Dave Hess

Posted by Stephen Belshaw on 06/11/2018 17:23:03: I'm considering the FrSky Taranis Q X7 with matching Rx but perhaps a bit daunted by the potential difficulty of programming it, anyone got experience of this system or can recommend alternatives? I have a lot of experience as I changed over to modern systems a few months back. The Taranis uses Open Tx. It's not something that you can learn from the rather massive manual. Instead, you have to watch Youtube videos, which show you how to do each task you want, then, when you can't figure out what the guy is doing, you have to ask on forums. After some time, you figure out the basics, but it will take longer if you want to do anything complicated, like mixing, telemetry and stabilisation. If you stick with it, everything gradually falls into place until you end up with a system that's more versatile than many others. If you're not good at hooking things up to PCs and doing complicated settings, Open Tx might not be the best choice. I had the advantage of being an IT and electronics teacher for ten years. Only you can judge whether you think you have the capability. The problem is that everything is easy when you knw how, so now, basic settings look dead simple and logical to me, but there was a bit of work to get to that position. It's not just Frsky that uses Open Tx. There are more and more brands starting to use it. Have a look at the really nice Flysky Nirvana N14 that not only uses Open Tx, but it has a version of the Open Tx Companion in it, so that you can do everything through the LCD in a more user-friendly way rather than having to do it through a PC. There were a couple of teething problems that showed up on the review models, but I think they've been solved for the main production. If not, they soon will be. I'm pretty sure that my next transmitter will be one of those. I love the design and the way everything is protected. My First Taranis had two broken switches on delivery, so had to go back. Now the replacement has already had two more. That's despite it being handled carefully and always kept in its case. the switches are so fragile that they can be broken while in the protective case!

Posted by Steve J on 06/11/2018 14:50:49: Posted by Dave Hess on 06/11/2018 13:37:43: check your Spektrum to the UK agent - if you can find one! Logic RC are the Spektrum agent and, from what I have heard, the old standards of customer care are back. Steve Here's my experience with trying to get the stupid thing repaired: Somebody on this forum told me Al's Hobbies were the agents, so I rang them. They were very polite and helpful in telling me that they were no longer the agents, and the guy gave me the number of the new agents - probably Logic. I immediately rang Logic at around 2:15PM on a weekday. A guy answered the phone and said that he doesn't deal with repairs. The guy that does is out to lunch. I asked when he would be back. he said that he couldn't say, so I asked whether he would be able to get him to call me back within an hour because I was going out. No problem. So we have the main agents of a premium brand depending on one guy to fix all their stuff, when he's not on his prolonged lunch-breaks. As you guessed, I didn't get a call back within the hour, but I did get one later when I was driving; however, I was still able to talk to the guy on my hands-free. After initial chit-chat, I was just about to explain what I wanted when he cut me off for whatever reason. It was after 5:00 PM, so maybe he looked at his watch and saw that it was home-time. I never heard from him again. Since then, I've been happily using my Jumper JP12, which only cost £80, and it can do everything and more that the Spektrum can do, so since then my DX7S is languishing in its box behind the Sofa and I can't find a justification to go through more hassle to bring it out from there. My lengthy internet research has come up with something like £6 each way to ship it to and from the repairer, £40 to test and inspect it and around £100 for a new RF board. That's £152. For that I can get a Flysky Nirvana N14, which is a hundred times better. Maybe some time later I'll make a project on how to hack it to use a multi-protocol module. If anyone has already done that, please let me know.

I forgot to mention that under the "model tab" is "setup failures", which allows you to bring in random failures for you to try and recover from.

Posted by Bob Cotsford on 05/11/2018 17:44:18: Radiolink have been around for a while, but do they have an official importer and support centre? That's not really an issue these days. There's more information and help for your transmitter on RC forums than you'll ever get from the customer service, and if the thing still doesn't work, you can chuck it and buy a new one cheaper than what it costs to send back and check your Spektrum to the UK agent - if you can find one! I have a Spectrum DX7S with a range problem. I tried to find someone to repair it, but it was going to cost more than the £80 I spent on my Jumper T12, which has loads more features than the Spektrum - and it works. Edited By Dave Hess on 06/11/2018 13:40:56

If you're happy with your transmitter, you can upgrade it to 2.4 gHz with a 4in1 module: **LINK** The 4in1 module works with just about any receiver rather than restricting you to a single protocol. I use the JP4in1, which works perfectly with Frsky and DSM2/DSMX receivers, including the Orange R610 V2 that only costs £4.50!

Posted by Wihtgar on 05/11/2018 22:33:40: Does the 22 in 1 Flight Simulator Cable come with its own flight simulator software or does it enable you to use other flight simulators that are available online e.g. PicaSim? Yes. You'll see when you get the disk. I guarantee that you won't be disappointed.

Thanks for that. In the meantime, I got the 22 in 1 Flight Simulator Cable from Amazon, that has everything I need in a flight simulator. It's probably the best £7 I ever spent. Just as well RF8 made it so difficult for me to upgrade!

