I was just looking for some ideas ( that’s what Sunday mornings are for) and came across this gem:

Here’s to the crazy ones.

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine.
They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some may see them as the crazy ones, others see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

(Loosely based on ‘Here’s to the crazy ones’ from Jack Kerouac’s book ‘On the Road’)

From now I can make my own decissions, and do as I like. The ‘New World’ we seem to have entered recently, seems to require a lot of thinking outside the box.
To do that, one has to sit down and look at the box, to determine it’s size and limits.

..my new mobile office..

For the moment my new box looks like this..

With my newly acquired freedom comes the realisation that my list of things I’d like to do, probably is longer than my expected presence on this earth. So, in looking for the ultimate todo list I stumbled upon this site..

And of course, Leo has some other good stuff to say about himself.

Enjoy!!

Whatsit then you ask? Well, go have a look at the Banbridge site and enjoy the scenery.

That’s a good bit of fun, right? I’m so impressed I’m going to mount it permanently on my Blaster. Why I want to look at endless variations of the same landscape? Don’t know, but it sure tells me a lot about what’s happening up there!

I got a decent 16 Gig memcard in it now, enough for a couple of hours fun. (I got one from a chap in Bristol)

Anyway, for the technically interested, have a look at this website.

I also found someone that makes a nice switch-gadget that lets you turn the camera on and off with a spare channel on you Rx. (I’m learning: rather than re-invent the wheel, I first Googled to see if someone already made something for this

I’m trying to mangle today’s 20 min flight into something viewable. Since I am no professional video editor, I was looking for something that allows me to simply cut out the bits where I fumble about connecting various bits, pictures of a couple of legs slowly approaching, and similar footage that is only interesting to me. And it had to make a decent video. At the moment I’m using the unregistered version of AVS-video editor, it allows me to make flash movies, which I can run form my own server here, so no need to destroy the quality by Youtubing it.

I also discovered a small program to set the date/time on the camera. Mine defaults to something 2008 everytime you power up. I think it is supposed to remember the date you set, but mine might be broken or special. However, I’m not to worried about the lack of a proper date. There is a reason why they are £14.99! (but do remember to get a micro-sd card. A 20 min flight will produce a 1 Gig file. There is no hard value here, it very much depends on the content!
It might be interesting to try and put a complete package together, plug and play so to speak. I’ll think about it!

I’ve also put a small thread of wool on the nose of the Blaster now, I hope that gives me an indication of how well I am turning, and if not very well, make adjustments to the aileron/rudder geometry to make those turns nice and flat without having to drive it around the corners!

Next project will be to put the camera on my Cougar, for next weeks funfly. (Or pester Matthew into putting it on his Funfly-thing. Would be fun to see those limbo’s from the pilots perspective!

kees

(That limp I have is just to make you all feel sorry for me, I’m just pretending, honest!  After Easter, someone is gonna stick a syringe filled with extra-strength poteen in my spine, and I’ll be totally fit again.)

And if you wonder why I’m linking this here? First to see if anybody actually visits this page, secondly, because he’s me son, and thirdly, it actually works! And with a bit of luck and encouragement, I’m trying to adapt his system to our needs, as in creating a method to give us super concentration when it comes to flying at contests. (Contests in the widest sense, any time you hold a tranny is a contest for most of us )

I’ll try to follow this up with a bit more substance, but, no matter how relaxed I feel, I still need to fix up a few websites ASAP!

So, in the meantime, go have a look, and don’t be afraid to try this. It won’t hurt, you’re only talking to your Self. And no, we are not brainwashing you!

Yesterday one of our club members, Lee Hulme, was flying his Squall EDF jet when he temporarily lost control for a few seconds. Twice. Accompanied by David and George Rea they discussed the matter and concluded the following:

Lee has a top of the range JR 2.4 radio and was using a Spectrum long range rx. Our landlord, Dessie, has recently aquired a wifi setup (from Sunday) and Lee’s phone in his pocket was wifi enabed at the time. Upon disabling the wifi on the phone and leaving it in the car Lee flew again without incident. Maybe a coincidence?? Remember wifi is on 2.4 ghz!!

Please pass this on to anyone using 2.4ghz radio equipment.

So what can be the problem? Is it the 2.4GHz being used by the i-Phone that causes the problem or is it ‘something else’??

My initial answer to John was:

Hi John, I would be more inclined to blame the fact that he had the phone in his pocket, close to the tranny.

