Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Other Hobbies and Interests => Topic started by: Andy M on June 05, 2020, 05:26:04 pm
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This tiny 340mm delta, built from 3mm depron and using the Wltoys F949 board is my friend's design, based on one he saw on youtube. After I saw his flying very nicely, I decided to build one as well. I have still to test it, it is 22g with a 100mah battery from my racing mini. These lasted for 20 minutes of mini racing, it will be interesting to see how long they last with a slightly bigger motor, and probably using more throttle. My friend used 2mm depron for his, I only had 3mm. It has 1mm carbon leading edges glued on, then sellotape over . He used carbon pushrods, mine are bamboo from a roller blind. His is 19g with a 70mah cell. Pretty close. Thrust from my motor is 16.5g, he reported his as pushing 21g, maybe a better battery or maybe my motor? Mine was from a well used quadcopter, his had much less use and was a different make. If mine flies ok, I will be happy with my 16.5g thrust.
As my F949 board has a dead servo, I ordered another one from China, my friend has given me one of his boards so I can get flying, he will get my new board when it arrives. Hope to get out for some flying soon, its pretty windy when the plane weighs under an ounce.
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I managed some test flying, it flies well, very responsive, and it has a good speed range, although my friend's one is faster, his is 2/3rds the wing thickness of mine, but I also think his motor is better.
I am happy with mine but extra power is always nice. I will try a different motor on it at some point.
It is a capable flier that can be flown in tight spaces and it fits in my rucksack in its protective box (shown in the photo above) .
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Nice little plane
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Thanks, my friend gets the credit. It must be the minimum amount of bits you can make a plane with. I can give dimensions if anyone is interested?
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My friend flying his tiny delta, short video here
https://youtu.be/gYmcism7XnE
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An update on progress of the tiny delta, it has been flown many times now and is a tough little plane that flies nice. I have fitted a better motor from a quadcopter I got in a swap for car/truck bodyshells. Definately more power now.
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Sore shoulder today..... While flying the tiny delta yesterday, a big gust of wind caught it and blew it over the top of some trees, avoiding action was taken, but just too late...... Stuck 40 feet up in the branches! Nooooo!
25 minutes of stick throwing eventually dislodged it but I thought I was going to have to leave it there. After many crash landings with no damage to it, this is the only thing I really have to worry about with this little plane. At least if it does ever get lost, its only a £13 board and some depron. It doesnt stop me from trying to get it back though.
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After messing about with masking tape to hold my battery, I decided to do a decent battery holder from fibreglass packing tape. Works perfectly and stays in place.
I have been getting more used to flying this awesome little plane, the new whizzy motor makes this a fast little plane that can go vertical until it gets hard to see. It will also cruise around at quarter throttle. I have been practicing some fast circuits, hitting a commercial bin with no damage, I love this little plane.
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I am still enjoying this little plane. In the photo above, notice that the underside has rib lines drawn on it from a different project, this is the best thing I could have made from that bit of depron,capable of slow enough flight for the dog to chase it, but also capable of going really fast or straight up for as long as you want. Numerous crashes, a lot of them at full speed, has shown that it is tough, very tough. The motor is safe at the back, occasionally the prop pings off but no motor damage so far. The nose section is still sound, carbon leading edges joined at the front with a small blob of hot glue seem to have prevented any dings or squashing. Fits in my rucksack too. 😁
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I had a long flying session with tiny delta yesterday, testing my way through some of my recycled e-cig cells. I have quite a few as shown in other photos. Any cell found to have poor performance was given 3 attempts to prove itself then retired if it never performed properly. I had several good ones, a few medium rated ones, not 100% but ok for a while.
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The voltages written on the cells in top photo are after sitting for 6 months to a year after being charged. I have been working my way through them, starting with the highest voltages first. I have quite a few still to test!😁
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With small models performance is, as you know all, about weight. You seem to have a source for an enormous number of e-cig cells! Are they 1S Li-ion cells and a smaller version of 18650 cells?
I am interested in your receiver module. I am guessing that you need to use a WL toys transmitter? What can you tell me about range?
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1. That's a lot of e-fags Andy.
2. That's a LOT of Alka-Seltzer! :o
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Alka seltzer boxes collected over a long period of time. E-cig cells were given to me by a friend. They are lipos, 3.7v around 280mah. I will check the number on them and post it soon.
