Ep 215: Night Flying, A Found Yak, and DIY Light Switches

[00:00:12] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the RC Plane Lab Podcast. I’m Ron. And I’m Dave. How are you? I am great. How are you doing? Good. Haven’t talked to you for a while. So this will be a fun little catch-up session, and we can talk about a few things. First thing I wanted to start with, though, listeners, what do you want to hear from us? I only ask because we seem to be in a little bit of a lull in the things that we’ve been doing and the things we’ve had to talk about.

[00:00:42] So let us know what you want to hear, and maybe we can work something into the show.

[00:00:48] Is it time for a new questionnaire?

[00:00:50] It might be, actually. That’s usually around Christmas time when I have more time to, have time off and work on stuff. But perhaps, yeah. I mean, I know.

[00:01:00] I’m a little off with my own personal stuff, and it’s been… Tommy’s not around, and… I’m going to be honest. It’s been a hectic few months.

[00:01:09] Yeah, you’ve been super busy. Just stuff going on and all that stuff, so… I did, by the way, I guess we can talk about this really quick. I did… I found an old plane. Your place is such a mess. Okay, I wouldn’t say mess. Storage area. How many times have I been here, and I’ve never seen it? Well, it’s been back in our storage side of the basement. So, I have a old-ish… I don’t even know when these would have come out. But it’s the eFlight Carbon Z Yak.

[00:01:43] So, this is back in the AR-636 days with their AS3X stuff. So, anyway, I was going through some stuff, working on stuff down here, and I found it. I know that sounds… That sounds awful. Terrible. But I kind of got excited about it. I was like, I loved the look of this airplane. I hated the way it flew. Honestly, it’s been sitting back there for probably three-ish years, maybe more. And as I saw it, it hit me. I have extra receivers.

[00:02:18] Why not just put a new receiver in and kind of get it modernized with electronics and stuff and see how that flies? So, I haven’t flown it yet, but I did put an AR-631 in because I had an extra one sitting around. Flashed it, did all that stuff, but I haven’t done the final setup yet. So, AS3X values haven’t been done. Same with throws and all that, but I’ll be working on that.

[00:02:42] Hopefully, have some time this weekend to finish it up, and then that will be another one ready to remade in after many years. So, quick refurbish.

[00:02:50] Yeah, like I said, it’s a good-looking plane. It’s still in good shape. Yeah, I don’t really see any dings or dents in it.

[00:02:55] There’s a little bit of scuff on the right wing. Whoever had it before me, they did something to the wing to where it’s glued on now. So, that was the other thing that kind of kept it not mobile because it’s big when it’s like this.

[00:03:15] It’s a one-piecer.

[00:03:17] Yeah, that’s kind of big for a one-piece airplane. So, that’s, like I said, why it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind kind of thing. But, yeah, so I got that out, did some work on it, and hopefully we’ll be able to fly it soon. It’s, like I said, it should be a fun airplane.

[00:03:36] It’s attractive. I like the colors on it.

[00:03:39] And I’m a yak guy. I like yaks for some reason. I don’t know why. You like the yak?

[00:03:46] Oh, I just noticed it’s got a little chin protector on it. So, when you knock it over, it doesn’t skin its cowl. Well, that’s smart. That’s neat. I’ve never seen that done before.

[00:03:55] And the nice thing is, also about it, is it’s got the top hatch and all that kind of stuff. So, it’s made to be easily taken care of. Okay, so, I just looked it up. I bought it. Used. Well, of course it was used. Because I don’t think I was in the hobby when those were brand new.

[00:04:18] It doesn’t say where I bought it, does it?

[00:04:20] Oh, I got it from Tommy. I don’t know where it came from with him. But, anyway, so I got it in January of 22. And that’s probably close to the last time I flew. It was in 2022.

[00:04:34] So, it’s been set in three and a half, four years.

[00:04:35] Yeah. Servos all still work. I mean, I went through and did all that. And they still are lively and quick. It’s not all dusty and grungy. No, no. And I actually haven’t even cleaned that off. So, that’s just how I… That’s how neat your basement is. That’s how little work is done down here. Yeah. Anywho. So, yeah. Right now, I got a layer of scuzz on top of my fish tank. I have to wipe the lid so the fish gets some light.

[00:04:59] Well, that’s because you sand a lot and do a lot of stuff.

[00:05:04] Most of it is overspray from polyurethane. Water-based polyurethane. Ew. I generally try to take and throw a blanket over my tank when I spray and then I completely forgot. But none of my fish seem to be worse for wear, so…

[00:05:21] Yeah, it happens. So, this will show how old it is for me. When I got it out, it still had a Dean’s connector on it.

[00:05:29] Well, that makes sense. It came from Tommy.

[00:05:31] Well, but I mean, for me. Oh, for you? I’ve flown Dean’s connectors for a couple years now. So, yeah. Had to put a new connector on it to actually connect to the battery that I have.

[00:05:43] I’m going to have to go dig through my pile of XT60s and bring them over here for you. I don’t use XT60s, Oh, that’s right.

[00:05:50] You use the… And all the IC3s and IC5s or… Yeah, IC3s.

[00:05:55] I just like them better.

[00:05:56] I mean, they… I don’t know why. And I lop everything off and put Dean’s on them, so… It’s what you get used to. It’s what you like. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a little bit of hobby work I did. You did some stuff, too, though, right? Very little.

[00:06:15] Last episode, we were finishing up the beaver.

[00:06:18] Finally. Which is a very nice beaver. Yeah, it’s nice.

[00:06:22] The more I look at it, it’s like, that’s not bad. Yeah.

[00:06:25] I did okay.

[00:06:28] Finally, after two weeks, my 8mm red LED finally showed up from Chinastan, wherever it came from.

[00:06:36] It looks like you have one of those here to show me.

[00:06:39] Actually, this is a 10mm, and it’s actually clear that I’ve painted.

[00:06:43] Well, that looks pretty good for a clear one. But we’ll talk about that in a bit.

[00:06:49] Really, that’s… Yeah, that’s one of the clear ones that I use transparent red on. Cool.

