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Ron and Tom finally get around to answering some listener questions in this episode of the RC Plane Lab podcast.
Episode 77 Transcript
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[0:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. So I'm a little bit scratchy just now. I actually started runny nose and stuff in the last hour. We went to the field. We did. We did some flying. Well, I did some flying and you did some watching. I watched a lot because it was windy. Windy? I watched a lot because it was windy. Oh, this is going to be a long night. It was windy, and I forgot to put my contacts in. So I was blind. It was a little windy. And bright.
[0:34] But anyway, you were fine at the field. I was. No sniffles, no congestion. No. And then you get home. And it's like I'm allergic to my house. Now you sound weird. I sound terrible yeah but we'll get through it we'll make it somehow we'll get through something the field was interesting though how so the dirt devil oh yeah i have never seen one of those before that was wild
[0:58] that was so odd so we were there was a friend of ours was was getting ready to take off, and he's like, oh, look out in the corn. I think I better wait. And you could just see. No kidding. Like, I would say hundreds of these leaves of corn, whatever you call the little corn leaf things, that's drying out, so they're light now. But they were just getting sucked up into the air and getting spun around.
[1:20] And then it was coming, and you could actually see in the grass which is short grass on the on the runway but you could see it just circling around yeah and then it hit it like went actually it went within like i'd say 20 feet of his airplane which was kind of lucky but it hit water there was puddles out there because it rained yeah and it sucked that water up probably a good five feet into the air and it was and the sound it made it was yeah it was wild i've never seen
[1:45] anything it was like a invisible tornado yeah i mean i guess all tornadoes would be invisible until it sucks stuff up right well true that's true a small tornado that's a fair statement but yeah i think they call them dust devils yeah and then it went into the bean field and it was doing the same thing i mean i've seen dust devils before but i've never seen one actually pick up water yeah like i know it was wild it was impressive glad nobody
[2:11] flew through it well actually maybe i don't know that would have been kind of cool just kind of see what it did to see what it did then you could really but that was it like once it was by it was like like it never happened that's really really yeah neat it was just that windy though but yeah it was interesting it was a weird wind that kept changing yeah i didn't care for that too much but it went from straight down the
[2:30] runway to straight across the runway it did and back i mean like the whole day it was just moving back and forth on that so yeah but the stick didn't seem to mind too much well no it's pretty pretty fast and cuts through the air pretty well. It's just a good flying airplane. That little, what was that, an Eindecker? Oh, yeah. The other guy was flying. That was a beautiful airplane. But that one, he could not get that. It still is. It is, yeah. Did I say was? You did.
[2:55] Well, I don't see it now. Right. So in the past, it was beautiful, still is beautiful. But anyway, he could not get it to go down the runway straight. He was crabbing the whole time just because the wind was so great i heard him on one of the flights he said that whole flight throttle and rudder is all he used yeah no elevator no aileron it was all well i mean it's an old yeah eindecker so that's what you say bolsa usa kit from way back when
[3:20] yeah i think he said it had a zenoa g23 on it i think is what he said yeah anyway yeah yeah it would not fly in a straight line yeah well it just pointing the same direction straight line into the wind but yeah for ground it wasn't straight but anyway but yeah no good day at the field we got to got to do well i got to do some flying and i got to do some watching watching and that's okay i don't mind yeah like you don't mind i it seems like you don't mind being around
[3:44] airplanes and just watching somebody else deal with them too is okay yeah not a lot of electrics out there so watching you guys trying to figure out why your planes won't start why they won't keep running yeah our two good friends were out there bob and reggie were both there applying reggie showed up late like no later but yeah they're they were out there bob flew the big 50cc Yak, which I love that airplane. Yeah, and it was good to see Reggie get a little bit
[4:10] more comfortable with his S-Box. He's finally getting the hang of it. Yeah, I think he just, practice, practice makes perfect. So, anyway. Shall we move on to listener questions? We have a lot of listener questions to get to today. I'll just preface this by saying, if you've sent us questions, either through the email or various other forms, you can get a hold of us. And it's taking us a while to get back to you. I apologize. But it is summer.
[4:38] And that's why we're doing every other week is because we have all this other stuff going on. So we apologize. We try to answer everyone's question that we get. And if it takes us a little longer, I apologize, but we will get to you, I promise. Yes. So anyway, there you go. Good call. So if some of these questions are a little older and you've already moved on, we apologize, but hopefully some other listeners may benefit from our input. There you go. Right on. So you want to start?
