Sounds sweet, can't wait to see the video

Battery data. And this better work

pre voltage post voltage flight time pre voltage post voltage flight time pre voltage post voltage flight time
E-Flite 120 mah 14c batteries
battery A 4.13 3.6 5:51 4.14 3.59 5:55 4.16 3.58 5:57
battery B 4.14 3.45 4:30 4.14 3.55 6:02 4.17 3.52 6:01
battery C 4.11 3.52 6:28 4.1 3.54 6:19 4.12 3.56 6:20
battery D 4.11 3.58 6:06 4.14 3.55 5:43 4.11 3.62 6:20
E- Flite 110 mah 10C(?) batteries
battery A 412 364 419 414 363 512 414 359 522
battery B 411 372 328 412 367 406 414 365 410
battery C 414 359 525 414 359 518 414 357 533
FlightMax 138 ma h8c(?)
battery A cancelled
battery B cancelled
battery C 4.16 3.75 3:30 4.14 3.75 3:20
battery D 415 372 411 414 373 353
battery E 414 374 300 414 379 242
battery F 415 369 500 414 372 408
At this Time Flight max Batteries have bee removed from the MSR battery program have been removed from the MSR battery program

I hope this makes some sense to you fellows. The batteries were canceled because the were junk.

Fern

Hey while crusing the other forums, I found this, how to convert your $1.99 Harbor Freight or similar multi meter into a meter that will give you your amp and volt readings like a watt meter or similar.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=949923

Check post #295 by Critterhunter, for a dummies guide to the install. I like his as you can still use the meter for it's normal duty the way he did his.

Well my mini Cessna bought the farm today, must have not liked daylight flying since I converted it to night status.

Took it out for a spin, all of a sudden a little puff of smoke and down she comes. Still had controls, and managed a decent landing.

Got home, popped off the cowl, and found the motor had fried. It got so hot it melted the tabs off the circuit board. Dang, there's 50-60 bucks gone.

Oh well, figure I'll save up some bucks and replace the fuselage/wings/ and rx motor unit.
And spend some time dressing up the light lay out. She was getting a little tired looking after more then her share of hitting non moving items anyhow.

Scarecrow, sorry about the Cessna. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Well, I had some fun today. One of my friends has (well, had) an Airsoft gun and he was shooting stuff with it. He somehow ended up on the roof of my garage (it's easy to get up by climbing the fence) and was shooting stuff from up high. He decided to shoot a cardboard box. I decided to take two steps to my left.

Unfortunately, that small movement put my left eye directly in the path of the oncoming BB.

So all I remember seeing is a white BB the size of my fist right in front of my eye , an image that'll undoubtedly be burned into my brain forever. I saw him standing there, the roof, the fence, and a massive white globe eclipsing most of it. I heard the "Pop!"

Then the pain hit.

Now, for people who know me, intense pain doesn't slow me down. In fact, it makes me bounce around like an Energizer bunny that drank a gallon of Tabasco sauce. I started hopping around screaming really bad words and covering my eyes and directing some foul language at him, mostly starting with "f", "f", "b", "s", and, well, you get it. I heard him hit the ground; he'd jumped off the 9' roof at a run. I was somehow coherent enough to understand this, even without seeing him.

Well, a few minutes later I was in a sprint towards the fence to get to the roof. The gun was up there, and he knew I'd figured this out, and he thought I was about to shoot the **** out of him. But that's not how I work. No, this sort of pain isn't something I'd wish on anyone; it's just inhuman. Instead, I got to the roof in a split second with one eye nonfunctional, grabbed the gun, swung it in a nice, wide vertical loop and let it go straight for the driveway about 12' down from where I was standing, about a 16' drop total. The gun exploded quite spectacularly upon contact with the asphalt, especially since it was going like 100mph. I guess I can throw just fine even if my eye is about to explode. I figured he didn't need that gun anymore, and later he told me he actually agreed with my decision completely.


Anywho, I got in the house, put some ice on it, all better, right? Well, it was still a lot blurry and hurt like hell but it seemed to be improving. I laid down for a little while with my ice pack. When I got up I was entirely blind on the left side. Completely. 100%. And the pain was even worse than the first second after impact.

Time for the ER.....

Got there. Barely able to walk. Threw up 3 slices of pizza all over the parking lot. Sat in waiting room. Got my eye checked. Sat in waiting room some more. Rode a wheelchair. Slept for a few mintues in a hospital bed. Got an IV in my arm. Gave some blood samples. Got all sorts of stuff done to my eye. Put my head in a massive white doughnut that buzzed. Got a really powerful blue laser shined in my eye, as well as a bunch of super-bright lights. Got about 10 gallons of drops. Got a prescription for MORE drops. Got told to not go to school on monday. Got the IV taken out. Went home.

