toto Posted May 23 Author Share Posted May 23 Great stuff Aidan, A pleasure to watch. You must be chuffed with that performance. Toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan mcatamney Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Thanks Toto. The Calmato is a graceful flying machine that was made for the skies. Its one of those planes that gives satisfaction. Kind regards Aidan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuban8 Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 A good one to work up to and practice is the triple loop.....a normal round loop followed by a square loop and lastly a triangle loop, all superimposed one upon the other in front of you. Not particularly difficult but does require a model with a decent power to weight ratio. Very easy to run out of steam if power isn't managed correctly and things then get messy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 23 Author Share Posted May 23 Well no flying this weekend. Forecast is a bit dire I think so made the call with my mentor who is also shuffling activities at the moment. So ..... a day in the shed .... oh .... and a badly needed haircut. I have a few shed activities to carry out. Changing over an AR 630 receiver to an AR 620 in my Beaver due to Relflex having been pre- installed. And my 2.5mm studding and clevises have arrived which will let me continue with my Tiger 60 assembly. ..... that's been ongoing for ages. I may put the redundant AR 630 in the Tiger 60 for a bit stability since its a low winger. ..... decisions ... decisions. Toto 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan mcatamney Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 I'm going for a haircut myself on Saturday Toto. It takes all of 5 minutes. My late father God bless him always said, " Aidan, you always had a great head of hair and now you've a great head of skin" lol 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 26 Author Share Posted May 26 Well ..... its wet ..... very wet and miserable. Not much happening today. What a waste of another holiday weekend. I'd much rather have been working tomorrow but don't have an option on that unfortunately. I may go into the shed later but must admit .... the weather even puts me off from doing that as well. I wouldn't put a milk bottle out in that. I need to come up with a master plan before the day is out or its another wasted day. Good old British weather...... who would have it. Toto 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyGnome Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 Fettling my Wot4, getting P47 nearer a re-maiden, walking dogs, bit of gardening between rain showers..... always plenty to do 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 26 Author Share Posted May 26 (edited) I get the dogs bit. Fair play. But don't like the rain lapping about my feet on the way to the shed gardening.... I just don't do it. That's for SWMBO. Toto Edited May 26 by toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 29 Author Share Posted May 29 Frightened to check the forecast for this weekend. It's been dismal here for the last couple of days. Bright sunshine followed by horrendous downpours with a bit of thunder chucked in for good measure. SWMBO says its meant to be about 20 degrees this weekend ..... that doesn't mean it can't be 20 degrees whilst hammering it down. I will dare and do a weather check tomorrow night because if it does look even semi promising ..... I'll need to get myself on battery charging duties again. I was meant to have my Beaver all re- commisioned for my club mate to see but the lousy weather has put me off going anywhere near the shed to do so. The Supercub will be easier to prepare on a last minute basis should the weather turn and prove favourable. Let's not hold our breaths. ... more as the time draws nearer. Toto 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Chaddock Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Toto High pressure = more settled conditions should be here by next Sunday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 30 Author Share Posted May 30 Hi Simon, I need favourable weather for the Saturday as Sunday is a no fly day on our patch due to the motorcycle racing guys having first shout on a Sunday. I'll watch the forecast and check things out with my mentor. I may just charge the batteries etc to give myself options for any break in the current hit and miss down pours. You never know. Toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jenkins Posted May 30 Share Posted May 30 Better to be ready than wish you were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 30 Author Share Posted May 30 You are right Peter, I think I'll be hitting the shed either tonight or tomorrow night. 4 x 4S batteries to charge. Its dry at the moment so I can set up my " charging table " outside the shed as the batteries are being charged. Here we go again. Toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 30 Author Share Posted May 30 Batteries on charge ..... 