That about sums up the attention I’ve given to RC the last few months.  I’m not terribly sure when I actually flew anything.  Perhaps it was Labor Day for a few minutes when I was feeling well enough to go outside.  Great time to find out I’m allergic to Amoxicillin.  The hives, they were a itchin’.

I am taking the de facto leave of absence that clearly already exists and extending it indefinitely.  Hobbies being what they are, my flying came first, the site came second, and I’m rarely in the state of mind to want to fly these days, let alone the production of articles and videos.  Not that it wasn’t fun; it has been a great creative outlet for me.   Teaching myself site development, video production, electronics, audio and live streaming, airbrushing, etc. has been an outright blast and one hell of a creative outlet.  That outlet is satisfied for now, and since the workload has picked up with my daytime job and will continue to do so until early summer of next year, I’m just not going to commit to producing anything here for the time being.

It’s not a lack of interest in flying, but I have been in this hobby long enough to know when I’m good to fly and when I’m not good to fly.  More often than not anymore, I’m rarely in a good state of mind for it.  A matter of energy and focus, if you will, which lends itself to a slight malaise over the hobby if you don’ t have it.

It’s not a matter of money.  Every dime put into the hobby and this site I knew going in that I’d never get back.  I’ve had many emails asking for advertisement space, sponsor this, review that, etc.  That’s not why I built the site.  It was my journey into RC over the last two years, from noob to … slightly-less noob, and as I learned things I’d try to package it into a video and article format that I felt I didn’t see enough of out there in the RC media universe.  You can watch the flick, and reference the article.  I always liked that idea.  I feel it gives the greatest informational bang for the buck.

Speaking again of the buck, as I said, it’s not a matter of money.  Never took a donation and never would.  If I couldn’t do this for free as a labor of love than it’s quite simply not meant to be done.  It’s not my job, and I would never want it to be my job.  I’ll only travel down that type of road once, and this site is not it.  The second I take a donation or charge is the second this site feels like I owe people, and I dislike the thought of being an indentured servant over a hobby.

It all comes down to time and energy, and for the foreseeable future, I won’t have it.

It also comes down to room…. I’m a bachelor in a single bedroom apartment and quite frankly, I’m kind of sick of having my living room be a workshop.  I’m fairly certain I won’t do this again until I’ve moved somewhere the workshop can be dedicated and not embedded into my direct living quarters.  It makes things difficult.

So where does that leave us?  Well… We may be back.  I’m leaving the content here as a reference, and I’ll still answer some emails and questions as I am able.  Someday I may get the bug to produce a video again. Until then I think I’m packing up my stuff so I don’t feel suffocated by parts and foam and electronics.  So I’m not throwing it away, and no, you can’t have it.

Thanks to all those that sent me letters of appreciation for the work I’ve done along the way, because, quite frankly, that’s exactly the audience this site was for.  Its dual purpose of a creative outlet for me and free source of ‘edutainment’ for you has served us both.  Thanks to Chameleon for his Mach One Combat Flyer design, it’s a fun cheap outlet for the more… aggressive flying types.

Thanks, Pop, for getting me so damn hooked into this hobby that we ran the gambit of frustrations and laughs over it, and hopefully we can fly again someday.

Cheers,

Eric R. Krystof

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

Im using a spectrum dx6i and ar6200 receiver in my Traxxas Rustler VXL. Can I just run a led light with a servo connector straight to my RX. Im assuming the RX is using 5 vdc and most leds are 12 vdc. Ive found some strip lights at walmart, hobby king and rclights.com. Im assuming that is the simplest setup. I just want to make a straight connection from the RX to the LED and turn it on or off from my extra open channel on my RX.

Let’s break this down a little bit, piece by piece, because, unfortunately, given the type of components you’re talking about, it’s not as simple as we all would like.

I’m assuming your receiver is getting power from your speed controller’s BEC or a battery pack.  Either way, you can light a LED or two from a receiver, but keep in mind that the receiver isn’t really supplying the power.  The pins on your receiver are merely creating a power bus, and the smaller the receiver is the less current you should put through that bus (current makes heat).  Most likely a handful of LEDs aren’t going to be a problem.  I’m not talking strips, I’m talking individual bulb LEDs you’d have to wire yourself with resistors (if you are so inclined).  It sure is possible though, because you’ve got 5 volts to play with you could probably wire 2 LEDs in series, and multiple pairs in parallel.

