Aframomum

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Hi guys,

JPEE,

What great news that you got the 'okay' and are enjoying some much needed recoup time. And I see your in it thick with pipe repairs and getting everything all settled in out there in AZ. Glad you got that propane issue dealt with. Sorry about the bad motor bearing but at least you got a standby plane to enjoy.

Nick,

Guess your break is over and your back at it with classes again. I'm sure your looking forward to next month with your internship starting.

I had the chance to take out my Fusion on Sunday. We had a storm approaching and the winds were gusting but I wanted to see how the heli would handle it and have to say not too bad. It was getting pushed around a bit but I blame that on my rusty thumbs and not the heli. It was fun getting out again.

Mark

evdreamer

Mark,

Yeah, I am looking forward to my internship and this semester being over. I will be busy working my current job on the weekends and the internship on the weekdays, but I will learn a lot at the internship that I could use for my senior design.

That is cool you got to fly the fusion some more.

John,

That is good you fixed your propane leak.

Here is a pic of my part of my senior design project. It has input filters, output filters, and an IC that converts the analog to digital and digital to analog.


Nick

JPEE

Hi Nick,

You never let me down, I love your enthusiasm about what you can learn from your internship that will help you step into your senior project. I can clearly understand about getting this semester over with. It won't be long before you are slugging it out in the corporate world and the more your know the better your chance's! I am going to throw some old adages at you............... if you love what your doing, you'll never work a day in your life. And of course..........knowledge is power. I am not qualified to render an opinion on your board other than to say it is clean and your solder joints are too. Where the HDMI port? GOTCHA :-)

Hi Mark,

I am glad you got out to knock off the cob webs off of those thumbs lol. Good deal too flying in the wind. I can say with confidence I have never had the wind both my 700 or the 500 because of their power to weight ratios. Now landing in the wind welllllllll that is a different story. Did I ever tell you about the time I was landing my 600 not far from me on a real windy day? As I was landing she was tail left nose right sideways to me. As I was 2 feet off of the ground and a wind gust came from the other of the heli and lifted it towards me so the head blades looked like a windmill to my face. I only had time to hit TH and take a half step and turn my back to what I thought was gonna be a "my back" rather than my face blade incursion. As I hit the TH she dropped down and the blades hit and she did the funky chicken so my partners told me that were scared and shocked by what was happening. That is a lesson I hold near and dear to this day as I always step waaaaay back before I spool up and or come in and land. Stupid is as stupid does.........ONCE.......I learn fast.

John

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Nick,

Your senior project board looks real good and professionally built - good job.

Your schedule will be very busy with school, internship on the weekdays, and your job on the weekends - be careful this close to the end of your school to not burn yourself out on overload. Moderation is key now...

JPEE,

Scary stuff with that windy landing and unfortuate chicken dance ending. Glad it was just pride damage and nothing to you physically. I think we all have some physical scars from mistakes made from our heli's and they are definite learning lessons.

I have been taking my Fusion out on Sunday's as that is usually the one day a week that my wife works and I have the time with my son to go flying.

Last Sunday it was in the late afternoon that we headed out and so the skies looked a bit threatening but that is Florida weather - can look bad but nothing happens. This won't be one of those times as I found out! We get to our flying area and I take out my Stinger EDF jet to get warmed up. The winds are howling but the jet is doing great and sounds awesome. Landing was a bit hairy as she was bucking but got her down in one piece.

I notice on the horizon rain bands but decide to get the Fusion out knowing it can handle the winds. I've actually enjoyed flying in the wind with this heli. So up she goes and I have a fun 4 minutes. Near the end I can feel some rain drops so start getting ready to land then in slooow motion I see (and hear) the rain band approach. I get her on the ground quick, unplug and get her in the car as the skies open up. My son and I jump in the car soaking wet but the heli and plane are both dry. Great fun and I take the time while its pouring out to take the canopy off and fold the blades into their holder. It really was a fun day.

