T28 update and putting test equipment to good use

I really wanted to put my test equipment to use and I needed to check out my Airfield T28 with possible BEC/receiver/servo issues.  So I put it all together in this one big post.

This was a complicated subject with all the test equipment and airplane gear so I decided to try my hand at a video post.  So, here goes.

Thank you for watching my video post, let me know how you like this format.

Update to the video:

Further inspection showed that the faulty servo was not the steering servo but the door servo.  In the following photo you can see the bottom servo is the same servo that was over heating in the video.  You can also see that the push rod from the servo is flexed a lot.  This is obviously putting a lot of stress on the servo and is most likely the cause of the current draw.  Something will have to be done about this during the repair.

Stressed servo that failed

I have noticed that the current generation of the Airfield/FMS 1400mm Trojan T28 do not use a servo for these doors but instead uses spring linkage.  I may go this route for this repair and cut one servo from my count.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Battery of Confusion

I hear a lot of people making comments about batteries that tells me they are confused over how batteries fit into their electric airplane power system.  I decided to do this blog entry to try to clear up some of this confusion without adding any more to the subject.

I hope to clear things up by relating an electrical system to an internal combustion system.

In a simplified internal combustion system the gas tank stores energy (in the form of gasoline), a carburetor controls the flow of energy to the motor, and the motor converts the energy into mechanical motion.

In our electric airplane power systems, the battery stores the energy (electricity), a speed controller feeds that energy to the electric motor, and the motor converts the energy into mechanical motion.

The battery as two parameters that it is rated by, the voltage and milliamp hours.  The milliamp hours is a rating of its capacity, just like a gas tank capacity might be rated in gallons.  A higher number of gallons does not make a car go any faster, it only allows the car to run longer.  The same is true for batteries.  A larger milliamp hour rating will not make your plane fly any faster, only run longer.  There is another little mix to this in that the milliamp rating (multiplied with the "C" rating) is related to the flow rate.  This is similar to a gas tank with either a low or high capacity fuel pump and line.  If an internal combustion engine requires more fuel than than the fuel pump and line can supply, its power and performance will suffer.  So too, if an electric motor demands more current (milliamps) than the battery can supply, the battery voltage will drop along with the electric motor power and performance.

The voltage rating is a little different and is more closely related to the octane rating of gas.  If I have a high performance car motor and run regular gas in it, I can only expect so much performance.  The fuel mixture is only capable of creating an explosion of so much to push the pistons down.  Now if I put high octane racing fuel in the tank, I can expect much more performance.  This fuel mixture is capable of a much greater explosion to push the pistons down.  A low voltage battery can only give its rated voltage to the electro-magnets that repel the permanent magnets.  A higher voltage rated battery will allow for a larger repelling force.

Now, keep in mind, just as the internal combustion race motor is built to take greater stresses, if a batteries voltage is increased, the speed controller and electric motor must be built to take on the extra stress.

I hope this analogy will help those out there that have been confused about batteries and their voltage and milliamp ratings.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Wild Hawk Flying Fun

This post will be a double post as this post will serve both my Wild Hawk blog and RC Flying Fun blog.  How you ask?  Well, I found a new place to fly and I flew my Wild Hawk for my first outing at this location.  This is also the first time flying for me in several months.  Wow, a person can sure get rusty!  This new location is on a road stub near an abandoned mall construction site.  This road stub is off of the main road and across from the abandoned mall.  It is also surrounded by farm land used for growing hay.  There is a small group of flyers that get together each Sunday at this location.  One of the best features of this location is that it is only about ten minutes from my house.
why did I pick a place like this instead of a formal club with a real runway and amenities.  Well, I already joined the AMA (I recommend this membership for everyone in this hobby) and money is really tight right now (you folks with kids in college know what I'm talking about).  So funding my hobby and paying club dues and AMA dues is out of the question.  This site fits my budget and still gives me a good group to associate with.
Any way, here are some photos of this location including pictures of my Wild Hawk airplane getting ready to fly.

I did have an accident and crashed hard after failing on an outside loop.

It looked bad but I was up and flying again after some minor repairs and a battery swap.

