Composite Rafale Twin 70mm EDF

Twin Fan is modified to single 70mm EDF (reconstruct motor mount ) . Weight save ~200g. Hoffman Magnetic 1400W @4s. Thrust 1700g!
Inlet duct will soon be modified to collect air into the single fan.

Wait to modify to full motion canard.
Setting: 120A ESC, 4s2p (2200mAh),
All up weight including 4s2p (2200mAh) is 1600g.
Benchtest Hoff-mag. with 5 blades (WeMo clone), with intake lip: thrust 1700g.
Inside fuselage thrust test, with exit cone~1400g (300g thrust loss)


I drill some holes on the attachment area of the fusealge and the main wing to get more contact area. The single piece of wood to whole the main wing and fusealge looks weak. But after applying sufficient epoxy, it feels secure.

Exit cone is cut to adapt single EDF.

Original twin exit nozzle.

Motor compartment, so glad and so sorry that no motor mount is available.

Riccs Mirage 2000 64mm EDF

My buddy in the flying field got this bird. It does not scale very much, but the black colour somehow attract me. He crash his plane twice and the foam looks pretty strong and does not shattered into micro pieces. Also the airfoil has slight camber and means it should float. TO my surprise, this Mirage flies fast even with 64mm EDF @3s setting.
This one flies much better than the Gaunli Mirage 2000, which has too small control surface.

I do not install the lnding gear in order to reduce drag and let it flies faster.

The ESC and receiver is mounted underneath for easy access. I dig the ESC deep into the inlet duct, to allow more cooling of it.

Dynamic Balance

Very nice website talked about the dynamic balance experiment

http://www.flyelectric.ukgateway.net/balancing.htm

FPV website

http://www.fpvvideo.com/index.html

Best FPV CCD camera

420 lines

420 lines

550lines Exview, 38x38mm board, single layer, OSD capable

520 lines , double layer, 32x32mm board



In the maket most Sony CCD falls in the categories:

420 lines - most common and cheap, chipset CDX 3142
480 - CDX 2163/4103
550 - HQ1;Exview , CDS 3172, with OSD

10dB Patch Antenna

Since I cannot buy any 1.2G patch antenna, I buid this based on rc-cam patch antenna project. With the size adjusted to the transmitter frequency. The 5mm spacer between the reflector is critical. I use balsa and epoxy to secure the 2 pieces. I also use F-connector instead of sma connector.

Ground test proved the range is almost twice the stock antenna.

FPV ground station

Ultra portable aluminium suitcase. Bought with years old Trex450.
Receiver, Goggle, Sony DV (perfect for video capture and real time monitoring, in case goggle fail ), spare battery, eye shade,.....Enough for 1.5-2 hr. flight time. Oh, forgot to put in my hat.
Blue box is 8-10dB DIY patch antenna.

Kamdax Mirage2000 with 70mm EDF

Modifying RangeVideo goggle interpapillary distance

The rangevideo goggle 's design has an interpupillary distance of 6.2cm (define as the distance between the center of 2 pupils , at a distance > 1m ). This is the state that the eye will focus at distant object with the abducent muscle at a relative relaxing state (in contrast to near object viewing). I measure my own IPD (taking a self portrait with a ruler over my eyes) and is measured as 6.6-6.7cm . Do not ignore the small difference of 5mm as this will cause lots of eye strain on prolong use.
In addition, one may find the images of the 4 corners of each LCD are not sharp simultaneously (check it by looking at each corner with one eye closed) as light do not enter each eye correctly if the IPD is not correct.
So I modify my goggle....

Unscrew the 4 screws in the corners. They are concealed by silicon plug. Remove with toothpick. Price open using tongue depressor. Take great care of the anti-glare plates.

The lens module. Unhook the wires to the circuit board. The lens are nicely designed and is dust resistant.

Unhook the wires.
Cut the central lens mount. The circuit board can be put back in place and adjust the IPD. Hot glue whatsoever you want. Small amount of plastic at the bottom corner needed to be trimmed when placing back the module into the goggle case. The maximum IPD size can be adjusted is around 70mm. I set mine to 67mm.

Looks nice !!
The 4 mm adjustment makes viewing much more comfortable without eye straining. Since I wear corrective glasses and I find the adjustment makes image on all 4 corners same and clear on both eyes.

DIY 1.2G patch antenna

Bottom: Original 1.2G antenna - unshield portion 5.8cm

Top: DIY antenna The exact length of unshield portion is made by telescoping the shileding layer.

Shielding is reinforced with foils.


Now it weights only 5.1g, the original antenna is over 25g !

frequency wavelength calculator
http://www.csgnetwork.com/freqwavelengthcalc.html

Ch 7 1.20G ~ 1/4 lambda 6.25cm , half 12.5cm
Ch 9 1.28G ~ 1/4 lambda 5.85cm, half 11.7cm


http://www.emtalk.com/mpacalc.php?er=1&h=10&h_units_list=hmm&fr=1.2&Operation=Analyze&La=104.644833544&L_units_list=Lmm&Wa=125&W_units_list=Wmm&Rin=90.0000000007

Having dielectric height 10mm, the upper patch will be of size 103x117mm

Also rc-cam site has a ready made size http://www.rc-cam.com/gp_patch.htm

Other nice website about the Rx/ Tx http://www.minikits.com.au/tech.html

I did my receiver patch antenna as well, the ground test range is near 2x the original antenna.