In other news I have been very busy the past 23 days getting my house in SC ready to sell. The lease for the tenants ended on Mar. 31 and it has been an uphill battle to get things done with this management company. I will be making a trip to the house to do the interior painting and inspect myself the work already agreed upon. I have also been dealing with the bank (Bank of America) trying to get a deferrment on the mortgage loan as I can't make 2 house payments. And then get to deal with insurance companies telling me they can't cover a vacant house so I have to look for another carrier. Oh the headaches. I do have a realtor and she is waiting for me to finish getting the house in show condition before officially putting it on the market. I will sign a relief when the house is on the market, mortgage loan is deferred, and insurance situation is settled. On a positive side I did get all the utilities finally turned on and in my name this week.

Mark

JPEE

Mark, I just replied a page worth of text with 5 photos and the screen seized and all was lost. RCU didn't do its back up as I typed, Ticked in Spades right now I'll get back to you again.

JPEE

Hello Mark,

Well it looks like you took on old mother-nature and kind of lost. That was pretty ball Z to go out and fly both in the wind and with the impending rain band so close. I’ll bet when you and George ran back to the car your were laughing your heads off, what a great day to share with your son! Mark, it doesn’t get better than that!
I cannot imagine how tough it must be to have the other house so far away and have to deal with it. We have had several rental properties and still maintain one but it’s close, 12 miles. And it’s exactly like you said, you have to be there to see that everybody is doing what you’re paying them to do before you pay them. Otherwise you’re going to get shorted no doubt. Most importantly, I hope that Bank of America will meet you halfway and be civilized about the situation. I can see the Insurance Companies position not wanting to Insure an empty house where you could get squatters who could do a lot of damage let alone the guys that come in and steal all copper! Hopefully you can work that out with them.
After reading your story I too have been dealing with insurance companies. The policies on my Polaris Razor, Cargo Trailer and my 40 foot fifth wheel that I leave in Arizona are ready to expire. I was with Progressive insurance and one of my neighbors in Arizona told me to try Farmers. The reason why is that Progressive will only ensure the fifth wheel as a movable ready to go RV trailer, where farmers insurance company will put it as a Park In Place Model and ensure it as a home. The short of it is I saved $250 over what I was paying for all three vehicles.

I’m going to try and make this is short as possible so bear with me, when we came home a few weeks ago from Arizona where we only stayed three weeks and we brought home the fifth wheel cover as it had approximately 10 holes in it. Some were rubbed holes, and some were tears from the wind. Once the cover was here Judy and I tried to come up with a solution to patch the holes with something that was durable but yet wasn't so rough textured that it would do damage to the outside of the trailer. LOL Judy came up with a good idea, we used old Levi’s as the fabric for the inside of the cover. I sprayed it with 3M 77 spray adhesive on the inside of the cover and then the Levi material and then rolled them together for good adhesion with a wallpaper hard long rubber roller. The cover came with some of the matching fabric with peel and sticky on the back but not enough to do all of the tears we had. Once I ran out of the “matching” patching material provided we cut up the bag that the cover came in made of the same fabric and I sprayed that and the cover with the spray adhesive and rolled that tight. This took about four days because the cover is 20 feet wide and 40 feet long. Every time I would repair as many holes and tears as I could I would have to let them dry overnight before I could slide the cover around so I didn’t wind up with the cover sticking to itself while I went on to new holes to repair. So Monday of this week I drove to Palm Springs which is the halfway point ( 273 miles each way to az ) stayed overnight at my buddy’s house. We got up in the morning at 4 AM had coffee and hit the road and where there in two hours. It took us two hours to finish putting on the cover because first……everywhere there was a protrusion had to be covered. The last time I used pool noodle material which in the end was too soft in didn’t like the heat and fell apart allowing the protrusions to tear up cover. So this time I brought a bunch of Styrofoam large material from TVs and VCR packing and cut it up and laminated it with the 77 spray to make it fit around these protrusions and then used HVAC aluminum sticky tape to make it adhere to the side of the trailer. Once we were all done with two hours work on the trailer we stopped and got some breakfast and then I turned around and hightailed it back to Palm Springs. We stayed at his house for an hour while I rested and then I hit the road alone and drove back home. I covered 568 miles from Monday noon to Tuesday 4 PM, can you say ouch! Running at 75 and 80 mph my big new diesel was getting 20 miles to the gallon. When I ran the truck at 65 – 70 miles per when I was in Arizona last time just going up to the next town and driving very sanely I got 23 miles to the gallon on that 6.6 Duramax Diesel, Ford…. Eat your heart out! I’ll give you a couple of photographs so you can see what we did. The first one shows me on the roof PRAYING I don't fall off and the other just shows two of the many Styrofoam protectors we put on.