However, you mention 12 volt LEDs.  A lot of the single bulb type LEDs you’d find from radio shack generally run 2-3 volts, and like you stated, you’re looking at LED strips.  Regardless, you can only light a LED circuit if the supply voltage (your 5 volts) is greater than or equal to the voltage required for your LED circuit.  So if you do have a 12 volt LED strip, you won’t be able to illuminate it with the small 5 volts piped through your receiver.

So now you have strips, and a full strip can easily take around 400ma worth of current.  Myself, I wouldn’t want that much power going through my ESC’s BEC into the receiver, keep that for the servos.  I don’t do any car R/C at this point, but in our airplane setups a BEC typically supports 2-3 amps for park/medium sized aircraft, and I’d rather have that current for my servos and keep the BEC less taxed with powering lights.  I recommend lighting strip LEDs directly off a battery, either from a lipo balance plug or a separate pack.

So, you’ll need more power than the RX can provide through the ESC’s Battery Eliminator Circuit.  However, you still want to control it through your transmitter, to switch them on or off, right?  Well, all is not lost!  You can use a brushed speed control, I’ve used a couple in the past to control lights with a transmitter, but what would probably be easiest outside of wiring your own components would be to pick up a ‘receiver controlled switch’, something like a Pico Switch or Battle Switch from Dimension Engineering, or a switch from HobbyKing.  That would most likely be the easiest route.  (Examples are http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewitem.asp?idproduct=8833 and http://www.dimensionengineering.com/PicoSwitch.htm)  The reason you can’t switch a simple dc circuit on or off with your receiver port is that flicking a switch on your transmitter doesn’t actually block power to your receiver pins, they’re always on, it’s the signal on the signal wire that changes.  The + and – pins on your receiver don’t change.  Without a switch like those mentioned above you could create your own, but it requires electronics knowledge beyond hooking wires to wires.

In summary, I would recommend powering strip LEDs from the battery pack, either your craft’s main pack or a separate 3S (12Volt) Li-Po battery.  To control the lights with your transmitter switch, use a pico switch, brushed speed controller, or a hobby king example receiver controlled switch. (Or google ‘rc receiver controlled switch’).

Hope that helps!  For more detail, we have an entire LED lighting series available: http://www.hoverandsmile.com/nightflying.

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

Although for this Q&A I won’t go into soldering basics, we’ll just stick with what I’m using at this point and why.

I think since I started RC I have tried about five different soldering irons.  We have the classic soldering iron, the plastic or rubber grip with the long metal tube-o-heat that is normally twice the length of the handle itself, passed down from your father and his father before him.  The tip has oxidized beyond belief, and on a good summer day outside it may just melt butter in the sun.  You can also pick up new versions of these at your local hobby store or radio shack.  Needless to say, while they work, I always found that style to go along with being under-powered and unwieldy.  Oh, then there were the ‘guns’… I’m not a fan of those for RC and electronics, once again, unwieldy.

I carry around a butane powered soldering iron at the field with me in case we really need to do one of those repairs.  A gift from my parents, it’s never been used at the field, but damn it all, I AM ABLE AND WILLING TO SOLDER SHOULD THE NEED ARISE.

Weller WPS18MP PRO Series 60 Watt Soldering Iron (Photo from Amazon.com)

At home, though, I finally settled on the Weller WPS18MP PRO Series 60 Watt Soldering Iron.  The link is riiiiiiiight here.  I saw it at my local hardware store and although it wasn’t love at first sight (if it was, I’d check myself into Bellevue immediately), but I was curious enough to try it out.  Okay… I admit it.  I love it.  It’s got the wattage I need for basic RC and electronic soldering, it’s got a textured hand held grip, a small LED to light your work, and a small replaceable tip that plugs into the base unit.  The conical tip is great for your RC soldering needs, and your hand is much closer to your work based on the tip length and how the iron is designed to be held.  Given the design, you can also lay it sideways and the tip won’t touch the table, you don’t really need a soldering iron holster.  Although, I still like to at least prop it up against something non-combustible because I am a clutz.  A drawback, though, is that you can’t use run of the mill tips, if you need to replace a tip, you’re forced to buy replacements that are specifically designed for this iron.  (FYI, that tip is Weller Part #WPS10).