Every plane in Phoenix flies differently, then you can edit each plane to fly differently. you can move the C of G back, which has some interesting effects, so try all these things if you want to test your flying ability.

Posted by AndyD on 04/11/2018 21:10:13: I think I will go the leisure route as it just don't seem right to fly a electric plane and charge it with a petrol engine even though I fly petrol, plus one glow which sadly will go once my fuel stock runs out. Get an electric car, then, when you run it to charge the battery, you won't make any pollution!

Posted by Martin Harris on 04/11/2018 14:13:38: I would disagree that this forum isn't friendly though. Like a club, we learn to gauge the response to particular posters and sometimes tease each other a little - but it rarely gets to a personal or insulting level Is this what you mean? Posted by supertigrefan on 04/11/2018 16:12:33: Feel free to exercise that right. Yawn...…... ZZzzzzz  

Posted by Pete B - Moderator on 03/11/2018 13:24:47: Posted by supertigrefan on 03/11/2018 12:29:20: Here's a suggestion: Bin your current profile and start all over again with a new slate but this time lose the attitude! He 'left the room' yesterday....no return is anticipated.... Pete That's nothing to be happy about. If you start excluding people that think different to the modal forum guys, you'll end up with nothing but a clique of die-hards making threads about how well they can pin sticks of balsawood to plans and why I/C engines are better than electric. The guy made a valid point, which he expressed in a rather clumsy though direct way. Instead of taking issue with his point, forum members resorted to a tirade of personal abuse. It's them that should have been dealt with not him. You can ban me too for expressing my opinion if you want. I don’t give an iota. There are plenty of more friendly rc forums than this one.

You already have a generator in your car. Just connect your charger to the battety and leave the engine running. It might annoy other flyers, but so will a stand alone generator.

Posted by David Davis on 03/11/2018 12:02:09: I can top that! **LINK** That just about sums up I/C flying: Spend ages getting your plane ready, spend ages trying to tune the engine to get it running just right; test it and test it again to make sure that it's perfect; test it again on the strip just to make absolutely sure; take off, and some time before the end of the flight see the engine conk out so you have to do a dead-stick landing. the guy was lucky on that occasion, but whenever it happened to me, my plane would hit the only fence post or rock in the whole field, so, even though I did what looked like a perfect landing from 200 meters away, it turned out to be a fuselage snapped in two pieces. I lost more planes due to engines conking out than any other reason. With electric, I now only have to crash when i mess up my flying. Messing with I/c engines can be fun and exciting plus full of nostalgia, but if you step back and become pragmatic, electric is cheaper, more reliable, lighter, more environmentally friendly, more adjustable (powerwise), more convenient and cleaner. It should be no surprise that people are changing over in droves. Edited By Dave Hess on 03/11/2018 14:09:18

Posted by SIMON CRAGG on 03/11/2018 07:43:39: How can you possibly replicate four .90fs powered warbirds in formation with the equivalent electric versions? Maybe I am getting old, and hankering after days which will never return! You're worrying about nothing. we already have a solution for that:

Yes, much more reliable to build the wings without the root rib, then lift the wing tip the desired amount and glue the root rib leaning against a right-angled block, That way, you don't need a dihedral gauge.

There's a nice writeup on the main contenders here: **LINK**

Loads on Ebay: **LINK**

My friend bought a very cheap Flysky system, which seemed to give him some range problems, so he bought a Frsky external module for it, which worked perfectly. He then found out how to modify the Tx to run Open Tx. he's now very happy with it. I paid quite a lot of money for a Taranis with Open Tx, then I found a Jumper T12 transmitter that ran Open Tx and has the Jumper 4in1 module that can work with just about any receiver. it has all the switches and controls that my Taranis has, so setting up is virtually identical and it has all the same features for around £80, though it feels much cheaper. Open Tx takes a while to figure out, so not for everyone, but you can buy that Jumper 4in1 module for £40 to fit any Tx with an external bay, which means you can convert your Tx to work with just about any receiver. I like the look of the Turnigy 9X, which has a lot of features including the external module bay for £57. There's a review of it here. Normally, these guys are quite trustworthy with their reviews, but this one is sponsored, so bear that in mind. Turnigy receivers are nice and cheap too:

I've spent today experimenting on the simulator with different amounts of expo with all the different planes. I must admit that it was very hard to notice any difference in the way the planes flew between using zero and 70% expo. I can't be certain, but I'd say that it's easier to keep wings level with high expo, but that comes at the price of some over-sensitivity (over control) when you're doing emergency saves whenever you mess up a difficult manoeuvre (for me anyway). I then tried 70% negative expo, which was very noticeably harder to control, and showed similar instability to what I had, so it's not impossible that I had inadvertently dialled in negative expo. Normally, my Tx shows the graph as I adjust it, but I use triple rates, so have to have three separate expo settings, and I don't normally move the switch to show the relevant graph when doing the settings, i.e. it shows the graph for low rates when I'm setting medium and high, in which case I only see the number changing, and the minus sign is pretty small, so I could have missed it.

