Rick Wardrop (choo choo...) wrote a Comparison of the Vector to a Guardian. Excellent read. See attachment.

Here is a review by RC model reviews (Bruce). He wants more 12 volt outputs, higher receiver mounting, audio input / output, more space for a larger monitor, and diversity switching indication.

Quanum FPV ground station (with suggestions for improvements) (18 min 56 sec)

Here is a review link from JT Graham.
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...ew&perpage=100
Video review by JT is here.

Quanum FPV Ground Station - RCGroups.com Review (13 min 58 sec)

...Continue Reading

Good video I found on Youtube.

How to fix a Lipo battery (removing dead cell) (5 min 3 sec)

Zohd Dart XL Extreme arrived 12/31/18 for $190. 34 days order to delivery.

Vector flight controller + OSD arrived. $237. It is my intent to use it in a Zohd Dart XL. My Dart XL arrived in 34 days.

DART XL
Here are some of my observations:
— craftsmanship is OK, but, the motor mount needs some more glue. I was hoping it was fixed based on early production. A 3D printed version was glued in and a couple of more holes drilled sized to fit som 3 mm CF tube.
— Use of self tapping screws to secure rear hatch is simply not aceptable. How many on-off cycles before the plastic strips out? Should have been designed with a machine thread and a nylock. A simple stud protruding out from the motor mount / firewall with nylock on the outside would suffice.
— the instructions are suprisingly sparse. No reference to the key design features such as the channel in the nose for embedding wiring, no explanation of the servo lead connections and the extra one for RX or TX in the wing underside. Etc.
— servos, control horns and linkage hang on the underside which makes them susceptible to snagging the grass when belly landing. Moving the control horn and linkage to the top side is an easy mod.
—Wing has quite a bit of reflex built in.
— pre production plane looks like it has less reflex than my production planeslike mine (see pictures)
—Motor mount requires replacement with a 3D printed version. Picture is attached. 1./8 inch CF tubing added to strengthen...Continue Reading

Case for 2s lithium ion pack patterned after Fatshark battery pack — This has a clip to hang onto FPV strap. I made two battery packs using Westinghouse Lithium Ion 18650 cells I bought from Walmart. Walmart sells them for yard lighting. As I recal. i paid $10 for a four pack. Or you can buy on line as well on sites such as IMR batteries. (https://www.imrbatteries.com/)

Below is the link to the 3D printing file.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2038043
Below is the wiring scheme for a 2S pack with balance tap.


WIRING DIAGRAM TOOL FOR BATTERY PACKS
The below is a link to a utility for determining the wiring of battery packs up to 5s with balance taps. Example is attached.
https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/lipo.php

Video of building the pack is below. With the packs I made I did not add the charge level indicator. The pocket in the case designed to hold the power indicator provided a great place to route the wiring.

Fatshark 18650 FPV battery Case with LED (14 min 18 sec)

Enjoy. Been around for quite a while. 2009 video. Enough power and you can fly a pair of gym socks.

Dirty Old Sock Parkflyer (0 min 31 sec)

WIRING DIAGRAM TOOL FOR BATTERY PACKS
The below is a link to a utility for determining the wiring of battery packs up to 5s with balance taps. Example is attached.
https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/lipo.php

12-5-18
Quanum Half Overlord 5.8GHz 40CH 3 Antenna Diversity Receiver w/Raceband

For $70 I bought one of these from Hobbkying China. It arrived in a month and in working order. Have not tested it since I am not a sub freezing RC flyer. Yes, it has a tripod mount.
...Continue Reading

$65 via Amazon prime. 11-5-18. Hobbyking sold these and they went on sale there for about $40 but quickly went out of stock there so I bought from Amazon Prime.

Diversity works well switching from receiver 1 to 2.