When the phone starts looking for someone to talk to it is likely to start tranmitting at full power ’till it gets an answer. (This is one of the reasons BMFA says: no phone near your tranny). The phone network does not use 2.4Ghz and the wifi would likely be out of hearing range, unless you are literally within 50-100 meters.
Any bit of electronics will get upset when you blast a strong RF signal into it’s innards.. That is is a top of the line JR is no help (or hinderance). Electronics is what it is. Per definition any bit of wire or any length (including any trace on the pcb’s) can/does act as a pickup for electrical signals. If you are unlucky enough to get enough rubbish in the CPU chips, they’ll reset themselves. Sounds to me that’s what happened.
And since it is the top of the line JR, it has all the fancy low power/high performance/extremely sensitive CPU’s that drive the innards..

Try making a phonecall to someone with his phone in his pocket, and see what happens. 9 out of 10 times it might go right. Anyway, it would help is you give additional details:

- phone make etc.
- distance to the wifi network (clear line of sight?)
- what make wifi (there are dodgy ones out there, transmitting at more than the allowed 100 mWatt.)

To give you an example: I have a modified Multiplex Cockpit, with a Spektrum module. The Cockpit is very sensitive to phone disturbance.
So, all I need to do with my rocksolid Spektrum link, is put my phone in my pocket on a nice and lonely slope, far away from civilisation, and when the phone starts to look for someone to talk to (every few minutes!) it will upset the Cockpit electronics enough to do a restart.. So, the fact that it’s a 2.4 link means zilch, The actual RF chip is unlikely the part that is affected, it’s the stuff before that. (JR uses the same RF modules as Spektrum, They are exactly the same for ALL modules, including the one in my Cockpit. I’ve done quite a lot of research into those modules. Because Spektrum/JR use off the
shelf modules, they do not need to pay the astronomical fees for certification. The only difference between the modules for different radio’s is the interface tot the tranny.

http://www.unigen.com/product_detail.php?pid=729

http://download.cypress.com.edgesuite.net/design_resources/datasheets/contents/cywm6935paec_8.pdf
or: http://www.blokland.net/?p=266

Anyway, the moral of the story is still: do NOT put your phone on your pocket!!

I asked John for some further clarification and this is what he said:

…the phone is an I-phone, distance (to the network point) probably about 100 m or less, and don’t know the make or details of the wifi but we can all use it from the pits area no probs! JS

To that I answered..

I would be very worried if I had an I-Phone in my pocket in that situation!

Just pray the wifi is always on, so that the Spektrum chips can look for a free channel. You are not in a good place!

It’s the one (_don’t mention it_) downside of the Spektrum system, it selects 2 channels on power up, and if something decides to start using those channels, you have a problem..
Don’t forget we do not have exclusive use of that band, EVERYBODY and his uncle is free to use it, as long as you stay at the 100 mW power level. And the channels are not as tightly specified either. They are sort of there, but not like on a 35 meg system.

Futaba would deal with this easily, since it uses frequency hopping, as does my own ACT system..

As it is, be very wary of people using laptops and anything else to connect to the network when you are in the air.

I would really make it a rule that people do leave their phones in the car and NO laptops or other network stuff to be used when people fly.

Without further experimentation, it’s hard to be 100% sure, but I doubt it is the 2.4 link, since when Lee put his phone in he car, all was well.

However, just to be sure to be sure: leave your phone in the car!

On larger models I had noticed people/designers offsetting the horn on the rudders to be more in line with the center of the servo. So I was wondering why they would do such a thing. 

I found answers to my questions and many more in a nice spreadsheet created by a fellow who seems to know his business. Here’s the description: Linkage design

Long story short: It’s amazing what forces your humble ailerons etc encounter. Short (extreme) example: 40″ long, 4″ wide aileron deflected to 40 degrees at 100 mph: 75kg/cm on the servohorn!! Could that be the answer to the many, many servo’s needed to move these monsters?? (This particular exercise is for my Carden Extra 330)
My answer is of course that I don’t want to fly at 100 mph, or deflect my aileron 40 degrees, so I can do with a bit less.

my fresh JR tranny

There are advantages in running websites for the odd flying club. Last week I spotted an for sale article from an old friend (yes, we both have many a grey hair). He was just selling the thing I was looking for, a JR Tranny.

