Originally Posted by Goanna

Just FYI I listed all my spare eflite TX's on ebay about 2 weeks ago after I got my DX7. They sold right away with Buy it Now! The 4 channels form the tandem, mcx and msr went for 20 each and the LP5DSM from my CX2 went for 30. Getting back almost $100 definitely made me feel a bit better about investing in the DX7, lol.

I agree. I'm glad I re-bought another Dx6i cuz its so versatile. I traded the original DX6i I had to a friend along with the blinged and upgraded cx2 I had. he really wanted a DX6i real bad so I traded him all of it for a B400 and a 8303 Jr Tx. I sold the b400 and the Jr Tx to buy the Tandems I have now. I'm gonna give him the stock CX2 Tx too cuz I don't need it anymore now. The stock Tandem Tx I'll keep it in the event I sell one of my tandems RTF to buy the Blade SR coming out this month. I also have a Blade CP Pro 2 Tx I bought here and will be able to use it for the SR after I get used to it with the de-tuned Tx that comes with it. Man I love this hobby.

douglas

My 250 batteries arrived today and considering the 2 day snow storm delays here, not too bad. I got some good Tandem flying in this evening. Nice. I may just have to chance it outside despite temps in the 30’s and snow on the ground. Maybe a 90 second quick flight might do it.

Here is my Tandem Rescue as a video camera platform.

Camera is $13 Ebay Keychain with only mod being the removal of keychain.

Video is much better than this Youtube clip shows. I made it small so I could upload it faster.

TandemRescue_0001.wmv (2 min 20 sec)

Cool! How much does the camera weight? Also, what's the link on eBay to the keychain?

Nice video. I’m going to have to get a small video camera like that for my Tandem Rescue and take some high video outside this summer.

here is the one I bought:

$12 Keychain spy camera

I have a 4gig TF card I picked up at Fry's yesterday for $10. A 2.5 min video is about 150meg AVI file.

Do the math to see how big a TF card you need.

I bought the camera for my photo recon 19" WS Dehavilland Mosquito I am building.

I lost my scale so I don't know the weight. It has a built in 1S Lipo that is most of the weight so I'm going to convert it to a Plug in lipo.

The Tandem needs a lot more throttle to lift it, but it handled normal. Other than the more throttle, you didn't know it was there.

They have this device on Amazon for around $45. The video and sound quality looks excellent. Amazon’s description says it will record 1.5 hours on 1 charge and IMO 4GB is plenty of space for a 6-10 minute flight. 5 minutes at 720 x 480 at 30 fps would take up about 1.08 GB. I have a 5 min .avi file with this resolution and that's how big it is - I like to record at the highest resolution possible. With a couple of extra Micro SD cards you could do a lot of recording with this.

Come on guys why would you want to put a camera on it. It can't handle any wind and it says in the manual "for indoors only." It only weighs 2.10 oz's. You'll only burn out the motors and battery sooner. If you want a camera ship go with something bigger. Just fly the darn thing for its intended purposes and leave it stock. When you get bored of it move on to something more capable.

Originally Posted by douglas4

Come on guys why would you want to put a camera on it. It can't handle any wind and it says in the manual "for indoors only." It only weighs 2.10 oz's. You'll only burn out the motors and battery sooner. If you want a camera ship go with something bigger. Just fly the darn thing for its intended purposes and leave it stock. When you get bored of it move on to something more capable.

Your right. We should all spend 20 pages whining why we can't get them to fly right, instead.

Originally Posted by UNGN

Your right. We should all spend 20 pages whining why we can't get them to fly right, instead.

Was that sarcasm...? *sigh* Maybe I missed something. Oh well no biggy.

I'm curious to see what the backyard, house, etc. looks like from 60 feet or higher. This photo recon mission is a warm weather project so there's plenty of time to budget for the keychain camera, at least for my situation, and when its nice enough I'm going to practice taking the Tandem up as high as I feel comfortably in control with it and bring it safely back down. I did that with the MCX last summer. Then I'll see how the Tandem performs with the added weight of a keychain cam. Even a 3 minute flight would look cool. Either way once the weather warms up and the winds calm down the heli's are going outside.

Originally Posted by Ronon

I'm curious to see what the backyard, house, etc. looks like from 60 feet or higher.

There's always Google Earth.

Looking around at these miniature spycams I’ve seen a lot of pen style and wonder if they would be any lighter or better as far as mounting goes.

Originally Posted by Ronon

Looking around at these miniature spycams I’ve seen a lot of pen style and wonder if they would be any lighter or better as far as mounting goes.

There are a few huge threads on the pros/cons of each cam and even a website dedicated to the keychain cam.

Keychain camera thread

Keychain camera

Originally Posted by UNGN

There are a few huge threads on the pros/cons of each cam and even a website dedicated to the keychain cam.

Keychain camera thread

Keychain camera

Thanks for the links. A lot of info there and it looks like the keychain cams are the way to go. According to a reviewer one of the potential drawbacks is that these little cams don't last very long. I'll probably get one from amazon if nothing more for the fact that it's easy to return/exchange than other sources and I personally prefer the convenience. I have other uses for a cam other than helicopters and my HC-96 camcorder is really nice but cumbersome to lug around. One of these keychain cams you could just slip into a pocket.