Well I've decided it's time to upgrade my web site to include the plethora of hobbies I've become addicted to.

Micro stuff

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Darn this is addictive!!!!!!!

Before you start,

New pages
 

20/03/09

An unexpected Xmas present. I knew I was getting an OS55 to re-power my cap 232. And believe me this motor has taken the plane from flyable to enjoyable. A huge improvement in power to weight ratio. However, I wasn't expecting to receive the Kyosho 50 spitfire. And it's cool. What I particularly like about this plane is having split flaps. However I couldn't get my head around a plane with a square fuselage so I rounded it off and made it more scale. Here's a link to more info. Anyway, after all the mods, this is a neat plane to fly. The OS 70 surpass hauls it into the sky easily and the split flaps haul it to a stop just as fast. Check here for a short video of her in flying and landing. As time allows I will add more scale detail to the plane.

3/11/08

FlyFly F-22

GWS Spitfire MkXIV + retracts  (very highly modified) 1/12  20/7/08

Spitfire
Mk XIV scale 1/6.3
And all its latest developments.

Or look at this My Daughters Dollhouse.
Check it out before you laugh. It's taking me HOURS!!

 

Latest new stuff 14/5/08

2.8Gig.
 

Everybody has their experience and here's mine. Thought I had a problem with a speed controller in a 1000watt plane. It died at 2/3 throttle. After installing a Spektrum module it miraculously worked perfectly. Not a ESC fault at all. It was radio. So now I'm converting everything over slowly. The raptor heli has never glitched once since the change which allows for more confident flying. My only beef was the damn plug sticking out the back but as you can see I came up with a dead simple method for fixing that while still allowing removal of the unit to change modules. Definitely worth the effort and cost of changing as I can now fly at the park without worrying about the boaties turning on their radios.

Latest news. Hard to believe as it may, I'm actually down sizing my fleet, I know this because every plane is flyable and I have one spare receiver, ergo, one less plane somewhere. I've face planted and retired a couple of the smaller ones and one 40 size cap. (Although numbers are up 'cause I've got about 80% of Steve's flyable planes sitting around the garage. :-)  ) Pitty the weather is so lousy it's hard to get to fly.
 

Yes another new toy but I absolve myself of responsibility for this one. It belongs to my daughter!!! (yeah right) And it's also for demonstrating things at work. True story. Anyway. Axial Scorpion AX-10 Rock Crawler. Top speed about ten mph but it'll climb near vertical surfaces. (hence the name) It's running an Hyperion Z3019/12 brushless, Mamba Max speed control but the steering servo's are seriously underpowered. I'll have to upgrade to 10kg from the 4.4kg's it's currently got. On a 1800 lithium I tested it in the quarry with two other identical cars for over an hour and only used 940mah. Look forward to tuning it over the next few months. It's carrying 280grams of lead in each front wheel and 210 lead in the rear. It also has been set up on the radio to give two wheel steering, four wheel steering or crabbing.  Also of note, my first attempt as spray painting a body and using stencils and mixing colours.

Well anyway, yes, another indoor plane, bought a 3D micro blade to flick around indoors. Very much a handful to fly and probably a bit out of my league but lots of fun. Slowly learning to hover even though it's something I always swore I wouldn't do. It ways 110 grams with the small battery on and I think that's just a little too heavy. Putting in the bigger battery which lifts it's weight by 10 grams (.35oz) makes a HUGE difference so I have to assume taking 10 grams off would also have the same effect. Berg micro stamp receiver, MP Jet AC22 4/90D brushless motor and 3x Diamond D47 servo's

HDX300. Seriously loving this heli now all the bugs have been taken out of it. And there were far too many for a new heli to be acceptable. Had to make and fit Ejector pin main shaft and tail shafts, re machine several major mechanical items, replaced the motor with a Hyperion due to balance (vibration issues) and it comes in a plastic bag of bits with no instructions. Not for a beginner by any means. However. Now it's flying it is seriously amazing. Absolutely as stable as a brick. Although at 500grams it should be! I'm loving it.