Were sitting in gray dismal supposed to rain weather which was why I was trying to get home from down there. Monday is should be 80° through the whole week so I hope to get some flying in.
Good luck on getting to SC and get your work done and selling off your house.

Nick, I hope you’re enjoying your internship and it’s everything you thought it would be. Remember what they said…………. if you’re enjoying what your doing you’ll never have to work a day in your life!

JPEE

JPEE

Hey Guys, I am looking for one of these set ups for my Hexa gimbal mount. I can only find one vendor that carries it and his shipping SUCKS $$$$$$






Thanks JPEE

evdreamer

John,

I start my internship on May 14th. I hope they will want to hire me after the internship is over. My favorite field in electrical engineering is programming processors, so it will be fun going to work doing that everyday.

I made a lot of progress on my senior design now that all my classes are winding down and there is just finals left next week. I can now communicate with the processor that will be doing the user interface and I can change all my filters on the fly. I just have some more drivers to write and all my core programming will be done. My group had some features that weren't required, but we would like to add if we had time. So I will probably work on those next semester.

It sounds like you have been busy with your fifth wheel. I saw one of those three wheeled open cockpit Polaris's driving around town. That was pretty cool.

Mark,

The internship is just for the summer, so that won't be a problem for my final semester. I have enough money to pay for my last semester of school, so I could quit my current job. However, I am close to being fully vested in my 401k there, so I don't want to throw away free money. I am also saving up for a down payment on a house, so having two jobs will help out with that. I chose easy classes for my final semester, so I will have more time to work on my senior design project. I only have one class on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Then I will have to show up for two meetings once a week for my senior design.

It sounds like you have a handful with your second house in SC. Good luck with that.

Nick

JPEE

Hello Nick,

Sounds like you have everything under control from school to work! I am so glad to hear this. I also say............ I am so proud of a young man your age already looking at purchasing a house soon after graduation, and having a 401. You really have both feet planted firmly on the ground, congrats!
John

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Nick,

Many companies will 'try out' potential hiree's during internships - just be punctual all the time, show interest in the company, and make a positive contribution (which you already know and do) and I feel you won't have any problems getting an offer at the conclusion of the internship.

How long until your fully vested in your present company? I wouldn't want to throw free money away either so I can understand your need to stay for that little last bit. Saving for a downpayment is a good idea but also don't forget to save a bit more for items you'll need for the house. That's one thing many new homeowners mistakenly do, myself included. You finish closing and then realize you need to get stuff for the house - furnishings, lights, blinds, lawnmower, the list does go on and on! lol But as JPEE said, you have both feet planted firmly on the ground at such a young age. And that is a good thing.

Sounds like your DJ mixer project is moving along nicely, is most of the work finished in this semester alone? Doesn't sound like you'll have much to do next semester except install those extra features you spoke about.

Good luck with your finals this week!

JPEE,

Yeah, I've noticed RCU is still having random issues so I still save all my posts before hitting submit b/c I've lost posts in the past and its dang frustrating each time.

I hope you and lil'Judy have gotten some rest after your trailer cover repair ordeal. That was a lot of driving too, glad the new truck performed flawlessly. That styrofoam packing material should hold up much better than the pool noodle stuff so I think you'll be in the clear with that. Good news on the insurance savings getting a company to cover the trailer as a house instead of a vehicle.

On my end I did make the trip last week to do some interior painting and was a bit overwhelmed at the amount of work needed. I was furious at the condition my house was left in.