I am using flysky 6ch radio, the range appears to be as good with the F949 board as with standard flysky receiver. The rx setting is changed in the transmitter settings. Apart from that everything else stays the same. I dont have the wltoys transmitter, I only bought the boards. 4 so far but I hope to get more, they are amazing. I can put a post on showing the transmitter and what you have to set it to to work the boards, it takes about 20 seconds.
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Here is the Flysky FS-I6X transmitter that I use with the wltoys F949 servo board. The photos show what you have to change to use the boards. The setting is retained for each model memory so once that model memory is selected, no further changes are required. So far, I am flying 5 planes off the same transmitter, though not all at once! Lol.
The e-cig cells are marked 08570, 8mm diameter by 57mm long. Removed from a '10 motives' e-cig. The innards are removed by pushing the battery and cotton wadding out from the white end with flat end of a pencil. Tiny wires cut and battery charged on either B6 type charger or I use syma X7 chargers.
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Thank you. Going away for a look around the internet.
I have used the Parkzone/Spektrum bricks but they are not as available as they were and the price has gone up enormously if you can find one. The advantage was that some of the later examples worked with 5g brushless motors.
There are some very light (1.7g) servos out there but the wiring is always such a mess!
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Here are the servos I have ordered for my Ridge Runt.
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Not much you can do about the wiring really, I have shortened wires on some of my stuff but usually just stuff it in there. Lol. Works as a form of padding?
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Not much you can do about the wiring really, I have shortened wires on some of my stuff but usually just stuff it in there. Lol. Works as a form of padding?
OK with a full fuz but it looks such a mess on a profile model. Padding - that's a new excuse! :-))
When they quote weight of components they don't seem to include wiring & connectors which can add quite a lot at the size of these components.
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I know, they normally dont include the weight of the wiring, plug or an output arm?! A 9g servo is actually about 12g
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I just thought I would mention that I have no experience with the wltoys F949 transmitter, but I dont think it offers the range of settings that the Flysky transmitter has. The F949 board has a socket for a rudder servo, which I mixed until it thought it was the elevator servo when my elevator servo failed. Lots of mixing variations are possible with the flysky tx and F949 board.
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Thanks Andy.
I am used to the idea with 2.4Ghz that things differ between manufacturers so that you can't normally just swop round bits between them. The fact that a WLToys receiver works with a Flysky transmitter was therefore a surprise.
Are you aware of a cheap but good brick that has an esc for a small (5gramme) brushless motor?
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Hi, I haven't heard of any that work with brushless motors, thats why I have just been using the dc quad motors. Myself and my friend have had pretty good results with these though. Using gearbox units from syma X7, I have flown models up to 36 inch wingspan. My experimental canard flew with a standard X7 gearbox but pretty marginal, I have fitted one of my whizzy motors (from an Akamino S6 drone) to the gearbox but have still to test it with the new motor, I need more F949 boards to save me having to swap them about, even though its not difficult.
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Andy
I have a problem with understanding some of what you are saying as I know absolutely nothing about drones. You obviously know a lot about these drones and have a supply of them.
To me coreless pager motors (which is what I think these are) are defined by the case diameter & length. eg an 8mm diameter 20 long case motor is an 820. There is, of course, also the rpm bit which I realise that can be difficult to know.
Gearboxes are a ratio of the teeth on the 2 gears. Syma X7 gearboxes doesn't get me far but obviously means a lot to you.
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The syma x7 is a small quadcopter that uses 8x 20mm motors in their gearboxes. They are £10 delivered and are one of the best quadcopters I have found at this size. 4 motors and gearboxes a battery and a charger for £10 is pretty good, or you can just use it as a quadcopter. I am not an expert, I just buy or swap stuff to build models. My bigger wltoys v262 quads were bought as a batch which dropped the price enough to make them amazing value. I will post a few photos of the X7 quad and its gearbox units
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Here is the syma x7 spaceship quadcopter and a pic of the gearbox
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The syma x7 is a small quadcopter that uses 8x 20mm motors in their gearboxes. They are £10 delivered and are one of the best quadcopters I have found at this size. 4 motors and gearboxes a battery and a charger for £10 is pretty good, or you can just use it as a quadcopter....................
I like the places that you look a lot more than I like the places I look.
Where do you find the X7 for £10 delivered?
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Ebay. Will post link if you want
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I just had a look, says item is out of stock. Just a bit too late.
