Monday, November 30, 2009

L39 Albatross - nice plane




This is a 64mm version and I modified it to 68mm EDF. Slightly enlagred the motor area with a cutter is enough. I also use 4s 2200mAH and current is under 40A (to save my 20c lipo). The design is great as the front gerar is link with the rudder. The functional rudder makes landing more fun as the sidewind is now not a threat.
Flied her 10+ flight today and she is fast. Take off distance is less than 5m. Having a high wing aspect ratio, this plane has no tendency to stall, despite a heavy 4s lipo.



Freewing F35 now 200+ flight


The stock motor completely lost power in air. Luckily, the BEC is stil functioning and land her safely. Opening the motor bay and find the motor extremely hot. The strong smell makes me think the motor or the ESC is burnt. Everthing is stock and nothing different from previous 200 flights.


The only think I found is the previous 2 packs are getting slow and I think the Lipo is bad. THe motor was found burnt and siezed. Post mortum will begin to see what cause the motor sieze. Bearing? Broken magnet?

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Prodesign F18 composite EDF

Just compltete my build of this high quality ProDesign F18 single 90mm EDF. This is my second F18 and the scale is much better than the Starmax F18 90mm EDF, which has a disproportional long nose.
I like the elevator control design which is strong and precise.
I plan to fly her with ~1000W.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Easyglider Aerial Video

Very strong winter monsoon. Still quite stable. I was so lucky that it did not crash as I forgot to put in the wing joiner screw !

Plan to take HD video soon, as this test platform has been tested for dozen times. Next I need some idea to protect the expensive HD camera..... still under warranty..

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Easy glider 2m FPV


Very efficient modification with 8" propeller. Flight time over 15 minutes with 2200mAh 3s lipo.


FIY Twin EDF SU47



Quite scale looking twin 55mm EDF . The kit come with 2 tiny 55mm EDF. Since I got lots of 64mm EDF, I drop in 2 and they are right fit and with correct C.G.
The front battery compartment can house 3s 2200mAh lipo. I plan to go for 4s for fasting scale like flying.

With 3s and Jpower EDF, the thrust is 650g @ 36A, good efficency of >1.6g / W
All flying weight is around 750g.
I plan to put a 4s lipo and current will be 56A, with thrust over 950g. For cheap 20c labled lipo, I'll limit the throttle to around 40A max.
Maiden is a sort of perfect. She flies great with absolutely no tendency to stall, as what front sweep wing should behave. .....
Maiden video pending .......











Monday, October 26, 2009

RICCS Mirage 2000 RIP


Sudden uncontrolled roll at full speed and crash striaght into an iron fence. Run into lipo fire and luckily no other electronics damaged. Still cannot find the reason for the uncontrolled roll. Likely one of the servo extension wire get loose, or may be the BEC lockdown due to overheat(which is very unlikely)

Lesson to learn- solder any extension instead of lazy plugs.

She flies fast, especially after upgraded to 4s 2200 lipo.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Easy Glider FPV Midair collison

Maiden successful. She was still on my checklist for running in - trimming and learning the flying character of her , before recruiting her into FPV.
Disaster happens when this slow glider was hit by another plane. The left wing is cut and crash in spiral. No major damage and she can fly again after 15 minutes tape and filler.
However, the enemy plane has the wing ripped off and crash in total lost. Initially, I though I crash into another foamy, but indeed that was a gas plane. Thanks to the 8mm steel rod inside this foamy wing as a stiffener.
The C.G. is 1cm forward to the manual recommended position. No downthrust was noticed with a 8" propeller.

TW-749II AT6 Texan

Very cheap EPO propeller plane. Speed medium. Powered by 8x6 propeller. Battery bay need to be cut deeper to house 2200mAh 3s lipo. Almost plug and play and the only thing needed to be expoxied is the tail fin. I use aluminium motor mount to install the brushless.
Aileron is blunted because the stock control arm has lots of slop, and unequal neutral position. The elevator control is also unequal on both side because of rough workmanship. It is not difficult to correct those, though.
The landing gear wire is a bit too soft.

Very nice and sharp look in air.


EasyGlider 2m FPV






My latest 2m foamy glider with much higher payload and gliding efficiency. The motor is modified to be installed on a pylon to adapt 8" propeller. The modification is dirty quick by using wooden rod and GWS motor mount.
Any larger propeller will result in killing vibration/ resonance, that ordinary mount cannot stand. Higher pylon will also results in down thrust on handlaunch because of the angular momentum.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Greg 's VTOL settings

Just waiting for my V22 fuselage to arrive. Will install with my twinrex cyclic control V22 mechinism.

I alway want to build another VTOL with simpler tricopter like mixing. Here is Greg's VTOL setting


Futaba 9C Transmitter Mixes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mix 1 - Throttle -> Flap (Ch. 3 to Ch. 6 for controlling both main motors)
Mix 2 - Aileron -> Flap (Ch. 1 to Ch. 6 for manual roll control of one motor in up position)
Mix 3 - Elevator -> Gear (Ch. 2 to Ch. 5 for manual pitch control of wing swing in up position)
Mix 4 - Rudder -> Aileron (Ch. 4 to Ch. 1 for rudder stick control of aileron yaw in up position)
Mix 5 - Offset -> Aux2 (Fixed offset to Ch. 8 for turning on/off pitch control motor in up position)
Mix 6 - Throttle -> Aux2 (Fixed curve +100% offset into Ch. 8 for disabling pitch motor when throttle stick is < 10% or all the way down)
Mix 7 - Unused

Receiver Channel Assignments

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Channel 1 - Ailerons
Channel 2 - Elevator
Channel 3 - Throttle for main motor 1
Channel 4 - Rudder
Channel 5 - Hover/Flight Mode Switch
Channel 6 - Throttle for main motor 2
Channel 7 - JR G500A Gain adjustment for wing swing servo
Channel 8 - Throttle for 150w pitch control motor

Saturday, October 17, 2009

cc Phoenix 35A died eventually

My loyal cc35 died eventually after my abuse for 4 years.....

