Ep 111: Fly RC Nation, and Listener Questions

[00:00:10] Okay all right then dave ready ready welcome to another

[00:00:20] It's not as easy as it seems he makes it look welcome to another episode of rc plane lab i'm

[00:00:26] Dave i'm ron and i'm tom see it wasn't that bad good job dave that was only a second try yeah he did that like successfully on his second try and we're gonna leave the first one in too for grins

[00:00:38] And giggles i do it to myself dave that's what he does so hi guys we're gonna sit down and talk about some listener questions and answer some stuff and go over some stuff so yeah no guest

[00:00:50] Episode this week no we fail normal rotation for guests we just didn't get them scheduled not a big deal we have plenty that we're going to yes we just have to reach out and do it to reach out

[00:01:00] Which will be in the next couple weeks because we need to well you need to well we have to set a time where we can do it before we can schedule it well that's true pretty much any weekend i mean

[00:01:13] For me except for the weekends where i'm working which is usually the first weekend of the

[00:01:18] Month usually okay we'll figure it out maybe we'll figure it out no it'd have to be whatever just know

[00:01:23] That if you want to be a guest we are still going to do the guest episodes we just have to get them scheduled and if you want to be a guest get on our website rcplanelab.com good job very much first time and click the be a guest form and fill that out and send that to us and we'll get you

[00:01:40] Scheduled eventually eventually don't rush us yeah we promise we will get them scheduled and we have

[00:01:47] Some that we still need to contact and if you've sent one in you will be contacted by ron shortly don't say shortly sometime sometime in the near future that you're open to interpretation right i guess shortly for some grand scheme of things long leave for someone else shortly and longly that works right

[00:02:07] Anyway sure let's move on all right before we get into questions though did anybody else receive the email from horizon hobby today about their new rc nation website i have not checked my email today but

[00:02:22] I it might be in there okay here well i got it yeah i was at work and i was bored can i say that i was at work i was bored i mean people get bored at work sometimes it happens and i saw the email come

[00:02:33] Through i was like what's this so it's it seems like it's going to be a cross between like facebook and a forum like i'm not exactly sure how it's going to work yet interesting but it's called the rc nation and since we're on the flying side like the airplane side yeah it's called fly rc nation and if you're on the car side or whatever else it's called drive rc nation so at least there's a delineation between the two airplanes and land however i signed up i'm not sure really what it is going to be like but they

[00:03:13] Have a referral code so since i signed up and if i get people to sign up through me kind of sounds like a pyramid scheme but apparently there you don't pay anything so i don't know what kind of prizes you can get or what they give out if you have people sign up through your referral code but i'm going to go ahead and link that referral code down below this episode and if you're curious it's 879-318 is my referral code and i'm going to say that again everybody i'm going to wait for you to get a piece of paper and a pen did you get one good 879-318 so like i said i don't know if that

[00:03:50] Gets me anything but i'll let you guys know that is a shameless plea for free stuff well i want to know what it is like what's the point of having people sign up through which by the way no it didn't say it just says like you sign up through somebody maybe sometime eventually so i want to know what that means so you guys should sign up through me too by the way okay like i said i don't know what it means i want a piece of whatever you get just saying it'll probably be a sticker that i'll get a quarter of the

[00:04:18] Two years i was gonna say the last time i got an offer free offer from them it was for a sticker you

[00:04:23] Know what and that reminds me i after i bought one of my airplanes from them i think it was the the night radiant had that little card in there sign up for free stuff i never got anything

[00:04:33] It's been a couple months you should probably talk to somebody about that i want my sticker yeah where are you gonna stick it i'll tell you where where on your airplane flight box or flight back sit on an airplane why would you do that well if the airplane came from horizon anyway

[00:04:52] Listener questions are we ready to get into that or does anybody else have something else they want to say let's go for it you guys are good so first off chad sent us a message through our website he said i've been using futaba radios for a long time but i've been thinking about trying out some of the new inexpensive radios that i've been seeing i know you guys use spectrum what keeps you using them and have you thought about switching to something open source so i'll go first i fly spectrum because that's how i started like i know you guys didn't start in spectrum but my first airplane came

[00:05:27] With the dx4 and i progressed from a dx4 to a five to a dx6 i skipped the seven went to an eight which is what i flew with for years that was like my main radio and then i got until recently yeah yeah within

[00:05:41] The last year ish or so less than a year wasn't it was the spring was it the spring yeah it's the

[00:05:46] Swatman i couldn't remember if it was this spring or last fall it was the caterer yeah it was fall you're right so almost a year i have no reason to switch like i am so deep in spectrum stuff it would be stupid expensive to switch on anything else like all of my radio gear is spectrum yeah so i mean i've heard good things about some of these other ones we actually i don't know what it was you're gonna steal my thunder no you're gonna totally steal my thunder no we actually talked about trying

[00:06:18] Something different we did yeah so go on take some thunder time well yeah so i've used pretty

[00:06:27] Much all of them i think dave has as well yeah with the exception of i think we were talking a little bit jetty and some of the the higher end groppner stuff i've never tried it was really interested me

[00:06:38] If i were to start over yeah well what what did you start with by the way so so my first radio was a