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https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Syma-Helicopter-X7-4-Channel-2-4G-Gyro-Radio-Remote-Ctrl-Spaceship-Copter-Quad-/202611843718
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It may be worth contacting them to see if they have any returns, if you just want it for motors/gearboxes battery and charger. You might get a decent discount? To be honest, I thought they were a bargain when they were still £20
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R. I. B. Tiny delta (rest in barley)
During a flight in a sheltered spot, I ventured out over the barley field, a gust caught it and whipped it up another 20 feet, above the trees and into even stronger winds, nose down pick up speed, wind flips it upside down, so I pull it into half a loop hoping to get down under the stronger winds, now its going downwind over 3ft high barley, oh no, extra pressure got to get it near the edge so I can find it, I get it turned round and coming back..... Is it? Nope, its definately getting smaller, got to get it back while I can still tell whats the up side of the getting smaller shape, fighting back into the wind, full throttle, controls touchy as.... Oh no its heading away now, oh no cant tell which direction its going, I am still controlling it, so range is good, lol. Yip, its down, at least 1/4 of a mile away, I even managed to get a line of sight estimate of its position as it went into the field, oh no, never finding that, I thought! And I was totally right.. I never saw it again. Waaaah. Its the risk you take flying a 1 ounce tiny plane in a wind over 3ft barley, I think even near the edge would be hard to find. Anyway, I will pass that way again and have another look, I dont have long, it looks near to harvest time........ Choppy choppy crunch crunch😩 so down to 3 boards now, with one of them having a dead servo, its still a perfectly good 3 channel set though so perfectly adequate for my fleet so far. Not built a 4ch one from it yet. I am thinking of a micro version of my Midknight plane, it was the plane I built after I learned how to keep my Precedent Hi Boy. 40 powered trainer in one bit. The main bit of learning to fly by myself was done on a 3ft electric plane called a champion Bigi plane for some reason. Cessna type, geared motor. I had too big a pair of servos, poorer battery, big receiver and it still flew, only took me a fuselage and wing replacement before I managed to fly out a full battery in one go. Without crashing. Lol. Anyway, I will try and find photos of my Midknights, I built a few of them, different sizes, nice looking plane. I built a lightened version with flaps, it used 6 servos, a y lead and 5 of my 6 channels, my most at the time. Flew really well, but wasnt as robust as my slightly heavier standard one. To be honest, what killed it was the soft balsa that I used soaked up the castor exhaust, that ran along the wing to fuselage join, causing it to become squishy in addition to the lightening holes I made in the sheeted bits. It flew nice tho, and for a long time before it was recycled. That means any non-oily bits went in my scraps box. Pretty much just the wingtips. Lol. I miss the smell of castor but not the mess.... Mmmm, wheres my smoke generator out of my tank? Electric planes that smell of castor, but no mess, be on to a winner there?
Anyway, tiny delta is gone, amazing fun while it lasted, the adventures we had, stuck 30 feet up a tree, and virtually all heights down to ground level. Dislodge-able with sticks or paracord and a bolt. I only have black depron big enough now, but I cant even find a white one with fluorescent orange tips in the field so a black depron one is unwise.
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{:-{ <:( :((
It probably isn't as far as you think. Small models become tiny models when not that far away. Good luck when finding it. My local farmer would not be happy for me to wander around his rapidly ripening barley field.
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I walked back and forth along the tracks left by his tractor. I know what you mean about being closer than I think. Pretty sure delta is going to get harvested.
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I flew a quad with video in a (rough) search pattern over quite a lot of field, missing out the bits I knew it definately wasnt near. I had hoped I may spot it, but there are hundreds of bits that look like it but no fluorescent orange tips to be seen. 😩
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Are you sure it landed in the barley - its like a small piece on a model that pings off into the distance, it never ends up where you expect, is it further on than expected?
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Hi, there is a line of small trees and bushes that border the field, I am 99% sure it came down on my side, in front of them, with a visible strip of barley between the trees and it. I think its down between the stalks, and therefore invisible. Lol. Its 3 ft deep, so unless its visible from the tractor lines, I think its going to be harvested.
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Here are some pics of the field, showing wind/rain? damage and no sign of me little plane. Theres a few things that look like they could be it but a closer look shows they arent. Its got fluorescent orange tips but they dont stand out on camera like they do in real life.
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I decided that after losing my tiny delta, I want to build another one, only problem is that the only depron I have that is big enough is the dark grey/black variety. It isnt as rigid as the white stuff, but it is slightly lighter. Its main problem is visibility, both in the air and in long grass or up a tree. My original delta was made from a bigger wing skin I had drawn on ready to be used, but not used. Cant remember why. Anyway, I was looking at my wing collection, and spotted a wing I had made as a spare, but the original plane was too broken to repair, even with a brand new wing. After checking an edge, I found that the rubbery glue was mostly peeling apart, but I had to be really careful to avoid cracking the sheeting. An hour or so of gently easing it apart from the ribs and spar and peeling the remaining glue off with tweezers gave me 2 sheets, good on one side but marked on the inside where peeling the glue took some of the depron too, some places look quite deep but overall, I think I did quite well, recycling at its best.