Likely continuosly high power flight with poor ventilation.

500T JGF motor (60g, 500W) core >110 oC and results in stator core melting, cc35 just fail to shut down ? Forgot whether over-current config. is switch off. 2 IRF7836 is burnt. Still wonder whether to send it for repair USD30 or fix it myself for $1 .....

F22 fiberglass twin 70mm EDF part 2

Failed to launch her to air today as the wheel is too soft and deform, then escape on the runway...

Tomcat F14 successful maiden

She looks beautiful.
I build her with 2 servos only as the elevon and no aileron servo. Once the sweep wing is close, the roll become very sensitive and need some expo to tame her down.

Sweep wing standard metal gear servo is included with the kit. Very power and guarantee no excuse for mechanical failure in flight.




Cannot wait to maiden my Tomcat, despite the landing gear is not installed and the wiring is not tidied up. Just want to test the power system first, as I use the 3000kv JGF ourunner from my junk box. Benchtest with 5 blades, lipo 4s drawn 22A each and total 44A , which should be fine for my dozens of 4s 2200mA. Thrust at such low power ~600W setting seems adequate ~500g each, total 1000g for a 1300g RTF F14.

Speed is ok at first half, but drop quite a bit when the 4s cannot hold the voltage later. Since the outrunner should be fine with 30A, I 'll try to retest it with 5s , after I re-wire the BEC.

Hand launch is suprisingly easy with such payload and power.
I did not encounter any wing dihedral and the wing is strong as any fixed wing.

She is so stable and landing is like a piece of cake.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

F14 ....

The elevator linkage needs to have a slot using dremel, to make no excuse for slippage in flight.
The ABS frame is epoxied and pressed to the fuselage. I lost one of the 18mm M2 bolt for securing the hinge. I fix that by using a M3 bolt instead and I find that gives even less slop. The product is a perfect swing wing with slight anhedral (wing tip pointing down). This can gurantee the wing from forming dehedral on wing loading.

Monday, October 12, 2009

X-flight F14 Tomcat Swing Wing

This kit contains the largest number of parts for a foamy kit and is the most sophisticated one. Definitely not a kit for beginner. I cut open the fuselage for access to the EDF, as I have not yet decide what power system I want to fly her.
The hinge is the critical part of this swing wing F14. My comment is the aluminium CNC hinge is not drilled deep enough to adapt the 5mm fiber tube. I drill 4mm further to let it sit as deep as possible, and CA it.
The stock fiberglass tube..... disappointing for this job.

I swap with a carbon fiber tube of the same size.
This tiny copper bushing is also an easily missed critical part to fix the hinge, that is not mentioned in the manual.



Sunday, October 11, 2009

Hyperion 25c 2500mH 6s lipo

Hyperion Lipo is 200% more expensive than what I have been used. Let's see if the cycle life is twice the one I used.


Seems the discharge curve on my Trex500 with 1,000KV 20T pinion is slightly better than GE Power 2800 mAh lipo. Max 1690W, current 80A, min. voltage 20.7

Haoye 90mm EDF Red Hawk

Red Arrow from Haoye. An early molded foamy EDF, and hence the design is not builder friendly as does modern EDF plane.

Full motion elevator. The instruction is not detail at all, and one have to think the best and easy way to install.


I build it as a pusher with ~900kv 2832 cheap outrunner, with a APC 10x5E as testing. Current ~30A on 4s.
The long landing gear is meant to protect the 10" pusher propeller. The closed exit duct makes the Hawk draggy and not to my taste...to be modified as EDF soon.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Boeing 787 Airliner (Part2)

This is how the EDF is mounted onto the wing.
The 787 is huge and needs lots of extension cables. Certainly, lots of soldering if you keen on not using extension cables.

Towerpro 9g servo do the job well. But it may stand off a bit.


70mm EDF (rear mount). Motor is 3600kv rated 600W. @ 4s x 40A.



The fuselage is separated into 2 sections for easy storage and transfer in car boot ~1.7m !




The tail section, with rudder and elevator wires "Control by wire!"





The front fuselage.

The initial design is a glider version. The turbine case and mount is too weak to hold the thrust. Need reinforcement and lots of epoxy.
The most tricky part is the landing gear and to be continued ..............










Fix Spektrum AR7000 receiver failed initilization



My AR7000 fail to initilize as if the satellite receiver is not connected. Wiring check shows no abnormality. On removing the plastic case (slight damaged after previous crash), the capacitor was found damaged, as well as the satallite receiver connector.

Everthing is fine after replacement of the components.


Repairing Nvidia Forsa 6200 Display Card

Dead Nvidia 6200 display card due to dead fan. 2 capacitor blown and burst. 6.3V 1000uF capacitor is replaced and now works again.

Many P4 system kill the display card like this , because of the unbearable heat from the P4 CPU, especially if there is no good ventilation.




Twin 70mm fiberglass F22

Prepainted fiberglass fuselage, and light foam balsa wing

I put in a brass tube at the elevator attachement to minimize slop.

The initial design for a towerpro90 size mini servo is replaced with a mid-sizr servo. Indeed a metal gear servo is recommended for reliability. The linkage ball and rods are from my Trex500.

Very scale made and perfect painting. The last thing to do is the air-retract system.