joined the club.

[toff]

I too will show on-board video of my souped up SC ( If the crappy british weather will ever actually ease up enough to get airborne anytime soon! ).
I bought one of the cheap MD80 camera for the tiny price of 10 pounds inc post. Fitted in between the wheels, this camera comes with a swivel mount, so I can move the camera round for different angles of flight. Looking forward to it!




Just realised taking photos, I've mounted it without releasing the swivel. Dangnabbit! And it's now glued in place. More work required ( well, it's something to do on a rainy day.) Hope this produces something worth showing!

[Dillzio]

I used to have a camera just like that, I've got pics of how I mounted it in my super cub spycam thread under cameras.

[toff]

Bugger! Finally...a niceish day to fly. Camera attached, everything working, launch........ then the SC cartwheels right into the ground!( Thankfully soft mud from all the rain weve had) Many, many attempts later, finally got airborne.Wooo.....except for the fact that the lens was plastered in mud, so I filmed NOTHING!!! BAH!!!!!!

[renard80]

Commiserations, toff. Console yourself with the thought that perhaps Steven Spielberg also has his off days . . .

At least you could fly today. Very sunny down here in the south, but still too much wind for this novice to risk it.

[toff]

Thursdays supposed to be the best day for nearly all the UK, so work permitting I will try again!

[toff]

ARSE! FECK! GIRLS! DRINK!
It is my sad duty to inform you all, that the SC tigerpoo, Always to remembered fondly, as a good friend, and bally cad, has sadly, in the course of photographic duties to its owner, suffered from that most silly of illnesses, that of being snapped in half.
But despite suffering from this most laughable of the ' howthehelldidthathappen?' illnesses (in this case falling 100 or so feet with no control at all.)
And yet, we must remember, that even though falling from a great height, and suffering grevious injuries ( and much laughter), SC tigerpoo shone at it's greatest, as with great courage and manly heroism it's dashing broad yorkshire speaking owner slapped 5 pieces of duct tape on the breaks and said " Feck it, that'll do!"
And from the paraplegic near-demise of the SC tigerpoo, came the birth of the all new ( taped together 'til I can get some epoxy)- SC broken tigerpoo!
That this faithful machine now flies beautifully, reflects in no small way to its (handsome and much admired) owner, and his ability to look at the contols and say "What the feck is it doing now! JEEBUS! I never touched it! Look what the feck it's doing NOW! I'm Doing Nothin', I never touched a feckin thing!" in a really convincing manner.
What was I on about?..... Oh yes... hmmm, it flew beautifully afterwards, in a sort of up-down all over the sky sort of way, control, no control, control, no control, that frightened me so much, that I had to land. Had to, I tell you! As my equipment is 2.4ghz, interference is more or less ruled out ( however, this beheviour has only turned up with the brushless motor, I dunno, can certain rpms generate 2.4 interference?)
I have re-bound my RX ( and will every flight from now on) but I'm looking at replacing my radio gear in the near future, as it's one thing to crash due to stupidity. But it's quite another to crash to lack of control. I feel cheated - of my chance to crash it really stoopidly! Doh!!

[john66]

What brand radio gear you using Toff?

John

[toff]

GC radiolink 6 channel, with 6 channel RX. Worked really well for the last 8 months, but now I'm doubtful of my radio gear, and don't 100% trust it anymore. so I'm looking at a futaba 6ex, yes , expensive ( RX's especially), but I've seen some on ebay go for 150 ish quid.
Thoughts?

[john66]

Feb 11, 2011 0:04:07 GMT 1 toff said:

GC radiolink 6 channel, with 6 channel RX. Worked really well for the last 8 months, but now I'm doubtful of my radio gear, and don't 100% trust it anymore. so I'm looking at a futaba 6ex, yes , expensive ( RX's especially), but I've seen some on ebay go for 150 ish quid.
Thoughts?