I flew all three of my batteries this day.  The only unfortunate thing was that on this day there were no other flyers that showed up.  I had a good time anyway and could fly and land anywhere I pleased.

Before publishing this post I got a chance to fly again and made a video from one of my flights.  Enjoy this areal look around.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Airfield T28 Trojan Maiden Flight

I have this beautiful new new Airfield T28 Trojan and I finally have a chance for it's maiden flight!

I feel that I should note here, before I go on, that I have discovered that the Airfield name is actually a re-brand by Nitro Planes of FMS products.  Not that that's a bad thing, just that FMS T28 enthusiasts are included too!

Its Easter weekend and I will be visiting my folks near that cool park and the weather is expected to be great for flying.

Look at all those wires

We start packing for our trip and I realize that this plane is huge and would not fit in the trunk of my car (Mazda 3).  It wouldn't be so bad, but this plane is not made to be taken apart like most planes.  There are four screws that bolt the wings on from underneath.  This isn't so bad except that there are a million wires that come from the wings into the fuselage!  OK, OK, there are 5 sets of wires from one wing and 6 from the other (landing gear door, landing gear, flaps, ailerons, and wing lights) and not a million.  These are routed through small openings that make dis-assembly/assembly difficult and something to be avoided at all costs!  OK, I'm being dramatic again, but this is not trivial.  As it would happen, I did end up unbolting the wings, separating them, and disconnecting all of the connections for the servos and lights to get this big plane to fit.

Wow, this really made me think that I need to take transportation into account with planes in the future, and explains why serious RC pilots have trailers.

Once we arrived (we were early for once) I unloaded the plane into my Dad's workshop and started assembly.  Of course this was not until after we greeted them, brought in our dinner contribution, gifts for recent birthdays, and visited a little.  I'm not that crazy focused on RC planes.  Now I only had to wait for the meal to be over and for all of the other guests to leave!  I have to say that I did not really want that meal to be over because my Mom made this lamb that was to die for (hm... not sure that was worded appropriately).  Any way, it was really good.

Hooking up the battery

Snapping on the cockpit

Testing the throttle

Finally everyone is gone and I still have 45 minutes before we also need to leave.  Off to the park.  We arrive at the park.  I have to thank my daughter who rode in the back seat with the airplane tail in her face (I also have to thank her for being my photographer).  There is about a 5mph breeze, but this shouldn't be an issue.  We get the plane out and I get it setup.  Wow, it sure looks good sitting out there on the dirt runway!  I tested all of the control surfaces, I tested the motor, and then I taxied the big Trojan T28 out and around the runway.  I let her sit there for a bit off to my left facing into the breeze, giving me time to collect my courage.

Ready for take off

Leaping into the sky

I gave her full throttle and hoped to keep her straight.  Half way down I could see her wanting to take flight.  I gave her a little elevator and she shot straight up into the air.  Wow, beautiful!  I struggled to level her out and bring her around as the controls are a lot touchier that I'm used to.  Watch out, this thing can really snap around!  I eased up on the throttle and  pulled in the landing gear as I made a big loop around the airfield in front of me.  I'm just now thinking that I should start working with the trim.  I go for another loop but this time decide to try turning away from myself as I'm coming across the back field.  At this point she is downwind and about 100 yards off to my right at about a 45 degrees.

It hit about 10ft back

Dad and I assessing the damage

This is where things go terribly wrong as suddenly I feel that I have no control!  I had given more power, but she is not going any faster!  I gave her up elevator, and she is not climbing!  I gave her left and right aileron and she is not banking!  The next thing I know is that my beautiful $280 Trojan T28 is headed straight for the ground!  At the last moment she started to respond the my elevator command and pulled up just enough to avoid drilling in!  Pieces flew just before that terrible WHUMP sound reached us.  Nothing left to do but start that dreaded walk over to see what was left.

Still assessing the damage

Point of impact

Small pieces everywhere but the fuselage was intact!  So, this was bad, but not as bad as I anticipated.  We collected all the parts putting them in a bag.  Took the wing apart again and loaded it up, in the trunk this time.  No need for careful placement and handling.

Next post I hope to feel well enough to review the extent of the damages and reconstruction.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Happy Birthday To Me!

So not enough candles.