Finally sorted out the Blade CP helicopter which had been driving me mad. Put new bearings in the head, replaced the tail and rotor blades with carbon blades and bingo. She's now flying beautifully. Now to take it outdoors and try a little 3D. Amazing how brave one can be flying someone else's heli. My recommendations for anyone flying a Blade cp is fly no bigger than 1800mah simply because it keeps the heli light, secondly, don't get all bent out of shape about upgrading parts. Again it just makes it heavy and the lighter it is the better it'll fly.

Further to that I also bought a Monster Truck. Very cool. Losi LST2 complete with synthesized radio, starter, glow drive and toolbox. It's given several hours of high octane fun on the local hills and hasn't let me down once yet.

Oh yes, forgot. The piccolo is history. Unfortunately it had one too many crashes and finally bit the dust. So it's been replaced by a DX300 which is still being fine tuned, also on loan from Steve (Steve's Model Shop) is a E Sky CP and a Smartech micro heli.
Have to say that for a cheap and nasty the smartech is excellent!. It's fixed pitch but indoors does stall turns, pirouettes, face in and fff easily and smoothly. Out flies the piccolo easily and costs a fraction.

HDX300 Check out the bling	CP belt drive	Smartech

Anyway, that's all that's new at the moment I think, accept that the OS61 geared powered Saphir now has a new OS61 heli motor in it which enabled me to reduce it's weight by 28%.

Took it out last weekend (14/07/07) for it's test flight at the reduced weight. Very very cool. Loads of power and loops were smoother and easier, only problem I had was tuning the fancy carb as I left the destructions at home. Never mind, even out of tune it ran reliably. Still love the look of a plane with it's wheels up. Specially a high speed one like this. Only problem is it just floats by (all be it fast) when you go to land it so it has to lined up wwwwaaaaayyyy out for a landing.

Oh yeah. This too. (he slips in with a smile.)      Now have to make in 1/12 for babies dollhouse. rc of course.
Tamiya RC Jeep Wrangler

Basically it all started with the piccolo. How can they make such a tiny Helicopter with full heli function. 
The one I've got has the full collective pitch added to it, fly's for 20 minutes on a rechargeable battery and weighs 242.5 grams ready to fly. (that's about the same as an empty coffee cup)
So what can I tell you. Compared to flying the larger nitro Heli's this little devil is a bit of a handful. This is because it's tiny size means things tend to happen very quickly. It is however a very cheap way to learn simply because, amazingly enough, it generally tends to bounce and if it does break it can usually be fixed with a drop of CA

Piccolo	Electronics	Collective Pitch

What you're looking at here in the way of electronics are a six channel receiver, two speed controls and a fully functioning gyroscope along with two electric motors, three micro sized servo's and two 1020mah lithium poly batteries.. The Head, I think, speaks for itself.

Well from there, whilst perusing the Ikurus piccolo bulletin board I came across an off topic mention of a little lightening plane. Well, darn - had to have that technology. (read - wife almost divorced me) So got that. cool. Designed to fly indoors and FULLY PROPORTIONAL. Too much!!!!  Flies for around 15 - 20 minutes on a single lithium battery.

Well then stumbled upon South Leicester Aeronutz Had to have one of those micro bi planes. (read - wife almost divorced me again) Well I built this delightful Tiger Moth designed by Chris O'Riley and it's just magic watching this little, semi scale, model cruise around a hall or gym. Believe it or not it weighs 25.6 grams. that's the same as two $2 coins. Flies for around 10 - 15 minutes on a lithium battery.

Result?          and of course wife threatened to divorce me again

Well as you can see I seriously need some help. And these aren't even the tip of the iceberg.

So were did my problem start? Well believe it or not it started with boats.                

