leccyflyer

Got the enclosure for my Ender 5 Pro constructed and installed today. It ought to have been straightforward, but it's much bigger than the footprint of the Ender 5, sitting at 750mm deep. I thought it was 700mm deep and 750mm wide, but it was the other way around. That meant it could only fit on my deepest bench, if it was going to stay in the workshop. So I needed to move a few tool racks and my pillar drill, to make space for the enclosure. Hopefully that more stable temperature will make it possible to print with ABS, as well as my usual PLA.

Heads up for you guys - beware of private messages from newly joined up "member" who have a friend who just happens to have exactly what you were looking for ages ago and put up a wanted advert for. It's a well know scam method and I've just received one an hour ago from a "member" who joined an hour ago, with no posts.

Still no sign of any small lipos being in stock in the UK warehouse, I'm looking for 2s1p 800mah and 3s1p 600mah packs, but finding them at the moment is a bit challenging, other than by paying top dollar and high shipping costs.

Ah, that's the problem, the area that is currently unheated has zero insulation, other than the 18 inch thick stone walls. It was a conscious decision, because at the time I was going to retain it as a garage for a van. However that's changed and it's now my model storage area. Too late to insulate, unless I tear out all my model storage racks.

That's what I feared. So not really suitable for keeping the core temperature above freezing for tens of hours at a time then. I might well install it though and fire it up only when needing the barn at a higher temperature when wanting to actually do things in there, for shorter periods.

I have one of these brand new in the box and never installed. I understand that they are very useful for getting a shed or workshop up to a comfortable working temperature. I don't have a requirement for workshop heating, but I wonder how effective and useful such a heater could be for just taking the edge off my large storage barn, keeping it above freezing when the temperature really plummets?

Nicely flown maiden for the cartoon Mossie Ron - very good. 😎

See, that's part of the beef that I have with this. Had the BMFA concentrated on the interests of the vast majority of it's members - namely model aeroplane flyers - rather than thinking of the multirotor drone pilots, that they were actively courting, then perhaps there would have been a workable definition of what constituted a model aeroplane, allowing the exception of radio controlled model aeroplanes flown within line of sight and not equipped with cameras from the follow on regulations, involving RID etc. Our interests would have been better served IMO, rather than diluted to accommodate drone pilots. IMO it would have been far preferable had our national body left the drones to FPVUK and let those guys lobby on their behalf.

Paid mine last night. The online portal for renewal is a significant improvement on the old school way of renewing your BMFA and completely painless. I remember the club members jostling for position to pay their subs on AGM night, literally fighting for the privilege of being Member 001 for the next year and funnily enough, those at the front of the queue were typically the very infrequent flyers. Certainly don't miss having to stick all those sticky labels onto the sheets and then chase The Few into early summer the following year. I christened them The Few in recognition of Sir Winston Churchill's famous speech when he reflected on his time as Membership Secretary of Chartwell MFC....

My wife inherited a large quantity of family photos, some going back to the 19th century and her mother had meticulously written names on the backs of them, which would have been very useful in unravelling the genealogy of several generations. Well, they would have been very useful if she had written the names of the people in the pictures, rather than the names of an endless succession of dogs, cats, ponies and horses...... We still have the means of accessing every form of data from 5.25" floppy discs, through tapes, CDs, DVDs and an array of HDDS and USB pen drives, but that didn't help when one vital HDD failed and proved unrecoverable.

I invested in a thermal overall/flying suit a few weeks ago and it has been brilliant in this freezing weather. Upped the ante today by adding some chemical footwarmers to my wellies and a pair of tiny lipo powered handwarmers inside my gloves. In the event the latter were not needed, but the little bit of residual heat that the foot warming pads kick out worked superbly to keep my feet warm. They are single use, non-rechargeable and they expired about seven years ago but highly effective and recommended.

My planned trip to my old club field and moving on to the AGM had to be cancelled, with the snowgates closed and various vehicles -including the gritter - off the road due to black ice it wasn't wise to make the three hour round trip. However the weather locally was fine and so got well wrapped up, inserted various heating devices into wellies and gloves and spent the morning at my local club field. Perfect flying conditions today and there was even a little bit of warmth in the low sun.

In the event of an on-site fire then having one's precious images stored only on hard media or in print does run the risk of them being destroyed. Cloud storage is a very effective back-up to that and when it is integrated with downloading from your mobile, makes for a better experience in making use of the images you capture. As I said earlier, you only need ever lose one set of precious images to an equipment malfunction to realise the value of multiple back-ups.

As the return address is in N-le-W, maybe give Rick Astley a ring - he'll never give you up, let you down, or desert you......

The BMFA is the national body for model aeroplane flying. The other alternatives are not. They are representing niche interests in and around the hobby. Personally I regret BMFA chasing after increased member numbers by actively seeking a large involvement in promoting drones, as I believe that undermines their looking after my interests as a model aeroplane flyer, rather than a drone operator, but that is the decision that they made and I have to live with that. The LMA, FPVUK and other organisations are focussed on a particular segment of the hobby and do not necessarily have the interests of your average model aeroplane enthusiast at the front of their activities. Most expensive doesn't come into it. Even if the difference were hundreds of pounds, rather than a tenner or two, it would be insignificant against the ongoing cost of participating in the hobby. For the sake of a 10-20 quid difference, I'd suggest that to those in the hobby that really ought not be a determinant of which body to provide their support to.