A mate of mine recently had a laptop battery which was swollen to about three times its size – I was concerned it might pop and I only had my Bat Safe box to put it, leaving my own RC LiPos out of a suitable home. (I have LiPo bags but I prefer more solid protection). I realised I needed better battery storage options but due to the pandemic, freight to Australia has been limited and I was unable to buy any more Bat Safes….. so I decided it was time to make my own. It ended up costing me more than the commercial ones probably would have but I’ve got a lot more storage capacity for the price and the satisfaction of having done it myself…

I made a toolbox “Dual charger” version and some single Ammo Box versions so I can charge and store separately. This should minimise loss of batteries if one should go up and try to take any others with it.

I took some inspiration from posts here and on the web, supplies are what I can get hold of here in Australia, you would probably need to re-work the design/s depending on what you can get hold of locally. The main aim was in the event of a battery fire, to minimise the temperature of the outer container as much as possible and provide effective venting with suitable non-flammable materials.

For venting, I found some Galvanised Brick vents that have their own mesh built in and are just the right depth for 13mm glass wool “blankets”, all I needed was to find a way to cover with some stainless mesh, and attach to lids of either the...Continue Reading

I've left alone some of the popoular mods (e.g. canopy, cockpit, pilot) and gone for more of the mechanical stuff....
It seems my plane waas a Monday/Friday job because some of the hinges were in crooked and the flaps on one side were warped. Never mind, they were always coming out... Below is a list of what I've done so far - I've installed the Killer Planes CF reinforcement (in the wings only so far as that's what I've spent all my time on up until now) - no photos of that, as it's proprietary info, but here's what I've done:
- glued flaps together and cut out, removed hinges, thinned the wing foam over the flap cut out (that was some delicate cutting!!), cut the section protruding over the longer flap back at the nacelle end to make it a little more parallel with the aileron (left it the same protrusion at the aileron and cut it back at the nacelle) and reinforced the thinned long section with clear plastic strip from a "blister" pack, added foam putty to create a curve in the inside top of the wing to match the flap leading edge and shaped and glued a plastic piece between the flap and aileron to further support the thin wing foam. Flaps now have more realistic rounded leading edges. I'm tossing up whether to slightly move hinge position back and up a few mm so hinges line up exactly with pivot point of torsion shaft, which will make the flaps "rotate" slightly instead of just pivoting down, hopefully giving them a tad more realism.

I...Continue Reading

Here are some pics of my Mossie mods... specifically;
- I rewired the wingtip lights so the front pair are wired separartely to the rear pair, and replaced the Landing lights mid-wing with hi intensity white LEDS that draw the same current as a normal LED. Using the Freewing LED Controller supplied and connected through the gear sequencer, , they turn on & off with the landing gear.
- I made some plastic "pockets" out of PVC conduit cover - softened under hot water, moulded to fit the servo for a tight fit. I used a dead servo to position and cut out the foam to fit them in place, and fashioned a cover out of ABS PLastic from a Jeweller's screwdriver case. I also fashioned a servo arm extension from aluminium - the servo had enough travel without it while using a servo tester, but when I hooked up my radio, (Turnigy i10) it didn't provide enough travel.
- Flaps were cut out and given a rounded leading edge - attached using Dubro pin hinges, I recessed the torsion rod so it didn't interfere with flap travel so had to gouge out inside the chanel it moved in to give it enough room to move

I couldn't work out how to post videos here, so they're in the comment following this post.

Below are all the specs on the work I've done on this model:
- I matched the paint colours at the local Bunnings, I overcoat with Wattyl Speed Clear Satin to match gloss level
- I bought from Killer Planes with Supermax reinforcement - some installation needed
- Filling of holes/...Continue Reading