I have enough for 2 deltas, but hopefully only need to make 1, that leaves me a whole wing and more for another project, maybe 2 at this size. I have loads of scraps, but badly needed larger bits for wings. They have a bit of camber from being glued to a symetrical airfoil for 10 years. Lol. This can be eased out for the flat delta, or left in for undercambered wings. Just need to find some carbon leading edges and I am well on the way to a new tiny delta. I really should get more of these wee boards. Well impressed. I bought a pack of paperclips, thats me sorted for control rod ends for a good few years. Its working out to be a very enjoyable and fairly cheap branch of my modelling hobby. Its also using up my e-fag cells quite nicely. Still got a few left. Lol.
Might have to peel carbon rods off my giant wasp's wings if I cant find suitable bits for the delta.
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Delta mk 2 is built, just needs board fitted and rod ends fitted. Underside has unfortunate lettering, lol. It was the bottom wing skin. Also shows my new battery holder, ice cream tub plastic with tabs through wing and fibreglass tape over the top.
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I have a question, what do you use for the aileron hinges ?
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Hi, the hinges are small bits of fibreglass packing tape. I used to use full strips but its just extra weight. It sticks really well.
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I have a couple of models where I copied my friend's method, he cut a v channel into the depron, only leaving the skin as the hinge, it works fine so far but I have added small fibreglass tape hinges to mine, just in case.....
I usually put the hinges on undersurface and v cut on top, as the tape is pretty noticeable. Control horns are ice cream tub plastic, hole poked from both sides (with a pin from poundland superglue) to fit paperclip z bends and tidied up with homemade sanding block. Small scalpel slit through the tape and aileron, poke it through, line it up, hot glue the underside of aileron to horn, snip off spare bit on top side leaving 2mm or less and a hotglue blob over this, stronger than the depron, I destroyed an aileron trying to reposition the horn.
After spending a good portion of my modelling life (and a fair amount of money) buying engines, radio gear, balsa, some kits, solarfilm, solartex and loads of hardware like hinges, control horns, snakes, tanks, fuel tubing and bags of big elastic bands, ( thats only the planes not counting helicopter, boat and car stuff!) I am finding this branch of my modelling very satisfying from a building point of view and also cheap, satisfyingly cheap😁
I have 3 control boards at the moment, total cost under £40, these are in my elmira, the tiny trainer and one in my Micro Jet (removed from jupiter junior, the tiny trainer/cub flies nicely enough to keep its radio gear)
I am waiting on more boards coming, I still havent tried the midknight, the ridge runt is to get a board and another go at flying, I already killed a motor in it. My new Tiny Delta is in line for a board too. Thats earned a board for the good flying I had with mark one thats now lost in a barley field. I await harvesting so I have more chance of finding depron shreds, possibly leading to finding my carbon leading edges and pushrods, maybe fragments of the board? Maybe battery but I am not to bothered about it, I have plenty. The board is the 'expensive' bit at £13. Carbon, a couple of quid. And one of my best motors😩
Still, its not a huge loss, just frustrating I couldnt find it, part of me holds out hope of finding it, drying it out, fresh battery and it will work. The realist part of me knows its getting shredded soon.........
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I decided to have another look at my screenshot and see how long I still have to wait for my boards coming, there's still a while to go .......
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Well, after many weeks of waiting, my plane has been harvested! I got a call the other day from my friend to say the field had been harvested. I managed to get down for a look last night and found the remains of the plane, a motor plug with the motor end cap and brushes still on it and a few smaller bits of depron. No sign of the board, carbon pushrods or the battery. I hunted about the area until it got too dark but no luck. Ah well, I got a motor plug and a single bit of carbon leading edge, the other side had been snipped.
As it turned out, it did actually go in much closer than I had estimated, right in the middle, I had thought it was nearer the opposite side. I was doing well to actually see it at that distance, looking back to where I had been standing was still a long long way. I have a new delta made up, just to fit a board, battery and a motor, could have done with finding the lost board, will have another look next time I am down. The straw is lying in strips, it could be under there somewhere or mashed into the mud. I have ordered new boards (due middle to end of October) 🙁
Hopefully these ones wont get sent back to China by customs.