[5:06] You want me to start? Yeah, I'll start. We'll start with this one. Ralph Long. Hope it's okay. Use the whole name there. That's how he sent it to us. Didn't say not to. We do have some in here that said, don't use my full name. Right. And some texted in and didn't give us a name. So guess what? We can't give you a name. We're not going to give you a name so guess what we can't give you a name we're not gonna give your phone number but we can't get
[5:27] out the name so anyway Ralph long says how about a podcast episode about transmitters and receivers types brands which ones are compatible across different brands how many channels are needed binding 2.4 gigahertz versus 72 megahertz, etc. So, yeah, there's… We kind of did. Yeah, back in one of our earlier episodes. It was five or six. Yeah, it was one of the beginning ones. Yeah, we covered the topic. But maybe it's time for us to kind of go back and look at some of our older episodes
[6:04] and see if they're worth a revisit. Oh, that's true. Things change. They do. And it's been a year, two years, whatever. It's been a while. Oh, that's a long time. It's been over a year and a half, actually. No, we started April, I think. April of last year. Yeah. So April to September. May, June, July, August. Okay, about a year and a half. Yeah. No, that's a year and five months, a year and a half would be, so it's almost a year and a half. We're getting there. Yeah, anyway.
[6:32] Off the rails. Yeah, off the rails again. But anyway, yeah, in one of our earlier episodes, we covered that, but certainly we can go over this question, several questions actually. Yeah, let's touch on a couple things he said. So compatibility, there really is not compatibility across major brands. Right, yeah. Futaba is not compatible with Spectrum, which is not compatible with Airtronics, which is not compatible with, insert large brand name here. But generally speaking, yeah.
[7:03] We use Spectrum. Yeah, we fly with Spectrum. That's just what we've landed on. I mean, it's not… It's not because… There was no real reason, I think, that I chose Spectrum, other than that's what was at the hobby shop, really. Well, here's the reason. I know exactly why I fly with Spectrum. Okay. Because my very first Spectrum radio, I got a really smoking hot deal on it. To make the conversion from 72
[7:26] megahertz to 2.4, it just happened to be a spectrum radio that I got a really, really good deal on, and I just haven't really gotten off of them. Yeah, and I guess that, if you look at it that way, the first airplane I bought came with the DX4, and even though I hated it, because it was… Basic? Well, not just basic basic it didn't have the range but yeah i stuck with dx5 moved on to a six and then i still fly with
[7:53] an eight which is old but hey i still have one too but you don't use it it's it's ready anytime I need it. Okay, fine. But I have not upgraded yet. And honestly, though, if I were to buy another one, it would probably be a Spectrum again. Just because that's what we're familiar with. We're familiar with the programming and the little quirks you have to do with programming the transmitter like you had to help me today with mine. Turning your flaps on. Getting them set right. Right.
[8:24] But anyway, yeah, across the major brands, there's virtually no compatibility. Now there's aftermarket stuff. Well, I was going to say, yeah. So for receivers, I've used, much to your chagrin, the Orange RX, the Orange receivers, and the Lemon receivers. Once again, they've worked fine for me. They're compatible fully with spectrum but well and that's how they're marketed yeah right i mean they're marketed to be spectrum
[8:51] to be a a cheaper alternative that works on the same frequencies and stuff and like i said it works fine the ones i use them on work fine yeah don't use them in expensive airplanes i don't know like i don't know that much about futaba i mean i've flown with your top of radios in the past before 72 yeah but i don't know if there might be a orange or a lemon right yeah comparable like something for
[9:21] futaba there may be i don't know if there is or not but yeah i wouldn't know i've not really dealt with much on that either but yeah as far as compatibility compatibility goes you pretty much need to stick with whatever brand you land on like if you're gonna fly with futaba you probably ought to stick with futaba if you're gonna fly with spectrum stick with spectrum branded stuff unless we're talking about servos or batteries. Yeah.
[9:45] But as far as the transmitter and receiver are concerned, the two should match. Now, I know there are some, and this is going to get confusing because I don't know exactly what I'm talking about, but I know there are some other open transmitter, open TX things that you can get modules for to make them work. That's really interesting to me. It is kind of to me, too, and I wouldn't mind trying that sometime. Because it's almost like I imagine it like jailbreaking a phone.