My ‘new’ Multiplex 4000 is showing the strains of 11 years use, the case starts to crack. It’s one of these ‘known’ defects of this series. I’ve already repaired it before, but there will be a time in the future, when I will have to accept the inevitable. So, I was on the lookout for a successor. Now, JR radios are supposed to be the best £$E can buy, but before believing any of the advertising blurb, I wanted to have a dig around in a Tx for myself, even if it is in an older model. By and large the technology will be the same in newer models. Cries of ‘it has 2048 bits of resolution’ are mostly met by my ‘so, can you show me a servo that can position itself with that accuracy? And this is 2048 bits for what range? 360 degrees rotation of the output arm? 60 degrees rotation? Stickresolution? or simply the resolution of the A/D coverter that happens to be built into the chip that drives the Tx. In 99% of the cases it is the latter, and it means zilch in the scheme of things if the rest of the system is not able to do anything with it. (Do the math: Superduper servo, input pulse runs from 1 to 2 mSec. Resolution (deadband) is 2microsecs. (this is a very good servo, 90% of the servo’s out there have 10 micro secs resolution/deadband). 1 msec in 2 microsecs steps is 500. The best your SuperDuper servo can ever hope to do is 500 individual steps. Ah, but I need 2048 bits to control these 500 steps accurately. Sure you do.

But it’s faster.. Been there and yes, the answer is that the message is delivered faster (and repeated often) on 2.4 GHz, but building the message takes as much time as ever. (email might be faster than snailmail, but composing the message takes as long.) Latency is the magic word and defined by most manuacturers as ‘one frame’ and that has traditionally been 20 ms. A change in stick postion is transmitted every 20 ms.

So far only Spektrum is trying to improve on this (there is apparently a Heli-specific tranny that rund a 10 ms framerate. It’s 2 times as fast we shout enthousiastically. (True, 2 times as fast as how slow?) But kidding aside, in the near future someone will start to market a radio that will run on a faster rate. Most 2.4 modules already do send the same message many times more than strictly needed for a 20 ms framerate. At present it’s mostly to create redundancy, to make sure the message is transferred correct, and to be sure that even if we loose half of them the other half is still good enough to reconstruct a valid ‘frame’.

Anyway, I can now say I am the proud second owner of a nice PCM9X in superb condition. And since I know Tony, I know it’s never been maltreated.
Any further abuse will be mine and mine alone! I mean, it has a NiMH battery (for a short time more) (update: Tony put the battery form his new tranny in this one, so we’ll leave it for a bit. And since there is nothing that regulates batteyr voltage in this Tx, I’ll have to add a proper reg to make 10 volts. Not hard to do, just put it on the bottom of the list and it will get done someday. The antenna wire is external to the case, and that RF-connector on the back of the module is an accident waitng to happen, even for me. There’s got to be a better way. (There is, it’s now mounted properly inside the case!) I’m not sure I can handle the myriad of switches, they will confuse me when I least need confusement.

Pictures to follow, after I have a look at the innards..

This happens when steel meets foam at full speed..

One of the goals I had set myself for this season was to start flying a bit (a lot) more aggressive. Last night I managed to total my Klak for the last time. Because of the large number of tired batteries, I thought I’d just strap on a 800 mAh battery that happened to sit in my box. Saying that a big battery transforms a plane is an understatement.
I’ve never seen my Vytas run so enthousiatic. The Klak became a Ferrari. Nought to 50 in 0.5 secs. So, how fast could I go? (having in mind the pylon races at the EIM) fassst.. So fast I skidded out of control into the steel beams at the back of the hall. I was not out of control, the mass of the plane simply pushed it where it wanted to go. It’s a sad end for a plane that had a long succesful life. But in these final minutes a lot of new insights were born. Combined with the experiences gained on the Su, I am going to build something new. and it will have more power than anything I have had before. And faster servo’s too. Watch this space

The damage was actually quite minor and a 5 minute fix was all that’s need to give me at least one more night of fun..

..before I forget: Those fancy switching regs I have found can deliver 5A at whatever volts. 7V * 5A= 30 watt. 8V * 5A = 40 watt. Given that a normal prophang on a 8*4 prop takes about 25 watt for an average plane, you can see some where this is going. 3 Cells might deliver too much power, but somewhere in between might be fun!

Famous last words. The server is a very reliable Linux system, but I guess, I should know better than to rely on hardware being reliable. It looks like one of the 2 raid disks went belly up, no problem, I’ve got 2, I’ll fixit. Then the motherboard started playing up too. Not all the time, just some of the time. Could have been the reason the disk went bad. Who knows.

The end result? I’m having to remember a lot of tricks to retrieve data from a faulty raid.

So, plan D for desparate. Since is just started to snow, and it’s nice and warm inside, this will be a day of major PC re-building. (and make a reliable backup system again?)

I lost the header pics, no big drame, just plain silly!

Ah well, let’s play with some different themes then.