Hi Jason, Hi Chris, Hi Terry.

Originally Posted by joseico90

Hey buddy!

Yeah, a bit expensive but its a very useful tool. How are you doing Chris?

careful with the Lipo voltage, those are designed for 4.8V, prob less under load, you better use rechargeable AA batts ?

I love it!
6v (alkaline AAs) is still lower than 8.4 of a fully charged 2s so I'll stay with NiMhs for now, yes...

I'm still in the exam period (2 taken, 1 to go), so haven't been flying much. I'm preparing my bixler2 fpv setup as a side dish though, but that's another story (and thread)...

The jetball will look amazing after one of your paintjobs I think

EDIT: Hi David! Glad you're adding to your fleet! Hope you can fly them all soon...

Originally Posted by uberjay

Hey Jose.... how'd you do the hollowing out part? cut through then patch after or something?

Thx
J

got a 5 mmm metal rod heated up and made a hole to feed the bow wire through, cut the chunk of foam, push it out, release wire end from bow, and pull out of the hole, and repeat for the other hollowings..

Originally Posted by pardshaw

Would consider a round trip to L'pool if you couldn't find a nearer supply.
Dave

will let you know, though one can find scrap pieces on Ebay for good prices too, we'll see.

Originally Posted by cmavr8

The jetball will look amazing after one of your paintjobs I think

I hope so

Chris - what exams are you taking? Whats your subject?

Dave

Dave I've sent the Knauf guys an email inquiring about where we could get some of their foam. I'll let you know

http://http://www.hobbyking.com/hobb..._Glue_Gun.html

$2.99 but the postage is $5.99 but it 10 watt gun workes on low C 3cell lipo or straight from 12 car battery since my vehicle is electric but runs on 48v pack I normally use lipo to use this Glue gun though I did find converter from 48v to 12 volt at 3 amp I not yet added to my vehicle. Theres about 71 grams left of the 5.99 postage and you can add a few items. I added couple 6 channels recievers for my flysky transmitter.

There's two ways to fly slow..........either a super light wing loading or one that will maintain high alfa, both with the proper shaped wing platform.

I hope Frank doesn't mind me sharing my latest mishaps with another, non Nutball model.

this reminds me how important it is to fly even on the simulator, so I don't get "rusty" and make this silly mistakes.

There has been another brief weather window in the last 2 days. I have got another 2.6 hours flying time in on my 24 inch and my 25 inch Nutballs. I am now close to a total of 10 hours stick time on Nutballs and still having a whale of a time.

Today something bizarre happened - ever heard of anything like this????? The throttle response seemed to be getting slightly more delayed from zero revs (for hand launch) and then the whole system just stopped working. No power on board the plane - no light on the reciever, nothing.

It took me nearly half an hour swapping components to isolate the fault - it was the battery. A relatively new 3S 770 mAh battery that has had less than 50 recharges and has never been drained by more than 380 mAh or dropped any cells below 3.65 V. When I checked, the first cell was at 3.86V and the third cell was at 3.79V but the middle cell was at 61.67V. SIXTY ONE POINT SIX SEVEN VOLTS!!!!

When I put a replacement battery in everything was back to normal and I squeezed one last flight in as dusk fell.

Anyone got any idea how that can happen? I've read stuff about LiPo behaviour but never seen any report indicating that sort of thing.

Dave

Jose

Its reassuring to us beginners to see that even very experienced pilots sometimes make mistakes! Well done for sharing but commiserations on the mishap

Dave

just found this http://www.radiocontrolinfo.com/RCca...culator.php#WL, might be of help if you guys ever need to calculate wing loading, power, etc.

Originally Posted by pardshaw

It took me nearly half an hour swapping components to isolate the fault - it was the battery. A relatively new 3S 770 mAh battery that has had less than 50 recharges and has never been drained by more than 380 mAh or dropped any cells below 3.65 V. When I checked, the first cell was at 3.86V and the third cell was at 3.79V but the middle cell was at 61.67V. SIXTY ONE POINT SIX SEVEN VOLTS!!!!
...

Anyone got any idea how that can happen? I've read stuff about LiPo behaviour but never seen any report indicating that sort of thing.

Dave

Hey Dave,

I suspect the 61.67 was a glitch. Most lipo checkers have a range within which they operate. If that one cell went dead - which CAN happen and exhibits in exactly the same way you described - the volt meter in the checker probably didn't know what to do with it.

The cause for the blackout is (if I recall my readings and electronics training from years ago) much like those crazy Christmas lights - one goes out and the whole chain is off. Basically, the cells in a typical 3S1P battery are in series so their voltages add to give the 11.x to 12.6 voltages. Since they are in series if one dies and goes flat it can basically block the electricity flow. At least that's my recollection.

I have a buddy who described this happening with a big balsa plane he had... lost a cell mid flight... lost the plane too . So, even if one had a BEC (Battery Eliminating Circuit) in addition to the main ESC one would be toast... the only way to save a plane from this situation is a separate Rx battery power scenario. Ie. two batteries.

Obviously, for a Nutball that'd be waaay overkill ;-)

Anyway... long-winded response.... sometimes words come out too fast - hope they made sense.

Cheers,
J

Originally Posted by pardshaw

Jose

Its reassuring to us beginners to see that even very experienced pilots sometimes make mistakes! Well done for sharing but commiserations on the mishap

Dave

Hey Dave, those who fly, WILL crash, can't avoid the fact..hehe

I think uberjay's explanation makes sense, such high voltage (if real) would have rendered your gear TOAST, and very unlikely that the charger would have done that kind of crazy cell voltage anyway.

And yeah, had a feeling I wasn't quite happy to go fly today(ever had one of those gut feelings?)

Entirely my fault, that model is not happy flying slow (symmetrical aerofoil) and I keep pushing it..didn't have enough altitude to get out of that pickle.

A flat wing 3D foamie would have behaved much better for me there..those kind of wings WILL stall and bite you at such slow speed, had full rates so even worse when I pulled up elevator.

Well, now I've got to make a new nose, motor and all else is fine, pink foam here I come!

Thanks Jason and Jose - that makes perfect sense to me. I consider myself very lucky to have landed the plane when I did - there were no warning signs, I was just putting the plane down for fun and had just about completed the landing when the 'lights went out'. Glad it didn't happen in the air!

I have put together a blog of my experiences learning to fly on Nutballs. I've never done a blog before, but Terry suggested someone thinking about starting out might find it useful.

Dave