Boat Rack	Kyosho 1 meter	York 1/8 scale hydro	Red Dealer Petrol powered	Blue Dealer Nitro powered

Blue Dealer OS 81	Red Dealer 34ccPetrol Engine

Single rudder surface drive.	Twin Rudder Surface Drive

Couple of points regarding the boats. One is that the single most important part when building a boat is, believe it or not, the radio box. Or more importantly, waterproofing the radio box. The speed of these boats varies from about 30Km/h up to just under 100km/h. They need a lot of room and every single one of them has been upside-down in the water at some time. If they're water proof you just shake them out, flush the motor and away you go again. They also all carry a small fail safe so if anything goes wrong with the radio they will just come to a halt. Red Dealer has a 30cc chainsaw motor and the rest are running 10% nitro methane, 17% synthetic oil, 3% castor oil and 70% methanol.
 

These were and still are a money and time consuming passion but more on those later. And we still aren't back to micro's. My next serious addiction came and still is number one.

Helicopters 

Raptor 50 (rpm governor & HH Gyro)	Piccolo micro electric

Helicopters are the ultimate as far as I'm concerned. Learning to fly a RC helicopter was the most exhilarating learning experience I've had. The first time you lift it of the ground you shake like a leaf and this goes on every time you try anything new. Holding a helicopter in a steady hover is difficult and just when you think your winning your told to turn it around and fly nose in. Then everything goes mad.
When it comes to using a remote control I'm pretty arrogant in my belief in my abilities, I was going to fly a heli first try noooo worries. Well purely by fluke I came across a flight simulator ("thanks again Steve") with a heli on it and thank goodness I did. We spent many a night sitting around the computer laughing and hassling each other as we crashed repeatedly about 10000 times a piece. 
I would have to say the thing I like about heli's is that while you can fly them miles away and do all these great tricks you can also bring it to within 6 feet of yourself and hover, pirouette or even (and I can't) flip it upside down and fly inverted. Try holding a plane that close for any length of time/

Well you can see why I have to be nice to "her who must be obeyed". Still haven't got back to the micro's though.
Learning to fly the helicopters is a major. It was described to me as like trying to balance a marble on a piece of glass and this is soooooo true. Having managed the basic hovering I found nose in to be @#$% hard. 

Well I read somewhere that plank fliers find moving a heli around easier than non plank fliers, me, who tend to fly low and slow. Well this was definitely true so I thought I'd build an electric trainer to ease the cost of crashing. ( one heli crash tends to range from $100 to $400, an electric plane is about $150 and a crash costs about $10)
From this decision to learn to fly I have become fairly involved in flying model planes. The original trainer is long gone but has been replaced by several Brushless powered electric planes and a recently acquired yellow mustang powered by an OS 70II Surpass four stroke engine. Very cool.

So there we are. That's pretty much the path that lead to micro craft. It's nice not having to rely on the weather for flying opportunities. There is a booked hall once a month after work and away we go. I can test my gear in the Gym at work when I want and outside on the rare occasion the winds allow .

So what gear is involved. Oh Boy, where do I start. 
Batteries, Batteries, Batteries, Batteries, Batteries. I'm in the process of changing over to lithium's for flight but the boats still need NiMH's as they handle H2O better. Bought a GWS peak charger and look after the Lithium's I use a Potensky charger which handles 1-2 lithium poly's.
Starter box, Glow drivers, lots of glow plugs, Fuel pump, spanners, Prop Balancer, Dremel,
This starter box is my own design and in truth is too heavy. Has got a built in seat though which is handy. I'd have a lot more room for junk if the 1:1 scale boat wasn't in the garage. And last but not least, get a really understanding wife. Really understanding.

Oh heck, did I mention these two? The boats the original RC model I made of 1:1 Katie which I designed and built back in 1992.
The Jeep was my first ever remote control model of any sort. I just happened to drive past a model shop one day and saw a closing down, 1/2 price sale. Walked in and there it was. Had to have it. Took it up to Urapukapuka island a few years ago and drove it around the camp at night with it's lights on. Felt like the piped piper- had almost every kid in the camp following it around and no one could see I was driving it. We had a blast. I've since geared it down using a Kyosho planetary gear box so it goes at about slow walking pace flat out. This means it can tow the boat and trailer around for about 3/4 of an hour on a single battery and children can play with it inside for hours without doing any damage. They love it. Being four wheel drive it goes almost anywhere. The boat is my second ever model and first ever model boat.  It also featured in an add on TV a couple of years ago for a cruise trip competition.