FPV DV capturing

wmv 640 x 480, 30fps, 2Mps
mpeg2 DVD 720 x 576 25 fps, 8Mps

Long time no touch of DVediting. Wonder raw capture DVD mpeg2 format any different from WMV resolution. The visual difference is barely noticeable but the wmv size is 4 times smaller!

180km/hr pylon

Max speed 178 kph, not bad. Power almost 950W max. Average 400W, the outrunner weights 70g and rated only 450W.

Currrent is alarming 68A peak, average 29A. My 45A ESC is quite hot after flight as ventilation is not good inside fuselage. May need a 75A ESC. Fullymax 35c battery is quite good to keep voltage above 3.4V-3.6V each cell.

Previous flight I accidentally use the wrong blade 45x41 for 4s and the ESC cut intermittently. Luckily the ESC I used has a separated BEC. Otherwise the BEC will shut down as well.

FPV test flight in-line video

The flicker is then investigated and was found to have poor soldering in the 4 pin connection plug. The transmitter is intermittently power down and that is why the transmitter is not hot at all after use.

Perfect day. Clear sky and light breeze.

Windrider F35 VTOL

Windrider F35

• Wingspan 32inch ,800mm,• Length 46inch, 1160mm

Stage 1) Thrust test
All up weight 650g (with 3s lipo)
Current Max 75A
Hovering current 36A
90mm EDF, 64mm EDF x2
Static thrust : 90mm EDF 2g/W, 64mm 1.5g/W, total max 1600g

Stage 2) Stabalization test
Yaw axis servo flap
Electronics: 3 gyros , GY 401 ... 150g

Stage 3) Forward Flight test


Stage 4) Transitional test


Stage 4) Scale F35 plan
F35 Fuselage weight 550g
Aileron/ taileron mix
Intake door

FPV test flight

#Airborne# Flying weight .....

1. Airframe : RICCS Busybee
2. Emax-1000kv outrunner, 1060 GWS blade, thrust 800g @15A, highly efficient for 7 mins flight2200mAh 3s1p 20c lipo
3. 18A hobbywing ESC, on board 3A BEC
4. Towerpro 9g servo x 5, including pan and tilt
5. 2.4G spektrum 6100 receiver
6. 480 CCD camera, with Pan & tilt, pan video angle reach 160 degree
7. 1.2G 12 channel video transmitter , test range up to 800m with clear image.
8. 1500mAh 3s1p lipo
9. Lipo battery voltage meter
10. Compass (waiting for eagletree OSD Pro+V3+GPS)
11. Independent flycam for offline video capture,.

#Ground station

1. 1.2G A/V receiver, rubber sma connector (will upgrade to patch antenna soon)
2. 12V source from car battery, with volatge meter and alarm (pending)
3. Range Video 920V 640x480 goggle.
4. Sony DV camera for video capturing.
5. spektrum DX7 transmitter
6. Chair and a can of coke

The busybee is a perfect beginner FPV as the equipment bay is spacious and the low CG makes it very stable. The down side is the high drag and slow speed. The wing area is large and the payload can be quite high. My FPV eqipment {including video transmitter 80g, antenna 30g, CCD 50g , 2 extra Pan&Tilt servos and extra 1500mAh ) weights an additional 350g.

Will try to reduce weight by using single 2200 lipo and small video transmitter antenna.

Benchtest problem:
1) 1.2G interference : power cables, servo wires picking up signal from video transmitter and resulted in glitches. No big deal but annoying. Shortening wires, grounding long wires, repositioning antenna does not help much. Eventually, glitches solved after switching to other trasnsmitting channel .... previous video trasnmitter channel likely harmonic with spektrum 2.4G...

Or should the powering up in sequence? Such that the spektrum receiver can select the quiet channel?
Video receiver --> video transmitter ---> spektrum transmitter ---> spektrum receiver ??
Will try again.

Setup Checklist:
1) Interference test , range test - video transmitter location.
2) Wingload test, gliding capability
3) Workstation test - power stabiity , 12V voltage meter, video goggle, video capturing ...securing all wiring...
4) Site familiarity - site videol review .....

First full payload flight : CG too forward, nose heavy, barely able to take off, elevator not enough, emergency landing broken front steering gear.

Second flight: Lipo shifted backward, successful 7 mins flight, failed to capture video as DV running out of battery....

Align refuse to repair my 35A ESC 亞托拒修電變

So disappointed that Align failed to repair my burnt ESC. I send them 2, but they refused to repair one of them, saying the board is badly damaged. I paid them to repair one of them, the other one, they refused to replace or repair and sent back to me.

I definitely will never buy align ESC again as there are so many cheap and reliable choice in the market. The cost of repairing is more than buying a new one.

F18 90mm EDF Flight Video

Some acryllic paint to hide the servo and wires/.
Down flaps setup for landing.

Motor cover flied away mid-flight.

Landing with flap make it much easier to land/ "float " onto ground.

Retractable gear F35 crash again

Just fixed it from the last crash resulted from loosen clevis. Now the full movement taileron is modified to a hinged type.
Successful and more predictable control. An abnormal 90 degree roll kick is already noticed at end of third flight and resulted in safe emergency landing. So stupid to put her up again without figuring out the reason.

Finally, ended its life into a dead spiral after the 4th flight, preceeded by violent roll after banking turn. Apparently no mechanical failure can explain the cause. Still investigating the cause. Suspect receiever lock from overheat BEC.