eric's model flying blog

First thing to do when setting up any plane is  to set up transmitter to output 1000-2000 us pulses, with 1500 us at the mid-position. Then set all the servos to their respective  mid-positions. The servo horn should then be perpendicular to the housing (within 1 tooth snap of the horn), except for the servos for the flaps, if applicable. Those last ones will generally be at the flaps up position. The left servo horn could maybe be turned clockwise by one click This ensures equal control surface deflections in either direction when anything else than mid-range is output, and symmetrical deflections of the control horns, and therewith control surfaces, w.r.t. the mid position. Aileron pushrod Flaps servo The next thing is to align control surfaces by adjusting push rod length. For the flaps, the adjustment should be done in the flaps up position, ensuring that the servo does not make a buzzing sound, while the  flap surface is as good as possible in line with the win

Rebuilding my Durafly Tundra took longer than expected, and the result was not good enough. So my plan was to do things right, this time around, and get new parts wherever needed. That ended up in me buying a new Tundra all over again...

What could be easier than binding a receiver to a transmitter, right? Push the bind button while powering up the receiver, put the transmitter in binding mode, wait a few seconds, done! Well ... With the FrSky S8R receiver, there are a few "other possibilities"...

RC flying is crashing. Flying, Crashing, Repairing, Repeat indefinitely! That's how to best describe this hobby. Simply because that is how it works. It has been really awful weather here in the Netherlands last two months. Especially in the weekends, of course! So I did not get much flying time in, lately. It has been storming, with all sorts of precipitation, combined with temperatures now nearing the freezing point. Those few flights I got in with my  Bfight 210 , however, were very "educational"! I already knew that the receiver range was not much more than 150m, with a clear line of sight. I leaned that the same holds for the video transmission signal. On one occasion, I got a little disoriented, because of the limited periferal view through the goggles. I was flying along at the clearing next to the camping. The one with only two trees. I was sitting under one tree, because I did not want to be too prominently in my flight footage. And I thought I was cruisin

I am very happy with my Tevo Tarantula 3D printer! I have it up and running for about 6 weeks now. Let me tell you about my prints so far! Reading all the forums, facebook groups, and of course the Tevo website, I decided on the way forward after finishing the build. First, I would need to be able to print dimensionally reasonably accurate parts. In order to achieve that, I fist took a  look at the extrusion. It is important that the extruder extrudes the commanded length of filament, to within a few percent. To check that, I fed in the filament for only a few centimeters. With that as "0", I measured 120mm from the infeed side of the extruder, and marked the filament with a black marker. Then, I commanded the extruder to feed 100mm into the teflon tube, and mesured how far from the extruder infeed side the mark ended up. That should be 20mm, of course, but in my case it was less than that. So I had to tune down my extruder a bit. As I measured 17mm, it had "over-

The GearBest GB X155 Kit is, of course, available through GearBest . This nicely priced kit includes a video camera, transmitter, and goggles too! So it is aimed at first-time FPV pilots, like myself. Let's see how a target group member copes with assembling all these bits and bobs into a flying machine... What you get is a big box with little bags of parts, and a couple of smaller boxes for the Runcam camers, the Aomway antenna, and a bigger box with the FPV goggles. Let's start with the motors, because they are one of the major performance components. In this kit, you will find 4 Emax 1306, 4000KV RS series motors. Thay produce a little more torque than the 6000-7000 KV tiny motors that are out there, so they can handle three-bladed props with slightly higer pitch. The props that come with the kit are 3035 three-bladed bull nose props with no particular brand on it. I ordered some Gemfan replacements for them, for when I crash (it's not IF, but WHEN ;) )