toto

I hear the comments with regards to calibrating the ESC of an ARTF but my mentor picked up on my first Supercub and the fact that the throttle did not quite work through the full range. It was recalibrate at the field following the exact same procedure that I have followed. I dare say that if the first 2 notches of the throttle are not responsive then it's maybe manageable. The only concern is on approach for landing where you are maybe wanting to maintain a low throttle setting prior to touch down, you may stall all together. I'll see if he is prepared to accept the model for flying as it is ..... ie .... not fully calibrated and with the default failsafe settings which appear to be set at return to last applied configuration prior to signal loss. I'm really not looking to make this any more complicated than it has to be but it was a request to have these two specific settings resolved prior to me visiting the field for a maiden. ..... the requirement for these conditions are either necessary / advisable or not ..... which one ? I'm getting conflicting views. Cheers Toto

Boooooo ........ didn't get around to the receiver etc. Night out on Saturday ( birthday celebration ) and dealing with HMRC and accountant duties yesterday ..... yes on a Sunday..... gods day of rest ..... disgusting I know. I need a 7 channel receiver unless I don't use the bomb drop doors then it's a six. I think I will use the doors for the novelty factor but not necessarily bother with the bombs. So ..... what receiver then .... I have a couple of versions of 8 channel spektrum receivers or I do have a 7 channel Lemon receiver somewhere If I can find it. ..... to be determined. Probably tomorrow night anyway as it's a quick visit to mumsies tonight ...... birthday duties and all that. I'll need to scour the destructions to see what it recommends in terms of connecting into the receiver goes. Probably the normal TAER .... a marked plug in for the landing gear and flaps and the last port for the bomb doors ...... that's my guess off the top of my head. I'd love to calibrate the throttle and fail safe right from the beginning but have been having issues doing that with my Supercub. Let's see how I get on here. Cheers Toto

OK ..... went to the shed today to try and sort out the fail safe and ESC calibration on my Supercub with mixed success. I'll leave that to the Supercub post but after my limited success I decided not to completely waste the rest of the day as I was keen to be doing something. The result ..... the assembly of the Freewing B25 Mitchell Bomber ....... So here we are with todays efforts which took all of around an hour or so. The box ..... and an idea of the part count ..... not too many really .... and the ancilliary parts ..... as you can see ...... including the fag ends ...... here is where we start the assembly ..... the tail ..... we start with the assembly of the rudder sections onto the elevator piece ..... simple as feeding the rudder servo cables down through the elevator where they come out centrally on the underside of the elevator surface. drop tye servo cables down through the rear fuselage section and screw the elevator rudder to the rear fuselage section .... two screws through the top as above ...... and one screw to the underside ..... above you can see the two rudder servos cables coming out..... the elevator servos cables come pre installed and plugged into the control board as you can see above ..... two remaining positions on the PCB are for the rudder cables .... like so with all the cables using the same polarity positioning. next up is to attach the rear of the fuselage to the larger front section ...... there is a ribbon cable which you need to feed down through the front fuselage to the rear .... this plugs into the PCB in the rear as shown above ..... and there it is. the cable is quite neat in length so I couldn't really show it plugged in. there is only one way that it will fit though so you can't get it wrong. push the two fuselage sections together aligning the two carbon rods and then when pushed home .... a screw to secure from the bottom .... and one from the top ...... simples. and here is what we have so far ..... and ..... now we move on to the inner wing sections ..... we have the main connecting ribbon and a smaller cable for the landing gear that we have to plug in ..... and the mating end for the landing gear ...... and the battery connection and throttle lead etc which gets fed into the fuselage for connecting in to the control box thingy. here is where the main ribbon connection plugs into .... you can see small notches in the plastic housing which only allows connection to be made one way ..... the correct way. the two holes which accomodate the routing of the various cables through into the fuselage. just take care not to catch them as you push the sections together ...... and the first of the inner wing sections mated to the fuselage and held in place via two screws. like so ..... and there we are .... here we are again ....... plugged in and ready to thread through the other cables ..... two inner wings connected and installed ..... and we move on to the installation of the outer wing sections ..... one single ribbon connection from the inner to the outer wing sections ..... you can maybe see the notches in the ribbon housings again allowing connection one way only ..... there's a better view ..... and at the plug end ..... the ribbon plugged in and the two sections connected by aligning the carbon wing rods, threading them into the inner wing ..... pushing the sections together ..... until they " click ". You can see the two catches which are simply pushed inwards to release the wing sections for transportation. and there it is ...... the completed bird .... a fair sise ..... 1600mm wingspan and around 1400mm in length ...... here is what is left to complete ..... possibly tomorrow as I have a night out tonight to celebrate my birthday. another on the work surface ...... and one last shot on the stand. Tomorrow will hopefully see a receiver being installed, centralising of the servos, connection of remaining control surfaces and I shall try and calibrate the ESC as well. my intention is to do these assemblies on video but not quite ready for that though so thats something for the future. This bird wont see air time for some time yet. I'm carrying the risk of attracting some hangar rash whilst it sits there but I had the bug to assemble something ..... I'll take my chances. this gives me a couple of twin props now .... the twin otter being the other. cheers for now Toto

