Martin McIntosh

Oh, and how do I delete the notifications indicated by the bell please?

Can any mod. please deal with this because it is a real pain?

Yes, when I spoke about YS and plugs I was not talking about a day to day cooking engine like a Merco maybe, but a powerful job designed to do a particular task on high nitro, which they do very well; just wish that I could get cheaper plugs. Ordered a couple of OS F ones from ebay at £28 for spares since I have a lot of four stroke motors.

I can understand your frustration. If the tips are iron coated you must never file this off; always use a damp sponge to clean them after making every joint. Antex are old hat and not temperature controlled but can be used for PCB work. Wellers with or without a soldering station are pretty good but in my professional days it had to be Metcal ( look at £250+ though). The temperature is controlled by the size/type of tip used. With a high temperature one of just 3mm width I can easily solder two pieces of 6 swg wire together using some extra, non corrosive flux.

At one time they marketed OSF plugs under their own name. I run those motors on the same plug up to the point when the idle seems mis tuned. No need to mess with it, just change the plug. Mind you, I used to buy a card of twelve from Probuild for about £2.50 each.

`Fraid not. Spam is empty and as far as I know have changed nothing at my end. Did not even get a notification that this had been replied to.

E.Doc, I cannot recollect an OSF blowing, they just lose their brightness due to the material deteriorating. Happens to any plug. YS advised replacement every 20 flights for this reason. I know that we are supposed to store models with the head facing up to prevent fuel (oil) from attacking the plugs but this is rarely practical. The plugs in my case had all seen a lot of use.

Hang on Stu, I used to have one of the above models. Fine if every landing is perfect and always into wind but in reality is never like that.

That landing gear looks very nice. Don`t know how much experience you have with retracts but a couple of small grub screws onto what look to be 8mm stubs will not stand a chance against the twisting motion of twin legs.

My home spun plug voltage regulators run at either 1.25 or 1.4V, switchable, so on 1.4V the plugs should have been brighter. Past experience taught me that some motors (OS 2 strokes) get through plugs like a house on fire when inverted. May change the higher setting to 1.5V and see what happens.

I no longer get emails for replies, despite ticking the usual box. The message about preferences having been changed does not stay on very long. I am using the site in my usual way, so any ideas please?

I meant Enya 3 of course, not 8. Confusing them with the similar OS 8. The reason I ask about alternatives is because although my inverted Lasers run fine, they are a devil to start at first. This was due to the plugs not fully heating to burn off the oil so I used up my last three OS f`s which cured the problem. £14.99 a pop is now getting ridiculous.

Yes, it was the very expensive Wavefront laser treatment. I put it off for a long time before I plucked up enough courage to go. When I contacted what I thought was Ultralase to get re treated they told me to get a prescription. Specsavers said that further laser work would not be possible with cataracts but `Ultralase` said they could remove those, which would destroy the previous laser correction, and re laser at the same time. It was then that they quoted £7000 and informed me that the original company no longer existed. I told them what they could do with it.

I had my eyes done at Ultralase 13 years ago to give me stereo distance vision without varifocals at £500 a pop every two years. Great until about 9 months ago when my right eye totally failed for distance but I could easily read a paper with it without specs! Contacted Ultralase which gave a lifetime guarantee only to be told that the original company had gone into admin. in 2013. How convenient for them to not honour warrantees any more, despite still trading under the same name. Went to Specsavers where I was pleased to get two pairs of distance and two of reading glasses at £69 per two pairs. However, they said that cataracts were stating to form but come back in twelve months for a check. I am now fairly confident to resume flying.

Enya what. 8`s maybe ?

Acetone is great for cleaning up glue nozzles and pins but only if in an airtight jar and it takes quite a while. It also eventually works on rock hard epoxy brushes and mixing pots. Get it on ebay in a 5l bottle, sold as nail varnish remover. For joints which you need to take apart then the Toolstation etc stuff works but you need to be patient as it can take an hour or so and will need to be re applied occasionally.

Anyone tried plugs other than OSF, such as Model Technics, on Laser engines?

Yes quite. I ended up with very small SLEC tanks but luckily the motors were very frugal. I also had to contend with cells and switches to ensure that the plugs kept glowing at idle. Cannot remember if I used Herts Models intelligent glow switches or a purely mechanical switch set up.

Peter, since the advice was tending towards neutral cg I was merely pointing out a simple way to check this. Should have explained that I suppose. No confusion intended.

Savox 0253 or the faster 0252 are ideal for the Edge. I use them and they do not break the bank.

Not ploughed through the whole thread but as an ex aerobatic flyer, from what I have read about a neutral cg is simply rubbish. In the days of single channel, no elevators, this could be done to achieve some sort of inverted flight but no point in doing that now. Even with lots of expo it would make your elevator control very sensitive. Stick with the normal cg position as recommended, use about 40% expo and reduce the travel. You can then push quite a bit of down without the model jumping around. I set up my models to spin with about +20% movement on high rate rudder and elevator so that the spin stops when the controls are neutralised 1/2 a turn before the desired exit; more than that and the cg is too far back and vice versa.

Your threaded rod may well be stainless so you stood no chance.

I have SG Edge 540 which I bought to test fly a 52cc petrol and all gear prior to installing in a Vailley 96" Hurricane. Way overpowered so I replaced it with a 30cc petrol. Perfect on a 19x8 so the laser would handle it with ease. Very little assembly work and quality hardware throughout.

I have published a lot on this topic in the past because a large part of my job involved professional standard soldering. With piano wire, you need to file it clean (applies particularly to plated linkage rods) because sandpaper is not good enough. I have always used Templers Telux flux which is none corrosive but I ran out and could only get it on ebay, advertised as retro flux! Something wrong with that tin I bought because it does nothing. Get a none corrosive type from a plumbers merchant; plumbers do not go round cleaning up water pipes. The diameter of the TCW is not too important but you must run some fine sandpaper down it first. I still have my professional iron but at £250-£300 is way out of reach of most modellers. The tip, would you believe is only 3mm but handles 6 swg with ease because it is a thermostatically controlled high temperature one. A 100W iron should be OK though. I should have some example pics but they are not on this PC.

Definitely a flat battery pack. Servo jittering is always the first sign.