Originally Posted by Eagle202

Brown.

AHH, How'd you know!???

Originally Posted by scottdearinger

dude- you know me- even LOS i only needed a place to land- as small as a baseball field or smaller- bob flew from his back yard (50x 60 ft) and used a chain link fence to arrest his landing..

but I do need a big field to train myself in- I need to get used to the camera FOV and keeping my horizon in view- and testing my range- then I may venture back to my- saw a cool spot and launched protocol...

My own "saw a cool spot and launched" protocol just saw a little boost today. Maybe a not-so-little boost. If I may be very OT for a moment, allow me to present the newest addition to the fleet:

One very used and abused TBS Zephyr. I see crazy times ahead. :-)

Rick NR417

What?! No posts for THREE whole days?! I hope everyone is still flying their easystars.

Originally Posted by kovs

What?! No posts for THREE whole days?! I hope everyone is still flying their easystars.

What! In the wind and rain... Yer avin a laugh, ain't ya.
Today looks good to go. I shall shortly phone my mate and if all is OK, we will be off.

Just got back from flying mine, the ground was really soggy under foot left a wake on landing. Had a scare on the second flight the rudder servo packed up just after launch cut power and landed lust downwind. Now had it failed a few mintes earlier or later I would have been in trouble Phew ! Just going over how I might have got it back without rudder half loops to keep it from going too far ? dunno if that would work.

Anyway narotech servo replaced with Hitch HS55 which should be more relaible. Will change teh other servo for a hitec after christmas.

Terry

Originally Posted by kovs

What?! No posts for THREE whole days?! I hope everyone is still flying their easystars.

Mine's all ready to go and lately I couldn't ask for much better weather, but long shifts at work plus holiday festivities has got me pretty much grounded for a little while. I'll probably be showing off my quadcopter to my brother and whatnot, but the EZ... hmm. There's a small possibility I may drag him out one of the days he's here to give him a short FPV experience but things have to work out just right for that to happen.

The real fun's in January. I'll be taking the Zeph out for her first test flights, and doing some rigorous testing on the range of the EZ's video systems. Based on the last flights, she's looking GOOD again. I got half a mile out at ~60' AGL and no static at all. Next test, I'm going for a mile at similar altitude, and if that works out then I'll know the system is pretty much back to where it was when I was making distance records... and then it's party time - I can do more crazy stuff without having to worry so much about video signal loss. :-)

Rick NR417

No flying here - the temperature has been in the 30s and 40s below zero. I'm afraid the insulation on my wiring will crack if I connect try to connect the battery. It's tough coming back from a month in the southwest and Mexico!

I've made good use of the time though. I replaced my 5.8 ghz, 250mw Vtx with a 600 mw model, flashed the HK G-OSD with CL-OSD and added a DORA unit to translate the Spektrum AR6115 data signal to a pseudo RSSI. I cut a hatch to stuff it all in the belly of my EasyStar II, and moved the AR6115 from the cockpit to the rear of the belly besides. That makes more room to slide the battery fore and aft for CG adjustments. Now I have OSD to show altitude, battery strength, RSSI, GPS coordinates, distance and a home arrow.

The fuselage was noticeably flexible after I cut the hatch, so I reinforced the opening with swizzle sticks from Starbucks. I'm waiting for some rare earth magnets to hold the cover. I plan eventually to hollow out the cover to accommodate a second battery under the CG.

I did a range test on the ground today using Spironet antennas. When I left the Dx6i and took the plane, the RSSI was strong for 6,200 feet. Then the road entered the trees and the signal failed. Then I left the plane (with the video camera aimed at the tail) and took the Dx6i. At 4700 meters, the video was failing until I climbed past the brush on the side of the road. Once I had a clear line of sight to the Dx6i, the video was clear again. I could see the rudder respond to the Dx6i, confirming the RSSI results.

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to fly FPV within a mile radius using the Spironet antennas. Once I'm confident with that, I can add a patch antenna to the Dx6i and a helical antenna to my Fatshark Predator glasses. I'm hoping to go 2 miles with those.