So, it's my birthday (well a few days ago) and it was a big one, and my wife, the understanding and sweet wife she is, said that I should order the RC airplane I've been wanting for some time!  Now I've been pining for one of these since I first saw one over a year ago.  The plane I saw was a T28 Trojan (Parkzone).  I just loved the look and size of that plane.  And now, my wife was telling me to go buy one! Woo whoo!

On Sunday, I started reviewing all of my options for a T28.  First off I have to say that I was not interested in the small versions (800mm).  I wanted a big one!  After reviewing the Durafly (1100mm and retracts), Parkzone (1120mm), Dynam (1270mm and retracts), and Airfield (1400mm and retracts) models, I chose the big one, the Airfield, from Nitro planes.  Now it was by far the most expensive (about $280 including shipping), but aside from being the biggest, it had the coolest features.  These include lights, sequenced landing gear and doors, flaps, cowl flaps, and a 2.4GHz 6 channel transmitter!

Now I'm really excitted!

Was hoping there would be a big
picture of it on the box.  Oh well.

On Monday, I signed up for an account and ordered my birthday present.  By the end of the day, my order was processed and ready for shipping.  By Wednesday, it was on my doorstep!  Granted it only had to go from LA to Sacramento (both in California), but still, I only selected the base UPS ground shipping.

With the top off

All of the big parts laid out

Nice battery even if the charge cable
is a little short.

Now I did order the RTF version (mostly because they were back ordered on the ARF), but it is anything but RTF.  After about 2 hours I had it together with the glue drying (rudder and elevator need to be glued together) and all of the servo connection hooked up.  I guess the RTF part is that I had everything to fly, including the battery and radio.  I only needed to assemble it and charge the battery.  This thing is a monster!

The beast, all put together.

Now I'm all ready to fly and waiting for good weather.

Soon I'll have an update on how it flies and hopefully not one on how it crashes.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Turnigy Brushless ESC Programing

Hello all,
Recently I purchased a nice Turnigy TY-P1 25Amp HEXFET Brushless Speed Controller that was reported to be programmable through your transmitter throttle stick movements.  Well, it is programmable, but I could never get any correct documentation for this one.  It also listed this Turnigy TYP1 ESC programmer as an optional item.  In my infinite wisdom, I did not buy the programmer with the speed controller.  I finally gave in and purchased it and now wish I had from the beginning.  It's small, light, and really easy to use, and really inexpensive.

 Here are all the pieces that are needed to get the programming done. I have here a LyPo battery pack for power, along with the brushless speed controller and programmer.  The first thing is to hook up the brushless speed controller to the programmer.  The programmer has two connections noted as BATT for battery and BEC.  Since this brushless speed controller has a BEC it can be connected to the BEC input and no battery is needed on the battery connection.

Once the battery is connected to the speed controller, it lights up with the current program.

To change any of the settings, use the up and down scroll button to select the feature to be changed.



Now use the left and right scroll key to select the setting for the feature that is desired to be changed.

Once you have all the settings the way you want them, use the OK button to save the settings to the speed controller.  When you do this the light above the OK key will flash blue and then turn off when done.

I really like this programmer and it certainly is small enough to take anywhere.

I added this video of me programming my ESC.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Old Plane New Life

Hello all,

I've got an old plane that is in need of a new life.  I received this really cool RC airplane several years ago as a gift.  It was cool because it looked like a jet with a motor mounted on the rudder, and it came with a mini digital camera that was activated from the transmitter!

The biggest problem with this plane was that the control system was not proportional.  This meant that the elevator and rudder were at neutral or full up or down.  No where in between.  The motor did have three speeds, but if it's too hard to fly, the throttle speeds do not matter.  After many attempts to fly and very little success, I packed it away (I'm way too cheep to through out something like this).

Original plane and transmitter

Now I'm back into RC flying and it's time to see what can be done with this thing.  I hauled it out and started to take it apart and see what was worth keeping.  I had high hopes for some micro servos, if not a small receiver or speed controller.  As it turns out the servos were just a motor with gears so they were out.  The receiver was this awkward and large conglomeration that incorporated the speed controller.  So, nothing but foam was salvageable.

