Monthly Archives: November 2011

What happend was:  After changing my tail servo it reversed the control action. I compensated in the transmitter for this reversal. I neglected to compensate in the control program. So here it is: if you hold a tricopter and turn on the motors, you can twist the airframe and feel the tricopter “resist” the movement due to the gyro stabilization routine. Therefore, the logic is clear: when I twisted the tricopter and the gyros corrected, they corrected in the opposite direction! Yes, the tricopter ACCELERATED in the direction of my twisting and spun around and bit me so fast it could put a rattle snake to shame!  Lesson learned: I now wear safety glasses when ever I am closer than 10 feet to this thing.  ’nuff said.

I promised to show the power distribution setup and here it is:

I cut two copper washers out with a 1″ hole saw ( positive and negative) as the main buss. This was done to faciliatate easy removal and replacement of each individual speed controller. In multicopters, a central power distribution architecture helps keep the aircraft smooth and stable during a transient high powered manuver.  I took both copper washers and bolted them together with a nylon bolt with a teflon washer between them.  What, you don’t have sheet of teflon laying around?  A nylon washer would work just fine, heck a plywood washer would work, or a piece of an old credit card, or …… any insulator will work at these voltages.  Check out the overview from the top with the top plywood bulkhead removed.

here is a close up

here is a close up from the bottom

here is and extreme closeup of the top. It has easy access to de-solder any speed controller, if need be.

This image shows the top “bulkhead” installed and the “servo leads” of the speed controllers threaded through the access hole.

Here is the control board installed

here are various images of the completed airframe

That’s it for this month. Next month:  Flight Tests !  Stay tuned for next month:

The Next Big Thing !

Rocket Bob Kreutzer

The first is a gentle man who did what we wondered,  he put a fuel burner in a Fun Jet.  It flew well,  wasn’t really much louder then the electrics,  was comparativly slow (and just the same fast as they had some maxed out Fun Jet Ultras there) and had about half the duration.

The second  is a $3000 jet turbine fitted to a Multiplex Twin Jet,  a now obsolete airframe.  A year later he was featured in the national magazine Foamie.  Yes,  we could have duplicated the flight profile with electric,  but part of the fun of it was getting a jet into the air without a big investment.  I have seen a couple of others,  that sound is irreplacable.  In different words then I use,  but the same message,  so what that I didn’t spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours,  this thing flies great.  We aren’t in this to make a profit,  it’s to live.  And that jet was fun.  If he had bought an unnecessarly luxerious car or took an expensive vacation would anybody take notice of that?

It might have originated in Holland,  but fiberglass cows are now a part of the cultural landscape here.  This one is in front of a vintners near Mainz Germany,  where I presume is serves as a locator.  Turn in at the red cow sort of.  The way I see it if God had meant for there to be fiberglass cows,  he would have made fiberglass grass.  We see them in all kinds of different paint schemes scattered around.

Yours,  Carl W Murphy