[00:06:44] Craft it was a craft am4 channel that i started with way back when way way way back when okay but yeah so craft and then i think the next one that i owned was a cirrus which was actually a jr marketing marketing thing and then from there i think it was futaba and then i from there it was whatever i could find that worked that i could afford as a as a high school student and then college student whatever that was so yeah and just recently yeah spectrum

[00:07:21] Well when i say recently i mean what 2008 i think i got my first spectrum radio and i jumped right in really yeah i think so i think it was 2007 or eight it was in that time frame and i jumped right in to a dx8 that i got used and that's how i got into spectrum actually i take that back i got into spectrum with the cars actually so i was racing cars with spectrum equipment before i actually jumped into the air side but yeah my first spectrum air radio was the dxa the same one you have which i still

[00:07:54] Have oh yeah it still flies fine and the reason i stick with it is because i'm accustomed to how the programming works in the transmitters even the ix12 which is the the newest one the the features and the and everything is where i expect it to be in the in the in the menus what i'm saying but it has so much more well yeah the ix12 does but i think that's why i've stuck with spectrum and haven't really tried anything open source or cheaper just because i like the way

[00:08:28] It works and i it my mind is that's how my brain is used to looking at a transmitter menu now i it's everything is where i expect it to be not that i'm saying that the futabas and the what other what else is there i guess the open source stuff not that they're not good i'm sure they're great it's just that's why i've stuck with spectrum yeah but we have tried the cheaper stuff we in fact you and i gave away a fly sky gosh it just is a little six channel spread spectrum type radio 2.4 and it

[00:09:05] Worked great it really did for the price especially especially for the price it was very inexpensive it's not what i would i don't think it's what i would consider an open source because it had fixed programming correct but it worked great but what i didn't like about it is that the programming was wonky in my opinion because i just wasn't used to it yeah and the transmitter did let's be honest it felt kind of cheap and toyish yeah in my hands so to me but to somebody who's just getting started who may be not accustomed to the stuff that we're used to it would be fine there's

[00:09:37] Nothing absolutely nothing yeah exactly nothing with it and dave and i are both really kind of intrigued about the whole open source or open tx i think is the european stuff yeah yeah so looks

[00:09:49] Interesting yeah what about you did i kind of i just went from fataba to jr to spectrum i'm stuck with spectrum at this point just because i have so much invested in 40 receivers yeah so yeah it's not financially viable for me to start over with one of the newer transmitters yeah i did however do that in the cars i was looking for a newer well i was using some boats and i didn't want to use my good spectrum transmitter in a boat that's going to get wet

[00:10:20] And i needed seven channels i had a five channel spectrum car thing and it worked fine but i needed a few more channels and i just wasn't real crazy about taking that expensive transmitter to the lake yeah so i looked around and i found one of the off-brand ones it wasn't fly sky but it was another one very similar to the fly sky and i bought that transmitter seven channel transmitter that had built-in gyros in the receivers wow and two receivers for less money that i could have bought a five channel spectrum receiver yeah just receiver an entire new system in fact i liked it so much i

[00:10:56] Bought two of them nice yeah and that probably works perfect and they work beautifully i've not had a problem they've got cruise control in them which is really nice for the crawlers i'll explain that one to you later yeah yeah there's nice nice transmitters and the receivers are like seven dollars a pop so it's and then fail proof no problems now i think i might be mistaken i mean

[00:11:19] You touched on the the reinvestment it would take to to switch brands at this point the fact that 40 receivers and i'm i don't know where mine's at but it's probably 30 at least and i know you've got at least that many i think some and correct me if i'm wrong but i think some of this open source stuff i think is is compatible yeah yeah like you could use your spectrum receivers i think so you could maybe it wouldn't be as much of a of a reinvestment but like i said for me learning

[00:11:52] Something new is the is the challenge for me and and i like my dx9 yeah well and see i'm to the point

[00:11:59] Where i don't i don't need to find something different because what i have works yeah i mean like i i one day might be kind of cool to kind of see what all this other stuff is about but i don't have that time or interest at this point no i get it but for what i've heard about like the different brands i've never really heard anything bad about any of the mainstream ones that you hear about right me either so i mean i don't see a reason now like to stay away from i've heard bad about

[00:12:28] Orange yeah but that's receipt well i guess that's true they didn't make trans right yeah

[00:12:33] But that was a knockoff but that was a yeah that was a copy that was not like their own copy of a

[00:12:39] Copy yeah i mean it was orange i mean spectrum's color is orange anyway oh my i never got that

[00:12:46] Are you serious is that wow you're both like shaking your head at me like i'm an idiot and i get that look a lot but i okay i never realized that yeah so i mean and their transmitter this

[00:13:01] The orange transmitter is actually the translucent orange plastic i mean it's it's blatant that it's okay but anyway weird chad i appreciate the question and if you decide to go open source let us know like send us an email get on the discord server contact us in any number of the ways that you can use the way you did yeah and and let us know if you decide to do that and what that's like because i'm interested in in kind of understanding more so that we can help other

[00:13:31] Folks that maybe have questions about it later so dave you said you switched from blank to jr to spectrum futaba was it futaba to jr to spectrum so what made you switch between those like was that