I’ve not needed to replace the tip yet, even after having this for over a year.  It heats up quickly, has a red/green LED to let you know it’s ready to go, and is my preferred soldering iron for any electronic circuit and RC soldering I’ve had to tackle thus far.

I suppose I should also mention a few of the other related tools I like to use with this soldering iron, namely the solder and a cleaning utensil.  For solder, I like extremely thin 60/40 rosin core solder.  I haven’t needed anything other than this, no separate flux required.  Tin the tips of both wires or connectors, heat, connect, and you’re done.  The reason I say extremely thin is that I’m often soldering 2 or 3mm bullet connectors to the ends of my motor and ESC leads.  Thick solder wire is a bit of pain to work with in those cramped spaces, or on the simple little circuit boards I’ll occasionally tinker with. We’re talking .031 diameter thickness.

As for cleaning, you have a couple of options… The wet sponge/old t-shirt/used handkerchief method is what I used to use, and although it worked, you really had to make sure the cleaning cloth was… well… clean.  The water should also be pure to keep the tip in (wait for it) TIP-TOP SHAPE.  Then I stumbled upon this little guy:

Hakko Tip Cleaner

I found it on Amazon while browsing around one day (photo taken from Amazon.com), and after trying it out, I’m sold.  No more having to wet a sponge, if you have a bit of solder-glob to remove, just feed the golden pac-man a 60/40 pellet from the tip of your soldering iron.  The instructions are so simple that they’re too easily turned into innuendo.

1. Thrust in
2. Twist around
3. Pull out

It’s really that simple, but take a moment to get your mind out of the gutter and back on to soldering.  Ready?  No?  Okay… How about… Now?  Yes?  Good.

The brass coils are supposed to be softer than the tip of your soldering iron itself, which should play nice with a little game I like to call longevity. The reviews on Amazon are solid, and I have to agree with them.

So there you have it, it’s what I use, and while your mileage may vary, the soldering iron, solder, and tip cleaner that sit on my desk have been serving me faithfully for some time now, and my cold solder joint days are well in the past.

Even if you don’t like the products above, regardless of what you choose, here are some thoughts on soldering in general:

• I prefer 40 watts at a minimum.  I want heat on, solder joint melting, and heat removal.  The less time the tip of my iron is melting solder on electronics the better.
• Use a solder meant for electronics.  If you don’t have a flux core solder like the 60/40 rosin core I prefer, get yourself some flux to help ensure less cold solder joints.  MAKE SURE THE FLUX IS FOR ELECTRONICS.
• Make sure it’s a comfortable fit for you – if you don’t have good control over your tool, you’ll burn yourself (experience talking, good blister on that one) or melt a bit more than you bargained for.
• For electronics and smaller RC components, thinner solder wire is better – less over-spill and the solder melts faster.

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

What’s going on?

It sure has been a while since I’ve been on an updating streak.  I spent this last week spending all of my waking hours outside of work and club meetings (I’m the Omahawks secretary now, who knew!) not only swapping platforms (bye, textpattern), updating the website layout, moving hosts, moving email accounts, and a few other housekeeping tidbits.

Why?  I needed something better than texpattern, that allows me to add content the way I want to with as little side editing as possible.  That comes down to tagging, categorizing, adding articles to series, and all sort of taxonomy and content related tasks that go well above and beyond the simple ‘type the post title and a paragraph’ tasks.  With the pain in the arse of updating eliminated as much as possible, I’m actually looking forward to adding some new content to the site, instead of having a small amount of side dread with so many ‘busy-work’ tasks I no longer have to worry about.

With that in mind, I’m thinking about redoing the RC Power series first few episodes, then following along with the rest.  This leads up to a new series I’m thinking of calling ‘Go big or go home – Electrifying a gas or nitro plane’.  I’ve done two electric conversions to standard .40 Tower Trainer and a .46 Phoenix Model Sea Bee setups.  Both were quite different in terms of the motor mounting, and choosing the right components.  They fly well and I’m glad they worked out so nicely, I look forward to working on a series with these conversions.  They’re also based on a club presentation I made on topic of electric flight, as my club has a lot of guys that fly nitro and gasoline that are looking for more electric action.

I am perpetually un-soloed.