[10:14] If you're familiar with that term, and maybe they don't use that term anymore, but it opens up the possibilities to the programming that is actually in the transmitter. Yeah. It kind of unlocks all that potential and you can do some kind of cool things with it but you got to know what you're doing you do absolutely or else you can very easily mess it up so but that stuff is interesting yeah
[10:34] maybe we'll have to get something sometime and i don't know tinker with it figure it out we so we did give away the fly sky what was that an fs fsi6 i6 a couple months ago and that honestly that's the only other like would you consider that hobby grade it yes okay i mean i would too even though maybe feel well okay but i'm talking about like actual like what you buy and how oh yeah okay it was it would
[11:06] definitely outperform anything you would buy off of a toy toy store shelf okay so then that would be the only other hobby grade type that i have actually messed with that's newer yeah like i've touched and played with some of your old 72 megahertz ones whatever you had before just kind of messing around with them to see what they felt like right but so this fly sky one i don't want to sound bad but it it felt cheap to me it felt light and it didn't feel quality made there's yeah
[11:39] there's a difference like if you if you pick up and hold a new spectrum let's say an nx8 the new one it has a feel it feels solid yeah it's hard to describe and and the the fly sky radio didn't have that yeah and it was physically a little bit smaller right transmitter yeah we're used to holding but still it would definitely i mean i i would have no problems putting that radio in any of my airplanes and flying with it would you consider that like an end goal type radio
[12:12] would you be okay flying yeah would you be okay flying with and maybe something a little bit more advanced but would you be okay flying with something like that with that feel as your main radio forever or would that be like stepping if that's how your main radio forever? Or would that be like a stepping stone? If that's how you're introduced to the hobby, I mean, what would you compare it to? what I mean?
[12:30] Like if you've only ever held that transmitter or that brand or that style of transmitter, that's what you're comfortable with because that's what you started with. So yeah, probably. I mean, I would say that's probably for some folks would be plenty good for an end goal. this is my forever brand or transmitter or what have you. Okay. Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
[12:53] Now, granted, if somebody was flying with that and then I handed them, my IX-12 and they're like, oh. Oh, this is what you mean. maybe they would maybe change their goal. Maybe they would maybe change their goal. But no, I think somebody who gets introduced to the hobby with that transmitter, that would serve them well. Your whole hobby life if you don't feel like getting anything else? Yeah, I think so. Okay. And it was certainly capable enough, I thought.
[13:20] Features were there, but quality perhaps or build quality. It's hard to put a finger on what the difference is, but it's just the way it feels in your hand. It's kind of like the difference between cars, like with car doors. sometimes when you close a car door, it just sounds like a quality car door that just has a nice stud. Yes. As opposed to sometimes you close other car doors that are different brands that might not be as nice. Right.
[13:48] And it just sounds like, oh, it's about to fall apart. I mean, does that? No, you're right. Okay. Yep. You can't like put a name with it. You just feel it. It's like there's no quantifiable thing that you can say, okay, well, this is what I mean. But if what I mean, what I mean. And if you don't know what I mean, I can't necessarily explain it to you. Right, right. Okay, that sounded weird. No, no, yeah, that's a very good analogy. Okay. Yeah, so.
[14:16] But as far as what Ralph asked about how many channels, me, and if you listen back to, I think it was episode six, whatever episode that was when we talked about transfers, I was a huge proponent of buy as many channels as you can afford. Because, I mean, you don't want to run out of channels, because then what do you have to do? Buy another radio. Go buy another radio, or then limit yourself to this particular type of airplane or whatever.
[14:43] Well, and honestly, like the DX-8 I have is 8-channel, and I could use more than that on a few planes. I've had to have workarounds and stuff. Right. Now, there's ways that you can sometimes work around a lack of channels. There are workarounds, but it doesn't mean that's the best way of doing things. Right. Sometimes you have to use an extra channel to mix with one of your existing channels,
[15:05] and then now you're down 8-channel. Sometimes you have to use an extra channel to mix with one of your existing channels. Yeah. And then now you're down a channel. Like, for instance, let's say you want to use separate aileron servos. Well, on a radio that's on a receiver, let's say, that's not set up to do that, or a radio even that's not set up to do that, you have to plug that extra servo into another channel on your receiver. And now you've…
[15:24] You're taking up your gear channel or your aux one 1 channel, and then that takes you up to 6. Right. So buy as many channels as you can afford. No matter what radio you've decided to move forward with, get as many channels as your budget will allow. However, if you're going inexpensive to get into the hobby and you want to find cheap, I would not go under six. Agreed. Okay. I agree with that.