Receiver

I started by gutting the whole thing to see for sure what I had to work with and where things might go and how I might put it all back together.

Gutted plane showing compartments

All the pieces

Before I had plans for the rest of the plane, I knew that I wanted to put ailerons on it.  So that is what I started with.  I decided to do this because I will be using the old 3 channel transmitter and receiver from my Wild Hawk.  I had great success using just elevator and aileron controls on that plane and thought it would be a good idea for this one as well.

Ailerons installed and servo locations marked out

Servo location cut out

Servo dry fitting

For this build I decided that I could just cut right through the wing and install the servos there.  The close tolerance of the cut out will hold the servo from moving and then tape on either side will secure it even more.  Taping it like this will allow for easy access when needed.

View from the back side

Servo cable routing

So far so good.  Now I need to look at how to control the elevator.  The plane is too small and light to mount a servo in or even near the tail.  Plus with this plane having the motor mounted so far back, I don't want to add any more tail weight.  I decided on a location under the wing and made a cut out for the servo.  This time instead of actually cutting the foam out, I melted the foam with a solder iron until I had the shape I wanted.  Doing it this way gave me a rigid compartment for the servo.

Original servo in place

New servo.  Fits perfect

At this time I also ran two bamboo skewers down the middle of the fuselage to give it more rigidity.  I used my solder iron to channel out any places that needed it to make room for the skewers.  I used hot glue to hold the skewers in and they made a big difference.

Both aileron servos in place

After getting the servos and re-enforcement in place, I think I'm ready for assembly.

All pieces ready to put together

I think it looks good!  You can see that I soldered the speed controller connection along the outside of the fuselage to the motor.  I was going to try to route them inside, but that was going to be too much trouble and this will work fine.

All together from the top side

This is the underside where you can see that after I inserted the speed controller and receiver, I just taped over the opening to hold it all in.  The battery is installed in the compartment under the front wheel.  There is also an on/off switch located there that I re-used.  It's really small but works fine.

From the bottom side

Now its time to align the servo arms, control linkage, and control horns.  I don't have my servo tester yet and did not use the radio to center the servos.  I just assumed that they were centered and installed the servo arms where they needed to be.  Then hooked up the push rods and connected to the aileron horns.  Once this was done I fired up the radio.  Wow!  I almost ripped of the left aileron!  That will teach me to assume and not check everything before I just put it together.

Miss aligned servo almost rips aileron off

Now everything is together the way I intended and everything has been tested.

Ailerons aligned properly

Everything is ready for a test flight and as usual, I'll have to wait for an the alignment of the stars, well, good weather and free time.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.

Battery Scare

My new LiPo

Hello all,


So this morning I'm laying in bed thinking about modding my transmitter battery when I realized that I had left my brand new Turnigy 2200 Lipid battery on my Tenergy charger all night! I had flown the previous day and wanted to make sure it was charged up if I had an opportunity to fly the next day. Well I had put it on the charger later that evening and forgot about it! Since none of our smoke alarms were going off I knew it had not overheated and burst into flames. Even so, I was glad that I had placed the charger and battery in a metal pan on the tile counter top in our kitchen so that if it had "burst into flames", the damage would be minimal. Now that I was pretty sure there was no fire (no alarm, remember), I was wondering what would be the state of the battery. I had visions of a puffed up, bloated, and worthless battery pack.

Team Tenergy charger and wall adapter

I rushed down stairs and into the kitchen. No scorched pan. No burnt smell. And, best of all, no puffed or bloated battery pack, and the charger light was still green! I quickly unplugged everything and checked it all out. The battery was not puffed at all or even warm. The charger was not warm and neither was the power adapter.

A closer look at the Team Tenergy charger

Wow, was I happy. This inexpensive Team Tenergy charger did exactly what I would want a charger to do, charge the battery appropriately and then turn off the charging. This has been a great little charger. I know it only charges at one amp (which means long charge times for large packs) and can only charge up to 4 cells, but right now that's all I need and it can charge from a wall power adapter or car battery. This little charger is easy to use as well as it has a red light to show that it is charging and a green light to show when it's done, and it does balancing too. Needles to say, I am very happy with this charger.


Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Please feel free to post comments, good or bad, and be sure to come back and check for future posts.