HIDDEN SETUP screen (see attached service manual pdf)
By holding down the joystick and powering up there is a second screen that allows you to set preferences and make adjustments such as adjusting the time to switch receivers from 10 milliseconds to as low as 1 millisecond. I adjusted it down to 3 milliseconds. It seems like the sweet spot for me. Time will tell. The receiver is set to beep when it switches. Too many beeps while flying will result in longer Millisecond setting of diversity switching.

Setting the signal strength to % rather than bars works better for me as well.

Channel scan is quite good and it has a spectrum analyzer function as welll.

The AV out plugs right into my Viper goggles with female AV cables that terminate via 2.5 mm single pin for AV input.

I selected the option “skip channels with low RSSI.”

Great value for the money.

LED screen is a bit small but well illuminated and readable....Continue Reading

REMINDER for powering up the Taranis. Torrent was setup via Betaflight with horizon, angle and acro mode using a XD+ FRsky receiver.

• Turn on radio and set flight mode to Horizon mode (up on Switch SC)
• Position throttle cut switch SA toward me (off) and the Taranis should say the flight mode when TX is turned on (e.g., “Welcome, Horizon mode”)
• Plug in battery on Torrent
• Move throttle cut switch forward (on)
• Move rudder full right with throttle in low/off position (this is a safety feature, full right rudder arms the motors)
• Torrent is armed and ready to throttle up. Motors turn when throttle is advanced.
• Go fly

THROTTLE SAFETY — Note: As programmed in Betaflight each time you throttle down you must use the zero throttle full right gesture to run up the throttle. It is a safety. This is above and beyond the throttle cut switch.

10/6/18 Update — added EPP feet to protect the battery. A little foam, hobby knife and hot glue and bingo my Torrent has some protection for the lipo.

9/25/18 Update
Replaced the props, added an isolator between the motor and the frame to reduce vibration transfer to the accelerometers and the video camera, and new ducts. All by Rakonheli. Blue Loctite used on motor mount screws to prevent backing out.

*****************************************End of update******************************************** *

INITIAL POST ABOUT BUYING THE PNP TORRENT
Bought one for $95 as a PNP and Dan. S. installed and setup a Frsky XM+ receiver...Continue Reading

Update 10-12-18
This is fast becoming my go to charger. My FMA PL8 sits next to it but is used mainly for parallel charging 6S packs and fast storage discharging / charging. The Q6 will discharge to storage level but it takes a long time. Fast Discharging creates a bit too much heat that has to be dissipated so discharge rate is purposely limited.

I also purchased the ISDT parallel charge board which includes power input cables and a 6 cell balance lead . Price was $28 plus shipping from GETFPV.

************************************************** ************

Update 9-6-18. New one arrived and it is perfect.

I also watched a video by Josh Bardwell regarding voltage calibration. You can adjust voltage readings by getting into hidden features under system information. Three long presses of the thumb wheel and you can access the function. You need a calibrated volt meter to make the adjustments. The accuracy, while a good goal costs you the price of higher quality volt meter to do the adjustment. So, unless you really need it the cost to buy an accurate volt meter can exceed the cost of the charger. Plus, if you make a mistake you risk bricking the charger.

Original post is below:

ISDT Q6 Pro BattGo 300W 14A Pocket Battery Balance Smart Digital Charger. Bought it from Amazon. It arrived in two days thanks to their Prime shipping.


I made up a XT60 power lead harness, plugged it in and was impressed with how easy it was to charge a pack. Screen display is bright, vibrant and easy to read. I charged two packs and when charging the 2nd pack the bright, high resolution display started have streaks of brighter white areas on the right side. So, I requested a Amazon no hassle return. I will drop it off at UPS and within hours have a Amazon gift card so I can buy another.

Amazon is so easy to deal with if you are shipped a defective product. It gets resolved in 3 days or less if you have Prime.

Bill

UPDATE 12-31-18. Zeiss Lens cleaner for cleaning the mirrors.

UPDATE 10-12-18
Key feature of these goggles is you can comfortably wear your glasses under them. The mirrors used in this design provide 1.9 magnification.