It seems I’ve at least two long running jokes about me in the circle of my RC club members.  The first is in regards to soloing.  At a club with a training program, a pilot is considered soloed after they’ve completed a set of maneuvers without training boxes under the watchful gaze of an instructor.  Of course, our club typically performs these training programs with .40 size standard nitro trainers.  I never went through the training course at the club, as I was only flying my little park flyer electric craft, things I’d build from plans online, or the combat flyer.  Fast forward a year and I’m fairly comfortable with electrics, and a few instructors thought I should just be marked off soloed and be done with it.

The soloing of a pilot entails the pilot wearing a cheesy disposable tie to a club meeting, where the president hands them their soloing certificate and cuts the tie in half.  I told the instructors not to mark me as soloed, even with my foamy flying I’ve done over the year, handling bigger planes and landing on runways was still new to me.  So when I started my electric conversions of bigger craft, I had a club member or two with me, but still taught myself without the buddy box.  So then I was considered even ‘more soloed’ than before.  However, I refused to accept it, and enough time passed to where I’m not sure I would learn much from buddy boxing and training by the next training season.  Our training coordinator lightly threatened that I should just bring the tie to a meeting and join the ranks of the soloed anyhow, to which I replied, ‘The day you solo me is the day I resign as Secretary’.  So I’ve deemed myself ‘perpetually un-soloed’.  We joked about my bringing a tie cut in half to a club meeting, taping it back together, and getting the aforementioned ‘Perpetually Un-Soloed’ certificate.

Nancy Boy? Really?

Another running joke at the field relates to how much I’m an electric only kind of guy (I flew one liquid fueled plane for about 3 minutes once, that counts, right?).  One of our club members, Ed, likes to joke how electrics are for girls… even though he has a few electrics himself.  All in good fun, of course… but once you call someone out for being a Nancy Boy in front of others, it sticks.  So occasionally, that term gets thrown around the club, and I try my hardest not to turn my head and answer when it’s called out…. but it’s starting to stick, damn it.

I’ve DX8 something.

So, I picked up a Spektrum DX8 recently.  I don’t fly Spektrum anymore, I’ve pretty much converted to Airtronics at this point.  I love the SD-10G.  So programmable… So geeky.  It’s that geeky-ness however that convinced me to purchase the DX8.  I wanted to try it out, try out some telemetry, and even experience some vibration feedback when it’s time to land (on a side note – if there’s a transmitter to get females into the hobby, it’s probably this one).  I’ll probably do some follow up videos with binding and dual rates/expo like I did with the dx6 and 7 at some point.  Currently, I plan on using the DX8 for all of my bind-n-fly foamies and extra combat fliers.  That’s right… The primary plane my DX8 will fly costs 1/5 of the transmitter itself.  I think I may becoming a RC hoarder collector.

It’s getting late, and I need to drive to Syracuse for some non-RC related training tomorrow, so I’ll stick with this for now.  To leave you with something graphical, here’s a shot I took of some new and old night flyer craft I’ve worked on this summer.  That reminds me, I could make an article on those as well, beyond the basic night flying series… So much to do… so little time.

I’m Eric R. Krystof of Hover and Smile, and thanks for reading.

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

Mixing, Delta Wing Style.

It’s not exactly a mixing 101 introduction, we’ll hit that topic some other day, but we do introduce the topic of mixing and how it pertains to a combat or delta wing style flyer. That is, a plane that does not have a separate aileron or elevator. They’re combined into one synchronized pair of control surfaces called ‘elevons’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Elevon = Elevator + Aileron

When a mommy elevator and a daddy aileron reaaaaaaally like each other… No, we’re not going there. Oh, the letters I would receive.

Why do we need mixing at all? If you plug your aileron servo and elevator servo into your receiver and start banging on the stick, you’d quickly notice that only one control surface moves with elevator input and the other only moves with aileron input. Since we don’t have separate elevator and aileron control surfaces, this poses a problem.

We need to mix these transmitter inputs to multiple receiver channel outputs. That’s the quickest way to describe mixing, but not necessarily the most simplistic. Basically, we want moving the transmitter stick in one direction to actually make more than just one servo move. By default, your transmitter only moves one servo at a time if you only move a transmitter stick in one horizontal or vertical direction. Rudders move left and right, elevators move up and down, and so do ailerons.

But we need the ‘ELEVONS’ here, and we need them pronto. STAT. ASAP. There are typically three ways to perform mixing of any style, and we’ll cover two of them here. The first isn’t widely used anymore, but still fun to consider.