Cost of all this?? Well we won't even go there. Could be detrimental to my health.

Well there you have it. I have a serious addiction problem with RC toys. And if I had more time I'd be even worse.
 Still, don't drink or smoke so .... what's next???
Time, well there's never enough of that is there. I also enjoy fishing, Trout fishing, love camping, Love taking the boat out on the lakes and just cruising around. I'd love another motor cycle but "her indoors" isn't that understanding. Spend far too much time on the computer, web sites, video editing or researching for work. Yep the list goes on and the pocket empties out.

This isn't RC but I did design and make it. 

( Hell the wife just saw I took the photo's on her coffee table, now she's running around the house squawking I've got to many toys and have to get rid of some.............   Ha!          In her dreams! )

Well, until my next update.

& check out my micro spitfire.

Micro spitfire Waycool!!!!!!! Upgraded the wing to the marine profile and under cambered it. Careful construction also reduced it's weight to 32 grams. With the extra lift it not only flies slower but uses bellow 1/2 throttle as apposed to 3/4 throttle. Much improved performance too. Easier to fly in a small area and way better landings. Excellent. New wing form Specifications 34 grams, 17.5" wings, fully proportional speed, ailerons and elevator, lithium, RFFS100 and kp00 10 min flights/charge (now?) Time for construction from idea, prototype and completion? 40+ hours

Rather an embarrassingly large addition at that.( late 2005)

Wanting to have at least one decent looking model I completely scratch build this modified Cap 232. Modified because being an old man I wanted something I could fly with out getting stressed so I increased the wing area enough to make the plane handle in a less dramatic way while still making a decent looking plane.( imho)             Now part of the reason I scratch built this plane because I couldn't by a small plane locally. You can imagine my dismay when I walked into my local hobby shop afterwards and found, just as I finished vac forming the spats and cowl, they had imported exactly the same size plane in a cap, extra and mustang.  (#*@&$^@*)     It was originally designed to take an OS .15 la slimmer but came up so well I refused to submit it that so powered it with a Mega brushless motor. Flies acrobatically for about 15 minutes on 2x1500 lithium's. And for some reason is the only plane I have that is quite happy to land and take off the grass with spats!     Then, to take the slimmer, I picked up one of the little extra's from that hobby shop. Now that was an experience.     At 1.2 kg the wing loading was such that the flight characteristics were something akin to a doodle bomb. The engine was totally underpowered even though it was the recommended size and all in all it was a very unpleasant experience. First the engine wall came free, then the firewall came free and then the plate the wheels screw to came free. Not a happy chappy! But glued them back together. SSSSSSOOOOooooo not to be beaten, the following steps were taken. 1) The head shim was removed from the engine to increase the compression. 2) I went from 10 to 20% nitro. 3) Again a new, un-tapered wing was made and fitted.         4) The gaps between the ailerons and wing were taped. (This I am rapidly finding is essential on all planes.) Result. Awesome. What a great flying little plane it turned out to be. Flies in winds up to 15 knots with ease. I've even flown it after several 40 size planes landed because of the wind. Does all the aerobatic maneuvers I'm capable of. (yeah. both of them.) and is now my favorite plane by far. (No it won't hover. The kits a Hirobo by the way.)       Steve, owner of Steve's Model Shops in Howic and Papakura, has lent me this Ugly stick. And that's exactly what it is. Ugly. But it's sporting a brand new 20 year old OS geared 61. What an excellent combination. This thing has so much power it's scary. literally. Very fast moving plane but capable of all sorts of huge maneuvers. She's a tad on the heavy side due to excessive construction and years of absorbing castor oil but lots of fun. Flew the plane with a tuned pipe the other day for the first time and even with the plane weighing 3.6kg  (8 pound) the motor would let the plane swing on the prop and then accelerate vertically from a standstill. Having a geared 61 motor is totally unique and turns a lot of heads. Very cool.       I sold my concept 30 helicopter (yes I still have my Raptor 50 - just love the heli!!!!!!!!!) and converted the $$ into a ARF P51 Mustang powered by a OS 70II Surpass. What a dream of a plane this is to fly. Dead smooth, totally obedient, slightly overweight, looks great when the wheels go up. Lovely. Really a great plane to fly. It'll do any and all the aerobatics I want it to do, has more than ample power (Not as much as the ugly stick.) and when doing flyby's after dropping from a height all you hear is a swishing sound from the prop. ( 13x6 MA) Love flying this little puppy.                 Not really a new plane but an old one revisited I rebuilt my micro tiger moth (by Chris Riley) and added a whole lot more detail and rigging. Came up really well and flies better. Even with cockpit detail, pilot and functional rigging it weighs only 23 grams flying.         Changing topics completely. During a rather half hearted discussion with a friend we discussed building a micro yacht to sail indoors or out on a swimming pool The criteria we set where; very good looking, 500mm masts, 100 mm keels, 150gram bulbs and no expensive electronics. This is what we came up with and following a surprising amount of interest from overseas we are in the process of producing some on a limited basis for sale. Time will tell how far this one goes but I can say these are exceptional little sailors and outperformed all our expectations by miles. Soon as we get set up we'll look at testing indoors using just a couple of cheap fans as a means of wind propulsion. Few beers, nice BBQ and a little match racing at night. Cool.     Surprisingly, there seems to be nothing already being produced that fills these criteria. There are other small boats but I really haven't seen anything that compares either aesthetically or functionally as well as ours. Although I find that extremely difficult to believe.         We've been through several different hull shapes and have only found one that works. It's amazing how such a small hull difference can make a huge difference to a boat of this size. Hulls aside though you can change the sail and mast configurations (accept height) all you like and again they make a HUGE difference. Note the two hulls on the left. One works reasonably well and the other gives quite surprising problems. Our best working hull is still in shrouds of secrecy. Still working on the 70 inch scale spitfire. That's going to be a very long term job. So there you have it. That's me pretty well up to date. Cheers Glen