On Wednesday we're expecting some warmer weather. If it's not to windy, maybe I'll give it a test! I need to fly by the naked eye to check the trim. Then I can try FPV.

Originally Posted by mutski

No flying here - the temperature has been in the 30s and 40s below zero. I'm afraid the insulation on my wiring will crack if I connect try to connect the battery. It's tough coming back from a month in the southwest and Mexico!

I've made good use of the time though. I replaced my 5.8 ghz, 250mw Vtx with a 600 mw model, flashed the HK G-OSD with CL-OSD and added a DORA unit to translate the Spektrum AR6115 data signal to a pseudo RSSI. I cut a hatch to stuff it all in the belly of my EasyStar II, and moved the AR6115 from the cockpit to the rear of the belly besides. That makes more room to slide the battery fore and aft for CG adjustments. Now I have OSD to show altitude, battery strength, RSSI, GPS coordinates, distance and a home arrow.

The fuselage was noticeably flexible after I cut the hatch, so I reinforced the opening with swizzle sticks from Starbucks. I'm waiting for some rare earth magnets to hold the cover. I plan eventually to hollow out the cover to accommodate a second battery under the CG.

I did a range test on the ground today using Spironet antennas. When I left the Dx6i and took the plane, the RSSI was strong for 6,200 feet. Then the road entered the trees and the signal failed. Then I left the plane (with the video camera aimed at the tail) and took the Dx6i. At 4700 meters, the video was failing until I climbed past the brush on the side of the road. Once I had a clear line of sight to the Dx6i, the video was clear again. I could see the rudder respond to the Dx6i, confirming the RSSI results.

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to fly FPV within a mile radius using the Spironet antennas. Once I'm confident with that, I can add a patch antenna to the Dx6i and a helical antenna to my Fatshark Predator glasses. I'm hoping to go 2 miles with those.

On Wednesday we're expecting some warmer weather. If it's not to windy, maybe I'll give it a test! I need to fly by the naked eye to check the trim. Then I can try FPV.

Over a mile with a DX6i? Is that the new DSMX version or DSM2? I was looking at the CL-OSD for putting into my FPV pod, but I would have no idea how to put the new firmware on it.

What servos are you guys using ? The one that failed on me the other day was a JP supertech naro and I was thinking replacing it with a Hitec HS55. Having lost confidence in the original servos I'm going to swap out the elevator servo too.

Terry

Kovs - Dx6i is DSMX.
There are good directions for CL-OSD here: http://code.google.com/p/cl-osd/wiki/CompileProgram That said,I have no experience and it wasn't easy. I spent several long days figuring out connections onto the G-OSD, how to upload the program and how to make it work. There are numerous versions of CL-OSD, and the one at the code.google site never worked for me; I wound up using the Joerm Letzer Stand version from the CL-OSD thread at RCGroups, but I couldn't make the RSSI portion work. I spliced in code from the Trug4 version to fix that. Now that it works, it's really COOL! I'm already trying to piece together borrowed bits of the layout.h code to rearrange the data display. If you try it, the Atmel Studio Version 5 worked; the program compiled from Atmel Studio Version 6 did not - use version 5!

Terry R - I'm using EXI servos with good results: http://www.nitroplanes.com/exi-servo-d113f.html That is the nylon gear version, works fine in the EasyStar II. I use D213F with metal gears in my helicopters.

Thanks Mutski they look good and at good price too. Not a brand I've come across here in the UK I expect they are available here but under a different name - but which one ?

regards

Terry

My latest flight video...oops..

When wiener dogs attack! (1 min 5 sec)

Originally Posted by 2500GENE

My latest flight video...oops..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBTT...ature=youtu.be

Totally off topic. vicious little bar lambs ain't they?

Whilst I remember, I would like to wish all my mates and participants on this thread. A merry Christmas, and thank you for celebrating the birth of a Jewish baby also a happy new year and may all your EZ* landings be good ones.

Originally Posted by 2500GENE

My latest flight video...oops..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRBTT...ature=youtu.be

Too funny!
Wait until you meet my dogs haha , they hate wieners.

Martin