[00:06:55] But anyway, how’d you finish that up? You were talking about… The beaver?

[00:06:59] Yeah. Finally just got the red LED. Was able to solder that into the circuit and glue the pylon under the back of the airplane and finished tucking all the wires away, glued the windshield on it, and it’s waiting around to be maiden.

[00:07:13] Maybe we can… What’s the weather supposed to be like this weekend?

[00:07:17] Saturday, wind-wise, is okay. I’m busy Saturday. And Sunday, it’s supposed to be windy, and I’m barely humid. Okay. Well, then that’s not a good thing. And that’s a quote from the weather app.

[00:07:30] That would be my luck. The one day I have free. Yeah. Cool.

[00:07:37] Sunday. You get the Yak Maiden. I get the…

[00:07:43] Yeah. Fever. Rainy, by the way. 10 mile an hour with higher gusts Sunday.

[00:07:48] Oh, and I got new batteries for the UMX Ultrix.

[00:07:53] That’s what I need to do, actually.

[00:07:56] Two one-cell batteries that are, half-inch wide and inch and quarter long. They come in a 12 by 12 box.

[00:08:08] Where’d you get them? Tower. Oh. Okay. Horizon. Funny. I wasn’t even thinking. Daniel said he… Or he texted me and said he was going up to Brian’s today. Yeah. Should have had him pick me up a couple of those batteries.

[00:08:21] I could have.

[00:08:22] Could have. Yeah. That would have been smart. What a dummy. Yeah. Okay. I wanted to say also… Trying to go through my list here. So, there’s a fly-in coming up that we were invited to again. Unfortunately, I’m busy. I don’t know if you can make it or not.

[00:08:41] And then I am touch and go, so I don’t know.

[00:08:44] So, I’ll read the email because he asked us to share it and hopefully get some more people down there. So, this is the Booter Park flying feet or the fly-in that we went to last year for Model Aviation Day. If you remember that. Yeah.

[00:08:59] Hopefully, it’s not 140 degrees again.

[00:09:01] Yeah. That was the very… Oh, that was awful. That was… It was unbearable. But the fan that Daniel had made it okay. Without the fan and the slushie, no go. That was a savior. But anyway, so he says, good morning, Ron. Actually, sorry. I don’t know why I misread that. But good afternoon, Ron. The St. Louis Aeropilots will be having a fun fly again this year for Model Aviation Day, August 22nd. I know Booter was Tom’s field and he is still out of town.

[00:09:31] But you and Dave and Daniel are welcome to join us. Hopefully, it won’t be as hot this year. So, he remembers too. If you could let your listeners know, we will be doing it again. And we will be having some trainers and buddy boxes available and may even have a plane to give away. So, Booter Park is at 400 Valley Park Road in Valley Park, Missouri. The Highway 44 and 141 intersection, apparently, in Valley Park, Missouri.

[00:09:56] Just southwest of St. Louis.

[00:09:58] Yeah. So, it’s actually close to Eureka.

[00:10:01] Yeah. It’s really close to Six Flags.

[00:10:04] Yeah.

[00:10:04] Which is no longer Six Flags from what I understand.

[00:10:06] It is this year. This year, it’s Six Flags by Enchanted Parks. Next year, it’s just Enchanted Parks.

[00:10:15] Okay.

[00:10:16] Yeah.

[00:10:16] Like I ever go. I haven’t been there since the 80s.

[00:10:18] Well, and I almost went. I shouldn’t say almost. We almost went this year. But we just were not able to get that scheduled. I might. Like, I was planning on waiting a little bit and pulling Piper out of school for a day and taking her down during the week. They’re closed during the week, starting the second week in August.

[00:10:38] Hmm. I wonder why. School? School starts, yeah.

[00:10:43] But anyway, so if anybody is available down that area, go check them out, August 22nd. It’s a fun time down there. Bunch good guys and good planes.

[00:10:52] Nice paved runways. Yeah. Should be a nice little divot where East Creek hit the ground.

[00:10:59] Hard. Still had the video of the wing falling. Ever so slow. And falling. And falling.

[00:11:05] And falling.

[00:11:06] I did buy something, by the way. Oh, yeah? It’s not airplane related, but it is RC. I broke down and bought the Losey NASCAR. So… You’ve got quite a little collection of Loseys now. I know. The little ones. That’s because they’re so good sized for stuff. It’s kind of nice. But anyway, so it’s 12 scale, obviously. 2026 Zane Smith, number 38 Ford Mustang. I don’t follow NASCAR. I’m kind of a Mustang fan. The longer I go, the less I’m really like, oh, Mustang, Mustang, Mustang.

[00:11:40] But I used to be. So that still kind of holds a place in my heart. So that made it interesting to me. And then also, it’s the colors I like. It’s black, white, and red. So I was like, what? That’s the one I’ll get. There’s a place in town here that actually has an outdoor course set up for racing them. I haven’t stopped there yet, but maybe I will now.

[00:12:01] I need to because I need to get the hood on my Mustang painted.

[00:12:04] Yeah, it’s funny. So it’s an auto body shop. And I was driving by the other day and saw they have their normal auto body shop. And underneath of it, it had a vinyl sign that said something about Raceway or RC Raceway. And so I kind of got excited and looked it up. And apparently, like I said, they do the NASCAR races there.

[00:12:28] I think that’s all they do is that.

[00:12:29] Yeah, I think literally that’s about it. So I’ve been looking at them for a while, like a couple years, actually.

[00:12:34] The price is really good on them.

[00:12:35] For what you get, I think so. So it’s the controller, the car, the charger, and the battery. And I think the one I got was 200. If you don’t want the newest one and you just want the, like, last year’s body, if you really don’t care, I think they’re, like, 170.

[00:12:50] Yeah, I think I’ve seen them on sale for as well as, like, 159, something like that. Yeah.

[00:12:56] So good deal. I thought it was kind of neat. The one I have is the one that Horizon sponsored, I guess. So they, that body was, like, scaled to the full-size one that was used in a race or something. I don’t know. I don’t follow it. Neither do I. We did look it up before this just to make sure it wasn’t just, like, a fantasy body or something like that. But, like I said, it looks like it was actually used during a race.