Again, a loaner from Steve and again sporting another new 20 year old OS geared 61. This Saphir is a lovely pattern ship to fly. Talk about point and go. Landing it is interesting. Too high and just floats straight past you but get it in the right position and it is the smoothest landing plane I've come across. But very fast. Uses a LOT of sky and runway. And best of all, it's got retracts and I love retracts. Also a very big plane to transport. Very cool!             Steve stole his ugly stick back though. (mumble mumble mumble .........   you'd think he owns them or something.) Wolfgang and Günther Matt Type F3A-Model Wing span 178cm Fuselage 160cm Weight 4.0kg Engine 61      1989 - 1991

And finally a plane of my own, I was given a newish TT 42 motor that wasn't being used so after testing it {very sweet} I thought I'd put it to use in a WM Cap 232 40R From Steve's model shop. (Shameless plug there.) Took it out for a test fly and it was OK. Underpowered though but as luck would have it I managed to steal another motor of Steve (new OS 46FX ......teach him to take his own planes back!!) to put in it. Well he wasn't using it anyway! I don't think. He had it sitting in a trainer, which happened to be sitting in my garage as a test bed for the TT42. What??? Well the 46FX is quite adequate but I think at some stage I'll drop a 50 or 55AX into it so it has a little more oommpphh. Then I guess I'll have to look at a motor of my own. OS 70FS again? Nah, just keep Steve's, he'll never notice. I'll just slip the TT42 into the trainer.

Still working (thinking) on the 70 inch scale spitfire. That's going to be a very long term job.

Just a nice picture but fairly big. Micro spitfire sitting by micro Moth. Both three channel fully proportional.

A very useful link for anyone trying to convert to electric

Cheers

mailto:gasayersddd@slingshot.co.nz  remove ddd sorry, too much junk mail.

Link to the Auckland indoor flight club page
Link to another of my pages. My Daughters Dollhouse. Check it out before you laugh. It's taking me HOURS!!