OK..... after a further stall in progression ..... hoping to get a couple of hours in the shed to continue to try and resolve the failsafe and ESC calibration issues. Hopefully I can knock at least one of the issues out. ...wish me luck. Toto.

Apologies for any confusion Bush Man. Toto

Not exactly looking favourable for flying this weekend with the first named storm to batter Scotland with up to 90 mph winds. ....... batten down the hatches ....... Toto

OK.... after the failed attempts at establishing the " failsafe " settings, I'll be back in the shed tonight for another attempt. It was suggested that I might have been in tol close a proximity when tr6ing to set it up ..... virtually sitting next to it ..... which may have caused the failed signal when trying to get into the forward programming mode. ..... even though I did manage to bind the receiver from the same spot ...... so I'll try standing further away to see if this has maybe been the issue. I'll try anything.... Toto

Funny you should say that Chris because the techy guy at Motion RC recommends the exact same .... fly it clean at first. there is a lot of ordnance comes with it. here it is ....... The box artwork .... very nice .... The upper tier of parts .... the usual bag of screws and links etc ...... some 3D upgrade cockpit parts .... usual destruction manual ..... the first of the ordnance ..... and more ...... and what I believe are fuel drop tanks ..... all the above are on a clip on sliding rail system ..... one of two wings ..... installed aileron links , missile railing system and quick release catches ..... close up of one of the missile railing system rails. and the others ..... quick release catches ....... plug in boards for the electrics ..... The other wing .... checked and fine .... vertical stabilisor with servo leads for rudder and LED's. and the other side ...... one of two horisontal stabilisors ...... fuselage tail piece ..... and again ...... the first image of the main fuselage ..... with the nose cone ..... a full length shot with tail piece attached as well ..... pretty impressive .... and the tail piece again and you can see where the air brakes are fitted as well .... one each side of the rear fuselage ..... another long shot ..... the cockpit hatch which has electric contacts for illumination of the HUD cockpit light. looking rearward into the fuselage, the control panel and electrical battery lead etc ..... and looking forward to the battery hatch ..... plenty room .... and thats the images for now. More of the detail can be seen when the assembley eventually happens. hope you like .... toto

Good luck Steve, sounds nice. Feel free to get some pictures up of your model. I haven't heard of Art Tech before so would be interested to see dome of their products. I have a Seagull Cessna Skylane 182 which is yet unbuilt ( like many of my models ) Let us know how you get on. Toto

Well ..... I blew my cover on my project mancave post as there was a bit of interest shown on the boxes stored in there. Chris Walby was mooching about trying to read the boxes. So ... Yes .... I have bought a jet or three over the last 6 months or so but did not bother posting them up as I thought I could do without being reminded that I am not ready for anything even remotely like these at the moment . However.... if you have the measure of me ..... you will know that it won't stop me buying them for later ..... its what I do. So ..... this is the latest purchase from Motion RC in the Netherlands ( as opposed to their US outlet ) ..... The Freewing F16 Falcon. A scale 90mm EDF 6S model. I will post a couple of images up later for those interested. For those not interested ....... you can always ignore. Toto

not them all ....... but no shortage of inspiration to improve ..... quickly .... 2025 is the year. Toto

A sneak peek for you Chris ....... it was always just a matter of time ..... this one was only delivered last week ...... call it a late christmas present or early birthday present ....... another one that will need to wait before it see's the light of day .... never mind .... patience I have ..... just as well. chees toto

Hi Chris ...... its maybe just as well the images are fuzzy ...... some of these models ( so far unannounced ) would only attract grief for me as they are way beyond my experience level ..... doesn't stop me buying them for when the time comes though. Think Freewing F16. Then let your imagination run riot. ..... its what I do. Toto

Batteries take their first charge ..... and a couple of suitable lipo's for the Supercub. sort of eases you back into things after a couple of months out of it. still struggling with the Supercub set up though. toto

