltage.

Mark

JPEE

Hello Mark,

Thanks for the heads up on the Gen Aces!

I cannot answer your question to the same level that Nick can but I can tell you I have three Blinkys and they are what I started with in the beginning. But they have been sitting in a drawer for three years now. I was doing six cell batteries on a battery that was out of balance. The Blinky got so hot it liquefied the solder in the Blinky was destroyed. It just so happens the manufacturer is about a mile and a half from my house. I called them up and explained what it happened and they said come by and they gave me a brand-new one no questions asked. Further, they said that they have had on a few occasions the Blinkys do that where they work so hard and couldn't dissipate the heat that the solder got so warm it became liquid shorting out the board. So I took the replacement Blinky as well as the other Blinkys and I cut the clear wrap off so they could breathe to the outside elements and not retain so much heat then I never had a problem again.

John
BTW this from my phone and I have a cold and I'm on night quill so there may be some errors sorry

evdreamer

Mark,

I didn't know the price of the GenAce's went up. I was thinking about buying the 60C? 6S 5300mAh batteries for my Whiplash, since I kind of stress the 30C ones right now. Every time I looked on Hobbypartz they were always out of stock.

The main difference between a balancer built into a charger and the blinky is that a charger can lower the charging current or stop the charging process if the Voltage between cells gets too large. Then there are three sub parts: accuracy, resolution, and balancing current.

Some cheap balancers just use resistors to lower the Voltage to something the processor can measure. The problem with that is it is difficult to accurately know the Voltage of each cell is. Software is used to calculate what the Voltage should be. More advanced balancers have a circuit that can accurately measure each cells Voltage. Then more expensive balancers use higher tolerance parts to reduce the error. If the factory doesn't calibrate the balancer in hardware or software the Voltage that is measured could be way off. I was curious what my circuit was like at a worst case scenario and I got a pretty large error with high tolerance parts for me.

The resolution is how much the circuit can distinguish a change in Voltage. A circuit called an Analog to Digital Converter(ADC) is used to convert the analog Voltage to a digital number the processor can use. Three common ADC resolutions are 8bit(256 steps), 10bit(1024 steps), and 12bit(4096 steps). An 8bit ADC can measure 4.2V/256=.0164V per bit. A 10bit ADC can measure 4.2V/1024=.0041V per bit. A 12bit ADC can measure 4.2V/4096=.001V per bit. If the rest of the circuit doesn't use high tolerance parts the error can easily out way the benefit of higher resolution.

Then all RC balancers use a resistor and a switch to to add a load to a cell to drain the charge out of it. In my Hyperion chargers they have a 15 Ohm balance resistor. So in a best case scenario it can have 4.2V/15=280mA of balancing current. That seems like nothing compared to the charging current. So if you have a cell that is way out of balance and do a fast charge that Voltage of the high cell will never come down fast enough. That is the advantage of having a built in balancer with the charger. Hopefully you can understand some of that. Balancing circuits got my interested in electronics so they are a lot of fun for me to design.

John,

Hope you get better soon.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

Hang in there and hope you get better fast. I did have my blinky heat up so that the plastic melted a bit but as you did I cut away some of the plastic covering and haven't had any issues since.

Nick,

Thank you for the in-depth explaination and I want to commend you on simplifying it so I could understand.

I know that when you first plug in the Blinky it does a cell voltage reading and notifies you if all cells are between a certain voltage by lighting all the LED's (for a 6 cell batt)...at least this way I know that one cell isn't significantly higher than the others. But I don't believe the Blinky has any of the software you mentioned in determining the voltage during balancing, or if it does I am sure its just minimal accuracy.

I guess right now I'm at a crossroads as to continue to use the Blinky or to start relying on the built in balancer that came with the 80 watt charger from Xheli I am currently using...think I'll stick with the Blinky and later upgrade my charger when that time comes.

My training is done with my new job and I have officially started nightshift again...been almost 3 years since I worked this shift. I did like it back then and am happy to be on it again.

Take care,

Mark

evdreamer

Mark,

That is good your training is done.