Mechanical Mixing

This is the one we won’t be covering in detail. But think of an aileron servo, sitting on rails, and the aileron servo connects to our two control surfaces. Now, picture an elevator servo attached to the aileron servo itself. When you give elevator movement, the control surfaces move because you’re actually MOVING the aileron servo ITSELF. When the aileron input is given, the normal servo arms move the control surfaces as you’d expect.

That’s the kind of rig you’d have to create for mechanical elevon mixing. It’s neat, and I’ve seen it done on small little combat flyers when the pilot didn’t have a programmable transmitter and the servos were embedded on a circuit board. So, not a huge amount of the population would need it. I may try and build one myself someday just to say I did. It’s how I roll here in my RC man cave.

V-Tail Adapter Mixing

So, let’s say you DO NOT have a transmitter that’s capable of mixing built in. Say the park flyer transmitters that come with popular Spektrum bind and fly kits – you know, the game controller looking transmitters. Those don’t have mixing built in for delta wing style, because they’re often attached to planes with fully separate elevators and ailerons.

So what can you do then? Pick yourself up a v-tail mixer device. They’re cheap and online and here are two examples. One here and one here.

The wiring for these is really quite simple. The hardware mixer sits between your receiver and servos. You plug your mixer into your aileron and elevator receiver channels, and the servos plug into the mixer. Voila! Instant elevon/delta wing mixing.

Programmable Transmitters

This is by far the preferred method. Most of our transmitters these days are programmable in some way, either by a PC or on the transmitter itself via switches and buttons and big old LCD screen to confuse you. However, this really is the best way to program mixing, as mechanical requires much more building setup and the v-tail mixers aren’t often as customizable as you might like.

As far as your transmitter goes, you want to look in your setup menus for options such as ‘Elevon Mixing’, ‘Delta Wing Mixing’ and the like. They’re typically under setup / adjustment / wing mix menu options. If only I had every single transmitter out there, but I don’t… so it’s hard to describe it in exact menu locations.

What is our goal with this mixing of which you speak?

The goal here is to have aileron/elevator stick movement translate into moving our elevons together in harmony. They shouldn’t be separate. We want Brad and Angelina, not Brad and Jennifer. If that reference is still applicable when you read this, I’m thankful. I would have used Burt and Loni or Ike and Tina but then I’d really be dating myself.

Quite simply though, here’s the final output checklist for your stick movements and what your control surfaces should be doing. If you’re looking at the back of the plane and the nose of the craft is facing away from you:

No matter what mixing method you choose, if things aren’t looking like the above, you may need to reverse some servo directions on your transmitter or swap aileron/elevator servo receiver channels on your craft.

Manually mixing with your transmitter

A lot of transmitters offer ‘Programmable’ or ‘User’ mix options. These are for when the built in mixes on transmitters don’t give you what you’re looking for. Elevon mixing is SO common that I’d be surprised to see a programmable transmitter made today that doesn’t have it built in.

However, if you watch the video, we go through creating a manual mix, two of them to be exact. Why? We want the elevator stick input to also move the aileron servo (mix 1). We ALSO want the aileron stick input to move the elevator servo (mix 2). So they’re actually mixing against each other in a way.

So, a brief intro to mixing, targeted towards delta wing style flyers, like our combat flyer. Enjoy!

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

So let’s take a look at some small tweaks we’ve made to the combat flyer over the year, some lessons learned, and some updated plans and 3D views. Since we’ve already covered the Mach One (aka Mark I – our lawyers messed up on that one, if we had lawyers or even a dispute to begin with) in previous articles, we’re just referencing some slight differences here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Google Sketchup Plans

DOWNLOAD!

Our plans have been redrawn in Google Sketchup, and are available as a PDF to download here. This replaces our old plans, they’re ‘icky’.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Some 3D Views are also available to help get a feel for what this looks like assembled. The biggest change to the plans besides cleaning them up – we’ve shortened the battery block to allow us to move the CG forward a slight tad.

Control Horns: Move em up and swap em out

A fellow club member, E.J. Murphy, noted a mistake I made on the model I built in one of my first videos, so I wanted to make note of it. The hole in the control horn that the control rod fits into is just a bit far back – actually it’s well far back from the hinge line. It’s best that the control horn ‘holes’ line up directly above the hinge line. It ‘calms’ the flyer down a little bit compared to them being too far back.

