Kevin Wilson

Model flying may be a sport but it is hardly exercise. A very desperate attempt to circumvent what is trying to be achieved by the latest restrictions. Looking at the age demographic of our hobby we should be the most invested in eliminating the virus. Interpret the advice as you wish, it is your friends and club mates that are staistically most likely to die.

There is a Student discount offers by MS. It may even be free. I was in the same situation with my daughter. Itook up the MS discount as the children will be more familiar with the common format, and it makes it easier for the teachers to support them. So notwithstanding my personal preference for libreoffice, for a student pc I would take the MS enticement. Although I do feel this is akin to the crack dealer by the shool gate getting them into the MS blinkers. With regard to anti windows sentiment, I dislike any company that tries to lock you into their ecosystem. Whether this is MS, Apple or the recent trend for car manufacturers to drop ODB in favour of their own unque closed protocol.

LibreOffice beats that by £80 a year and has worked for me. 10 years plus and I wouldn't even consider MS even though I use 365 at work everyday. One thing not often considered is that I find 365 noticeably network sensitive. Even at work where we are an ISP there is a delay opening excel workbooks. And don't even ask me about MS Edge LibreOffice, Thunderbird and Firefox does all the routine stuff for me. All open source and cost me what I think they are worth donating.

Having used those cap head wood screws for motor mounting I can definitely recommend them. I was working on my wot-4 foam-e undercarriage last night. The No4 x 19mm screws are 6mm shorter than OEM but should do the job.

Fantastic technology. Even better it is a UK company. Great video from the drone flyer. Rather ironic that there are more rules for me to fly my 3lb model or for the video drone than the 85mph man carying aircraft.

Somebody needs to show the Chinese how to hot wire foam cores. Or would that just push up the cost of styrofoam.

Posted by Geoff S on 24/09/2020 14:56:36: (snip)....... I think eventually houses will be wired with a 12 dc circuit for lighting with a central ac to dc regulator/rectifier and much simpler (and probably cheaper) LED bulbs with greatly extended life. Geoff Geoff, I work at a UK satellite TV broadcaster and wiring the buildings for DC was under passing consideration a few years back. One of my buildings is a large broadband hub and we have many DC systems at 50volt, a data centre standard evolved from GPO so I am told. Typical loading of a DC system is around 1000Amps. And that is the rub with LV DC. Low volts = big currents = big cables. China and India are leading the way with MV DC transmission lines (yes, 1million volts) now possible by high efficiency HV semiconductor converters. hopefully they are built to a higher standard than the SMPS in domestic LED lamps.

As KC notes, with the increase in worldwide transport of electrical fittings ES27 lamps (and ES14) are not uncommon. Decorative light fittings are frequently ES or SES.

Most mains powered equipment that have low voltage circuits use switch mode power supplies (SMPS) to generate the low voltages. These SMPS use frequencies typically in the 30>40kHz range in the conversion process. The cheaper units have very poor filtering and cause huge amounts of harmonic energy across the RF spectrum. Its a big problem for radio amateurs such as myself. Mains powered LED lamps are a particular problem, probably due to being so ubiquitous and built to the cheapest, lowest standard.

I would second the suggestion to have 2 narrow building boards. I use a separate wing board as it is nice to put a section aside to dry and keep building.

I built my last plane on a cork faced noticed board that I had laying around. Placed on the same kitchen worktop you describe. Search this forum for building board and you will get a huge amount of options. Enough to stop you starting the build! The forum Search isn't too hot but you can pop this into a search engine. 'building board' site:model flying.co.uk Edited By Kevin Wilson on 13/09/2020 09:47:34 ... Grr! auto (in)correct Edited By Kevin Wilson on 13/09/2020 09:49:37

"Why did the charger stop?" Too low charge current giving a false peak. I used to race RC cars and had a routine of cycling nimh & nicd cells. I would see an improvement in capacity over 5 or 6 cycles. Never had the patience to do more. 3300mAh cells, charge at 5A discharge 1A but only because that's all my charger would do. Some race buddies had better dischargers up to 20A. For AA I would go for 1 amp charge, 2 amp discharge. Give your cells a good thumping Oops. They will love you for it.

I have always thought it strange that comercial cases are cut to hold the Tx upside down. As Bert says all the presure is on the softest bits, antenna and switches. I use a selection of re purposed metal and plastic cases. But always with the Tx side or top toward the handle. I use a 9mm snap off blade knife to cut the foam but it is a bit wobbly. I wonder if hot wire would be better .

Posted by Barrie Lever on 12/05/2020 12:41:02: ............Your benifit is you have no preconceaved ideas on how CAD should work. Regards B. I think that is my problem Barrie. I've been using AutoCad on and off for 15+ years. I use keyboard codes for everything except opening and saving files. I cannot get on with the ribbon and most modern cad alternatives are very mouse driven. I like the sound of the icons highlighting, that may help me. Only 0.4Gb left to download

3.5Gb download. That'll give the broadband a beating

Hi Barrie, I have been spoilt with a company provided AutoCad for many years. I have tried a few free alternatives but had trouble cross training Frustrating as the freeware copies of Photoshop, Excel etc have been so close as to be akin to a version change. Thanks for the link, I will give it a go. Edited By Kevin Wilson on 12/05/2020 09:28:50

There should be plenty of air cooling while you fly. Just need a dihedral jig to put it in when you land.

I'm working from home but never been so busy. I work for a TV/internet/mobile provider. It is a huge challenge just keeping staff available. Looking forward to this current situation to be over so I have spare brain cells to think about modelling .

I have had deliveries anywhere between 4 days and 4 weeks. Never any problem with customer service. Any faulty items are quickly replaced. As mentioned above, the packing can leave a bit to be desired. Although I have had unbreakable items swathed in copious bubble wrap.

Hi Kim Not just you. Perhaps I need to contact BMFA also

I would rather register through the BMFA to truly reflect to the CAA the numbers of active fliers that they represent. Certainly the team running the BMFA for us have my full support. So its three cheers from me as well.

Hi Den. I wonder if the circuit in your tx would power a little pager motor to give haptic feedback (tx shaker).

I used a pair of silicon rectifier diodes to drop a bit of voltage off a PSU as suggested. They do get hot, even just pulling 3A or so.

The club I fly at is 2km off the end of one runway of a protected airfield. Looks like we will need to negotiate with their air traffic control. We may be ok as it is the secondary runway used mainly for helicopters. They dont have quite the same arrival departure path as the fixed wing ga traffic.

The spare discs supplied with the sander are self adhesive. Peel off the backing and slap it on, carefully ☺ As per my post above I found finer grit discs on ebay.