I am glad I am on my winter break now. I can finally catch up on sleep. It sounds like there is supposed to be a lot of snow here tomorrow.

Nick

JPEE

Hello Nick and Mark,

Mark, congrats on beening back on the nightshift and get back into the swing of things. That so has to feel good!!


Nick, for you mister.......... it is time to EAT and SLEEP your heart out. This is payback for studing so hard. Regretfully still sick, day 10! OMG I am so glad I dont have to work, I dont know what I do. Everyone here has it too. My medical carrier Kaiser Permenente told me today when I got a blood test that the staff there that have caught this are sick for........................ 30 days! CRAP I tell ya, Mark know very well I am sure.

Happy Holiday Guys

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

Yep, I'm enjoying being back on the nightshift. Missed it alot the past few years.

Just take it easy and don't overdue it...let your body heal and fight that cold.

Nick,

Hope you didn't get snowed in but if you did it's good time to get caught up on sleep.

I learned a nasty and expensive lesson a few weeks ago with my 500...yeah, a crash. I got used to flying in the mid morning so used the sun reflecting off the rotor disc to keep my orientation, but with my training schedule I found my free time was in the late afternoon (you see where this is going right?). Well, my first time out I was doing stuff I normally do nice and high when I lost orientation...the heli was just a shadow in that setting sun and I couldn't tell up from down, front to back. Went in full throttle tail first and partially inverted. Did hit TH before the hit but wow, what a crash. It was one of my more spectacular crashes with a huge dirt plume and parts and blades flying everywhere. So getting parts back together and looking to have it finished by the new year...and no more flying in the late afternoon.

Mark

evdreamer

Mark,

We got a lot of snow for Nebraska, but nothing like what the northeast gets. I haven't heard how much snow we got yet. It was a white out last night. I am glad I didn't have to go to work yesterday. The houses across the street had a black out for a few hours and I only had temporary power outages.

I bought a Apple TV before the storm came yesterday and I am using the free month for Netflix. I really like it and Netflix. I like that I can listen to my music on Itunes through the Apple TV.

Sorry about your 500. You should put some lights on it.

Nick

JPEE

Good morning Nick, Mark

I see your having cold weather which we cannot compare to but it is extremely cold here and something we are not used to. I have no idea how high our heating bill will be but it will be something you can bet. Snuggle up, sleep late, and enjoy that new TV.

Mark, sorry to see the crash, done that....been there. I kept this picture and I don't know why, and it is several years old. The same thing happened to me and down she came. This was in that day a $300.00 crash as there was not much left of the heli that was salvageable. Good luck on your rebuild.
Today is my 12th day of Christmas....... flue that is. The doc put me on antibiotic yesterday. As a side note, I do have more appreciation for someone on home arrest. To have spent 12 days in the house and to have only left once to see the doctor, it does make you (or at least me) stir crazy. How much can you and watch TV ya know. I cannot fathom being in jail locked in a cell. That's why I walk the straight and narrow LOL.

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

I can't believe how long it's been already, I have to appologize for being absent for so long!

JPEE,

Hope you start feeling better soon, that is horrible to have something hanging on that long, and can't shake it...I hope you get well soon! No way to spend Christmas! Sounds like you aren't the only one from what Kaiser said...I have heard that it is/will be a nasty flu season..get well soon!

Mark,

Glad to hear the night shift news, and that you are liking it a lot better, I would have a hard time with it, but it sounds like it suits you just fine!

Sorry to see the 500 crash pics. I used to love flying at dusk, but it does have it's drawbacks as far as visiblitly and orientation go...usually not much wind though, that was the part I liked the most...hope you can get it back in the air soon!

Nick,

Glad your area wasn't too bad on the snowfall, was thinking about you when they mentioned Nebraska...hope you didn't get stuck or anything.

Cool on the new projects, and yeah, those 3D printers sound pretty cool...I'm not sure how much they might cost, but like any new tech, they'll come down in price as production goes up...

Awesome on the Apple TV, I use mine all the time, mostly for Netflix, watching "24" right now, for like the 3 time! Good show though....

