Finished ATTF #114 - Lipo'd Tech. Comments!
=== Topic? Topic!? We don’t need no stinkin’ Topic! ===
This episode…heh…I have never seen a show go so off-topic so many times!
It was all great stuff, though! For those of you that listen to “This Week in Tech” by Leo Laporte, you’ll understand when I say that I kept hearing the song: Raaaat Hoooole!!!
Let’s see, some of the most fun diversions:
“Wait…you still use Internet Explorer?”
“You can never go back after using dual screens!”
“Imagine if Apple made a transmitter!” (Answer: you would have to jailbreak it and get connector adapters to use other servos and batteries).
The whole topic on Electric cars was pretty cool too. In any case, it was just cool to hear about “hybrid” technologies being used on camera helis. We did that on the Yamaha R-Max, but it was just using a brushed generator at the time.
In any case, a bit of off-topic discussion on related technology is actually pretty cool.
=== Battery Technology===
Five years ago was stone-age? Just FIVE? Grrrrrr….I’d lay it on you thick if you hadn’t already predicted my reaction to that! Why in MY day we….nnnghgh!!
(bites tongue).
Yah, I’d say that electric RC was first feasible about 20 years go. However, you had to pay through the nose, and flight times were only about 3 to 5 minutes. Vertical performance…only happened after a dive. The weird thing is that the technology progressed REALLY slowly for about 10 years. Airplanes and radios were improving at great speeds, but we were still using brushed motors, and the best upgrade was from Nicd to Nimh. Admittedly, I dropped it for a few years out of boredom.
Then the first RC-useable LiPos started to come out about 10 years because of the cellphone technology revolution. Then we got great brushless motors due to CD-Rom and DVD-drives. Our spread-spectrum radios are derivative technology as well. The point is that electric RC Modeling simply wasn’t a big enough market to inspire commercial development. We always had to piggy-back off of something else.
But now UAVs are the THING in industry! Recon, news reporting, TV games, movies, and WAR! Holy
, we have technology being developed specifically for our stuff! I agree that the whirlwind of development in the past 5 years has just been awesomely insane!
I’ve said it before: I wish I was 15 again so I could have the free time to enjoy all of this cool stuff coming down the pipe!
So, what can we look forward to? First off, it appears that A123 batteries (Lithium Iron Phosphate) are still improving their energy density.
http://www.powermanagement-europe.co...leID=214502657 Works for me! There are also some other Lithium technologies that will try to fix the aging problem and the over-discharge problem.
However, I have not seen much technology in improving the energy density of batteries. If anything, we’ve been going BACKWARDS. Each LiPo cell that is released with a higher C-rating is just a little bit heavier while still having the same capacity. At this rate, the A123 and the newer NiMh batteries will have near the energy density of the high-C LiPos. :/
As far as pure energy-density goes, most money is being pumped towards fuel-cell technology. There are even some existing prototypes now. I must admit that having the efficiency and clean operation of a battery mixed with the speed and convenience of fuel-power is mighty intriguing.
=== Analog Technology ===
(sigh) You guys are spoiled.
Yah, I had an old MRC transmitter. Dual rates? Nope. Exponential? Nope. Trim memory? Nope. I tell you, some of my most exciting flights were from that transmitter:
Me: “Oh crap! I forgot to reverse the ailerons when switched from the Baby Bipe to the New Era!” Hey Andy, can you flip the Aileron Reverse switch on the back of my transmitter? Hurry!”
Andy: “I’ll grab my jeweler screwdriver!”
(Opens the back)
Andy: “Errr… I know Futaba is channel 1 and JR is channel 3, which channel is ailerons on an MRC?”
Me: “Ugh…flying with my ailerons crossed as screwed up my memory. Try 3.”
(click)
Me: “
AAAAHHHH That’s elevator! Change it back! Change it back!”
(click)
Andy: “Sorry, it must be channel 1”
(click)
Me: “No!!! That was throttle! You killed my engine you turkey! Dead Stick! (Okay…I can do this….)”
(click)
Me: “Wha?”
(THUD)
Andy: “That should be the right one!”
Me: “Dang it! Warn me before you flip the switch! I….oh never mind. Get the back and help me collect my plane, would ya?”
Andy: “Hold on, I dropped one of the screws to your TX while messing with it.”
Yes sir, folks! We spent months piecing together little sticks of brittle balsa into a plane, and then entrusted it’s fate to radio equipment that had fewer features than most people’s wrist-watches! Thankfully, they later started placing the reverse switches under a panel on the front, and labeled them correctly. At that point, it was mostly that you got accustomed to always taking off out of trim.
I once bought one of the “programmable” non-computer JR radios. Yes, I could actually create custom mixes by flipping dip-switches and twisting pots in the back of the radio. It like somebody had taken a 1940 Military communication station and shrunk it down to fit in a TX. The problem is that I had to dedicate it to one plane.
When I finally purchased my JR-388….crimony, words can not describe how much I loved that thing! Gone was the fear and headaches. I could make my planes truly MINE and make them fly the way I wanted.
Jamie, Diggs, and Chris have said it multiple times on the show: don’t be cheap with the transmitter. It is how you connect yourself to the airplane. Every time I upgrade, I wonder how I put up with the old stuff. You think you don’t need a feature? You will! Your flying will expand to fill the boundaries of that radio. Diggs is about to reach a new level of Nirvana! I can’t wait to hear his review.
Another awesome show guys!
- Jim