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MattyB

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Posts posted by MattyB

  1. Piers makes a good point. I am comfortable with thermal models up to ~2m having no braking mechanism (spoilerons are generally enough to get you out of a boomer), but would not want to go above that size without at least spoilers and ideally crow. With skill and experience it's possible to escape even with only r/e control, but if you are new to big gliders having that additional ability to increase your descent rate dramatically without overstressing the airframe may enable you to avoid a total loss.

    Edited By MattyB on 08/04/2017 20:17:30

  2. What radio do you have? If it is capable of driving a full house 4 servo wing setup (i.e. flaps, crow brakes, snap-flap and quattro flap) I would recommend you go for the flapped version. Yes it will be more complex to setup initially, but it gives you loads more options to improve performance and land on the spot. It will also help teach you the true capabilities of your radio which may help improve your setups on other models.

  3. Eneloops are fine in low drain situations, but they have high internal resistance and are not good at providing big currents. I use them in TXs, but not as RX packs unless they are powering a small number of low drain servos. an appropriately sized 2S LiFe is a better bet providing your servos can take the initial voltage.

  4. Posted by michael harper 2 on 07/04/2017 11:30:34:

    Hi, I bought a Multiplex Shark r/c to start learning on. Looking at the connector from ESC there's a MPX connector. On the Lipo its a JST-XH connector. The battery charger has a XT60 to connect to battery for charging. Receiver has 3pin connection, but LiPo has only 2. Receiver voltage says 4.5 to 6.6 volts. LiPo is a 3s which is 11.1 volts. Please help, totally confused !

    Suggestion... Remove the Mpx green connector from the ESC and solder on an XT60 to match your battery and charger. This will mean you do not need to use any adaptors, which in general are bad idea (they are an additional failure point and reduce efficiency too).

    Once you have done that charge your battery, remove the prop (for safety), connect the servo lead from your ESC to the RX throttle channel then connect the battery to the ESC - everything should power up and you can then bind up your RX.

    Edited By MattyB on 07/04/2017 13:20:03

  5. Posted by I_AM_MARKEVANS on 07/04/2017 10:19:16:

    I thought Staufenbiel were the one's who bought into HH and not the other way around?

    No, HH acquired Staufenbiel in 2014 - they used to have it in the news section of their site (see link page 1 of this thread) but that page now seems to have been pulled down in the website consolidation. It is still documented on other websites though.

    Posted by I_AM_MARKEVANS on 07/04/2017 10:19:16:

    Either way like everyone says, the new site is just a huge revamped online store with no where to go for service or customer care. The pricing is all messed up for sure, more so in the UK, £139 for a BNF Radian XL yet nearly £200 for a pnp?

    Reading comments on the FB looks like a lot of UK people are without their radios after they got sent to Germany for service/repair or without their online orders and getting no response from HH Germany.

    Could just be teething trouble during the move, but it's currently not looking good.

    Completely agree - there is no way I would buy a Spektrum radio at the moment until the situation became clearer. This could also  have a major effect on the already ailing model shops of the UK. Love 'em or loathe 'em, HH products must be amongst the biggest selling at most shops. Those LMS' that can no longer source them must be going to lose a fair chunk of their revenue.

    List of HH dealers from the HH EU website...

    The Modelshop (Leeds)
    Sherwoods, 88 Crossgates Road
    LS15 7NL Leeds

    Al's Hobbies
    28 Stratford Road
    MK12 5LW Milton Keynes

    Gliders & Racing Models Ltd
    NG24 2DE Newark

    Western Valley Models
    1 Crescent Road
    NP11 6GJ Newport

    TMK Trading Ltd
    Superior Cars
    NN1 1TB Northampton

    Pegasus Models Ltd.
    88 Catton Grove Road
    NR3 3AA Norwich

    Geedee Models Ltd
    19-21 Heathcoat Street
    NG1 3AF Nottingham

    M.B. Models
    Oulton Hall Grounds
    LS26 8ZF Oulton, Leeds

    Totem Timber Ltd
    St.John's Road
    PL4 0PA Plymouth

    Wireless Madness Ltd
    Unit 2 Brookfield Street
    PR1 1NR Preston

    Radio Controlled Shop Ltd
    DUBLXXX Rathcoole, Ireland

    Rother Valley Optics Ltd
    21 Station Road
    S26 6QP Sheffield

    DMS Racing
    418 St Albans Road
    WD24 6PJ Watford

     

    Edited By MattyB on 07/04/2017 10:35:32

  6. Fair enough. I still think there is value in handing the pre prod engines to modellers with petrol four stroke experience though - they will be able to describe the differences in performance, handling and noise compared to their existing engines to help you develop it more quickly.

    As for not reading the instructions, well I doubt you will be able to identify a group of modellers who do not have that tendency. You may need to print a big red X on top of the box with "Do not attempt to start before reading instructions at least 3 times" in 72 point type underneath... 

    Edited By MattyB on 05/04/2017 18:01:31

  7. Posted by Jon Harper - Laser Engines on 19/02/2017 18:10:21:

    ...I know this will sound like a right cop out, but the first people to buy and use the engine will be guinea pigs in some respects as its not possible for me to test every possible permutation of installation and experience every type of issue that may or may not come in to play, and then write a solution into the instructions. Regular feedback from early customers will be vital as instructions can be updated to help cover off problems that customers have that I have not due to my experience with the engine.