[00:13:44] All with airplane stuff or that was all airplane side i actually started with cars with high tech oh yeah you remember those gold high techs yeah well they sometimes worked they yeah what high tech has come a long way what brought on the the change though futaba to jr switch was due to me working in the hobby shop and just seeing the nice quality of the jr radios coming in and then they came in with that real low priced 622 programmable radio and that was the first reasonably priced for a

[00:14:17] Programmable radio so i made the jump okay unfortunately that one had a glitch i kept losing airplanes with it so then i went on to the 642 and then finally i broke down and spent the big bucks on the 8103 and i love the 8103 in fact i flew the 8103 three weeks ago yeah i still have mine too well what what took you to spectrum then took me to spectrum was the 2.4 and the fact that the programming on jr and spectrum were very similar it wasn't much of a learning curve

[00:14:48] To switch from the jr fm stuff to the 2.4 yep and that's what exactly the same because

[00:14:57] Spectrum came onto the scene first with the whole spread spectrum technology the 2.4 gigahertz i didn't realize that yeah they preceded well all the other brands and then shortly thereafter futaba is right there behind him yeah and that's really what prompted me to jump into it too was that whole spread spectrum and i had been using it in cars already with fantastic results

[00:15:21] Like fantastic results i was i was the opposite it's weird i was the opposite when i was doing cars because i wasn't racing i wasn't trying to win money i wasn't doing anything it was just racing cars around money racing cars i don't think you spend a lot i don't think i ever well i wasn't competitive let's put it that way it was more fun just with my neighbor racing stuff around here i didn't care what radio i used i wanted cheap and so i don't even know what i had for cars here and that was like i always went as cheap as i could on that kind of stuff but when it

[00:15:51] Comes to airplanes that can fall out of the sky and potentially hurt somebody i didn't think of that yeah i would prefer to have something that's got a history to it that i know i can trust yeah and that's kind of why and i never thought of anything different just based on timing based on what i bought and it was just kind of one of those this is what i fly with because this is what came with

[00:16:14] It when you when you got into the hobby spread spectrum was was the standard it was like yeah

[00:16:21] It was like the new standard yeah so fm was not even there wasn't really anything else to choose from

[00:16:26] I mean yeah you could choose futaba electronics jr whatever but spectrum was it i don't

[00:16:33] Know if they had the different different transmitters at the hobby shop at that time

[00:16:38] Yeah we didn't carry futabas we only really fell out of favor in this area for i don't know why i mean i don't know good quality stuff it just fell out of favor yeah yeah it has anything to do with

[00:16:48] Probably because yeah right that's what i think too but i can see that but yeah so chad thanks for the question hopefully that clouds the subject further so make the difficult or make the decision even more difficult for you but let us know what you decide to do because yeah i would really be interested in hearing someone's hands-on experience with the open source stuff seems like seems like

[00:17:12] That's kind of the next thing me too are we ready yeah we are taking a long time on these like i thought this was going to be a short episode well we've got i mean i know we've only got a few more questions to go through but yeah anyway let's see how this goes so next michael sent us an email he says hey guys i'm a nitro guy but i like him already how did i know how did i know i'm gonna start over sorry michael

[00:17:42] Says hey guys i'm a nitro guy but my current point in time i'm limited on space and time to fly i have four kids under seven and i'm trying to have somewhat of a hobby at the same time kudos ouch yeah good good on you i can't even fathom yeah just to give you a little background i have been flying on and off since i was a kid i have a couple nitro planes that i fly a contender and a cavalier both nitro yeah between the two of us we have one of each of those i know it's awesome

[00:18:09] Contender as well yeah that's well that's right there's three of them right here nice cavalier is a

[00:18:14] Lot better anyway i'm i'm getting the looks again i'm currently building an amco aeromaster 2 and i'm planning on making that nitro as well now i don't know what that is so amco is a kit

[00:18:27] Manufacturer from the 70s and 80s and aeromaster 2 is a biplane it's a biplane kit oh that's okay

[00:18:36] Nitro biplane boy it's exciting two wins right there i mean i love this guy he says the place that i'm hoping i can fly is a little tight for space to take off and land and though i feel confident in my flying i don't think i would consistently be able to land with my contender a cavalier i could always go somewhere else but it would be too easy just to walk across the street and fly in this place i'm considering okay here we go i'm considering dipping into the realm of electric to make it a little quicker to be able to go fly for a little bit and come back without all

[00:19:07] The extra work that nitro can take i've listened to all of your episodes but have gone back and listened to your electric episode to try and figure out what all i need i know nothing about electric and i'm trying to figure out what size plane i would want but also what brand of motor esc and lipos to buy

[00:19:23] I have a spectrum dx8 transmitter so i was wondering how much nicer it would be to get to get a spectrum esc and lipos for the smart technology it seems like it is going to take a chunk of money to go electric for the first time yeah i have heard your horror stories about lipo batteries and i'm a little paranoid of wanting something good to make sure i can take care of them correctly also if you have any recommendations of a sporty airplane that is smaller than a contender that would be good to go out or to go in and out of tighter spaces i've never had a plane

[00:19:53] Smaller than my contender so any advice you would give would be helpful thanks michael well michael i