With regard to the GC TX, to be honest I had the same radio and think it was very good. I also recently sold a futaba 6EX on ebay for way less, It went for £95 with RX and I believe thats about right for that.

If your gonna spend up to £150, why not go the extra and get a brand new Spektrum DX8 for around £190, and pick up some of the cheap RX's from GC, they're only around a tenner each. You will get alot more bang for your buck that wayl

John

[ginginho]

Toff,
It's a shame you've crashed yer baby, or rather it crashed without any assistance from you (by the sound of it), at least you seem to be fairly philosophical about it, and repairing it rather than replacing the fuse is the way forward.

As for why you lost control, that is always a difficult one to isolate and re-gain confidence in the radio kit. There are a few things that may point to what happened:
1) As you lost control was the motor running, did it continue to do so? The answer to this will prove whether a power loss was the cause.
2) After it hit the deck ("broke it's f**king neck - Derek and Clive quote did you check the electrical connections closely? Are the Rx aerials OK?
3) The up/down second flight sounds like you had intermittant control which would suggest that the Rx is either not getting a clean signal (again aerials) or it's getting swamped or blocked. Where you were flying is there any thing that might be transmitting nearby (e.g. mobile mast)?
4) Have you done a range check recently? If so was it OK?
5) I believe you have solarflimed the SC, is it a metallic finish (chrome etc), if so it may be masking the signal.
6) Is there a lot of carbon in the SC, this masks the signal very well, which is very bad.

I'm not sure how the GC radio works, whether it's spread spectrum (akin to Futaba), or dual channel (akin to Spektrum) or just a single channel (more vunerable to swamping).

You've also mentioned that this behaviour has only happen since sticking a B/L motor in it. Were you using the same Rx on the old motor? You must've had to swap the ESC as well, so maybe that's a bit questionable, remember that this is the source of power to the Rx (unless you also have a uBEC).
What make/model is it?
Is the ESC BEC (or the uBEC) man enough for all the servos you have? It may perform OK with a lot of servos wiggling on the ground but in the air the servos draw more current as they have to drive against the force of the air passing over the control surface.
It's a possibility that you have suffered a brown-out (i.e. loss of power from ESC to Rx due to servos drawing too much, causing Rx to reboot) to go with your brown trousers, which used to be the realm of Spekky only but potentially can happen with any system.

One last thought, It's nasty, but there are commercially available devices that can swamp the 2.4Ghz band, you may have been unlucky and have been a victim of an evil git who has one of these.

[pauliepilot]

I got my dx6i for £130 new tx n rx...
I see anyone with one of those 2.4 jamer devices..i'll ram it right up his $@€£ :-)

[ginginho]

Feb 11, 2011 12:30:27 GMT 1 pauliepilot said:

I got my dx6i for £130 new tx n rx...
I see anyone with one of those 2.4 jamer devices..i'll ram it right up his $@€£ :-)

I can't remember how much I paid for mine (with the AR6200), but I know I got it from Stan at Phoenixmp.co.uk as I did with every other Spekky Rx I've since bought. Always cheaper that the rest of the websellers for Spekky stuff. Of course he'll lose some business now that the looky-likeys are available at the third of the cost.
I too would do the ramming thing......

[toff]

Ging,
1) The motor was running, and it was throttled down just before it hit. Once it had hit, I immeadiatly did the waggly sticks thing, and all surfaces moved.
2) The RX arial is 2.4, and it looks to be fine.
3) The rugby field where I fly from is near nothing. No masts, power lines, or anything.
4) range check done to bottom of field, with my colleage steve holding the plane ( Lazy gobnutses, us meter readers ) No issues.
5) No solarfilm.
6) only carbon is the 6mm rod through the wing.

I'm going to put it down to a brown-out/ possible binding error.
The plane can be fixed quite easily, adnd I'll keep my fingers crossed for future flights.
Speaking of which, my twin jet is now flight worthy, so when i get time and decent weather, a maiden voyage will be undertaken ( same radio, but different RX. Post photos when I do!