    While I will not let the engine into the wild before the mechanical side is 100% the instructions will have to evolve as more and more people share their experiences.

    When the time comes I may keep a list of email addresses so that revised instructions can be distributed with ease. It will all depend how the pre production engines behave with their less experienced (than me) owners.

    I would not worry about this. From the looks of your video this engine is already significantly better than the competition, and that is before you have conducted your final round of refinements. Even if it is not absolutely 100% perfect at launch the market is hungry for a competitively priced petrol 4 stroke of this size with better performance, so early adopters will be happy to accept instructions that have to evolve over time.

    There are now plenty of modellers out there with experience of the OS, NGH and Saito petrol four strokes (plus those who have converted Lasers to petrol). Get your pre-prod engines distributed to some of these guys and I suspect you will very quickly be able to hone the instructions.

  8. Gentlemen, not everyone lives on the internet - yes it could be a journalist seeking material, but it could also be a genuine post by someone seeking information who has not had chance to come back and look at the responses since posting. Children take up a lot of time, and we know the OP stated she had more than one of those (guess why I am still up and posting at 2am, there might be a link there...!)

    Once thing is for certain - whatever the intentions of the OP, badmouthing them and using bad language does not paint model flyers in a good light.

  9. I agree with the posters above that this was very poor conduct on the behalf of the model pilot, but if he denies the incident happened and you did not take photos of the plane in your garden it will be very difficult for you to get the police interested in investigating - its basically only your word against his. For this reason I agree you are best to take the non-combative route.

    Take photos of the damage, get a quote for putting it right and drop these round to him with a note stating your expectation that he pays for the repair; you may even be able to talk to him face to face, but do not put yourself in any personal danger. If you are lucky he will offer to make it right, but if he does not you are left with only two options - report to the police (and be prepared to have to fight really hard to get them interested given the absence of any hard evidence) or forget about it and move on.

    Edited By MattyB on 03/04/2017 14:37:43

  10. If you really do have a 2600mah pack and are only getting 1hrs running from it, then I agree it's due for the bin. What voltage is it sitting at after an hour of use?

    Before you dispose though try this... discharge the pack to around 1V/cell, trickle charge it (0.1C charge rate) fully then run a bench discharge test on a servo tester (using 3-4 servos). This should give you a good idea or the real world capacity of the pack and it's behaviour under load.

    Edited By MattyB on 03/04/2017 14:20:27

  11. I have one of these primarily for RX field charging during long summer slope soaring away days. Powered by a 3S Lipo of 2200 or so it's small and light enough to carry to the top of even the biggest hills! Mine was an amazing £9 or so from the Int'l warehouse two years ago, but obviously with the devaluation of the pound they have gone up a fair bit since then.

  12. Posted by IanR on 31/03/2017 16:31:01:

    Should I simply ignore the capacities in mAh and concentrate on getting somewhere between 3.75-3.85V/cell ?

    Ian

    Yes, that's correct. Anywhere in that range will be fine; the exact value is not really important. The reason those values are recommended is because the lower the voltage the less the capacity degradation over time, but you do not want to store so low that self discharge of the batt could causes it to dip below the 3.2-3V/ cell range where damage via a different mechanism can occur.

    Edited By MattyB on 31/03/2017 19:31:32

  13. Opinions vary on what voltage = what SOC (the discharge curves for lipos do vary subtly between packs of different chemistries & C ratings). However if you are storing your packs somewhere between 3.75-3.85V/cell you will be fine; the main thing is not to store fully charged.

    Edited By MattyB on 31/03/2017 16:01:29

  14. I have never understood this concept of "balancing nose down" - what constitutes "nose down", 1 degree, 15, 30? It just adds in an unnecessary potential failure point which could contribute to a maiden flight crash if the builder balances for level at the plan marked CG point rather than nose down. It is too late now to standardise now, but it would have been much better if all plans/ARFs had the marked CG position set for a "level flight" balance - that can be judged plenty accurately enough by eye, and thee is no room for misinterpretation.

  15. Posted by David Jacobs on 30/03/2017 17:09:44:

    Matty - Yeah I do have a limit for safety reasons.

    It has been suggested that

    "Discharge some down to about 50% and charge again at .5 or 1 amp max.
    Problem is your charger balance circuit is not heavy enough to get these in balance. This is becoming "the new normal" due to shipping regulations requiring them to discharge much lower than in the past and causing an imbalance that many chargers cannot correct at high output charges."

    I'll give that a try....

    Hmm, not sure I hold with that argument. It's true that packs are shipped at lower voltages now (3.7-3.75V/cell), but that should be well within the scope of any decent charger. I took delivery of 4 Graphene packs the other day and they were all at 3.75V/cell +-0.01V. If your packs were well out of balance (i.e. say >0.07V difference) on arrival the solution is not to try and balance them up; send em back.

    Your charger has a max balance current of 300ma. I agree that is on the low side, but if you are charging a single pack rather than trying to use all 4 outputs it should be sufficient. What are your time/capacity limits set at? If you are charging a 5000mah at 1C I would suggest you set the capacity limit at at least 6000mH and the timer at 1h30, then try again; hitting the limiter is still the most likely cause of your issue. Charging at 1A however does seem a bit extreme; if the pack won't balance on a 0.5C/2.5A charge it is a duffer and should be returned; it's that or your charger is no good.

    Edited By MattyB on 30/03/2017 20:01:28

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