[00:20:00] Don't hold it against you that you want to go electric because i totally get the convenience of it totally especially there i go again with the totally the convenience of it and being able to to charge something in the garage and just take it across the street and fly it i mean that's

[00:20:14] That's pretty appealing electric is great for that it's just to have it ready plug a battery and go and i understand like the ease of being able to fly in smaller spots smaller places and really there's a lot of options i think for him based on what his goal is i'd highly like to

[00:20:33] Recommend like one of the tundra like airplanes yes i was just gonna something big wheeled high wing bush plane and they're not boring no big white sporty yeah i was gonna say i can fly his very sporty what do you have and where is it from i have a grand tundra from hobby king okay and it's a good flyer they also make a much smaller version that's a lot more economical uses the smaller batteries and can still fly from those wild areas the performance is very very nice yeah i

[00:21:07] Tell you one of my favorite things to do is inverted flat spins man that thing spins like a frisbee if

[00:21:12] I get it going yeah nice i can vouch for it dave that it does fly it does fly well i've watched you fly it many times and it would be the perfect and you can fly it pretty much anywhere because you can

[00:21:23] Yank it off the ground in six foot and it can land in 20. yeah now depending he says he's got a dx8 he

[00:21:29] Doesn't say which generation if it's a generation one or two i know the generation one is not compatible with the smart stuff from spectrum but the generation two might be but i'm not sure so you'll want to you'll want to get on the spectrum website and double check that you don't even need to have the smart stuff it's nice it's convenient and nice but but well i think if he's wanting to

[00:21:51] Get into the smart stuff he might also just be talking about batteries and safety which is like yeah the safe and that kind of stuff so if that's kind of what you're wanting to get into and you want something that will which if you want something it'll help you fire maybe if he's trying to get his kids into it then i what is it the hobby zone aero scout have you seen those before yeah those fly really good they're they have the safe built in they have the as3x but what i will say

[00:22:19] Is that if he's if he's accustomed to flying a contender or a lesser quality cavalier he's probably going to get bored with an aero scout well maybe but getting the kids into it

[00:22:31] Absolutely it depends on the goal yeah yeah for sure if you want something that's smaller and electric too by the way any of the umx planes would be awesome our ultraxes i love them oh and you you

[00:22:42] Yeah michael you could totally fly the ultrax like ron and i each have the small one and he just

[00:22:48] Recently i just figured out the bigger one we'll talk about that next week but the big one is awesome

[00:22:53] What a what a blast these things are and you can fly these things in your yard absolutely like from your yard i should say maybe not in your yard but like you could take off like in your yard go fly over the pasture and then bring it back and hover it back into your yard and for a two-foot like i mean it yeah they're super super super fun to fly and easy to fly really especially with the different

[00:23:15] Levels of safe anyway when you can turn it off yeah and figure out how to actually do that yeah

[00:23:20] Makes a huge difference and by the way those are all the planes that we just talked about are all smaller than your contender well well the contender yeah well the big grand tundra is bigger than the big tundra yeah but the small tundra small tundra is much smaller yeah and apply it probably flies

[00:23:36] Almost as good as oh yeah they do yeah so and they are very similar to the which one the e-flights got what's the name of their bush plane oh the timber timber oh yeah and they got about 15 different

[00:23:46] Versions of that yeah turbo timber timber umx timber night timber timber x timber yeah yeah

[00:23:52] They've got quite a few versions of that turbo timber but the grand tundra is flies very similar

[00:23:56] Yeah they're all going to fly very similar they're probably all about the same price maybe i don't know you were going to say something that was a while ago i don't remember what i was going to say now it's okay no big deal so that's the airplane that kind of we would say which oddly enough i think everything we suggested was foam yeah that's weird like i just caught that i know

[00:24:16] There's not a lot but but with foam comes inexpensive i mean to to set up a balsa plane of the same caliber and and flight qualities and electric let's be honest it's going to be a fair amount more yeah because it's just more expensive to pay somebody to assemble up a balsa air

[00:24:35] Frame than it is to mold a piece of foam in a machine that's true and these are all come as package deals so you don't have to go farm out a motor and speed control and figure out what prop to use it's all package deals so it takes all the guesswork out of it which is a good way if you're

[00:24:46] Just getting into electric to have something all done and you can figure it out plane yeah exactly exactly since that's the airplanes now now let's talk about what is it going to take to get into the electric side of the hobby right like what do you need that you don't need with nitro yep you

[00:25:03] Want to take it oh sure so you're going to need a lipo compatible charger if you don't already have one preferably one that has a balancer built in which i i'm not even sure you can buy a charger without that these days you can oh can you okay it's important to keep the cells balanced as much as possible and most chargers will do that automatically without any input from you so look for

[00:25:30] Well hold on there i'm yes most chargers will as long as you're in the right settings right so you have to balance charge there are different settings like on one of my chargers to where you can just charge it balance charge it i think that might be the only two so you can just charge them to where it's not going to go and balance each week yeah my defaults to balance and

[00:25:49] I have to turn balance off if i just want to zap it to go yeah me too and it does take a little bit

[00:25:55] Longer to balance charge as opposed to just charging them but well it's like topping off the tank

[00:25:59] Perfectly right and you want to make sure it's done correctly because that way your power is being