And ..... the space starts to disappear ...... Looking a bit more like a hobby shed now. toto

Hi John, A good incentive to get that kitchen done. When you are working out ideal footprint size of your workshop ..... remember to multiply by at least 1.5 .... preferably 2. I've just started bringing some of my assembled models back today ..... namely .... the Beaver and the Twin Otter ..... I'm starting to feel claustrophobic already. The Husky, Tasman and Aeroscout will be getting retreivedfrom the atticlater today. Now ..... focus ...... Kitchen. that is worth loads of hobby tokens. Toto

I've had to switch off. No flying tomrrow ....... no worries. I need to switch off Toto

No worries Grumpy but I cant seem to access forward settings in order to set the failsafe at any point in the proceedings. toto

Ok in the shed. Cant seem to calibrate the ESC. The model is bound and when I slowly push up the throttle stick, sure enough..... no power to the prop until I get to the third click or so. switch everything off and then turn on transmitter, select required model ( supercub ) push the throttle stick all the way ( full power ) plug battery into the ESC and wait for the first beeps ..... pull throttle all the way down ....... receive the next 4 beeps ( 4s battery ) and everything should be ready to go. try pushing up the throttle stick slowly ...... still no prop until about the 3rd click of the throttle stick .... Hmmmm Same with Failsafe ..... switch on transmitter and model ..... Go to forward programming where the failsafe settings are meant to be but when I hit the forward programming button ....... signal has failed. doesn't make sense as all controls from the sticks work so there is clearly a signal. More Utube searching I think. toto One thing .... I have bound the receiver but not set any rates ....... does this make any difference as I believe you set the above whilst in 100% rates anyway.

No further movement on the mancave lately as I have been spending a bit of time assembling my second Supercub in readiness for the start f the flying year. Still have the accoustic panels to stick in place and the IT to get sorted out yet. .... on the side burner for now in favour of trying to get my first flight of the year in. Toto

Hmmmmm ........ tonight is the night. Just awaiting tea to be delivered then it's out to the shed to start messing around with all this black magic jiggery pockery stuff. One or two videos to watch just to follow some steps again in particular with the fail safe and the calibration. Once I have all that stuff set and tested on the NX8, it's time to buddy up to the NX6. If I feel confident that I have it all tied up properly ...... its off to the field tomorrow for my first flight of the year .... likewise ...... if confidence is low ..... it will be put back a week until the following weekend. Taking no chances. Can't wait to get back in the air ....... Toto

I use the AR620 .... several of them. The Batt port is for a Battery. Ports 1 - 6 usually start as follows 1. Throttle 2. Aileron 3. Elevator 4. Rudder Port 5 could be used for flaps if your model has them and 6 .... possibly retracts or whatever. If your model is electric power, your battery port won't be used as the receiver will draw its power via the ESC ( throttle port ) I know that much but maybe others can chime in with further possibilities for ports 5 and 6. It would be helpful if you mention which model you are referring to and any answers could be more specific. Ports 1 to 4 are general guidance for what some call the "TAER" system to determine the order of connection .....Throttle, Aileron, Elevator, Rudder but always check your models instructions just in case. Hope I have helped and not fed any incorrect information .... I'm sure others will correct me if so. Good luck Toto

So ..... its looking good for the shed tonight so far. Spoke to my mentor to confirm for tomorrow. It looks flyable at present. So if I get all the set up right with both transmitters and receiver as well as buddying, failsafe, ESC calibration and rates etc ...... a final phone call tomorrow morning to confirm things and hopefully my first flight of the new year. We agreed that if I am not confident that I have nailed the setup properly ...... its then next week end. Let's see how I get on. It's been a while since I done all this programming stuff and don't want to rush it. Start the season off with a correctly set up model ...... and fly the hell out of it. That's what's happening. Toto

Hi Philip, I think you are confirming my understanding of why this calibration is required. I have watch a utube video or two on this and the demonstration showed the throttle not kicking in when the throttle stick was initially moved on the transmitter. It kicks in further into the throttle sticks movement range. After the calibration exercise, it's the demonstrated that the throttle now kicks in immediately. I think my simplistic explanation is the same Feel free to correct me though. Toto

Hi Leccy, I'll try that. I am just returning from the shed after charging my transmitters and checking my Lipos. Only one lipo needed a charge as the rest were sitting at between 92 and 95 % charged. I'll look into the setting up tomorrow night. ..... getting there. It maybe that the original settings take over but I can't remember if I had the Vector system in the last model. I've taken it out of this one. So. Might need to reset things. Toto