[00:13:19] At least once. At least once.

[00:13:22] Or maybe just for photos. Who knows? Yeah. So we did some night flying. Yes.

[00:13:30] Finally got some night flying in.

[00:13:32] Actually, it was evening to night flying. It was kind of nice. That’s what we usually do.

[00:13:38] We get in a little bit of time, some dusk flying, calmer air.

[00:13:44] Yeah, we get out there around 6 or so.

[00:13:48] Yeah, I’ve rolled in around 6.30. I was a late one. I had things going on.

[00:13:53] Well, then that’s when I rolled in because I felt… Oh, yeah, you did. You did roll in late. Well, at the very last minute, Piper decided she wanted to go with me. I was, like, walking out the door. I said, hey, I’m leaving. And then Crystal said, did you ask Piper if she wants to go? I was, like, she doesn’t ever want to. No, I didn’t. But I was, like, hey, hon, you want to come with me? Yeah. Okay.

[00:14:14] Go pack all your stuff up, which is not anything to do with airplanes or anything like that. She literally said in the trailer, ate chips and watched TV. I was, like, are you serious? Like… You could have done that at home in the air conditioning. But that’s okay.

[00:14:32] Without the maws. Oh, those were terrible, weren’t they? I have never seen anything like it. Those were all over the place. I got home and opened the hatch on the truck, which kept the lights off in the truck the whole time we were there.

[00:14:42] Yeah.

[00:14:43] The whole swarm of them hit me in the face when I got home. It’s like, okay, I’m not unloading anything tonight.

[00:14:48] Well, I looked before we left. I saw in your… Like, you left your window down in your truck.

[00:14:55] I always leave the windows down in the truck because I’m afraid of locking the doors on myself.

[00:14:59] Yeah.

[00:14:59] So I always roll the windows down when I get there.

[00:15:01] Well, the problem with that apparently is, like I said, I looked in your car and there were… I think I counted 11 moths just on your passenger door that I could see from where I was standing. Yeah. It was all over the place. Thick. Thick. It was like the worst I’d ever seen. I was still finding carcasses. Yeah. Well, I have swept out the trailer and stuff since then. And yeah, it was pretty bad. Like the next day, because I just came home and parked, like everything was off.

[00:15:34] Next day when I went out to unload stuff, it was… I mean, like you were just rushed with all these things as they flew out.

[00:15:41] Yeah, that’s the way it was when I got home and opened that hatch. It was ridiculous. my flight box just sitting on the table. go to pick it up. Like 20 of them flew off the flight box. I was like… I wonder, like, I don’t notice them now. They didn’t… And when I was flying, I didn’t notice them. I didn’t like have them crawling to my neck or anything.

[00:15:56] Yeah. They weren’t annoying in that way. No. They just were places they shouldn’t have been.

[00:16:02] And lots and lots of them.

[00:16:04] Maybe it was their season. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if they just hatched out of their poopas or whatever.

[00:16:11] I don’t know. But I’ve never seen that many moths at one time.

[00:16:17] It’s funny. I remember, was it a year or two ago, you went out and it was those, the hoverflies, the sweat bee looking things. Sweat bees were the weekend before. Okay. Well, I didn’t make it out the weekend before, so.

[00:16:27] Sweat bees were bad. And then we had the locust… Not the locust. Yeah, the locust. In 24, we had the seven-year convergence of three different types or something.

[00:16:40] That’s so funny. The bugs, the bugs, the bugs. But anyway, so I ended up taking the Hangar 9 Cub, the E-Flight Sportix, and then my Knight Slow Ultra Stick. what I can’t believe I forgot? And I didn’t even realize until the next day when I was putting stuff away, the shiny.

[00:17:00] No shiny.

[00:17:01] Why would I… I just… I don’t know why I didn’t see it when I was loading stuff up. It was sitting right there. Just grabbing stuff. Duh. What a dummy. But anyway, I’ll say it is nice having the trailer because I was able to take all those planes when they were together.

[00:17:19] I literally just set them on the floor in the trailer and threw a blanket over them that was kind of heavy to keep them from moving, kind of wrapped it around, had the wheels sitting on the blanket, then just kind of wrapped it up over the wings.

[00:17:29] That’s what I do with moving blankets. Didn’t move it at all. Nope. Perfect.

[00:17:34] Like, lazy but awesome.

[00:17:35] Just a little bit of a heavy blanket really keeps them from moving around.

[00:17:40] And that’s what I need to do.

[00:17:41] And it doesn’t protect them if they do.

[00:17:42] Yeah. And I need to go pick up a few moving blankets because all I’m using is like old blanket blankets.

[00:17:48] Yeah. Get the Harbor Freight moving blankets. Yeah.

[00:17:51] I need to go do that.

[00:17:51] Watch for the sails.

[00:17:54] Yeah. But it was a lot of fun. I got a few flights on the Cub. A couple, actually. I think I got a little bit more on the Sportix. And then, like I will say, the slow stick never disappoints. Yeah. Especially at night. That is just a relaxing, good, flying, fun airplane. Can’t say enough about it. But that kind of got us into a conversation. Like, I want to talk about what you brought and what you flew and that kind of stuff.

[00:18:21] And then, after that, we’ll get into how do you power your lights? Because I know that was a question we got while we were there. And you and I have different ways of doing it.

[00:18:32] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:33] But, like I said, we can get to that after you talk about what you brought, what you flew, what you didn’t fly, that you brought.

[00:18:41] Yeah. I would have flown it if I wasn’t messing with other stuff.

[00:18:44] And then, we can also talk about your thoughts on Daniel’s compared to your paramotor. Yeah. Because I will say, like, I watched you guys trying to launch it and deal with all of it. And you were a walking advertisement for reasons to not buy one.

[00:19:05] Well, he has got, he’s got it down now.

[00:19:08] Yeah.

[00:19:08] It’s a technique that you just have to figure out. Although, I don’t know what he was doing to mine that last round.