[00:26:04] Pulled out the same from each cell right so look for a charger that has that capability that'll take better care of your batteries which relates to safety and you're not gonna need a super high-end charger no just a basic one's gonna get the job done yeah exactly and just a note about batteries we i think we we may over drama ties the the the volatility like i haven't seen a lipo go off until ever until your experience that was my first experience and we've been doing lipos a long time

[00:26:35] Long time so and we generally speaking we know how to take care of our batteries and we have chargers that that help us out in that regard so i mean the likelihood if you're using all the right equipment the likelihood of a battery going off is really really small but it is there it is there but i mean you have the same i mean i don't know what the odds are but you got a gallon of nitro fuel sitting in your garage i mean if your garage catches on fire there you go you've got an oxidizer and all this other stuff yeah so i mean there's risks inherent to the hobby it shouldn't be

[00:27:07] Enough to scare you away from it that's kind of what i was trying to get at like don't don't let the don't let the fact that the lipos can do that scare you off because a nitro motor or a gas motor that's not restrained properly i mean look at the damage that can do to somebody's hand yeah there are risks and we accept them as part of the hobby so get yourself a lipo bag yeah lipo bag that was yeah that was gonna be my next recommendation was to get a box or a bag that's designed to contain

[00:27:35] That fire should and we've talked about that before it was a tool of the week i don't know three four or five six weeks ago something like that time goes together it does yeah and like i said i think the one i bought for storing my batteries in now it's like 13 bucks on amazon so there's no reason

[00:27:52] Not yeah they're really not very expensive and it's cheap insurance especially if you store them in your house like i still store my batteries in the fridge yep me too but they're before but they are in a bag yeah i actually keep them in my lipo bag i do now in the fridge yeah so anyway so you're gonna need a charger and obviously you're gonna need some batteries they don't have to be the smart stuff you can they don't have to be the expensive you can get away with yeah you can absolutely get away with amazon batteries ron and i are both flying amazon batteries with great luck

[00:28:22] Yeah the higher the c rating the better performing you're gonna get so you can buy some really cheap batteries out there but they're like 10c you don't want those yeah you want something much higher c and

[00:28:34] I'm gonna be honest too like on the amazon batteries i will always double the c rating on what it suggests because i don't necessarily trust they are being honest on what their c ratings yeah actually

[00:28:46] Is yeah so if i'm looking for a battery that needs 50c i'll try to shop on amazon for 100 c and what that

[00:28:53] Means is it means the how many times the capacity you can pull the power out of that so if it's a 2.2 or a 2200 milliamp hour battery and you're running on a less for ease of of numbers you're running to where you need to pull 10 amps out of it hold on how did i i just mess that one up scratch everything i just said so let's say you have a we're going to really go easy on this a one amp hour battery

[00:29:23] So 1000 mah battery and you're pulling a 10 amp load out of it then you would need one that's rated for 10c but you're going to want to have enough overhead just to make sure that you have some safety built in so if it says whatever plane you buy if it says you need a 10c battery for that i would buy a 20. does that make sense like you said the 50 to 100 and they get the

[00:29:46] Higher c rating by reducing the internal resistance which is like opening the valve right so you actually get a little bit more power also quicker more performance yeah higher c is going to give you a more sporty feel yes exactly it's not going to be so doggy i mean they don't seem to be any less durable that i found in lower c rating so why not spend a little extra money to get a little

[00:30:07] Extra i use a 20c in my flight box but i don't fly anything with a battery right yeah yep yeah i get

[00:30:13] It so there's that made sense yeah there's one cell two cell three cell batteries i mean like i said when you look at the airplane that you're wanting to get and when you've made that decision they will tell you what battery it takes and most of the time they'll have links to the battery they recommend you don't necessarily have to buy that brand just make sure your connector is right that's the other thing you're going to have different connectors xt60 dean's ec3 ec5 there's a bunch of different ones ic3 now from i see yeah my newest ones have that and there

[00:30:44] You go when you charge charge at 1c for most most batteries will take 1c charge so you charge at one capacity and you just kind of go from there so a 5 000 milliamp pack you charge at 5 amps yeah

[00:30:57] And just a quick note that that reminds me on the charger preferably an ac dc charger for convenience oh yeah i forgot about that but as i found out just recently my charger i have a dual port so i can charge two batteries at once in ac mode my charger divides the output in half i can

[00:31:18] Program it like it's a 10 amp charger that only puts out 5 amp if you're doing well that's done in

[00:31:22] Wattage on my charger but yeah so it'll take 100 watt ac input and divide it in half and send 50 per channel unless i tell it to go 101 channel which then there's the other channel useless but so that's something to note like if you're going to get higher capacity the big 5 000 milliamp packs three cell packs they they can they can take quite a bit of wattage 100 watts easily to charge one of those so if you have an ac dc charger that limits the wattage like mine does

[00:31:53] Might be something you want to make a note of and use it on a dc only because dc mine doesn't do that it has 200 watts and i can divide i can use 200 watts on both channels and the power supplies are so