Also, I’m trying Lexan plastic as not only a control horn, but also a small ‘receiver protection box’. I’m not terribly worried about most of the electronics in the combat flyer except for the receiver – it’s arguably worth more than the rest of the plane combined. Now you can use cheap receivers and transmitters, and that’s fine, but I love my Airtronics SD-10G. It has great advanced programming and customization that the geek/dork/nerd in me just drools over. (It doesn’t come with a drool shield, unfortunately) So, I built a small lexan cover to slide the receiver into – it has to be better than nothing if the errant prop goes KA-CHUNK against the receiver!

Get your Velcro Strap On

The Mach One is a squirrelly flyer compared to the classic trainer, even though it’s the first plane I learned to fly with. However, it’s meant to be squirrelly. This is FULL ONCONTACT COMBAT! Similar to Sparta, with almost the same amount of madness. So, keep the battery attached – make a secure Velcro strap that holds hugs the battery in place – don’t just depend on a single piece of Velcro attached to the underside of the plane. Speaking from experience on that one!

We (Temporarily) Went Pink!

Yeah, it’s Pink. Prior to this, we’ve been using DOW Protection Board III – available locally at our Lowe’s shop. It’s blue, it’s around 1/4 inch thick, and it’s great for cheap foam planes, especially for COMBAT! However, if you’ve worked with it, you’ll notice a wave to the foam, and it’s annoying.

I decided to try something from a Lowe’s competitor of sorts – Owens Corning Pink Board from Home Depot. Still 1/4 inch thick and fanfolded, and while the sheet has a slight curve to the full width, it doesn’t have the waves that annoyed me so much in the past.

It’s a tiny bit more brittle than the blue fan fold from a simple bend test, and it may add 10-20 grams more weight to your flyer, but I love working with it in comparison, so while I’ll still use both, I do prefer… the girlie colored stuff. Thankfully, with some paint and tape, you can de-girlize it a bit.

In the end, I like the blue fan fold the best. Waves or not, the pink is a tad heavier and too brittle for combat. Live and learn.

Preferred Prop/Motor/ESC/Battery Combo

After some slight experimentation with props and motors, I’ve found my personal preference to be the following:

EMAX CF2812 1600KV 2-3S Brushless Outrunner Motor

Available from Heads Up RC, this motor has worked great for our combat flyer.

8×4 Speed Prop

You can certainly use 7×3.5 or 9×5 props with the EMAX motor, but I personally prefer the 8×4 prop. It handles great and gives me the speed I need to get out of some of those hairy combat situations… or into them! Now, the CF2812 is rated as a maximum prop size of 7”, but I’ve had no problems with the 8×4 on this motor. 9×5 – you’re pushing it, and definitely avoid wide open throttle.

18 Amp to 25 Amp ESC

Get some cheap ESCs for your combat flyer – I’ve found some nice programmable ones for my various foamies at hobbypartz.com.

1000 to 1800 mAH 3S Battery

While a 2S 7.4 V Li-Po battery works with the above motor – I like the power behind a 3S Battery, and I prefer almost the middle of the 1000-1800 mAH power range – that being a 1300 mAH 3S 11.1 Volt Li-Po. Balances the plane well, I get the power I need, and the flight times are decent. With a 1300 mAH battery, I can float gently around at half throttle for almost 15 minutes. HOWEVER, when in COMBAT! mode, I cut that down to around 5, as you’re really working the motor and servos. Good stuff!

Servos

We generally did use 9G servos, but we tried some little 5 gram units and see how they performed… Well, they performed badly, to say the least. Of course we’re not looking for QUALITY items here – it’s friggin COMBAT after all. But, between quality and the torque from the combat maneuvers, we’ve had better luck with 9 gram servos, so stick with those!

Paint ‘Em Up!

Hopefully you’re not flying these alone… Playing COMBAT! with yourself could be considered lonely and disturbing. So get some friends, but make sure you can tell each other’s planes apart! Dress them up! Foam safe paint, decals, colored packing tape, big thick markers – do what you have to so that you keep them not only separated, but you keep orientation of your craft as well – top from bottom and direction.

Of course, if you add too much tape or paint, you’ll strengthen your flyer up some, surely, but you’ll also add weight. Keep your balance in mind.