SZFXT sent me for free a replacement upgrade to a V2 display (FX508) because I was unable to update the firmware in my V1 display. And, I was experiencing signal break up. That is outstanding customer service. 10 minute video clips and adjustable display size is now available to me. Hope they work better receiving the signal. All new Viper goggles are V2



:UPDATE. 10-8-18 regrading firmware upgrade.
The Viper V1 upgrade tool and process is beyond reasonable. The three pins that connect the tool are too small to lock into the corresponding holes on the board. Pressure on them does not lock them onto the board. Anybody else do the upgrade have a similar problem? I spent $20, waited 5 weeks for the connector to arrive from Germany. I take my display apart to find that the connector is not properly sized to the board. You have to hold the three pins in a position that assures no break in continuity while flashing. The fear was moot because the upgrade tool USB driver never installed rendering the tool useless.



Yes, shipped Germany, go figure. I want my money back or a free Version 2 disply that already has the firmware upgraded.


Bought on August 4, 2018 from Amazon.

Needs firmware upgrade to lengthen videos.

Bought tool on August...Continue Reading

11-1-18
Josh Bardwell video that explains how to adjust your tiny whoop for drifting by simply using stick movements.

Calibrate & Trim Betaflight Tiny Whoop Accelerometer | HOW TO FIX ANGLE MODE (14 min 19 sec)

9-28-18 UPDATE
Ordered three sets of 19600 kv motors for $6 clearance price from A main hobbies.
https://www.amainhobbies.com/racetek...tk2511/p612319
RaceTek CL-0615-19 TinyFPV "Stage 3" Motor Set (19,600kV)

Flight in backyard on a calm September evening.

9 23 18 Ind pro backyard 5 (2 min 44 sec)

...Continue Reading

UPDATE 7/30/18
Maiden was a failure. Have to be able to see the plane to fly it line of sight. No damage in first flight. Line of sight does not work when you fly too far away and the plane disappears in the background of gray clouds with 2D mode on and the plane not properly trimmed out before engaging The Eagletree Guardian stabilizer.

Nano Goblin maiden 7 29 18 (0 min 52 sec)

$230 spent with RMRC and I now have a Nano Goblin with the add on camera plus two batteries. I also bought a spare VTX as a backup. It is now ready to fly. I added a 5 A Ubec, a 6 channel Orange RX (Spektrum) and a Eagletree Guardian. The prop is only 3 inches in diameter and you get one left and right. If you break one you only have to swap out any two wires on the ESC connection to use the opposite rotation prop.

Building was a non-event. Applying the decals or stickers wrinkle free was biggest challenge. Everything just fits. The 6 channel Orange Diversity receiver, SBEC and Guardian make for a tight fit.

Range checked at 90 plus paces.

Max throws are 12 mm (6 mm up and 6 mm down) at high rates with 25% expo. I had to dial down the rates in the TX. I also moved the servo arm connection inward one hole to increase servo resolution. No need for long servo arms when you dial back the throws.

Camera is an all in one 200 mw Sinopine that plugs into the receiver. 5 volts max. input. Do not unwittingly plug it into a balance tap. A crispy critter will be the result.

Weight is 247 grams or 8.7 ounces (or about two sticks of butter) all up weight measured with a common kitchen scale.

AMP draw test
Using the Eflite Power meter with a freshly charge pack (after setting throttle range):

Run 1 at wide open
7.7 volts
6.5 amps
46 watts

Run 2 at wide open
7.4 volts
6.5 amps
48 watts.

Lithium Ion 3200 mah 2S pack weighs about 100 grams
Charge to 4.2 volts per cell.
Battery university recommends .5 amp charge rate.

UPDATE: 10/18/18 — 4s capable with a 70 amp ESC. Pulls 60 amp peak on 4s on the ground and about 50 amps in the air.
*********************************************End of update***********************************

Bought it when it was $50 off for $229 (Father’s Day 2018).