[00:32:04] Cheap on amazon anyway well and that's honestly because you're charging dc so it's not converting anything over where it has to take the ac and convert it to dc yeah so exactly and then if you go because he said something about the the smart stuff if you go with like the gen 2 smart batteries there's no balance lead there's nothing you don't even start them you just plug the battery in and then the charger takes care of everything like i'm actually a smart charger yeah sorry you have to have the gen 2 smart charger gen 2 batteries they have to actually talk to each other and that kind of stuff but i'm actually kind of a fan of those if it wasn't for the price of

[00:32:36] The batteries yeah if like if i was in in his shoes i would i would probably look at jumping in that that cool yeah because of the yeah the convenience and the and the technology it's the ease of use you like you said you plug absolutely and the charger just does everything there's no figuring

[00:32:55] It out yeah and then that one also like the plug-in things that we use the gen 2 chargers have the built-in storage charge after a certain amount of time which you change that on the charger and then it programs it to the battery that's pretty cool it was a lot of fun yeah are we ready to move on to

[00:33:11] The next one so yeah hopefully that hopefully that helped if you have any more questions

[00:33:15] Let us know like them okay right on ready yes right on solid dude william william's up next and he sent us a note he said hi ron and tom will hear from australia love your podcast well good day mate how did i know you're gonna do that because you can't not he says he's no shrimp on the barbie i can't deal with it he said i listen to it religiously and love the tips i have a question slash suggestion for a topic warbirds this is one i'm not going to talk much on we all want one when we're starting out

[00:33:51] But quickly find out these may look great in the air but require a lot of skill not suited for a beginner i made the mistake and trained myself on a schwomi warbird and after a steep learning curve i'm proficient enough to fly them but as electrics bore me oh yes and i've taken up nitro advanced trainers the air flight hustler at a boy piper j3 cub blah blah blah what sort of airframe would you suggest as a good introduction in the nitro balsa scale warbirds for someone intermediate of skill

[00:34:20] Kind regards love the show william william i'm just going to start by saying the j3 cub could be considered a warbird jesse can i mean really they flew them around in vietnam as observation planes no no no that's world war ii oh world war ii that's right yeah they were the l4s l4s yeah yeah

[00:34:38] And actually the first ones delivered to the army air corps were actually production civilian j3s in yellow paint that they whitewashed real quick with green paint and sent them out into the field and i think they tried them out in georgia if i remember right but they were off the factory civilian j3s

[00:34:57] So if you don't want to start with the j3 hanger 9 makes a they make a plethora of p51s but they make one yeah i think they still make the one that has the safe built in i don't know yeah they got a p47 too it's the sport yeah scale stuff those actually fly pretty good i mean they're they're fairly easy now they are semi-scale right they kind of look like a p47 and they kind of look like a p51 and so on so if you want a a high fidelity to scale warbird they're just not going

[00:35:34] To fly like a trainer now you got all that extra weight and all the complexity goes along with it

[00:35:38] Yeah even with flaps and and all the other devices they still they you cannot make them fly like a trainer but they these options from hanger 9 are not a not a bad option and there's like he's not

[00:35:51] Saying make him fly like a trainer intermediate no no i know intermediate skill there's a lot of

[00:35:55] Sport scale warbirds out there that don't fly like a heavy metal warbird right but they're more of a

[00:36:02] Sport advanced trainer type situation my p my p40 is a perfect example of that the hanger 9 the 50 size p40 which they don't make i mean anymore of course but they there are other airplanes just like what you're talking about they're a sport scale and in the air it looks it looks really

[00:36:20] Convincing and it it does actually fly pretty good oh yeah and do you remember a few years back they had a trainer p51 remember that thing yeah the little gas one yeah yeah that's the one that's one it had reggie has one of those little add-on oh clear things on the front of wings this is before the gas this is for literally oh your first gas trainer i remember that glute train was that

[00:36:44] Yeah they had an evolution on them and yeah but they had these clear was that meg no meg is the gas one like mine what am i thinking of them i don't know what that one was called they call those things but i remember yes a perfect trainer system yeah i think a pts p51 i think the gear was really right

[00:36:59] Forward so it was almost impossible to knock it over yep yep so fixed gear i'm sure yes yeah it actually had these drag things too to keep you from going too fast yeah i didn't understand i never used any

[00:37:10] Of those but but yeah it had these these clear molded plastic things that you actually taped onto the leading edge of the wing to make essentially to make the cord longer and work kind of like a slap yeah and they they helped prevent stalls and things like that and they actually flew okay they were ugly as soon i thought because they did look like a mustang from 50 feet out yeah so there's lots of different ways to go about warbirds but if you really really got to have a warbird do your research and try to find one of those kind of semi-scale and they fly like a pattern like

[00:37:44] Kind of like a pattern plane go with the t-28s oh there you go that's a really good option yeah and those are good looking airplanes too i think and you can get them in foam he wanted away from fine he wanted nitro and he wanted balsa well there you go you can get the who makes a balsa t-28 other than pika or dave platt i can't think of scratch build off there you go build your own but yeah just know that warbirds are going to be a little more difficult to fly than a than a standard sport type plane but i he says he's already flown foam warbirds and he he admitted a steep learning curve

[00:38:21] But he can fly them professionally now he can probably fly up a sport scales yeah yeah so don't

[00:38:27] Be afraid of it and the looks just jump right in john you'll be fine they're not super detailed you're not going to win the nats with them but yeah yeah but if you want an airplane that looks