3 no dual chargers on the job. One of them was throwing up an " abnormal Voltage " alarm. I could not get it to go off. ..... Simply .... unplug the mains lead and then reconnect ..... bingo .... working fine now. I don't understand what the issue was and I'd like to know as I don't like the " oh well so what..... its working now " approach. anyway ..... batteries charging outside the shed whilst the rain is off. toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jenkins Posted May 30 Share Posted May 30 Hi Toto You will probably find that it's a software problem. A strange combination of inputs that the person who wrote the software never thought would occur - can you remember what you did? Used to happen in my last car when the cruise control would suddenly stop working after a motorway stop. The next day, it worked fine. I come from an aeronautical engineering background and one of the things that makes safety critical functions in full size aircraft systems require very careful checking and testing for any bugs. For flight control systems, you need 4 separate systems and a voting function. You can lose one system and be OK but if you lose a 2nd system, all bets are off on how the system will decide which is right and which is wrong. Needless to say, this is a very expensive solution but essential when you have a full size aircraft with 400+ passengers on board or a fighter aircraft costing £100m a copy! If it happens again, and again, then might be the time to ask the distributor what they know about this problem. You could ask now of course and see what they say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 30 Author Share Posted May 30 (edited) Hi Peter, Thanks for that. It may be worth an email to the manufacturer. Its probably just one of these annoying bugs that you have to put up with but you never know. The Manual you get with it is pretty poor with no mention of any fault codes or anything. As you say ..... maybe they were not aware this could happen themselves. I have three dual chargers 2 x ISDT ( of which the dodgy one is ) 1 x Spektrum SMART charger ... again a dual charger and 1 x SKY RC 2000 charger ( from memory ) which is a quad charger but I have not quite sussed that one out yet and the manual .... again ..... is crap. You have to go online to download the full version I think. I'll get around to that soon. The multiple chargers let's you charge plenty at the one time as opposed to charging one battery at a time and babysitting them for hours. I am always in the facinity when they are in use. They are never left alone. Toto Edited May 31 by toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Bullit Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 Dodgy balance lead or balance lead connector? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 31 Author Share Posted May 31 Hi Jake, I might have agreed with you that it's a possibility as the balance lead connectors on all my batteries are very short and difficult to maintain in the charger properly. However, the batteries charge OK in the other chargers which points towards this one charger itself. As I said , switching on and off seems to clear it but I'd like to know what causes it in the first place. Cheers Toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 Do I understand correctly that you are plugging the battery balance plugs directly into the charger? If so, I’d strongly recommend plugging in via a balance board. I don’t think these JST-XT connectors are designed for frequent plugging and unplugging and as a result they do deteriorate with use. Much cheaper to replace the balance board than the charger! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Gray Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 IMO you’re overthinking it, after all it’s a computer and as such if all else fails we reboot them. But I would certainly use a balance board if you want to charge multiple batteries in one go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Chaddock Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 Toto The question is what voltage is abnormal. For most charger it would be the battery or an individual cell voltage. Unlikely to be a supply side problem. As suggested the charger may have a cell voltage deviation limit on the basis if one cell deviates too far from the others it is an indication there is something wrong, however a faulty balance lead connection would have the same effect as a faulty cell. The fact switching off and on clears the fault does rather suggest a software issue or perhaps by the time the power is restored the suspect cell has recovered to be within the chargers cell deviation limit. Does the manual have a list of the displayed fault messages? Hopefully it will also have a description of what each fault message relates to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 31 Author Share Posted May 31 any recommendations for balance board types ? am I correct in saying you can only charge one battery per balance board at any one time ? toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 This is the sort of thing I use. You would need one for each charger. No multiple charging ambitions, just saving wear and tear on the sockets on the charger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trevor Posted May 31 Share Posted May 31 Forgot the link!! https://www.4-max.co.uk/pp-balboard.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toto Posted May 31 Author Share Posted May 31 OK I have one of these ISDT PC-4860S LiPo Parallel Charging Board XT60 Charge Board Balance for 1-8S | eBay and Isdt k2 air ac 200w dc 500wx2 20a dual channel balance lipo charger discharger for lipo nimh pb battery rc model / smart phone | Fruugo UK the K2 Air is a dual charger with dual charging ports. Am I correct in saying that I could connect one of the above charge board balancers to each port and balance charge eight batteries of the same type in one go ? PS I hope the links work ..... I'm still trying to master that. toto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.