[00:19:16] Yeah. I’d never seen it. Like, it literally was just spinning in a 360. Yeah. And it was just a gondola. And then just, yeah. Yeah. Not the whole chute and everything. The chute stayed fine. But, anyway. So, talk to me, Dave. Dave.

[00:19:32] Okay. Seems like I’ve forgotten something. But, so, I took the gyrocopter, the Shadowseeker, the McTwist, and my paramotor. Gyrocopter, unfortunately, didn’t get flown. We ran out of daylight on that, and there’s no lights on it. We were messing with Daniel’s stick, trying to get the new motor to run. Oh, I forgot about that.

[00:19:55] I am, I do feel like you forgot something, because I don’t remember what it was, but there was something else there.

[00:20:00] Oh, I had the little Yak 55. That’s right. That little profile Yak. Yep. Which doesn’t have lights on it, either. Maybe it should, though. That would be an easy one to put lights on. It should, but it’s already heavy for what it is. Okay. So, I’ve thought about it. It’s like, eh.

[00:20:16] Do you want to kill the performance that much more?

[00:20:19] Yeah. Because for a profile foamy, it’s stout. Yeah. And I’ve even taken the wheels off of it. that’s the one that didn’t fly, well, it was barely flyable with the stock servos. They upgraded the servos, and it’s, now that’s what I grab and throw in the truck all the time. Much better.

[00:20:41] Like I said, we tried the gyrocopter, just didn’t have time, so it just went for a ride.

[00:20:48] It’s good to get them out and take them for a walk every now and then.

[00:20:50] Yeah. So,. Let me see the real world. Yeah. and took the Shadow Seeker and the McTwist. My go-to is when I night fly. Shadow Seeker is not a horribly aerobatic aircraft, but man, it’s just a, just a treat to fly.

[00:21:06] That’s the wing.

[00:21:07] It’s the flying wing. Yeah. That you can’t get right now. There’s supposed to be a V-2 coming out, and that’s been for well over two years.

[00:21:14] Oh, I knew it was a few months, but I didn’t realize it was that long.

[00:21:18] It’s been almost two years now. Yeah. Okay. So we’re still waiting on V-2 of that to come out, but in the meantime, I’m flying the original and really, really love flying it. It’s just a super smooth, easy to fly airplane, especially in the night.

[00:21:30] Yeah.

[00:21:31] And then the McTwist, which is just one of my go-tos. and I don’t know if I’m throwing extra lights on it. excellent flying airplane. Love flying McTwist. Day, night, doesn’t matter. Windy. Windy, cold, whatever.

[00:21:46] Compare that to your Ultrix 600, flight-wise. power-wise, all that kind of stuff.

[00:21:53] Power-wise, the McTwist, I think, has got quite a bit more power, and it’s reliable power. I’ve broken multiple motor mounts on the, on the, Ultrix 600. I’ve tried the stock ones. I’ve tried two different style of 3D printed ones, and I still end up losing motors. And Joe Knoll has one of my motors. I remember that. Out in the middle of the field there somewhere. I just much prefer it than the Ultrix 600. The Ultrix 600 is probably going to go away next spring.

[00:22:26] I meant to take it to Toledo this year and forgot to grab it. Yeah. not so much the Ultrix UMX.

[00:22:34] Yeah, those are a blast.

[00:22:35] I fly way more than I do the 600.

[00:22:37] Yeah.

[00:22:39] Of course, I didn’t take it with me. I knew I didn’t have any batteries for it, because for some reason or another, I can’t keep those one-cell batteries alive more than about a year. They don’t last long.

[00:22:49] I mean, they’re cheap enough to where it’s okay to replace them. But, yeah, they don’t last long. There’s just no good way to, for me, and maybe it’s because I’m lazy or whatnot, but to keep them balanced, to keep them at the, or not balanced, but to keep them at the right storage charge. I usually just charge it, and then if I fly it, it gets put away and stored at whatever that charge is.

[00:23:09] Yeah, and that’s what I do, too. I used to be really good about trying to put it on a 70% storage charge, and I found that it made almost no difference in the lifespan of the battery. So, it’s like, why bother?

[00:23:22] Yeah.

[00:23:22] So, they just get used and abused and then tossed.

[00:23:26] Like I said, for as cheap as those are, that’s the 1S500, right?

[00:23:29] Yeah.

[00:23:30] Yeah.

[00:23:30] And I’ve tried some off-brand ones. I do get better results, unfortunately, with the eFlight ones. Usually, I get away with off-brand stuff, but in this case, with those 1Sells, I do get better results with the actual name brand. And I’ve tried various different ones, Amazon and Amain, and I even had some Genzace stuff, which, to me, Genzace is usually pretty decent stuff, and they didn’t last any longer than the eFlight ones.

[00:24:00] Yeah, I guess they went up a little bit in price.

[00:24:02] Yeah, I got two of them for like $17 or something.

[00:24:04] Yeah, $18, $17.99 for two of them. Maybe I’m thinking of the 1S. What’s the really small one?

[00:24:10] Those are the little bitty ones that you use at UMX.

[00:24:12] Yeah, those are about $5.

[00:24:14] $8 to $9. Everything’s gone up. For the tiny, tiny ones?

[00:24:18] Oh, you mean the really little ones. Yeah, I’m talking about the old UMX style. Ew, those?

[00:24:23] Yeah, I haven’t bought any of those in a long time.

[00:24:25] I don’t know what size those were. But yeah, 1S, 150.

[00:24:31] And I took the paramotor and test flew it with the new radio. It had not been flown on the new radio previously. And of course, that was pretty much a non-event except for the battery, which was eight years old. Cruttered out on me.

[00:24:47] Yeah, you almost didn’t make it bad.

[00:24:49] It was close.

[00:24:51] You actually touched the top of the beans as you were coming in. I don’t know if you noticed that or not.

[00:24:55] I was a little busy trying to keep it airborne, but I knew I was close.

[00:24:59] Yeah.

[00:25:01] So that eight-year-old battery finally bit the dust. And that’s another one I use and abuse. credit to you, though.

[00:25:09] Because I probably would have panicked towards the end and without thinking, tried to give it up elevator. Which would have been the worst thing in the world to do.