Assembly was easy like most Horizon products. While portly (i.e., heavy) at 45 ounces the speed is less than the 1100 mm Elev Hobby T28. Flight characteristics are very similar which is no surprise.

COSTS
With the included AS3X the $229 price is better than the 11H T28 ($150) when you factor in the $20 8 channel RX, $20 Castle Creations 10 amp UBEC and a $65 Guardian Stabilizer. As received the AS3X comes pre-programmed with a well developed set of parameters. Change at your own peril is my advice. An APP and programming dongle is available as an option. I bought one for my Eflite Viking bipe and enjoyed seeing how it was programmed. I changed nothing on the Viking bipe and on the three flights of this plane I saw no need to change any program settings. As programmed from the factory there is no need to add any expo. It is already in the AS3X. Doing so will make the plane feel unresponsive.

Upgrades and spares
I bought the Freewing Super Scorpion nose gear from MotionRC and the servo reverser from Eflite. Scroll down to read how to modify the Freewing nose gear and the plane to work together in harmony. A spare prop and collet were also purchased.

FLYING
First...Continue Reading

Note: It was sent with defective landing gear. Replacement gear set was on backorder. Received new set late August 2018.

Bought it when it was $50 off for $169 (Father’s Day 2018).

Assembly was easy like most Horizon products although the plastic articulated gear was frozen on the starboard side. HH will send me a new set but they are on backorder until July. This seems to be a recurring problem. Also, the pull - pull tail wheel required some skilled bending to correct for a pull to the right. I added a piece of hook velcro in the battery bay. The battery bay holds a 60c - 3300 Zippy compact battery in a position maintain CG.

The only mod was to cut a couple of hook side velcro and stick them to the CG location on the wing underside. Simple and effective way of checking CG. You can use other methods as well. This is just one. You want something you can feel.

COSTS
With the included AS3X the $169 price is a good value when you consider it comes with a AS3X receiver which is a DSMX receiver and a stabilizer that has both Safe Select (wing leveling) and a more advanced Stabilizer mode. A switch on your radio can be programmed between Safe Select and purely a Stabilizer. The AS3X comes custom programmed by the Eflite develop team. My experience with pre programmed AS3X receivers is quite good. I do not bother reprogramming them. They are pretty good to start with as received.

FLYING
I have about a half dozen flights on this plane. Very...Continue Reading

From flghtengr post.
Key is to make sure rates are set to High before switching the desired switch so it is assigned. Failure to do this and the switch assignment will not work. You will not have both modes.

SAFE Select
The SAFE Select receivers behave like normal AR636 receivers for the most part. Rather than having three SAFE flight modes, there are only two modes - "SAFE on" and "SAFE off". When SAFE is on, it has self-level capabilities similar to Beginner Mode on most of the other SAFE receivers. It has the bank angle limits set to a larger angle, similar to Intermediate Mode on the other receivers. When SAFE is off, there are no self-level or bank angle limit features, turning the receiver into a normal AR636 with AS3X.

The transmitter setup is very simple for SAFE Select. First, you start with a normal, default Acro (Airplane) new model. The first 6 channels are set up to control the plane directly. If the plane has flaps, they should be connected to channel 6 (Aux1) to work with the transmitter's built-in flap system. If you have an additional feature on your plane such as retracts, that would go on channel 5 (Gear).

You can choose whether SAFE is on or off permanently during the bind process. If you bind your transmitter to the receiver in the typical way, SAFE will be off. If you change up the order of the last two steps, you can bind with SAFE turned on.

Bind with SAFE off:
Insert bind plug in receiver.
Power up plane/receiver....Continue Reading

Sanjay Dehall has a dream of making a flying car.

Sanjay’s Dream of a Flying Car (2 min 47 sec)

Below is a short video of a 1/6th scale prototype test flight.