Now all you need is an iPad, or iPod touch, and you can use Airplay to mirror anything on the iPod/iPad/iPhone to your TV, via Apple TV...pretty neat stuff!

Well, guys, if I don't get back on here before Christmas, I hope everyone has a GREAT CHRISTMAS!! Enjoy the time with family and friends, and I'll talk to you guys soon (hopefully not so long this time!)

P.S. I have been doing some computer work for the company here, sort of an I.T. guy I guess...so far it's working out pretty well, been restoring some of the older PC's around here, and light stuff like that, I find it much more interesting than the cars...[X(]

Glenn

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Hope everyone's Christmas was good and you were able to spend it with family and eating good food! Did anyone get any RC-related gifts??

Glenn,

It is good to hear from you...seems you are branching out to other areas which sound much more interesting to you. IT and computer related is just your forte. Hope you had a nice Christmas.

JPEE,

Hope you are feeling better now. Have you spoken to your doc about a product called Tamiflu? I saw an advertisement and thought it may be something you may want to discuss with your MD if your still not feeling good. [link=http://www.tamiflu.com/tamiflu-for-adults]Link[/link]

Nick,

I have had Netflix for the past 6 months and it really is good for some of the older TV shows, esp if you want to watch all the episodes and all the seasons that aired...Star trek, 24, CSI Miami, X-files, and The Walking Dead are some that I browse through. But if you want to watch any newly released episodes (MIB III or even Contaigen for example) better to go to the RedBox at your local grociery store and rent it for a dollar b/c Netflix won't have it for some long time. That's their only drawback.

For Christmas this year we went up to PA to visit my parents-in-law...yep, smack in the middle of that snowstorm that hit over Christmas. We had a good time and are very lucky to be home (well, at work now) when we did as our flights got delayed several hours and we missed the connectors so had to take later flights home...I have never spent that much stressed time in airports (Dulles and Charlotte). I don't think we will be heading north during Christmas for a long time to come. The snow was nice to see...for about a day then that was enough for me and my very thin Floridian blood.

Take care everyone,

Mark

JPEE

Hey Guys,

Mark, I hope you and Nick will accept me as a card carrying memember of the human race again I am back to 99% and OMG I thought this would never end. I have talked with people that have it linger for up to 5-6 weeks. Anyway, I am ready to fly when the cold weather and rain leave here in Sunny California lol. No Mark we did not discuss that product, yet I have heard of it. He just fed me antibiotics which did nothing. So it just ran its course. I hope both you and Nick had great Christmas's and will have a Happy New Years too
I felt like Nick the other day. Not in what I did, that was stupid, but I though of Nick at the soldering board while I was repairing the damage I caused to my parallel board for my charger. I wasn't paying attention I guess and I had 5 batteries in the board and when I plugged in the 6th's balance connector and I crossed polarity..YIKES smoke came off the board and the 6S balance parallel feed fried and separtated on the board. It got so hot in that milli sec that the copper band lifted off the circute board!! So I got the board out of the case and said...... what would Nick do here? So I bridged the gap on the boards "open" circute with a 3/8" long piece of like 22 g wire. Because the board got hot the feed strip was loose so after soldering I slathered the area down with liquid tape and let her dry. She is working and beautiful even if I say so myslef. [] But when this first happened I thought it was unrepairable so I had ordered a new one that evening. It was only $20.00 bucks no biggie but now I have two, so............... I'll use new one on my Hyperion when needed to charge 6ea. 3S packs for my Quad copter and then use the iCharger and do 6ea. 6S 5300's for the 700. Anyway ya cut I am a winner.................. just feel stupid for making a rookie error like that.

JPEE

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

Glad to hear your doing much better!

That was a close call on the board...nothing a little solder can't fix right?

Wanted to wish everyone a great New Years!

Mark

JPEE

Right back at-cha! Happy New Years Boys. Seems if I recollect right we have all a fair year overall. May the next one be ten times better!


John

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Looks like I get to be the first one to post in 2013!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!