I flew a new plane last week and noticed that it had some control instability. when I tried to level the wings after a turn or whatever, the wings would rock from side to side a couple of times before settling down. i found myself pushing the stick one way and the other to compensate. This showed the classic symptoms of a system response from over-control. I was using about 33% expo. I reduced the expo to zero and the problem immediately went away and the plane flew beautifully. I also had rates reduced because it was a new plane and I wasn't sure how responsive it would be. This got me thinking about what was going on. I came to the conclusion that with the rates reduced and the expo, I had to move the stick a significant distance before I got any significant response, but by that time I was in the range where the expo made the response much steeper so I had converted my proportional control into something closer to a bang-bang switch. In theory, to get a linear control response you need some expo to compensate for the movement of the servo arm because it gives more push/pull around the centre position. Is it just a problem for me because it was too expensive when I started flying, so I lew many years without it? I'm now thinking that a blanket 30% expo is not going to work on all models. Does anybody use inverse expo for a particular type of plane or type of flying? Has anybody else any thoughts on this . A quick Google search shows that I'm not the only one that's experienced this wing wagging from too much expo.

Posted by Martin McIntosh on 25/09/2016 15:45:55: maybe with a further coarser pitch fan at the rear. Has any of this been tried before? Flitetest did that on their A10. Each of their motors give about 1kg thrust on their own with a normal propeller, like they used, so it looks like they got some benefit from the second motors, but not much efficiency. They didn't really do it on a scientific basis. They had the ideas to use a higher cell count and coarser pitch on the rear motors, but they don't say that they actually tested that. You can see it here from about 3:00:

Posted by Stephen Jones on 25/10/2018 18:18:09 Why did you not just buy or build a Helicopter. I have a couple of quadcopters, but my crappy eyes (cataracts) can't see them when they're more than 30 feet away, so I need something bigger. Big helicopters are very expensive, but as you can see, I can build a plane for £35 including motor, servos, etc and fly it like a helicopter. I can still see my planes at 50 meters, so I'm happy.

Those results mean that your charger isn't charging correctly and that your battery is nicely balanced, so probably healthy. Most likely, it's set wrong. If you can't set it to charge to 4.2v per cell (12.6v total) or something near but lower if that's what you want, then try a different charger. Edited By Dave Hess on 26/10/2018 14:48:33 Edited By Dave Hess on 26/10/2018 14:49:59

Yes, of course if you have a conscience, you can pay £180, knowing that your donation is going to good causes and might help in the development of new products in the future, or if you don't, you can buy the Chinese Knockoff, which works exactly the same for £7 from Amazon. From my point of view, I paid a lot of money for RealFlight 2 with the special controller. For whatever reason, RF couldn't be bothered to offer upgrades or support for it, so now, even though the controller looks the same as the present one, it's only compatible with version 2. RF2 won't run on modern PCs. I think it expired with Windows XP/ME. So my donation only went to support the development of the product for anybody but me. So, if you have a later version, you can thank me for it. I wrote to RF to ask if they could offer any solution or a deal on an upgraded version. I got a reply saying that my version was not compatible with the present ones, and that my only option was to pay for a new version. And, no, it's not theft. You pay £7 for a dongle and some software. The fact that the code in the software might be very similar to other products isn't anything to do with you. Somebody else maybe stole the secrets. Maybe the guy that had the rights to the original code defected. Those sort of things go on with every product. Do you only buy real Coke Cola rather than Tesco's brand? Do you shop in Aldi, where half the products are knock-offs of other brands? It's a shame that things work out like that, but it's what happens in real life. You guys on this forum are not going to change anything by spending £180 instead of £7 other than reducing your bank balances. Anyway, when you pay your £180, you'll have a stronger case to make sure St Peter stamps your ticket when you reach the pearly gates, so good luck if that's what you want to do. I'm not here to judge nor to tell you what to do. I simply explain the options. You can pay a lot or not very much for what's essentially the same thing. Your choice. In fact, I should mention that the £7 knock-off has substantially more features than the expensive one, but that's another thing. As far as I'm concerned, we should be helping each other to enjoy flying, not preaching the finer points of morality.   Edited By Dave Hess on 26/10/2018 11:34:11

70% doesn't mean anything. You need to measure the overall pack voltage, then put the probes on the points in the balance connector to show the individual cell voltages. When you know all 4 values (assuming 3S), you'll know what's wrong with the pack. Does your meter already show individual cell voltages? If so, post them here so that we can diagnose what's wrong. Assuming that your capacity meter is correct and set correctly, the most rational explanation would be that the pack is completely out of balance and your charger isn't able to deal with that. If that's so, you actually have a lot less capacity than 70%. It'll be closer to 30%. I wouldn't do anything with that pack until you know what's wrong because it can be very dangerous charging an out of balance pack, depending on how you do it. Note that a tired or worn out pack normally still charges to a 100%. It's just that it's 100% of it's present capacity, which would be a lot less capacity than when it was new. These capacity meters are normally voltmeters. 70% means 70% of the voltage of a normal fully charged pack. You can't measure capacity without a complete discharge test through a load. Discharging and recharging won't do anything except probably make it worse. Edited By Dave Hess on 25/10/2018 16:38:59