[00:38:35] Like an airplane those aren't a bad way to go okay moving on like our t-34s yeah those actually fly

[00:38:43] Really good that you can't get anymore you guys there's a lot of there's a pattern right yeah they

[00:38:47] Make great airplanes for a while and then they stop producing them and jump onto some other great airplane making us buy new ones all the time well that's our strategy isn't it well it must be

[00:38:58] Because it's working we've got a lot okay so next up ross emailed us and he says hey gents just gents i like that that's fun just discovered your podcast and heard you mention that you're using the bad air plugins i also think they're a great idea but i've had a crazy bit or a crazy busy year with work and this has been the first week i've had a chance to fly yeah i know what that's like -huh i just dusted off a couple of models and started to prep my packs and discovered that the bad air plugins have trashed several packs that's not good i had them fitted to the to five

[00:39:32] 6s 1550 milliamp hour nanotech packs two of those are barely registering two volts across the entire pack and the best two packs were at three to three point three volts per cell my power lab registered them at zero percent and two percent remaining power and has been able to restore them to storage charge but i doubt they'll be any good for my helis anymore my two s 2200 milliamp hour packs have had or have fared better sorry i only had bat air modules on two of those after hitting a software

[00:40:03] Bug last year and those are at 3.7 to 3.75 volts per cell compared to 3.75 to 3.85 volts for the packs without the bat air so those look okay but the 6s ones are trashed better just trashed 190 worth of packs and i'm not happy yeah i wouldn't be happy either and that so when we first started or when we first started talking about those that was one of the questions i had like whether or not it has like a low voltage cutoff to where it stops checking discharging stops doing whatever it does to where it

[00:40:39] Stops using power if it gets to a certain point apparently it does not yeah i think these are

[00:40:45] Set up so you should charge them at least once a month regardless oh a month yeah i definitely won't

[00:40:50] Be doing that i mean i could see charge them every several months for ones that i don't use very often but i mean like i don't need every pack i have every month you're looking at me i i don't have any of those things because i don't know you don't have any of them no why did i think you had something i

[00:41:10] Have none i don't have enough batteries to warrant like i can keep track of the batteries i have

[00:41:15] Because i have so few of them well okay i just let them set for extended extended periods of time it looks like at least a year in this case they're always going to have a little bit of draw on

[00:41:26] Them well even without a bad air plug-in they're going to eat themselves over time yeah but you should be

[00:41:33] Storm for a year without issues i mean like i understand like that was my concern was how much

[00:41:40] Draw those plugins use well according according to his his two cells the 2200s in in the year i'm assuming those have been sitting about the same amount of time they've only used it looks like about a tenth of a volt not even per as opposed to not having the battery so that's not like a lot

[00:42:02] No it's not but the success ones yeah that's unacceptable yeah i agree so my warning to everybody then based on what he said keep an eye on them yeah doesn't hurt to throw a little

[00:42:16] Charge on them every now and then yeah like yeah we'll see well i will check what i'm what i guess

[00:42:23] What i'm getting at is like lipos eat themselves like all batteries eat themselves over time they they self-discharge no matter what the chemistry they all do to some degree yes so bad air plug-in or no

[00:42:38] They're going to require some voltage eventually a year two years whatever the time is so it would make sense to me like for the bad air plug-in like you said for it to at least shut itself off or stop its sampling or whatever it does when it reaches a certain voltage to at least give you maybe a little more time right to put a charge in it or whatever that seems like a foul on

[00:43:05] And maybe that's something they can update in future updates with stuff i don't know like how all that works on that end but without the over discharge that he had i still love him yeah like until i lose a bunch of packs to him i would like to keep using them and see how they

[00:43:24] Work well ross thanks for thanks for making us aware of that very true next next last one last one

[00:43:32] So slade writes in and he said i have a couple questions he said my first question is how do you get two engines to create the same amount of thrust and i will read the second enter the second question now and my second question is do you have a tip on starting a gasoline powered engine i have a dle 30 there you go gentlemen that's you again i like how ron is just handing this off to us i'm handing it off to the gas guys you guys got gas well so i'll hit the first one how do you get

[00:44:06] Two engines to create the same amount of thrust well first you have to start with two identical engines right so preferably they would be two os 46s or two dle 30s or two two of anything and the only the only way to do it with any kind of in fidelity is to use a tachometer i mean if a propeller is turning 13 000 rpm it doesn't matter how much power the engine is producing 13 000 rpm on that particular

[00:44:39] Propeller is going to produce only so much amount of thrust and if you have two engines producing that rpm with those props they're making the same amount of power which are very close so you need a tachometer close enough yeah yeah you need a tachometer and you can actually hear when when engines are not in tune if they're not turning the same rpm it's just like listening to an out of tune piano i mean you can hear that kind of oscillating wah wah sound it's very pronounced especially when you're

[00:45:09] Turning a a larger propeller yeah when they're synced up it'll be a harmonic sound yeah

[00:45:14] Exactly so but a tachometer is your best friend that's how that's how i do it that's how i think a lot of folks the only time i use a tachometer well there you go so a tachometer is the tool of

[00:45:25] Choice tune the stronger engine to the performance of the weaker exactly yeah you maximize the detune the