Combat and Friends

We’ve had numerous bits of correspondence over the year related to our combat flyers, which has been really great to read and share with our friends. Here now are two great examples of others using the delta wing Combat flyer:

Pantseatflyer

Pantseatflyer built a single blog post on his experience with our Mach One combat flyer, and hopefully we’ll see an update as to how he’s taken out a friend or two, or perhaps the evil squirrel that ran across the field. Pantseatflyer’s Blog.

Chino Valley Modeler’s Inc.

The Chino Valley club not only built a combat flyer or two, they held a combat competition, built a large scale version of the combat flyer, and even a DUALBRUSHLESS version! Thanks to Rick Nichols and Randy Meathrell for sending me some great pictures and results of the combat competition, where 5 of the 7 craft were based on the Mach One!

They tried some crepe streamers cut in half to make some of the 1v1 combat jaunts a little easier, about 6 feet of string attached to 6 feet of streamer. They’re even considering trying 12 feet, as the six didn’t make much of a difference to the flight… I can just imagine some video of a prop eating up or getting wrapped up in a streamer… Sounds spectacular!

Between the huge MACH ONE BATTLESTAR GALACTICA CRUISER OF FOAM DEATH(my personal nickname for it) and the dual brushless Mach One setup, they’ve really raised the combat bar!

Check them out at cvma-online.com.

Our Final Thoughts

That wraps up our Combat: Reloaded segment. A refresher to some changes and tweaks made, some freshly drawn plans, some ideas on power systems and coloring schemes, and even how others have taken the Mach One idea and run with it. Clearly, Chameleon’s design, which evolved over many years, is a hit when it comes to fast paced foam combat action.

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I also was segment leader for their first foam Combat! event. After cutting kits, selling some, as well as sending out the plans to fellow members, we had around 10 planes in our small little segment. That’s what you hear about the ‘Nice looking combat event’ in the KPTM news video.

Unfortunately… It was a VERY windy day, and with a lot of planes at the show grounded because of the wind (gusts of 30+ followed by rain), the combat event was a success in that we got most of the planes up and kept most of them flying through the wind for the time being, but alas, no contact like we normally see on our up-to-this-point more calm Monday casual combat period. Ah well, perhaps I’ll try and get a foamie Combat! event or two on the Omahawks club calendar next year.

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

Last minute flight checks

Last minute flight checks

Consider flying your craft at just around the dusk point of the day before you go all out into the darkness. This way you’ll get a good idea as to what your LEDs will look like to make sure you can find your proper orientation and you have no circuit issues that may arise from taking your craft into the air.

Perform the same maneuvers you’re looking to perform at full darkness. If you’ve any loose cables or weak points in your circuit – stress test them while there’s still some light left in the sky, that way you can retrieve your plane if the lights… well… go out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arm yourself!

Spooky Spooky… Scary Scary!

If you decided to use a brushed ESC to light your circuits, don’t forget that your ESCarms properly. Just like an ESC that powers your motor, you’ll need to have any switches controlling your LED ESC in the off position, just as your throttle needs to be fully down to arm an ESC.

Don’t forget that if you land and swap batteries – as you’ll have to toggle your LEDswitch off again.

Photos and Videos

Pops does some video work

Manual Shutter Photos

I’ve enjoyed creating this night flyer, and it seems to be a bit of a crowd pleaser. Numerous times in an empty field in Springfield or at the Omahawks field in Omaha I’ve had people stop by wondering what exactly is that thing in the air.

On a fairly lucky beginner’s attempt at open shutter / bulb mode photography, I decided to attempt to take some light tracing photographs. I think they came out fairly well, and if nothing else I’ve something to decorate my work area with.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the series, and although we’ll probably create some other night flying craft and utilize other techniques in the future, I feel this series gives a good all around look at numerous ways to choose, power, and apply some LED goodness to whatever you’re flying!

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

Remote Control – Flick that switch!

Remote controlling your lights is a completely optional addition to your LED circuit. There’s no need for it, but it’s got a cool factor that can’t be beat. Consider the capability of remotely controlling your lights without having to manually land and connect them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not only that, but you can use mixing capabilities of your transmitter to control brightness levels (based on how you do the wiring). I’ve used a dial on my transmitter to dim the lights to my preferred brightness level based on the light outside or if I’m taking photos. You could also mix them to say, your throttle… Beef up the juice and your afterburners begin to glow!

So let’s take a look at the basics. You can buy receiver controlled dimming switches, or you can just take a simple BRUSHED ESC and adapt it to your LED needs. If your receiver controlled switch is a simple on/off toggle, you can’t dim your LEDs, but a brushed ESC will let you dim to your heart’s dimming desire.

