Aeronutz News letter No 63 Oct 2003
You are invited to the next Aeronutz Fun Fly on Saturday 11th November 2003. 5pm until 11pm. Parklands Centre, Wigston Rd. Oadby. £8 per flier, Bring a warm jumper as the heating will be off, tables and chairs are provided. All fliers with models over 10g must be insured. Remote control machines must have semi scale appearance - on sticky looking things please! If your are unsure please check before travelling. Max. Weight for any model will be 80g. This would have been lower but we are pleased to see the super scale Falcon kit's balsa machines from Chris at RCS Technik.Latest News ........
Not much happened this month .......... just a small news letter, so no need to bring your sandwiches.
The little pile of electro junk on the top wing is being retro fitted to Mark magnificent Rumpler VI B. A huge beast originally designe dfor 4 x 50mA NiCD cells so replacing those with just one 145mA polymer cell saves a huge amount of weight. The motor will not get quet as much voltage now so we will have to see if it is ok on Saturday. If not another motor can be used instead. Z Tron infra red control, coil and magnet actuator. All 2mm wall foam except the thin 1mm Depron tail. Those German chaps sure knew how to paitn a plane didn't they.
Happy battery A big development for or micro planes is the introduction of the new 90mA E Tech polymer cell. Weighing just 2.3g it is not much heaveir than the 40mA cell but it can handle 500mA load. Mark has a few via Bob Selman but I am sure they will be on sale everywhere soon.
New 90mA E tech polymer
cell. 2.3g
Top right, 90mA cell is on the left, 40mA middle and 145mA hr on the right.
Mark has retro fitted the 90mA cell to the 10" Corsair so it now weighs about 10g. It still has its original 13 Ohm pager which might now be a bit small for such a huge plane?
Mark's Albatross as been dusted off and fitted with a 90mA hr cell and also a smaller version of the KP00 motor which now spins a grey prop from Flitehook. This has saved about 2 grams which is a considreable percentage of the original weight. The new direct drive motor and produces 6g of thrust at 4v and is silent running.
thumbs up Sure Fly Guy
Pistachio Reno retro
Material Sceience
Testing times for Mark
Albatros
Rumpler VI B
Power Hi Fi
Corsair
Ir two channels Tx for APPA Flexinol Actuator
Jaguar Graham ........
photos of WES Tech motor and KP00, Tx and Galloping Ghost
Simon's Twin Pioner
Peter Frosticks, 9" foam
Bills flapper
Graham stabler's new electric flapper
Xmas shopping
Protection Money
Mag article
sd
Joe Malinchak's excellent wall foam, 7" rubber power Corsair. It is a test machine for a similar size three channels R/C model using Nick's 27 Mhz super light Rx and electric power. What could Santa bring Joe that he can't already make himself? Certainly one to watch in the future
Joe writes ...... "I scaled the Corsair up to exact 1/72 scale. I plan to make it 3 ch R/C with Nick's receiver. The span is 7 inches, and I can use the decals and canopy from a plastic model kit. I made this prototype rubber powered to check the weight etc. It should fly on a 4mm motor and a 40 or 90 Li-poly cell. I covered the bottom of the wing with 2mm foam to give it more strenght, and I am using a very light 10 milligram magnet to hold the wing on. I airbrushed this model with testors model master paint" More details later ........
Very neat building skills shown here
at the tail end
The scales say it all, 1.23g
Jaguar Graham has made a test bed for his Flexinol Muscle wire actuator design. His idea is to be able make the actuator easier to build. Picture below shows the wire looped around a brass tube which rotates on a pin. Last month we saw his Vee tail actuator design which worked very well (unlike the plane)
Jaguar Graham's test bed, at the top you can see the two IR sensors,
below that is the Rx and Esc the four black
boxes are transistors to control the
Flexinol wire.
Sceientific American - Polymers
Now the frequency of radio frequancy fligths is frequently frequnt it would seem to be a good idea to go back to using the Aeronutz Frequwncy-you-like web page which means you can pic a frequency that is not frequntly used. This way you can build the Rx into the plane and not have to frequently swap frequncy crystals . If you are a frequent flier at Aeronutz fun flies you might like to let us know which frequency you are using so we can avoid it
Christamas shopping
Many folks will have seen Graham Stabler's very successful 25g, Z Tron, Infra red plane. It was stolen alogn with his car so now he has built a new version using the new JPM 35 Mhz R/C reciever. Still uses a direct drive motor for silent flight but now uses one 145mA polymer cell. Depron construction and magnet / coil actuator. A design ideal for new folks. And to think we thought this was hot stuff when Mark first flew a 25g plane a couple of years ago!