I spent a day cleaning - had to scrub the floors (bathroom and kitchen) as they were sticky and had some gritty stuff on them, windex all the windows as they were covered in hand/streak marks, wash all the baseboards (dust, dirt, and food crap), replace the airfilter (it was caked in dust/dirt - never had I seen a filter so dirty), replace all the lights in the house (ceiling fans bulbs, bathroom globes, kitchen recessed floods, and outside floods), swiffer dustered all the friggen cobwebs from the ceiling (yes, you heard right - cobwebs), and then finally - the refrigerator.

Do you have any idea what happens to a refrigerator when the electricity is off for a month? One word........mold! Pulled all the shelves off and took them outside to clean. But before that a trip to Lowe's to get some respirator masks, spray bottle and bleach and I soaked the inside of the frige and let it sit for a few hours. A whole lot of work but got everything in decent condition. I guess some people's idea of cleaning is much different than mine.

And after that I only had 6 hours to do painting. I was able to finish one room and mostly a second - doing any kind of trim painting is always time consuming for me. I decided to forgo the taping that I usually do and use one of those ceiling/floorboard trim tools and corner tools, it did a good job with just a few drips that I cleaned up. Out of 34 hours my trip took I had a total of 2 hours sleep. It has been a long time since I've stayed up that long.

Mark

evdreamer

Thanks for the kind words John.

Mark,

I will be fully vested by August in my current company. Thanks for the advice on house items. I didn't think about those.

My part of the project is mostly finished. One of my partners needs to get buttons and switches for the user interface. He wants to try getting a bigger LCD too. Then all the code for that needs to be written. One of my partners just got some amp parts at the end of the semester, so he still needs to assemble that and test it out. I haven't seen what another partner has done with the light show circuits, but he said he has made some progress. Then my last partner is building the case, so he is waiting on all of us to finish. Right now all of our circuits are separated, so we might design a circuit board to put all our circuits on. So we still have a lot to do next semester. Most of us are going to keep working on it during the summer to make sure we finish on time. Most people in the past work till the last day trying to finish their project and some never get it working.

I am still waiting for two of my final grades, but I did pretty good so far. I am just glad this semester is over. I bit off a little more than I could chew with this semester. I am going to look forward to my easier fall semester.

That is a shame that you had to clean that much at your house.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi guys,

Not much going on RC-wise - the 80's and high humidity in the mornings make it not fun to fly, sad to think this is only May. Ugh.

I did get out my old 20 gallon aquarium, cleaned it up, and decided it was a time for a move for my son's little 7 gallon to something bigger. The 2 small fish have been in there since last October so I think they will enjoy a bit of stretch room.

Other than the 'new' tank and hot weather not much going on.

Mark

evdreamer

Mark,

That is cool you got your old tank out.

I am 4 days into my internship. It is a pretty cool place. It kind of reminds me of a miniature google. They have a common area where people can play games during their breaks. I am putting a lot of pressure on myself to learn how to use all the software programs, the product line, and a new programming language. It will be less stressful with time, but I am sure it is probably stressful for all the interns there.

Nick

JPEE

Hey Mark and Nick

Sounds like your son is will really appreciate the new and larger tank for his room. I believe the story is.....the larger the tank the larger the fish can grow, right?

Glad to hear Nick your near or by now working as an Intern! Your right there is a lot to learn but also as you stated there will be fun element in there too. I wish you the very best in this endeavor.


Me: nadda, nothing, boring and dry. No flying. We did a get a rain storm for one day that rained and sleeted like I haven't seen in years! Again today it is all cold and grey outside waiting for the scheduled rain Friday and Sat YEA RIGHT. Seeing is believing.
Yesterday my new 5,000- surge of 10,000 watt inverter arrived that will now feed off of my 6 golf card batteries that are standing with a nice 600 amps waiting to go to work. I have to make up my power supply cable cords from the batteries to it. I won't bore you with the rules but there wire sizes and lengths that all have to meet formulas, right Nick? I am using 2/0 stranded copper. The terminals are nearly $9.00 each over the counter YIKES! So there are videos where guys use copper pipe and flatten one end, drill a hole and the slide in the copper wire and crimp and silver solder in, that's the path I am taking. They come out to be pennies a piece.

