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Acerbic Resonance

Category Archives: RC Planes

R/C Planes Are *NOT* Soccer Balls

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A few weeks ago I was messing around at the park with my Tiger Moth, and a friend and his son happened to be there shooting pictures of his Super Cub.  I decided it would be a great idea to try to fly through the soccer goal, but misjudged the depth as the plane was flying towards me, and pulled up a little too early.  Here are pictures of the results:

How To Kill Your Exceed RC 2.4 Ghz Transmitter

Posted on by Posted in RC Planes, Techie Mumbo Jumbo 4 Comments

Remember in Ghostbusters when Egon says not to cross the streams?  Well….

I use the Exceed 2.4 Ghz TX for my RC habit, and so far have been very happy with it… with one small exception:  it eats batteries.  It seems like (though I have not timed it) that I can get about 5 or so hours of flight time out of a set of 8 AA batteries before the voltage drops too low to reliably control the plane.  There is no audible low voltage warning – you just have to pay attention to the single LED on the front of the transmitter.  When it starts to go red, its time to land asap.

So, today I decided to solder in a lead with a Dean’s connector so that I can plug in one of my LiPo 3 cell 11.1 V batteries that I use for my planes.  Things were going great right up until I plugged in the connector the first time… what do you notice about things in this picture?

Pay attention to the colors of the wires.....

Yup.. I was in a hurry, and I did not pay attention to the polarity on the male connector that I soldered into the TX … and I mixed up negative and positive.

Continuing not to pay attention I plugged the connectors together, thus flooding my poor transmitter with lots of power, but in the wrong direction.

less than a second later I heard to loud bangs from inside the transmitter case.  I yanked the connectors apart immediately, but then saw all the smoke pouring out of the transmitter case.

Here are some pictures of the carnage:

Those used to be capacitors.
Now they just smell bad.

I don’t know what else likely fried with the incorrect polarity, but hoping against hope I ran to Radio Shack to grab some new capacitors.  I’ll solder them in and see what happens.  Watch for an update either lauding my resounding success or drowning in my miserable failure.

Tiger Moth Crash!

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Here’s a little gem of a video I shot back in January – just after I cut ailerons in the upper wings of my Tiger Moth.  This flight started out great – smooth air, clear day, etc.  Then I started playing fast and loose with the sticks, tried to go inverted too close to the ground and the rest is… well… you’ll just have to watch it.

How I Mount My Camera For Flight

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I’ve been asked how I mount my camera on my planes when I fly – the secret is in Velcro and Styrafoam…

I cut a wedge-shaped piece of foam from the packaging inside a box I received, then stuck a small dot of Velcro on the top and bottom of the wedge, then another piece on the bottom of the plane and one on the camera.

Just stick the wedge to the plane, then stick the camera to the wedge.

Here is a link to the camera I use.

Here are some pictures of it mounted on my cub: