Allan Bennett

Checking the heater element and thermister has been frustrated for the moment by one of the screws holding the cover on having a rounded-out hex socket. I'll have to take the filament driver unit off so I can get the Dremel in to cut a slot in the screw head. In the meantime I've checked all the connections at the motherboard end, with no improvement. I tried another experiment this afternoon; I set the nozzle temperature to 250+ degrees, and it sailed past 220 without hesitating. When it got to 240 I dialled the temperature down to 220 and it immediately went down to 210 and started climbing again but failed to achieve 220 before failing with the usual message.

The upgrade to direct drive involved a whole new head, and the issue existed with the old remote drive and its head, so I assumed the heater element is not the cause. I will have a look at it again, though I think I would have noticed if it or its thermister were mis-located. The oddest thing, to me anyway, is that when the indicated temperature is falling back the screen shows that the heater is still energised. And then when it starts recovery to the desired temperature it is very slow to rise. If I increase the temperature 9 degrees at a time the indicated temperature rise is very quick, but if I increase it by 10 degrees or more it will rise to within 5 degrees of the target, fall back to 10 degrees below target, and then slowly rise back to target if I'm lucky. If the heater fails at, say 210 degrees, and I manage to re-power it and start again setting a nozzle temperature lower than what it's actually showing on the screen, it will fall back to 10 degrees below the set temperature and then climb back as if it were starting from scratch.

Looking good!

I've had for a couple of years now a basic Ender 3, upgraded with self-levelling, direct filament drive, and a 'silent' board. For many months, both before and after installing the direct drive, heating of the nozzle fails, with an error message telling me to restart, when it's getting close to the requested 200 degrees. I've found by trial and error that by setting the target temperature to 185 or so, it will usually get there without failing -- it goes to 180 first, then back to 175, then ever so slowly creeps up to 185. If I then increase the nozzle temerature by 10 degrees or more, it will often fail again. So my strategy has been to get to 185 then increase in steps of 9 degrees, which it handles without any problem. I program this progression into my .gcode files. So the issue is not a show-stopper, but I would like to know if others have experienced it, and what is the solution.

If the radio system is 35Mhz, then yes the ESC could cause problems. But assuming we're talking about 2.4Ghz, then it's unlikely to be a problem.

There are companies who sell very bright LED lights for model aircraft. To make them more scale you would have to make your own custom housing and lens cover.

Thanks Ron and Philip. So the log is not as helpful as I'd hoped it might be. It just shows my frantic stick-stirring as I tried to correct whatever it was the plane was doing. But at least it shows Tx and Rx power supplies were stable, so rules that out.

I was hoping to find the reason for a recent crash by looking at the data file that's saved on my Taranis Tx. The plane in question suffered violent roll and pitch changes before going nose down to the ground. The question I have concerning the log is; is the roll, pitch and yaw data showing in the log a record of the signals that are being sent to the receiver or a record of what signals the receiver is sending to the relevant servos?

Don't cut any wires, for in doing so you risk a catasrophic short between them. Without knowing how your charger works I can't say whether it is able to bring a single cell up to a reasonable voltage, as you are suggesting. In fact, any decent balance charger should be able to do that without having to disconnect the 'good' cells. If the charger fails to charge because it says the cell is too low, that'll probably still be the case even if you try to charge the single cell. Some people get over that problem by charging the single cell on a NiMh or NiCd charger, monitoring the voltage closely until it reaches, say, 3.3v.

The only over-discharge protection for most hobby-grade LiPos is the user 😄

The only over-discharge protection for most hobby-grade LiPos is the user 😄 Most ESCs have a low-voltage cutoff which, if configured correctly, can prevent over-discharge, and many low-voltage alarms are available too; many people these days also have telemetry which can notify them of the battery's state via their transmitter.

I wouldn't be concerned about a 0.3v difference between cells after a flight, but after it's supposedly been balance-charged there should be zero difference. Have you got a voltmeter so you can check the actual cell voltages -- maybe the charger is faulty. I doubt if you really needed an all-night charge, and charging unsupervised is not recommended. Perhaps the cell voltage has dropped while the charger was in standby mode after finishing the charge. If the pack looks good (no swelling) I would put it on charge again -- watching it all the while -- and see if it balances. What state was the battery in while it was being stored? To avoid degradation you should store LiPos at 50% or less charge if not using them within a couple of days.

My fleet went all electric about 10 years ago, but to cope with old age and rubbish weather I've tried to concentrate on models that can fit in the car assembled. Unfortunately small fixed-wing aircraft don't get on with me, so a lot of my flying these days is helis and quadcopters. Even more of a black art, but at least it gets me flying.

I've never thought about it! For my TN Vulcan, for instance, I bought 3 pots of each of the three colours and have some left over. I dilute it by about 10 - 15% for airbrushing.

My favourite paints are Lifecolor water-based acrylics, which has many military colours in their "Mimetic" range. I generally use Halfords plastic primer from a rattle can, then airbrush the acrylic. I then spray with Humbrol matt, silk or gloss varnish depending on the required finish.