For Christmas I gave my grandson a 1 hr. of training and flight time at the local airport. He did well and loved it. The training Pilot fills out his log to show Joe gets from the FAA 1 hr towards the required hours to get his Pilot License. Wait there's more, I am NOT paying for him to get his License. This was to give his dream to fly a plane and give him a taste of what "he" can do if he saves his money and works hard in school, gramps will throw some money his way too if he takes the full ride. At 14 years old he has time. Here is a 4 min clip of his flight and SORRY about the wind in the mic. They grounded the rest of the flights that day because the ceiling closed in. We could not cancel because it took a long time to get everyone together to come to the airport to see his "maiden".

JPEE OUT



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt8OSISn9aQ

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

What a great day to see your grandson fly!

I remember some of the older video's you posted of Joe flying at the field and he has grown in such a short time. I'm sure he had a terrific time and hope he gets the chance to pursue this dream...you sure gave him a great start!

How have the mondo copper connectors come? Never would have thought to use copper pipe flattened out to make a connector. One more step to getting a bit more 'off the grid' so to speak.

Glad to hear you guys are finally getting some rain relief.

Nick,

Congrats on starting the internship and enjoy the time off from school.

Me,

I've been getting out either Saturday or Sunday (depending on what we are doing as a family) to do some flying with my son. Usually will take my Fusion or the Zero out and get a flight or two in. Strangely I haven't really minded if I only get a flight in, probably just the warm weather we have been having all month putting a damper on things.

I did replace the velcro battery plate on my Fusion with some of that sticky padding used on cell phone backings. The space I had was really narrow to fit the battery in the heli and the velcro made positioning the battery challenging. The padding makes things much easier and the hold-down straps keep the battery in place, so no lipo ejection during flights.

I have been working on the aquarium - adding plants and fish plus tinkering with filtration and lighting stuff.
Decided to try out the new LED lighting that seems to be very popular now instead of using the old tried and true tube florescent lights (and definitely no metal halide lighting!). The LED's are rather cool (both temperature and visual effect) and if you do the research there are less expensive options out there. This is also my first forey into the dirted tank method and so far its going very well. I half expected a tank full of mess but not so, very surprised at how clean it is.

Other than that not too much going on.

Mark

JPEE

Hi Guys,


Mark that is really something that you can remember Joe that well. He is closing in on me, he is nearly 6’ now. My daughter had him to the doctors for a once over for school and the doctor said that with the family tree and the height is now that he should be 6’ to 6’1”. On that same vein, my 10 year old grandson who has seen the same doctor since birth has met standard growth rate on his chart for age at 98% of the expectation. The doctor said he should be 6’1” to 6’3” like his half brother, my daughters husbands son from his first marriage so this all makes sense to you. Anyway yes Joe had the day of his life and…………….. I’ll be sending him back up at the end of July for his 14th Birthday.


Thanks for your sentiments on the cable terminals I made. I used ½” copper pipe from Home Depot. I have attached a few photos of……………..the ones I made and then I found some of the factory made ones at the electronic & electrical junk yard we have here. These cost over the counter the best part of $10.00 each and I got these after I made my own for $2.00 a piece so I bought them just to have them at that price.


Rain……BAH, we had one day of rain and the rest of the calls from rain were dry, just a mist and not enough to get the ground wet. We are hurting big time here. Believe everything you read.


You:
That is wonderful to hear you and your son are spending RC time together, anytime a boy is with his father is very special indeed. I haven’t flown for weeks and weeks with all of this wind and cold grey skies of promised rain. But perhaps next week will pan out for me.
OMG lipo ejection in the air……..EEK! I don’t know if know that the 700 battery tray with two 5300’s slides in and then there is a spring loaded latch that you hold in until the tray bottoms out so to say in the back. Then you let go and the pall comes down and holds the tray in place. It’s a pretty good set up. The V1 didn’t have this and they lost batteries! Good deal on your revised set up on the Fusion.
Dirted tank…………….hummm don’t recollect ever hearing that term before. I have seen sanded tanks, is that what your referring too? In any case it is BEEUtiful. Man sucker is huge! I read once that mankind sitting and staring into an aquarium is very relaxing and “that’s why” dentists office often have them to relax before the pain starts lol.
I am sending you and email Mark to show you something.