[00:45:32] One that's more powerful and detune i'm not sure i would use that term i would limit the throttle i don't want to detune because i still want the engine to run right and detuning it with the needles or whatever messes with the tune so me personally i try to make my strong engine match my weak engine and i do that with limiting the throttle okay if that makes sense so you have your throttle on yeah i still maximize the tune on both engines right i'll i'll try to get

[00:46:02] Max rpm and then back it off a little bit on the weak one and do the same on the strong one and then once i've got them both running really really well and optimized for whatever the installation is i'll limit the throttle on the strong engine i'll do basically the same thing i might go a click

[00:46:18] Or two on the needle valve but that's that's about it i mean as long as they transition the idle same and they transition the same yeah a click or two but i won't go any more than a click or two then it goes back to setting the throttle differently there you go and so obviously

[00:46:31] Then separate channels for your throttles yeah and then controlling those separately yep gotcha

[00:46:36] The wonder of the computer well and you don't have to do it that way you can do it mechanically

[00:46:39] It's just a much longer process oh i guess you could yeah you can still we did it back in the day

[00:46:46] Yeah you can still y harness two servos or run two push rods from one servo if you're really old school you can still do it that way you just it's just a mechanical adjustment on the

[00:46:55] Clevis at the throttle end but how does that work then i guess it doesn't matter that would be more difficult you could do it but i would think getting idle to be the same and high end to be the same would be tricky it's so much better to do it electronically yes yep okay and then the last thing starting and two or what was it starting a daily 30. what's starting what is your starting process

[00:47:18] My starting process that works most engines most of the time is i will take and make sure to no doubt whatsoever that the ignition is off have it restrained and make sure that cannot go anywhere

[00:47:33] Yes give that propeller a tug at yourself to make sure it doesn't go anywhere before you start it

[00:47:38] We haven't said start it yet so ignition is off yeah turn the choke on open the throttle wide open i also at this time will take and set the idle trim all the way up so full idle trim full throttle and if i can access it i will stick my thumb over the carburetor just to help i can judge more suction yeah if not closing choke will work and then you flip it through until you get gasoline at the carburetor which which your thumb over the carburetor i'll pull my thumb away if my thumb's wet

[00:48:10] I have gasoline at the carburetor if i can't do that you kind of listen for it you can hear kind

[00:48:15] Of a squishy noise squishy that's weird but i know what he means yeah once you get at that point

[00:48:22] Turn your ignition on reduce your throttle all the way to idle but you still have high idle trim you flip it with the choke closed until you hear it pop and it'll pop or gurgle sometimes it won't actually even run but you can kind of just hear a muffled thump when you get that thump then it's time to take and close the choke or open the choke open it make sure that you're at idle high trim and you flip it four or five times and it should kick right over if not hit it with a starter yep

[00:48:59] Yeah yeah i use exactly the same process although i'm kind of the black sheep of the of the hobby and i i start them at wide open yep scares me but wide open with the choke closed it will like i have

[00:49:15] Never had one take off on me i have had someone's sometimes that i'll take them bump it up a little bit above idle it's yeah in the five percent throttle range no i don't start them at wide open

[00:49:27] Okay i'm just i'm just looking for that initial pop with the choke closed right yeah so was i with

[00:49:32] The throttle with the throttle white choke wide open did i say closed i'm sorry if i did

[00:49:37] Closed and open is hard how about choke on or off how about choked and not choked the same thing yes

[00:49:42] So yeah my process like i said is exactly the same except i i do my initial start with a throttle wide open and it choked and then that first pop is it it never takes off and runs because the choke is it's choked it can't go anywhere yeah it's not going anywhere and then and then yeah once it pops throttle the high idle just like yours open the choc or unchoke it flip it a few times and it's usually idling nicely there you go that's our process like it or leave it easy yeah peasy lemon

[00:50:17] Squeezy what else we got that is it yay not a bad episode why are you why are you sounding so excited about being just happy that we got through them all in one episode huh okay i like the letters i was afraid we weren't going to get them all because of how much we took on the first one yeah no we we

[00:50:34] Went through the lessons very quick so okay good we are all set sweet and i think i'm finished if you

[00:50:40] Guys are finished just i'll just hit it one more time if you guys have questions you would like for us to answer on the show hit us up via email or you can ask on the discord server we we serve that daily and any of the other number of ways you can contact us you can also contact us through the website which is rcplane lab.com good for you dave anything nope i'm looking forward to maybe playing

[00:51:06] With some airplanes this weekend if i get away from the craft show me too i think it'll be a good

[00:51:12] Weekend we're going to brian's that's so i mean that's the start of the weekend right we're doing that friday leaving work early yeah going to brian's so i mean like how can the weekend get worse after that i mean that's just like the perfect start i know weekend so all right thanks for writing in everyone we look forward to the next one until next time i'm ron i'm tom and i'm dave goodbye good night fine dave don't say yeah fine dave don't say goodbye to our get our five listeners what what it is you didn't say bye you didn't say bye there we go we hope you enjoyed this episode

[00:51:46] Of the rc plane lab podcast for topic suggestions to ask questions or to give any feedback connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com you can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846 please subscribe rate and review us on your favorite podcast app until next time may your landings be gentle