Chris Ireland

Eric, you're quite right, it was a 'hole' change on the throttle servo. I was confusing myself as I had replaced the horn on one of the other servos to give me more movement. Double DOH! July resolution... triple check my posts before committing them to the ether! 

Thanks chaps....    What a dumbo, looking back I realise that is what I have done anyway as it seemed to make most sense at the time. I also changed the servo horn for a longer one so that the servo did not overdrive the pushrod at the ends of its travel. I also set the low end position so that at mid trim the throttle was cracked open enough to keep the engine idlng, making shutdown a matter of putting the trim down until the throttle closed sufficiently to stop the engine. Sorry about the 'wild goose chase', sometimes you don't realise that you know the answer until after you've pressed the 'send' button. DOH!

Bruce, Very clear explanation, thanks for that. Can you explain to me (a complete newbie) why you recommend setting up the throttle servo horn at 45 degrees? I have set my Seagul Arising Star servo to 90 degrees and it seems to perform adequately, but, as I said I'm a newbie so I my be missing an important point here through lack of understanding/experience. So far I have only flown once, with someone else performing the landing and take off for me, so I guess that in the intervening period I was too busy trying to get the hang of things that I wouldn't have noticed any of the finer points of throttle control.  

I hope this one has got my name on it chaps.....

No fury if I don't win... but here's hoping.... one day!

It would be a shame not to join such illustrious company as those already represented  here, so count me in........

Hi Timbo, Many thanks for that. I've captured it as a word doc so there should be no excuses from now for me not knowing. I take it that I can put a voltmeter across the terminal leads to check the voltage until I get kitted out with a bit fancier charger than the one which came with the model ? I've read your review of the Li-Pro Imax 6 Balancer/charger and all of the comments following it. I suspect that it retains it's title as the current value-for-money leader as there are no comments to indicate otherwise.  CJ  

Hi Guys, I've been catching up on this thread but it doesn't seem to provide the answer to my question. Having said that, reading between the lines has never been my strong point so here goes......  LiPo's are where I'm at so this is a specific LiPo question.  I charged my 1800mAh battery and two brand new 2300mAh batteries on a Wednesday expecting to be able to fly my chopper (well, flying is a very loose term for what I'm able to do with it at the moment... hopping about like a cricket with lead up it's bum is closer to the mark) on the next day or day after. None of this happened and on the Saturday I went away for a week. It is now the following Saturday and I want to fly tomorrow or Monday, 10 or 11 days after the batteries were last  fully charged. All are 11.1v 3s devices if that makes any difference and have been stored, unconnected, in my flight case since they were charged. Should I expect much loss of chage in 10 days (I can't tell as I have only got a simple balancing charger with LED indicators and have not yet invested in a sophisticated device which gives 'health' readouts)?Do I top them up, or just go out and use whatever is left in them? As ever, your advice would be appreciated.  CJ

Hi, I'm 55 and am currently about to scratch a serious helicopter itch which I've had for many years. I started with Airfix as a lad and then aged about 12, made most of a Keil Kraft high wing rubber band job (name long since forgotten) supervised by my dad who did the 'difficult' bits. It flew a couple of times and then was remodelled in a domestic accident (I really don't think that mum intentionally disrupted the line of the wings but it didn't get repaired). Exams and an apprenticeship got in the way but I did start building a 5" guage steam loco and then a family/mortgage etc got in the way of that so it was all passed over to dad who did a sterling job on all of the really difficult bits (boiler build and cylinder machining). He's now passed on and guess what? Yup, it's still not finished. I plan to do that when I have reclaimed the workshop from its current state of DIY/Garden Storage chaos and reassembled the lathe..... Somewhere along the line I rekindled my interest in plastic and put a couple of reasonably successful 'superdetailed' models into the Model Engineering Show when it was held at Olympia.. oh, the good old days!!! Then, I got interested in scale r/c car racing and entered club competitions for three years.... I got beaten by a bunch of teenagers on a regular basis, but that wasn't the point. I was having a lot of fun, which was the point! Dad could not really see the merit in plastic, having been a metal and wood man all of his life but to take up a point from previous posts, I feel that if ARTF, plastic and bolt-together gets the younger generation interested in modelling then it is all to the good as a certain proportion of them will get interested in building. That's where our future builders will come from, surely? So, although I haven't actually built an aircraft for decades, in my heart of hearts I would like to think of myself as a builder... well, a temporarily lapsed builder anyway. I always seem to suffer from too many interests and not enough time, but I guess a lot of you will be familar with that problem. When I've finished scratching this helicopter itch, I hope to get onto fixed wing stuff and it will definitely be a build-not-buy effort. There, I've put it into print, so I'd better keep my word, if only to be true to myself!

Does anyone know if there will be much representation in the way of R/C Aircraft/Heli trade stands at this show. I plan to be there on Friday... with money!!!! I'm sure it will be enjoyable either way as I'm interested in all aspects of modelling but my current target is R/C Helis with a purchase to be made VERY soon (see my newbie-type posts in other threads).

PEBKAC - problem exists between keyboard and chair could be modified to PEBCAG - problem exists between controller and ground/grass WTF? - Oh, I say chaps, what's going on here? SWTSMBO - She who thinks she must be obeyed OFFS - Oh, for ****'s sake! NIML - Not in my lifetime!