Nick, I hope your enjoying your internship!

John

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hi JPEE,

Got your video and that is quite an adventerous feat you've accomplished, well done! Funny hearing you talk of earthquakes but in your neck of the woods thats a real threat so you have to prepare with break-aways as you described. There was nothing boring about your description as I found it very interesting. Was the copper connectors in your picture the $10 ones or the DIY ones you made?

I remember hearing about the earlier 700's battery tray...nice to hear they were able to revamp them to be better holding. The 450L that I tried out for a while had a similar tray mechanism...something I will have to get used to as most of Aligns new releases are doing now.

You heard right about my aquarium - dirt. Just plain old topsoil mixed with some Miracle Grow Organic Mix then topped with a thick layer of sand to provide a 'cap'. The fish probably don't even know its down there but the plants sure do! And it is relaxing to just sit and watch them...and I won't think about dentist offices while at home. lol

Mark

JPEE

Good morning Mark, this the HK battery lead I used to carry the charging line from the regulator. As you can see I put one on the POS and NEG. now, the battery box move it will unplug itself and NOT tear the regulator off the wall or damage it.
Now I'm working on the same idea where the electrical feed will leave the inverter and go to the breaker panel.

Yes the big coppers are the terminals I made. The copper pipe is 1/2" x 10' long and with tax was $10.00, a buck a foot. The pipe I cut at 2 1/2" and then pounded them. so as you can see for the four of them at a $1.00 per foot were .25 ea. The other 9' of pipe I can use on other plumbing repairs and what have you. The silver ones with the quarter along side are the store bought, they run just under $10.00 ea., at the junk yard I paid $2.00 each, good to have for other projects now that I am dabbling. At the electronic's junk yard I found a 50 gallon drum full of the short jumpers all made up. I pay $5.00 per pound and that buys me about 4 ea. of the jumpers.

The aquarium is unbelievable! There is no way that I have ever heard of that new trend. You would think that the dirt and Miracle Grow would have some kind of man made poison somewhere to kill the fish, I am flabbergast! To be clear that is a freshwater tank right? Just a thought, but we use LED's on our quads. When you buy a whole roll that is six to 10 feet long "I think" I did an amp draw on the entire roll and it drew .8 of an amp! The come in colors too.

Thanks for understanding, I could not post that much of my home on forum. After that guy traced down and found rotorydoc and called him, which shocked the beans out of him, I am extremely careful of posting and blanking out the license plate on the care or my address when I am out front filming like may landing gear being used. Sad, but it is a sign of the times.

John

evdreamer

John,

That is cool Joe got his 1hr flight in. Not many people his age get to experience that. I bet his friends were jealous.

That is cool you are using pipes as connectors. I don't know if there is any building code requirements about the length and size of the conductors, but if they are too small Ohm's law says it will produce a lot of heat and melt the insulators causing a possible short.

Lincoln has been getting a lot of rain, but not as bad as the south. Some club members took pictures of the field when it was flooded. The whole area looked like a lake.

I am enjoying my internship. It is hard working 7 days a week, but I am starting to get in a routine. I am less stressed now that I am understanding more.

Mark,

That is a smart idea using the phone padding for the batteries.

Your aquarium looks pretty cool.

