Gary Manuel

Posted by Masher on 17/06/2014 11:42:26: I also use one of these BUT a word of caution here in my previous thread One thing I have found is that sometimes if you plug a partially charged battery (to give it a top-up) in immediately after you have unplugged a fully changed one, it only charges the new one for a few seconds. This is probably to do with the charger tracking the peak voltage and seeing the change of batteries as just a small fluctuation of the same battery. I always switch the charger of at the wall for a couple of seconds to reset the charger after / when I plug a battery in. Never had a problem since.

Hi Glenn, This is what I use and thoroughly recommend. 3xRX outputs will delta peak charge 4-7 cells at 600mA 1xTx will delta peak charge 4-8 cells at 600mA. With the right adapter, it will charge 4 receivers at once. Very simple to use - just plug in and wait for the red light to turn green when it's done. **LINK** Edited By Gary Manuel on 17/06/2014 10:00:12

Posted by Phil Winks on 15/06/2014 23:02:02: I Think you may be right Gary not sure why I said series never been a fan of parralell btys with out a schottky diode in line to prevent back charging, one may have helped here but also the voltage differential would prob have blown the diode any way Phil, May not be as costly as he thought. The ESC and motor may only have suffered smoke damage as they would not have been the cause of the Chip (pan) fire. He might get away with re-using these.

Checked twice eh John

John, Sorry to see your pride and joy looking like that. Get busy - I'm sure you have the technology to rebuild by next week. Phil, I'm guessing he was running 2 batteries in Parallel, not Series, and it was the potential difference / circulating current that caused the problem.

Very unique model. Full of character. Love it

Posted by Martin McIntosh on 06/06/2014 22:06:12: Gary M, I think but am not sure that JR gives a warning beep if the switches are not set as bound. Usually just the flap switch needs moving. Shall need to check on that. MM - You got me thinking, so I've had a play with my JR DSX9 Mk2. It's not possible to bind if the flight mode isn't in the FM0 "away" position. Even with an unbound clean model selected and the only setting being to enable Flight Mode, the beep is given if the tranny is switched off and back on. Same result whether the FM is assigned to the AUX2 or Flap switch. If the Flight Mode switch in anything but the "away" position (FM0) the buzzer sounds with e.g. - "SW WARNING - FLAP SW FM2". This prevents transmission (and binding) until the switch is set to the FM0 position. It's therefore impossible to take off until the transmitter has been set to FM0 "away" position. Nothing of course to stop the switch being changed to FM1 or FM2 "towards" position afterwards, but this would defeat the warning the tranny is trying to give.

There's a bit more to this than meets the eye, which nobody has mentioned yet: Modern transmitters have switches on the front face (where the sticks are) and also on the top face (where the aerial is). On the front face, "up" is obviously away from the pilot and "down" is towards the pilot. So which way is "up" / "down" on the top edge? When in the flying position, "down" is actually away from the pilot, which makes it the opposite orientation to the front face. The terms "Up" and "Down" are therefore confusing, so it's all about what feels right to the individual pilot. I prefer to think of it as switch "away" or "towards" position rather than "up" or "down". I use flight modes and have the 3 position FM switch "away" from me as the low rate (or take off) position. This logic appears to be supported by JR transmitters, which have a warning / bleep if you switch the tranny on with the FM (or any other switch - I think) in any position other than fully "away" from you. This effectively defines the default (take off?) switch position. I don't think there's a right or wrong way, just what suits the individual and the equipment they use.

Posted by iqon on 02/06/2014 00:13:26: crikey I look old..... You look as if you've shrunk as well - or the plane has grown - or it's the camera angle

I'll certainly be there. Both days if I can.

There is a good series of about 11 short videos on Youtube by RCBatics. They explain the fundamentals of flight and move onto more detail as the series progresses. Here's a link to the first one. I have no association with the group.

"Stick" my name in the hat too (preferably near the top).