Oh, yeah, and while I was getting my eye examined the BB popped out. Yeah, it stayed in there for about 3 or 4 hours. After that my vision started coming back slowly. The optometrist told me a grisly story about some precussion-induced capilliary bleeding right under my cornea and right over my pupil, leading to a bit of total blindness for a little while. It'll probably be like that for a couple days, so no airplane flying or building. I have no depth perception right now, and 20/10 vision in one eye (my good one) and 20/25 in the other (the hurt one). I miss my full-time 20/10 where I can read the whole vision chart as well as the little copyright sentence at the bottom (I guess they have to copyright that crap). I feel friggin blind.

I'm wearing a patch right now so I've only got one eye to work with. The other hurts like it got ATTACKED BY AN ELF WITH A HAMMER. Seriously, right after I stood up off the couch it was the worst possible pain imaginable. Go take your Dremel, put a high-speed cutting bit on it, turn it on to full power, and swallow it without chewing. That's like 1/100th of what this felt like. It's subdued by modern medical technology right now, though, but still hurts pretty bad.

That pretty much sums up my day. I apologize if I've made any typing mistakes (you may have noticed that when I have two working eyes there are very few, I might even venture zero, errors).

So no airplanes, no school, no biking, no nothing. Just lay in bed all day with my eyes closed. Terrible.

That's all....

My sympathies TP. I guess feel lucky that you didn't loose an eye.
May you get better soonest.

Wow Rudy, that's terrible. I hope that you heal up nicely. I will be printing your post as a buddies sons seem to think eye protection is not all that mandatory while they are shooting airsoft guns.

Fern

Fern,
The combat modules for the pz planes is for their larger stuff. if they come out with a micro version that would be awesome. Dogfighting in the backyard!

BP Hobbies was a badius Favorite before HC. I have dealt with them no problems.

TP,
Glad to hear you will be ok. As they say it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
Come to think of it that has been our motto at previous fly ins....... or was it fun and games until someone blows their ass up .... something like that......

Phil, I have a shirt that shows three squirrels on a tree branch holding some acorns. One is shown droping a nut and there's a caption: "It's all fun and games until someone loses a nut".

Tim, feel free to print the story. As far as I know you've got pretty much full printing rights for stuff I write because of the radio/all the other stuff you sent me. Or maybe you could just shoot your buddy's son in the eye with an Airsoft gun. That'll take care of the problem quite miraculously I think..... (that smiley is exactly what I look like right now, by the way...)

Scarecrow, that's what I've been hearing since I was about 3 years old . Actually, I've never had to go to the ER before except when I was 10 months old and got my toe sucked up in the vacuum cleaner. Took off a large amount of skin, exposed the bone etc. I've been hearing about how lucky I am since 5 minutes fter I got shot, though.....


I'm gonna wear a big black pirate eye patch to school when I'm able to go back. My pupil is going to be constantly dialated by drops and bright light makes my whole brain hurt. Personally I don't really see why I can't go tomorrow but I'm no optometrist......

Phil, I do not know that about the present x-port gear but the plug is there now and the explication at HH is that it is for expansion. I was actually sadder to see that the AR6400 is not in the micro Cub.

The Tri-tip oven e que is underway.

Fern

I think it may be time for someone to tell us the proper way to store lipos for extended periods and does it work?

OK here is how I do it now and how I did it before I got the accucel-6. But first, the goal is to store lipos balanced at approximately nominal voltage, balanced. Or 3.7 v per cell.

On the accucel, in the lipo menu, there is a storage option. Set it and let it go.

On the triton jr this option does not exist, so I set the discharge and checked until I was close and balanced the battery.

If I am not going to be flying a battery for more than 3-4 weeks, it goes into storage mode. That's how I got caught short on Saturday. I am flying some of the same batteries from 2 years ago. And I had some bug batteries go bad because I never put them in storage.

I am certain that there other folks with more knowledge on this than I, so please correct me where I made a mistake.

Fern

I think you covered it Fern. Just get them to 3.7 volts per cell and make sure they are balanced and you are set.

Fern,
with the combat modules they send out an ifra red beam if you get your opponent in your sights, the beam triggers his module causing an interruption of motor power. keep on his six long enough and you force them down
sounds like a blast. would be fun with our normal hopped up Slow sticks. great chances for a hit while keeping in close proximity to each other to keep it interesting...
Too bad it is proprietary to their systems

Fern - The edge is my current favorite! I admit I wasn't really excited about getting a flat foamie, the SIM doesn't do it justice and I never liked the looks. But this thing is very forgiving and lots of fun, I've been either doing low circuits in the yard between the trees or taking it up to ~60' and hovering in the wind, it will just stand on it's tail and even fly backward, I'm using a lot of rudder and aileron. I find it easier to balance in a hover when going away from the wind instead of into it with the bottom of the fuse....??? Weather has been carpy and I'm in vampire mode, trying for two 500 3S packs a day before work during the last half hour of daylight. Wind just won't let up and it snowed yesterday. I think I have about 25-30 packs through this thing, only damage so far is the velcro on the fuse tore a chunk out of the foam on two different hard landings. Last time out I managed a couple of circuits around the yard within a WS of the ground, ~15% throttle. I'm sticking with the GWS 8x4.3.