Nick

JPEE

Nick,
Thanks for the tip! I have been following voltage and wire sizing guides and then going past that. I have 2/0 stranded feeds that are 36" from terminal to terminal. The home made terminals are both crimped and soldered. I have #4 stranded wire serving as my series jumpers from two 6vt batts to make 12 tv then I use the same to run all negs and pos's up to the end of the 6 battery array. The batteries give me 600+ amps! The other thing that has been helpful was finding on the Solar Forums that for every 100 watts of 120vt I make through the inverter it takes 10 amps of 12vt. I ran some 25' construction #12 cords I have from the from the inverter across the garage to the washer and dryer and frig and computer and tv and cable box and was pulling 1800 watts of 118 tv from the inverter. Finally the fan came on and but was barely working. I use a thermal gun to check the case where the heat sinks are inside and the connection points. My friend, I always appreciate any input you can pitch my way.
You take care and don't over do.......

John

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Nick,

7 day work week, wow - that has to be tiring. Take it easy. I don't know how far of a drive it is for you but make sure you never get so tired that you don't remember the drive home - that is when your body is telling you to back off. Short story - had a co-worker working 2 jobs and 7 days a week and a few times drove past the lab b/c he was so tired. Scary stuff for sure, so just be careful.

Glad your enjoying the intern position.

Sorry to hear about the rain but just think of how nice the field grass will be when everything drys out.

JPEE,

I remember the email Glenn sent about that guy that showed up at his door asking for help with his heli and how all he did was read through this thread to put together all the pieces to find his home. So yes, have to be careful in this day and age.

I am amazed with your project and the places your finding deals on parts. Never knew an electrical junk yard existed.

The tank is freshwater and I do have LED's on it. I looked at the strips as part of a DIY project but decided to get one from a manufacturer as the technology is a bit beyond me. Plus they have software included that can simulate sunrise, slow ramp up to full power, then ramp down to sunset, and cloud cover and storm options. I could not come close to including all that in a DIY for the price I got mine for. And being freshwater it includes the white, blue, and red with the option to adjust the colors of the red LED's. Really cool and all compacted into a nice sleek (and thin) aluminum anodized black hood. Can't beat that.

Mark

evdreamer

John,

It sounds like you are having fun with your solar electronics.

Mark,

It helps that my boss at my second job is letting me work the morning shifts only. It is harder working the evening shifts and then having to adjust to working the 3rd shift on the weekends. I have been learning a lot at my internship. I am applying what I have learned to my senior design project. I have been having trouble communicating with an IC chip and I finally had an a haw moment and got half of it to work.

It sounds like you have a pretty cool LED setup for the fish tank.

Nick

JPEE

Hey Nick, good to hear from you.

No flying except two weeks ago I did two 700 flights and that's it. The rest of my time is spent playing with other things and a lot of time on the solar. Tomorrow I am ordering one more panel. I have learned so much, its just fascinating!


Glad you to hear your boss is being flexible for you. Nothing is worse than crazy shifts! It must be great to apply some of what you learned in school during your internship too.

You take care JPEE

evdreamer

Happy 4th everyone!

I found a major problem in my senior design hardware. My processor can't properly interface with my multi channel audio chip. I need the capability to process two stereo channels and my processor can only process one stereo channel per interface. I didn't understand the interface when I designed it in the spring and hoped I could figure it out when I needed it. To make it work I had to redesign all of my hardware to use two audio chips. I spent the last few days redesigning the hardware and circuit board. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can have a working prototype. That was an expensive mistake.

Did you have a chance to install the new solar panel yet?

Nick

Aframomum

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Hi guys,

Hope everyone had a nice 4th. I actually had off this year so got to do some grilling and shoot off fireworks, so it was a nice time.

Nick,

Sorry to hear about your expensive processor mistake - at least you caught it in time to make changes so the project will work.

JPEE,

How's the solar project coming along?

Not much going on except the heat and humidity so no flying this past month. Have basically stayed indoors and worked on aquarium projects - the planted tank is essentially on auto pilot so not much for me to do except feed the fish and add water for evaporation top-off.

I am now planning on starting up a reef tank. The local Petco had a $1 a gallon sale on their aquariums so I picked up a 40 gallon. I am going to build the stand for it, so I get to pick up a miter saw from Lowe's to help the project along. Right now I'm in the planning and drafting stages so just looking around for parts and pricing.

Mark