[00:25:18] With the paramotor, that is the worst thing you can do is give it up elevator.

[00:25:21] Yeah.

[00:25:21] Because that throws the brake on the chute, collapses the chute, kills your lift, and down you come.

[00:25:25] Right. Like, if I had one, I would probably have to change that to where up elevator changed or put the brake on and set it down.

[00:25:35] I’ve actually got it zeroed out with a switch position. So I can throw a switch and enable brake, but I never use it.

[00:25:42] Yeah. But it is on a switch where… That way you don’t accidentally…

[00:25:47] Accidentally don’t give it a brake.

[00:25:48] Yeah.

[00:25:49] Because, I mean, it’s… Or if I hand it to somebody who’s not used to flying and they’ll naturally want to try it.

[00:25:53] Right. I would. I mean, like I said, that’s just… You’re so used to, okay, well, I’ve got to flare a little bit. I’ve got to do something. And that’s just what your hand does. Yeah.

[00:26:03] Yeah. And your brain in a panic situation will…

[00:26:06] Go to what.

[00:26:07] Yeah.

[00:26:08] Which is not a paramotor. It’s an airplane.

[00:26:09] Yeah.

[00:26:10] Yeah.

[00:26:11] Yeah. So that was a really close call with it. But it made it back to the field. I swapped out for one of Daniel’s batteries. And for some reason, we’re not able to fly it again. Because every time he went, throw it. And I say throw it. You don’t really throw it.

[00:26:24] But launch it. So gently let it leave his hand.

[00:26:27] Loft it into the air. Yeah. It got really bad spins. I don’t know if he was accidentally spinning. I did find something when I got back. But I don’t know. This could have been done when I packed it. One of the brake lines was wrapped around my pilot’s mic. But that was probably done when I was packing it up. Or… Well, but…

[00:26:52] Yeah, because it wasn’t….

[00:26:53] But the parachute did not spin.

[00:26:54] It was the Yaggola. Right. The parachute stayed just fine. It just looks like somebody took it and just spun it really quick.

[00:27:01] Which he didn’t. And it broke a half inch off of one of the props, too.

[00:27:05] Yeah. Anyway, that was it for the night. But we flew it. It flew fine. Yeah.

[00:27:11] I’ve got a brand new battery for it. So the thing with those… And there was a lot of trim flights that you guys were trying to get stuff set up. Especially with Daniel’s.

[00:27:22] Daniel’s was brand new. And you have to tie a knot on the riser. And it’s just a matter of getting both knots at exactly the same spot.

[00:27:30] And so… I mean, I guess is that why it took several tries. And then… Because you flew it. Then you landed it. And then you had to do a bunch of adjustments in the radio. Because you were out of trim. Right? Right. And it kept turning to the right, I think. Or was it the left? It doesn’t matter. I think it was turning to the left. It kept turning one way. And like I said, you ran out of trim to keep it straight.

[00:27:53] So… You have to bring it down and move the knot a little bit. Recenter the trims. Fly it again. Also, a good portion of the problem with his was he didn’t have enough ballast in it. It wasn’t heavy enough. Believe it or not, it actually has to weigh a certain amount. Otherwise, it won’t fly well.

[00:28:07] Yeah. I guess I could see that. Because…

[00:28:09] So we ended up taking an extra 2200 three-cell and just zip-tying it to the chassis.

[00:28:16] Yeah.

[00:28:18] Mine carries a 12-inch GI Joe and a 1500 milliamp pack on top of the 5000 pack.

[00:28:27] And that’s just for… You run your lights off of a separate pack?

[00:28:30] I run the hoop lights, the ones that go around the shroud. Those are ran off the 1500 milliamp pack. I figured it’s dead weight anyway. Might as well make it do something. And it’s just an old 1500 that wasn’t able to fly an airplane anymore, but it’s perfectly fine to run some LEDs. Then the actual nav lights run off of the receiver.

[00:28:50] So you… What we’re about to talk about, you actually might want to think about putting those on a switch then. Your actual hoop lights. Yeah. I could put the hoop lights on a switch. Because those are blinding. Like, I’m not going to lie. Those are… Those are… Oh, holy crap. I looked in the wrong spot when you plugged them in and now I can’t see.

[00:29:09] Right. I always… Whenever I plug them in, I always make sure my eyes are closed. So maybe that would be nice to be on a switch. It could be. Just extra weight. But it doesn’t matter because you need the extra weight in this thing anyway. I was going to say, you were saying you didn’t care on this one. That was actually something I put on just before we left for Joe Nall a couple years ago. And so I hadn’t had time to refine them.

[00:29:28] And I just never got around to put a switch on them. But, I’ve got one just laying here.

[00:29:32] You do now?

[00:29:34] Yeah. Yeah. What else did you fly? McTwist, Paramotor, Yak, Shadow Seeker. That was pretty much it.

[00:29:42] And so I guess we’ll move on a little bit then to how we do our lights. Because one of the things… I don’t want to say pet peeve, but one of the things that was annoying with the other airplanes that are other than mine… So I don’t like a lot of light when I’m trying to not be blinded. Does that make sense? Oh, I got you. And I know it’s annoying for most people. But we’ve gotten used to it. I have mine set up, my airplane set up. So then when I plug it in…

[00:30:17] So for the lights, I guess I’ll preface it by saying I run one battery for the lights and for the control of the airplane. Don’t want to put a second battery on. Don’t want to have to deal with charging a second battery or anything like that. So with that, if I didn’t have a switch on it, as soon as I plug them in, like you guys, the lights just go on full bore right in your eyes. Lights up the sky like it’s the 4th of July. And it is bright. And then you can’t see for a while.

[00:30:46] And maybe I have vision problems too.

[00:30:49] Like I’ll admit that. But when I was flying, I like to have the lights off. Because you can see, I mean, even though it’s dark out, you can still see where the airplane is. I like to have the lights off until it’s a good 15 feet away from me. And I flip them on to see exactly, taxiing and taking off. Only because if it’s too close, those LEDs are so bright that they just blind me and I can’t see once they go a little bit farther away. Does that make sense?