Sanjay’s 1/6 scale flying car prototype 8-15-18 (1 min 51 sec)

...Continue Reading

EV800 upgraded with a DVR using the $15 Eachine ProDVR.
I finally added the Eachine ProDVR to the EV800. It requires some soldering skills using a fine tip soldering iron and rosin core solder; a No. 1 Philips screwdriver; and a review of the Youtube video that describes what to do. Four wires are soldered to the board — ground, video, audio, and power. Below is the Albert Kim how to video. Note that he has updated the Youtube page that states the 3.7 volt on board battery is sufficient to power the ProDVR. He also pops out the LED indicator to feed the wires to the board. I liked the LED indicator and opted to drill a hole.

Eachine EV800 Goggles DVR Mod (6 min 45 sec)




Background
Both were purchased over a year ago. And I finally got around to the installation. While the ProDVR says it needs 5v input it operates well with 3.7. Do not exceed 5volts because you will burn it out. Use a filtered in line voltage regulator to step down voltage for 2s and greater battery voltage. In early versions were supposed to permit HD video recording but they forgot to program it in the firmware. More about fixing this in the last paragraph of this post. Newer versions may have the firmware update but I doubt it.

Taking advantage of user selectable video quality
It took more time to set the recording resolution to HD versus the default VGA than to physically wire and install the DVR. Why so long? Answer is simple. The manual was wrong. Manual said to...Continue Reading

I have the Eachine EV800 but it did not have a built in DVR or Diversity. So, for $100 I bought the EV800D googles with DVR and Diversity. It has better optics.

PUNY ON BOARD BATTERY
The 1200 mah 2S stock internal on board battery runs down in less than hour with the DVD running and Diversity turned on. You can, however, plug in a 3s battery where the charger is plugged in and it will charge the on board battery. I made a 3s lithium ion pack (18650) that is velcroed to the back of the head strap. In sum, this pack is supplemental power for the EV800D goggles made from off the shelf rechargeable yard light batteries made by Westinghouse and sold at Walmart. These are lithium ion low amp draw cells (7 amps). Make sure to charge with the right chemistry on your charger selected, By the way, any 3s pack will do.

DVR Recording and playback
Video is AVI and pictures are jpeg saved on FAT32 card. Reformat the card whether used or new. Far right button controls recording. Short press snaps a picture. Long press and a red record light goes on in the upper right. Light goes off after awhile. Press again to stop and save. A red box appears when saving to card.

To playback press source, menu appears and DVR is highlighted. Quickly press channel band button and select a video or pict. Press record button to start playing.

FAULTY BATTERY INDICATOR
The on screen battery charge level indicator is worthless. It goes down to one green bar in a few...Continue Reading

9-24-18 update—
Below is a reminder about Nano Talon setup.

When setting up the stabiliser in the Dart/Nano Talon or Orbit Wing, use a three position switch , low signal - launch mode when throttle is 20% or more the elevons lift up and it goes into launch/beginners mode
Middle switch position - no stability- nothing just you and the sticks
High switch position- some stability but you have full control.

Calibrating the stabilizer
Also before first use place on a flat level surface, hold the model still and press the calibration button on the stabiliser until the lights flash.


Just a note when creating a model program in your radio’s, do not use mixers for the Zohd range if you are using the supplied stabiliser as they have a built in mixer for the wings and for the V tail of the talon.


8-16-18
Flat wing on board flight with a little Beethoven. With the flat wing and other aero modifications the wing wagging is gone. Adding expo helps with flight characteristics. Launch mode / wing leveling is only used for launch or panic mode. Flight controller aerobatic mode seems like rate mode with some some heading hold. Quite fun.

8 12 18 Nano Talon ONBOARD flat wing (5 min 49 sec)

7-31-18
From bonafidepirate Youtuber—he designed new 3D printed parts to remove the wing dihedral. Doing so eliminates the wing wagging. I had the parts made I insralled them. They were printed using green PETG filament by a friend with hobby grade 3 D printer....Continue Reading