Below. JMP 35 Mhz narrow band recviver allows several planes to be flown
at once. Seen here is Graham Stabler's
HUGE fuselage.
Andrew H has been doing some moulding. SE5 fuselages, in the oven with a bag of sand for pressure. Varius types of foam has been used. Seems pretty good for a quick first attempt me thinks. Mark is considering vac. forming micro props for the new 6" Corsair style micro R/C planes ........ a little heat here, a little pressure there .......
Big John Mack taught is super micro flapper to fly in circles so Simon coudl video it, or shoudl we say try and video it.
Andrew H's timer for F/F planes
Busy Bernard™ has made
Mark has sent off his APPA magazine article to the publishers. It describes the APPA actuator and gives notes on it's use in a 10" span Jigglet. All the items to make this model are now available. Mark has developed a simple, fun transmitter for the two channels 10" Jigglet. Proportional control of the rudder and throttle. The new transmitter uses the standard Z Tron Mk3 electronics and you supply a suitable box, battery pack and fit it all togther how you like. The new Tx will be called a ZAPPA to avoid confusion with other Z Tron transmitters. ZAPPA builders can add fuses, on/off lights, switches bells and whistle to taste
ZAPPA While testing the new ZAPPA Tx Mark found you can do bench tests using just one IR emittor. So he has now added and extra emitor to his customing Z Tron Tx for testing purposes. When the Tx is switched on the new single emittor is on and runs all the time. A new switch is added to allow other 15 emittors to be switched on or off. This saves the battery and could probably be used to test a plane on the table in a large hall where another IR system is being used. Another example of how nice it is to be able to customise your equipment. Z Tron users are advise to do this upgrade and can obtain an extra emittor from Mark so you dont have to buy a minium quantity. Just send a SAE and postage stamp or collect one from him at the next fun fly. Wiring diagram will be provided, you supply a new switch for the existing 15 emittors.
John Scott scots F/F super cap planes
Bottom left, grey prop and WES Tech iron core motor are smaller and lighter than the KP00 style motors with U80 prop. The motor is the same width but shorter in lenght. This and the new 90mA cell means we can save 2g, so we can make a 10g plane with a max. of 6g thrust. Could be used with the 5F super caps too?
Above right. Mark's testing pagers for future micro planes. Preferably direct drive
Above. One fo the new geared pagers from Falcon models. If we can optimise a plane for it we coudl save the hassle of making the gears. Weighs 2.5g, uses small 0.25 Mod gears.
Keep your eyes peeled for iron core motors like the KP00 but shorter in leght and about 5 Ohms resistance. Also see if you can find any Western's Jam Fancies cookies. Mark says he had a very nice cumbly short type jammy ring thing with Sergio in New York, not cheap though - if you include the air fair.
York
Todays hot news!!!!!
You may remember that I built an Avro York a couple of years ago. Nearly flew with R/C, I/r and F/F – but seemed reluctant always. I did all the despair fixes – lots of incidence, upthrust on the motors, etc.
Perfect Autumn weather this morning, so I took it out for a try with 500 lipo cell, ff timer and 2 kp00s in the inner nacelles (only). It was radically over elevated, so I packed out the incidence , took out the upthrustand started getting beautiful flight – see pics.
So now I will configure it to suit the trim I have discovered – and possibly retrofit the r/c gear for differential motor steering.I thought that I would have power to spare with 2 KP00 and u80 props, but the beast was slow and majestic.I have a scale, cambered wing with smaller area – That would increase the apparent power.
As always with lipos, you can see the voltage declining as the capacity is used.The motors are a bit less eager.
BTW – to deal with the shorting/stalling safety issue I have designed and tested a fuse that plugs into the live cell lead.Ideally it should be part of the cell connection-I will think about that.Its rated 5A and vanishes when the cell is shorted.Its surrounded with silicone tube at present to avoid ignition of anything else.Drawings and pics follow
i put a 15g RC helicopter on my site
F(http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/)rench shopper
Pauline at Flitehook says she has some U80 porps again. They also ahev a new foam safe glue very similar to Bison
Andrew H's belt drive I have changed the belts from Silicone (orthodontic bands ) to natural runbber(1/2 inch d/t bands from Pauline). Andrew says he is writing something for us about his experienes with belt drive .........