[15:51] Because a lot of today's, even some of today's beginner airplanes have, separate aileron servos. So, there's five channels right there. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's amazing how quickly yeah they disappear so yeah i i agree and i'm not sure that there are there very many four channel radios left actually oh i don't know i haven't looked i haven't either i don't even know it's available
[16:14] anymore yeah but i'm guessing as things progress there's gonna be a lot less availability of the the four channel ones so six channels at a minimum ralph is what what we recommend and and i'll even go beyond that and say buy as many as your as your budget will allow so okay so devil's advocate would you buy a cheaper radio like an off-brand radio with more channels or would you go with a name brand radio with slightly less channels? So all things being equal, let's say we're talking $100.
[16:50] So $100 will buy you a cheap radio with eight channels, or $100 will buy you a quality radio with six channels. That's what you're asking. So let's say $300, if that's what we're talking about. Well, but I'm just trying to get a nice round number. Okay, sure. My personal opinion, it depends. Well, it depends on what you want to get out of the hobby. Okay. Like if it's something you're planning on, I'm going to jump in.
[17:17] I've got these friends of mine that have been doing it for years and I've always wanted to. I want to jump in this and go, you and go many, many years in the hobby. I would say spend the money on the more quality components that you can kind of take with you. If you're wanting to get into the hobby just to sort of dip your toes in and for as little as you can, get as much bang for your buck. Get the one with more channels. That's how I would do it.
[17:45] And, something else I just thought of, too, model memory. Yeah. So, like, my DX8 will hold 30 models. Sounds like a lot, but it's not. I mean, like, 30 is not as much as you would think it actually is. I mean, so I'm old. I come from a time where we didn't have any model memory so we either were swapping radios or we had a no kidding a radio for each airplane so to me model
[18:17] memory is not that big a deal really to me personally yeah because i mean okay let's use the dx8 30 30 airplanes well do i do i keep 30 airplanes really ready to fly at a moment's notice no i don't i have about okay i have about 8 to 12 maybe but here's the thing though and i i understand you don't keep them ready but once that programming is done once that setup has been taken care of and i don't you don't keep them ready but once that programming is done once that
[18:46] setup has been taken care of and i don't want to have to go through and recenter everything and redo everything again whatever you're not using you just put on the on the sd card i know that's a pain and that's 99 more correct i don't know i don't know what number that gets to but anyway so model memory in in tom's opinion low on the priority list bang for buck if you're if you're just dipping your toes into the hobby but if you're planning on staying in start
[19:13] with quality there you go try to make it simple there you are okay binding he asked about binding too oh yeah so what what that is talking about is basically introducing the receiver to the transmitter or the transmitter to the receiver and getting those two to create a nice little handshake. A handshake between the two such that the transmitter will only transmit on this particular model to that receiver.
[19:43] Like no other receiver will understand what that transmitter is saying except for the one that you have just bound to it. That's to that receiver. Like no other receiver will understand what that transmitter is saying except for the one that you have just bound to it. That's what that means. It'll just ignore everything else and just lock onto that one. Which is really, 10 years ago, whatever, well, maybe it's more now, whenever Spread Spectrum came on the scene,
[20:01] that handshake revolutionized. Would you say revolutionized i got in with that so i don't know that's true so as an old-timer revolutionized the the hobby yeah like no longer did we have to worry about frequency pins or somebody turning on a transmitter in the pits that's happened to be on the same channel you were on so that was the old 72 megahertz 72 well yeah 72 and then 27 band we used to believe it or not way back when you could fly with 27 man oh and then
[20:33] i think i think i knew that i think in europe i think it was 75 man but anyway yeah when this technology came came on the scene you didn't have to worry about anything you just turned your radio on you didn't have to worry about anything. You just turned your radio on. You didn't have to worry about who was flying. Because it had that handshake with that one receiver on that model memory. And so that's what binding is. It's getting those two to learn each
[20:57] other's language and only speak to each other. And then there's a couple different ways to bind. Yep. And I don't know how I feel, honestly, about the new one. So the old ones you bind with a bind plug. The newer ones have a button on the receiver that you can push that button to get into the bind mode. Yes. I don't know if I like that. It seems like there could be some accidental unbinding going on. Yeah, but I mean, if everything is installed correctly in the airplane,
[21:31] there shouldn't be anything accidentally touching the button. I know I've got fat fingers and trying to plug stuff in. It could happen. But hopefully the radio's not on when you're trying to plug stuff in. Well, and granted, the only time that bind button works, I think, is when you're think is when you're turning it on okay like i don't think it works when it's off it doesn't do anything i think that's on my 80 80 10 i think it is yeah that's how it works but still i'm just i'm