The Brushed ESC circuit

Consider our diagram with Vinnie at the helm:

The entire upper left portion of this diagram is exactly the basic configuration you’ll see in any electric flyer. The rest of the circuit for the LED circuit utilizes a BRUSHED ESCto work as a remotely controlled voltage regulator. We take our brushed ESC and instead of plugging it into the throttle channel (since we already have our primary ESChandling throttle), we plug it into an open receiver channel for switching.

But we don’t plug in the brushed ESC to your receiver completely. We want to removethe red wire from the servo plug from our brushed ESC. Clip it or slide it out of your servo connector, tape it off with electric tape and leave it alone. You’re only plugging the brushed ESC into your receiver for common ground and signal, only two of your three wires are used.

Brushed ESC Wiring

Now, that’s where the servo connector from our brushed ESC is used. As for the rest of the cables, you’re plugging the power cable to your brushed ESC into a battery – either your flight pack battery or a separate lipo.

What about the LED circuit? It plugs into the brushed ESC where you’d normally connect a motor. See the connection? We’re using a brushed ESC just as you would in a regular plane, except instead of using your receiver to drive throttle of a motor, we’re using our receiver to drive our LED circuit.

I used a simple GWS Brushed ESC here, it can accept two or three cell Li-Po batteries, and since my circuit is designed for 12 volts, we’ll be just fine.

I’ve used this setup on a gear switch open on my receiver. Plugging in my brushedESC for my LEDS into that open channel (RED WIRE DISCONNECTED), plugging the flight pack battery into my brushed ESC’s power, and then taking the output of that power into my LED power block, I’ve got total control of the LEDs from a simple on/off standpoint.

But what about dimming? How do we gradually turn lights on or off? You’ll need to learn your transmitter’s mixing to control your brushed ESC to vary it’s voltage from off all the way through on. My transmitter has a dial, so I can control complete dimming.

Remember, the brushed ESC is a voltage regulator – you can use it to control full on/full of switching, or dimming ‘in-between’ full on and off.

Remote Controlled Relay Switches

If you don’t want to use or have a brushed ESC to use, you could purchase a remote controlled receiver switch. Here’s an example – a Pico Switch from Dimension Engineering.

Dimension Engineering Switch

The circuit is just like our brushed ESC – we connect to a receiver channel, but thePOWER for our circuit comes from the other side of the switch:

Dimension Engineering Pico Switch Wiring Diagram

We’ve not tried the Pico Switch, but it’s the same as brushed ESC, although it may not allow for partial voltage regulation, so you may not get dimming out of this (in fact, I’m assuming it’s just a simple on/off relay).

Either way, from a remote controlled relay switch, remote controlled dimmer, to brushed ESC, experiment with controlling your LEDs remotely!

Always the useful tool, a voltmeter is a great way to watch the voltage allowed through your circuits as you’re turning dials or flicking switches.

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!

Craft, meet LEDs – LEDs, meet craft.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, let’s keep you from eating a clubside curb sandwich and leave the LED circuits for your plane or helicopter instead, shall we?

Our strip LEDs have an adhesive backing on them, but sooner or later the bond will weaken if the LEDs are moved from one craft to another. So, perhaps a little contact cement or a couple of CA spots may be necessary. Primarily, though, we’re wrapping clear packing tape around the strips, it smooths out over the wing and protects the entire circuits.

As far as our bulb LEDs go, we’re simply embedding the wires with a slight cut into our foam body and pushing the wires inside, and placing packing tape on top to secure the wire, and keep the wing sturdy. We point one LED at the rudder for illumination, and our light tube is nothing more than a straw with two LEDs pointed at each other. Easy way to make a light tube!

The SMD LEDs are simply strung through the middle of the fuselage to the underside, embedded similar to the bulb LEDs, and taped over with packing tape for protection.

Our craft lit up at the top and bottom:

The designer of our combat flyer, Chameleon, has added a useful tip if you’re looking to get some angled light effects on your plane, especially with the strip LEDs. A simple angled foam strip, with LEDs attached along the angle.

Next up on our series – we’ll be looking at controlling your LEDS remotely with your transmitter, considering relay switches and brushed ESCs.

RC Airplanes, Helicopters, with a touch of electronics! Hover And Smile!