[00:31:21] Yeah, absolutely. So I do know that bothers quite a few people. I’m not one of those people, but I completely understand it.

[00:31:29] It takes my eyes a little bit of time to adjust back down, I guess, to where I can see again. And that’s not something I want to have when I’m flying an airplane at night. So what I ended up doing, I don’t even remember what they’re called, but they’re tiny, very light. I want to say it was five grams or something like that. Little switches that are controlled by your radio. Just an e-switch. Yeah. It’s nothing special, nothing expensive.

[00:31:58] I actually, I was showing you the extra ones I had because I bought, I think it was eBay. I ended up buying a 10 pack of them and it was, it was less than 15 bucks. So they were nice and cheap, but they came all the way from China and took forever. So I, whatever it was when I was actually working on putting the lights and stuff on the slow ultra stick, I needed it by a certain time for whatever I was doing. So I had to buy an actual, the exact same switch from Amazon for $9.

[00:32:31] There’s still that price today when I was looking at it and stuff.

[00:32:33] Yeah, it’s pretty much the going rate for them.

[00:32:34] And so they have connectors on the end that go to your lights and go to the battery and then go to the receiver. There are JST connectors on there, but I ended up cutting. You put whatever you want on. Hardwired or whatever. And that’s what I ended up doing. I hardwired it directly into the battery connector. I took the end off of the IC3, put it right in there with the connections straight to the connector. I mean, it’s simple. It doesn’t weigh a lot. Yeah, it works fine.

[00:33:08] I actually use one of those as the rocket ignition switch in my 163.

[00:33:13] Oh, there you go. Yeah. It would do other things than that, obviously, than just lights, because all it is, is passing current through. The one I have, the one I looked it up, 3 to 30 volts input, output, and then up to 20 amps.

[00:33:30] I was going to say, some of them are very low amp rated, so you have to kind of watch that.

[00:33:34] Yeah.

[00:33:35] 30 Amps is going to do pretty much anything you want.

[00:33:37] 20, but yeah. So, like I said, that’s the way I like to do it. I have extras for doing other ones. I just haven’t done anything else yet. But that way, like I said, I have full control of that and that airplane isn’t when I fly only at night. So, I don’t want to have the lights on all the time when I’m flying if it’s daytime and all that kind of stuff. So, that’s why I did it the way I did it.

[00:33:57] Now, it’s funny because you take a different route and then you also make your own switches because Dave’s cheap. Dave is Dave. So, explain how you have your lights set up on your airplanes and then if you would go through this little, looks like a bomb contraption thing that you have here.

[00:34:20] Yeah, you’re not going through the airport with this.

[00:34:22] No, no, no, no, no.

[00:34:24] So, the Shadow Seeker and McTwist both came from ReadyMadeRC and their speed controls have a power tap array built into them and their pre-made lights come with JST connectors and literally you just plug them into the speed controller and off you go. If you don’t want them on during the day, you can fish out the JST connector and disconnect them, but I’ve got them so buried, I just fly with the lights on during the day or not. Okay. It doesn’t bother me that they are on.

[00:34:53] I just make sure my eyes are closed when I first plug it in and then just don’t stare at the bright lights because, well, I’m not an idiot. Ouch. Ouch. I think you just called me an idiot. It is. Some people have very sensitive eyes though and I can see where it’s a problem. The older I get, the worse it is. Isn’t that fun? Yeah. My problem is astigmatism, so everything’s nice and fuzzy. Yeah.

[00:35:18] I have that too.

[00:35:19] I mean, they’ve corrected it in my lenses and it’s still not right. Yeah.

[00:35:24] Not perfect.

[00:35:25] It’s better with my contacts though. Yeah. I’ve noticed. Probably they can get a better.

[00:35:30] Yeah.

[00:35:34] Shadow Seeker, McTwist, like I said, they’re just power tapped right into the JST. The paramotor, I power it.

[00:35:40] I’m sorry. So I guess I don’t have one of those. So you have your ESC. Yeah. Which we all know as, battery in, three wires out that go to the motor and then a power tap that goes to the receiver. Right. So this one has an extra out.

[00:35:58] It has an extra out and it’s just a red JST connector. Female, I think. I have to think about it. I think it’s a female that sticks out. But, and their pre-made light systems just literally plug right into that. That’s actually kind of cool. I’ve never seen that before.

[00:36:15] I am.

[00:36:16] I’ve never seen it on a commercially, I mean, I’m sure it’s easy enough to do. And so is that, that’s a 3S setup? 3S, but I have been reading recently that the McTwist can be powered on 4S, with the possibility of shortening the life of the LEDs. So you’re overdriving the LEDs.

[00:36:35] 4S on that with the LEDs even? Yeah.

[00:36:37] I don’t think, oh, that’s yeah. Okay, I can’t imagine them getting much brighter, but I would personally just put a limiting resistor on it just to soak up that extra cell.

[00:36:46] Oh, and so that’s why I was asking then the, the output on the JST connector is obviously the full battery output. So 12, 6, as opposed to the 4, 8 or 6 volt or whatever you end up getting for the receiver. For the receiver.

[00:37:00] Yeah. And they, their LEDs in their pre-made kit are set up to take the 12, 6. Yeah. works good. I’ve got zero issues with it. I’ve added extra lights to the McTwist. and I’ve just tapped into the existing wiring system for that and no issues whatsoever.

[00:37:23] Nice.

[00:37:24] Yeah, nice and simple, nothing to go wrong.

[00:37:28] Did you check your Amptraw on them or just let it go?

[00:37:30] Cause they’re, they designed it. So, and then, I just kept adding LEDs until they didn’t work anymore.

[00:37:36] I was like, what do you mean until it didn’t work anymore?

[00:37:40] I noticed a couple, was it the red, not the reds. One of the colors started dimming up a little bit. So I took one extra stick off.

[00:37:50] Voltage drop, I assume. Yeah, it’d be voltage drop. Okay. That’s funny. So, yeah.

[00:37:56] It wasn’t far from what I wanted. It’s well lit, as you can attest.

[00:38:00] Yeah.

[00:38:01] It is bright. I like doing the Frisbee thing with it cause with my stigmatism, they, how is this going?