I didn't expect the motor to be as big as that. Looks more like a can of pop.

Looking good John. A few more days then you can start the challenging bit - finishing it.

Posted by cymaz on 04/05/2014 21:14:55: Brilliant Gary, well done. What character from the film will you build next ?? Now there's a thought ..... hmmmm

Dusty had a few flies stuck to his teeth i can tell you I was pretty calm for the maiden. I've spoken to you about this before, and we both know that 90% of the maiden flight is done in the workshop. I knew everything was built well, so that just left 10% to test. Flies really well and will be even better once thrust line sorted. Bit disappointed (with myself) about the bounce. Putting a different undercarriage on isn't an option - I've already spent too much on this one . It's not so much a bounce, more a case that once the rear settles, the front is pointing upwards and the speed is high enough to launch it again - just!

2 ordered with free delivery. Nice find.

Here's a few photos of Dusty fully assembled with stickers applied. I'm very pleased with the results and think he has oodles of character. Read on for maiden flight review. MAIDEN FLIGHT REVIEW Engine started without any fuss after a good prime. Was very rich to start with, but I ran half a tank through at rich settings to loosen the engine up a bit. I then richened the top and bottom ends up and finished the tank off. Next half a tank was spent on the ground making minor tweaks to get a safe tick-over and transition to open throttle. Engine runs very well if a little on the noisy side with standard silencer, but it suits the character of the model and noise isn't really a problem at our club field. Thumbs up so far the DLE 55 RA Filled up, range tested and went for take off, which was uneventful - just needed a bit of down trim for level flight. All controls work well but a little bit twitchy - knew I'd forgotten something. Must add some exponential for the next flight . I had a play with the contols and noted: Throttle caused noticable pulling to the left. The model has no right thrust built is, so I expected this. Flaps resulted in noticable nosing up. After 15 minutes or so, I went for a landing - this is where it got tricky. Because the front undercarriage is so high, the plane tends to try to take off again as soon as the tail wheel settles, due to the high angle of incidence. At little over stall speed, this resulted in a couple of near misses as the model banked steeply to the left at zero height. It was only the over-powered engine that avoided a crash. Eventually I managed to make a very undignified landing. CHANGES FOR THE SECOND FLIGHT I mixed in 5% throttle to right rudder as a short term fix for pulling to the left under power. I mixed in 10% flap to down elevator as a fix for nosing up with flaps. 50% expnential added to rudder, elevator and aeleron. Both mixes worked about right although it is noticable both on the ground and in the air that right hand rudder is much weaker than left hand. Flaps now work well with very little nosing up or down. Twitchiness now gone completely due to the exponential (and perhaps my reduced nervousness). Banked turns, Flat turns, loops, rolls, inverted flight, stall turns, spins, even knife edge (one side only) were easy to achieve although the weak right rudder is something I can't live with. Tried touch n goes with flaps off, on and half on. All result in bouncing back into the air, with steep left bank when power is applied. I must do something about the thrust lines - compensating with throttle to rudder mix is not the answer. In summary, the model looks, sounds and flies very well, but I need to add some right thrust (maybe down thrust as well?) and I need to practice landing larger models to avoid bouncing back into the air on landing. I'm sure that this is operator error / inexperience and no reflection on the model. I'll add more feedback after I have played around a bit.

I'm sure that a bit of rudder action will put the twinkle back in his eye

Dashboard for two sockets for the receiver batteries and one special fail-safe receiver switch. Spektrum AR9100 Powersafe with 3 satellite receivers is used to capacity. Wiring will be tied and receiver tie wrapped in place later. 2 of the 3 satellite receivers visible here - one vertically orientated and one longitudinal. The third is horizontal from side to side, behind the dashboard. Switch / charging socket for the ignition battery.

OK - time for an update of what I've been up to - apart from 2 wonderful days flying Who d'ya think your looking at I think he has a friendly look about him