Matt's rubber power -
attached is image of a belt drive unit I made up. Mounted on a M20 motor for the Bristol. It is around 2.5:1 ratio. I had the belt and large pulley from the Sony surplus lens unit, and small pulley in my junk box. I machined 1/32 thick Delrin plates and used 000-120 screws to hold it together. Output is 1mm shaft on 1x3mm ball bearings and uses prop saver. Runs super, super quiet, I like it alot. Not sure about efficiency loss due to heating, but doesn't seem to be extremely terrible. Belt is square in cross section, probably not optimal, I think flat belts like on Proxflyer is better. -Matt
Along term propject here ........ Mark is working on a Galloping Ghost rudder for a supper light infra red control system. The Flexinol is supprisingly powerfull so a lot of weight had to be used to pull the rudder down as it is shown here. It is hopped the infra red control system in the plane will consist of just one IR sensor which will switch power to the GGAPPA rudder. You cant get lighter than just a sensor!
GGAPPA
Caution - May contain Nutz
new innovations.
Parklands are putting up the cost of hiring the hall after Christmas. Bernard says there is a new Govt. scheme which gives senior citizens an extra £17 per week just by filling in a form. As £17 is way above inflation it woudl seem reasonable that some of that should be coming to pay for the hall fees. As we have lots of olde buggers at our fun flies it woudl only be reasonable to have a vote on the idea. So hands up eveyone who wants retired people to pay and extra £17 per month? One, two three .... passed! 58.789 percent in favour, well done Bernard.
Mark has done some tests on direct drive pager motors to see if we can use them for the next generation of micro R/C planes. The Didel Dia 7mm, 10 Ohm looks promissing but it is a tad too heavy. Maybe a Dia 7mm short case woudl be just the job? Anyway Mark too it to Bernard's nest to show him and while he was having a pee Bernard made a plane and fitted the motor ! So we shoudl see if it is any godo for a big free flight plane (" 10 span) before we fit it to a little R/C plane (6" span) I think one of Ray's, twin motor steering, flying wings uses direct drive pagers?
Optimise, Optimse, Optimse .........
A) Super small - ultra micro - really not very big at all Corsair.
Use rudder only proportional control. Electric flight motor will have a simple off switch on the underside to kill the motor on landing. SMT fuse ? If we keep the plane really light we shoudl be able to make the wing from 2mm wall foam without any structural stiffening. Prop will need to be quiet strong as it will take the weight of the model on landing. If we can fly at 5g flying weight we only need 3 to 4 grams of thrust. We should be able to use a total of about 150mA load on the battery. 6.5" span Corsair? Maybe use Depron tail plane to keep it stiff? " Tightly" Rolled up 40mA cell (dont laugh! Ed) Magnet / Coil actuaror or maybe Flexinol wire. Grey plastic prop or DIY yoghurt pot prop.? Pager geared 3:1 like Nick's or a direct drive pager? The control system will be Infra red usign a very small clear sensor which powers a transistor to pulse current to the actuator. We need a special Tx which just sends out a pluse to the sensor, moving the rudder pot on the Tx varies the pulse.
C) Direct drive pagers in a multi engine plane - silent flight. Use the new 80mA hr cell? Its gotta be light weight though.
Mrs Jones of Lutterworth writes ........ " I was having tea and *FCCC's with Mr Jones on Tuesday and we thought how nice it woudl be to fly ducted fan jets with two of the new Polymer cells. Trouble is the voltage would be a little too high for most electronic micro processor chips. Then it struck me we coudl use a voltage regulator to drop the voltage down to the chips and drive the D/F direct from the two cells. After I had peel the potatoes for Jack's dinner I set too and made a Rx for APPA Flexinol actuators with a SOT 23 regulator to keep the weight down. Just the one IR sensor so we can cut up the inside of any MIGs before performing Maj. Jefferson's "Mig alley" inside bunt manouver from the latter half of 1967 "
Gravity and Taxes .........
First Fun fly of the year then ........ Sat. Oct 11th. New stuff. Mark hopes to have at least one 7.5g Jigglet flying with an APPA actuator and we can try and teach the new 9g three chanles Corsair to fly. The Corsair has a little tab elevator to see if a large movement from a small surface would work better than a large surface moving a small distance?? Unfortunatly the actuator is a little stiff and tends to "ping" to full deflection so it might be quiet a short flight! Bring a plastic bag and a shovel.
New ! Graham has made a 10g model to test his new Flexinol V tail design on. No the tail unit is no doubt destined for one of his flying wings or maybe a ducted fan jet? Anyway, model also has some carbon fibre 2 x 1mm strip set into the wing to make a spar - Geoff and Ray have been trying this too, coudl be handy for the new generation of Micro Reno racers as they will need stiffer wings me thinks. At 10g weight it looks like it will fly real slow ........ The Flexinol actuators are developemtns of the APPA type, mainly findign easier ways to work with the Flexinol, looks like on of Gordon's carbon props on the front.
..... anyway thats enough typing for one night, think I will have a nice cup of tea