[00:38:09] I don’t know.

[00:38:10] It, it’s a great flying airplane. I love flying the little McTwist. Yeah. the paramotor did not come with any lights on it. This is the G1 version or V1 version that did not have any lights.

[00:38:24] And this is the Hobby King. It’s the Hobby King paramotor.

[00:38:27] Friend of mine had a Traxxas TRX4M, that he had bought a aftermarket light set for. And decided he was going to go a different route. So, it just gave me this bundle of lights. So, it was a set of headlights, taillights, and turn signals. I didn’t put the turn signals cause I thought that would be…

[00:38:49] Kind of weird. Kind of weird.

[00:38:50] But I put the taillights in the tail. I put the headlights in the front. And then I added a red and green, flashing LED in the nose. So, a little, little bit of an av-light situation. And then I can see the brake lights in the rear.

[00:39:03] Yeah, it makes it easier to tell if it’s coming or going in which way.

[00:39:06] Yeah.

[00:39:06] Because those are more difficult than you would expect. There’s not much to look at. No. And, like, I know, I don’t remember what yours coloration is. Blue and white. So, that’s easier to see than Daniel’s. Like, cause I don’t remember seeing yours fly at night. but his did. And his is, what is it, yellow? And, like, a different color yellow?

[00:39:26] Greenish, yellow, and, yeah.

[00:39:28] There’s not a lot of differentiation between the colors. So, it makes it a little bit, for me, more difficult. Maybe it’s easier when you’re actually flying it to know, okay, well, last time it was going that way.

[00:39:38] Thing is, it moves so slow.

[00:39:40] Yeah.

[00:39:41] Did it, did it turn? Is it turning? In which way is it turning? Is that coming towards me? Going away from me?

[00:39:47] Yeah.

[00:39:48] You, you don’t get an instant reaction if you wiggle a stick to see which way it’s going. You just kind of wiggle a stick and, like, nothing happens.

[00:39:55] Yeah. Nothing to be afraid of, I guess, though, because it goes so slow. Yeah. And so.

[00:39:59] And if you just get totally disoriented, just shut the motor off and.

[00:40:02] The worst thing that’s going to happen. Yeah.

[00:40:05] So, anyway, I’ve got the, headlights and taillights to look at. Nose, rear. and I flew that at dusk quite a bit. and then we were getting ready to go to Joe Nall where I knew there was going to be night flying. so I ran up some white LEDs and ran them around the prop guard, which lights it up extremely well.

[00:40:26] Yeah.

[00:40:27] And, fantastic in the fog.

[00:40:30] Yeah. It looks cool.

[00:40:32] And those are just directly plugged into a battery, which we’ve discussed previously. Yeah. Yeah. Probably need to put it on a switch.

[00:40:37] Not a bad idea. Yeah. I like the lights you have on yours better than the one Daniel has. Yeah.

[00:40:42] The factory lights don’t do nearly a good job as mine does.

[00:40:46] The problem with his isn’t necessarily where they light up, but it’s the fact that they shine in your eyes.

[00:40:51] Yeah. You’re looking right at them all the time and they’re not diffused.

[00:40:54] Right.

[00:40:55] Mine are a little diffused.

[00:40:56] Yeah.

[00:40:57] But they also give you a big white hoop to look at. So orientation is a lot easier, I think.

[00:41:03] Yeah, I agree.

[00:41:05] So that is my lighting setup with the direct plug-ins. I’m not as appropriate as being able to turn them off. You’re not that fancy. No. not saying that I don’t use on-off switches for lights.

[00:41:23] Yeah.

[00:41:24] And, Ron took and purchased his, Dave being Dave. what’s in this box of garbage I can make work? I haven’t been making my own electric switches for years. And it’s super, super simple. Everybody’s got an old servo laying around that you can’t use for anything. It’s not reliable. It’s old. It’s got broken gears. It works. But you’re not going to put it in anything good.

[00:41:49] I will say most of those I throw away.

[00:41:51] They got broken tabs on the, you had a crash and broke all the tabs off the servo. The servo itself is fine. You’re not going to put that back in another airplane unless you’re going to use it for something like this. So, I have a Ziploc baggie full of garbage servos. No surprise, right?

[00:42:08] Well, they’re not garbage when they’re repurposed. They’re useful at that point.

[00:42:13] This will work with most standard analog servos.

[00:42:17] Not the digital ones.

[00:42:18] As far as I know, it won’t work with the digital because I think, or a Corliss with the brushless motor and whatever. These are your good old-fashioned cheap servos. And, boy, is this one a cheap one? The one I made as a sample for Ron here. It’s an old GWS servo that I took out of the Cub that he had previously owned and flew with, which scares the Jesus out of me. It was so slow. So, first thing you want to do is you make sure you have a functioning servo.

[00:42:50] We don’t care if the gears are intact, but you should be able to flip a switch, and it would go one way, and flip a switch, it goes the other way. Make sure the electronics are in place. Completely disassemble the servo. Take the top and bottom of the case off, yank all the gears out of it, and remove the electronics board and the centering pot. Usually, that’s going to be connected to the main output gear on your servo. Yours may vary. This one was literally bolted in.

[00:43:19] It had a big nut on it. I’ve never seen that.

[00:43:22] Oh, wow. Wow.

[00:43:23] So, you’re going to want that and the motor at this point. You’re going to plug your servo into a receiver, or I’ve got a servo tester sitting here on the table, but it all works the same. And you’re going to plug it in, and you’re going to center the servo with your radio or your servo tester. And you’re going to twist the pot on the centering pot that was in the servo.

[00:43:52] Potentiometer.

[00:43:54] For those that don’t. Yeah. For those that don’t know.

[00:43:56] What a pot is.

[00:43:57] You’re going to twist that until the motor quits running. So, you want zero out. Once you’ve got it zeroed out, you’re going to need to secure that shaft in the pot somehow. I like to use hot glue. Just put a big blob of hot glue on it. That way, it can be undone if I mess it up.

[00:44:16] Yeah.

[00:44:17] You can also put a drop of CA on it, epoxy, whatever you want to do. You just need to secure that pot so it cannot move. And usually, they’ve got a long shaft on them that would go up into the servo. You can cut those off.

[00:44:31] A little bit less weight, a little easier to move.

[00:44:33] And it just makes its packaging smaller.

[00:44:34] Yeah, a little easier to store somewhere.

[00:44:37] At that point, you need to go to your motor and disconnect the wires that are going to it. This particular one had three wires, a red, a white, and a black. I have no idea what this black one’s for. It just goes to the case of the motor.

[00:44:52] I was going to say, usually black is ground, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why you’re getting your feedback now that you didn’t….

[00:44:57] I tried it with it on.

[00:44:58] Oh.

[00:44:58] So, yeah. Anyway, we were having feedback in this loop. When this motor runs one direction, it shouldn’t turn the light on, and it does. So, I’m thinking that actually is getting rid of some electronic noise. But it’s not completely getting rid of it. Anyway, so in this case, I needed the red and the white. The red is positive. The white is the negative in this case. And then I was able to just connect my LED to it. And it could be anything you’re going to hook to it. Motor.

[00:45:32] It could be multiple LED strips, whatever. In this case, I’ve just… For demonstration, I just put one LED on it. You do need to make a measurement of the output that you’re getting from your radio to make sure it matches with your servos. In this case, I had to add a little resistor to it because I think it’s getting just shy of six volts.

[00:45:52] Yeah, for voltage reasons. Yeah. So, you don’t blow it.

[00:45:54] I’m using a single LED. So, yeah, I’ve just added a little… I can’t remember how many old this is, but… You can search on the internet for resistor values to get your voltage drop.

[00:46:07] Yeah.

[00:46:09] And then just solder that to those wires, disconnect the motor, and throw everything else away because you don’t need it. You just need the board, the pot, and the wires.

[00:46:17] So, the reason this works is because a servo is a very simple electronic device that with a potentiometer, as the servo is told to go to a certain position, the potentiometer moves. When the motor moves, the motor actually moves it, and when it gets to that position, the potentiometer says, stop. We’re done. And then that is what you’re using as your input signal. So, when you’re no longer having your motor on there, voltage is still going out.

[00:46:46] So, when the receiver says, hey, potentiometer, go here, and it’s going to say, well, I’m not moving, but I need to go to this whatever position it is. And because of that, it outputs voltage thinking it’s going to a motor. And it never sees the potentiometer move. Therefore, it just keeps going. Right, it’s always going to be on.

[00:47:05] Now, when you put that value back down the other way, the potentiometer is going to be saying, hey, let’s go the other way, which LEDs only work in one orientation. You have to have the electricity moving the correct way. So, if it’s hooked up backwards, electricity just stops flowing.

[00:47:21] Or if you put it on a three-way switch, the middle position is going to be zero, because you zeroed out.

[00:47:27] Which will still be off.

[00:47:29] Which will be off. So, it doesn’t put anything out, so everything’s off.

[00:47:31] And so, then you can control multiple LEDs. Not at the same time, though.

[00:47:37] Right. One position, say up, controls one set of LEDs. Middle is off for everything. And down controls a separate set.

[00:47:47] Yeah.

[00:47:47] As long as you flip-flop the polarity, because the polarity coming out will be reversed.

[00:47:51] Yeah. I can’t think of a time I’d want to do that, though.

[00:47:55] I use that on a winch on my truck.

[00:47:58] Okay. So, but not for lights, though.

[00:48:01] I have not used it for lights, but you can certainly do that, where you would have just nav lights in one position, and landing lights in another position, or however you want to do it. You can use it to control two different sets of lights. Or I’ve set it up in one of my race trucks. Remember the truck I had up Toledo? Toledo. The one I beat you with? Yeah. Anytime I let the…

[00:48:27] Once.

[00:48:28] Once. Let off the gas, let this go to the neutral, I’ve got it set with the trim, just a little bit of negative impulse for the servo, or switch, which would turn on the brake lights, and as soon as I get into the gas, and it’s wide with the throttle.

[00:48:46] Okay.

[00:48:47] So anytime I got on the gas, brake lights would go off. Anytime I let go or push the brakes,

[00:48:52] It would turn on.

[00:48:53] Yeah. And I could set it up where it would just, coasting, it would have no brake lights, but I set it up with just a little bit of trim so that the brake lights come on when it’s in neutral. It’s funny. Of course you did. It’s a fun little project for… It’s a tinkering thing. No money involved.

[00:49:13] Yeah. Saving garbage. Saving the landfill.

[00:49:17] Yeah. That’s what you’re doing. And then when you’re all done with it, you can either put it in some heat shrink, or wrap it with electrical tape, or if you’re kind of living on the wild side, just shove it in your mouth.

[00:49:27] Just throw it in. See what happens. Yeah. Very cool, Dave. Another way Dave saves money in the hobby.

[00:49:35] Yeah, and my Popsicle sticks.

[00:49:39] Oy. Oh, anything else?

[00:49:43] I think we’re getting some feedback out here. Yeah. If anybody has any questions about how to do this, feel free to drop me a line.

[00:49:50] That’s Dave at rcplanelab.com. Thank you. And he will answer away. In a month or two. Okay. Anything else you want to talk about, or we good, I’m done?

[00:50:02] Wish I had more to talk about, but unfortunately, I don’t.

[00:50:06] Yeah. We’ll have a little bit next time, because tomorrow I’ll be going to the jet meet over at Eli. It’s going on now, and we’ll see how that goes. I’m not flying this year. Not? No. I haven’t flown the jet since last fall, and I have not had a time to get it out, go over it, make sure everything’s good, see if I need to drain the fuel. I mean, I just, I have not had a chance to do any of that, so. Well, now’s a prime time to do that. I know.

[00:50:35] We will get back to it, though, next year. We’re going to make next year a better RC year. That’s my plan. That’s the plan. It’s like, okay. Okay. Well, in that case, thank you, everybody, for listening. I am Ron. And I’m Dave. Until next time, good night. Good night.

[00:50:53] We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Planelab 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. We’ll see you next time.