[21:54] paranoid i like them because they're super convenient you don't have to worry about a buying plug you don't have to have an extra port for a buying plug you don't have to figure out which port to use if it's not labeled on the receiver. Well, it's usually a battery. Not always though. Sometimes there's an actual channel one, I guess. Sometimes there's an actual bind port. And then if it is the battery port,
[22:13] the battery slash bind port, then you have to plug a battery into one or the other. It's just, I like the convenience. You sound like you're like whining about it. It's not that bad. I mean, the push button is just really, in my opinion, it's not that kind of damn i mean the the push button is just really in my opinion it's just super convenient you don't have to worry about it you don't have to go find a plug yeah what i'm saying so okay maybe maybe you can talk
[22:34] me into it i like them i haven't had anything any of my push button binding things yeah i haven't had any of those come on of course i haven't had anything come unbound in a while. So yeah, I mean, either. That's kind of Yeah, it's possible. It doesn't happen very often. Yeah. So the process of binding is basically you put this bind plug in or you push your button, push the button, turn it on. And that puts the receiver
[22:58] in a binding mode, and lights flash and other stuff. Well, nothing else. Yeah, it's just lights flash. And then you turn your transmitter on and put it in bind mode. Which usually to do that, I mean, I guess I don't know how the other ones are, like anything other than Spectrum, but on ours you press the bind button, turn the transmitter on. Yeah. On some of the, yeah, on like the newer, like my iX12. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. You can do it with the transmitter already on.
[23:24] You just go to that menu actually there's a bind button right on the model screen so you just hit that button and off you go and go that way okay and then the two learn each other's secret language and and then when it's completed all the lights come on solid and then turn everything off don't forget to pull the bind plug back out if you just another i've done use the i've done that before oh many times yeah and then yeah and then off to the races
[23:48] now how often do you bind so how often or how many times both okay like so yeah how often i'm okay so let's say it's a new airplane. Well, which is it? It's the same, like, I think what I meant. All right, so I know what you're getting at. When I'm setting up a new airplane, I bind it twice. So I bind it the first time to get everything talking to each other, and then I'll do the setup. I'll set up all my rates and centers and servos
[24:24] and get everything set up and working the way centers and servos and get everything set up and working the way i want to do the throttle direction because that's kind of important and then when i'm all done with the setup i'm happy with how everything is set up i'll shut everything off and then i'll bind it again after i've done all my setup and what i'm doing
[24:38] there at least on the spectrum radios is i'm setting the fail safe position so whatever sticks whatever position the sticks are in when you bind a spectrum radio or at least the ones we have yeah the ones we're familiar with that is the position that the receiver will move all the control surfaces if it loses signal with the transmitter for whatever reason or if it browns out and boots back up or something like that so bind it twice.
[25:06] I bind it once for my initial setup, and then when I'm happy with my setup, I'll shut everything off, and then I bind it again at whatever fail-safe. And for me, fail-safe is sticks neutral, throttle low. That's what I use. And the important reason that you need to do that is, let's say it's a nitro.
[25:23] Well, it doesn't even have to be a nitro plane. Let's say it's a nitro well it doesn't even have to be nitroplane let's say it's any kind of airplane when you first bind it if your throttle especially is backwards and you have to reverse the throttle cool that's that's how you set it up but if you forget to rebind it if you lose signal what happens wide open wide open throttle and that thing is not coming back yeah and not to mention mention, it could be hard on your servo.
[25:48] If that wide open throttle during the bind process or pre-bind process, if it's putting that linkage in a bind, it will always do that whenever you turn it on. And that's just annoying. Yeah. So I bind it twice. And then for like how often, I, to be honest, I don't, I don't bind it unless it needs it. what I mean? Like I don't, I've never had to rebind one for losing bind. I've heard of other people having that problem. Like, Hey, this isn't
[26:17] working right. I'm going to remind it. Hey, look, it's working now. Yeah. I've not had that problem. I've, I've rebound a few airplanes when I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on with whatever but generally speaking once it's bound it shouldn't need to be rebound unless like you said unless something weird is happening rebound or rebinded hmm i would say bound okay reboundbound. I don't know. Rebind it. You shouldn't have to bind it again. There you go. Perfect.
[26:48] Let's move on. Well, 2.4 or 72? Oh, about 2.4. Yeah. So, I mean, I can talk a little bit about 72 megahertz. I'm not even sure you can buy a radio on 72 megahertz anymore. And if you can, why would you want to? Well, here's not… So, there's absolutely nothing wrong on 72 megahertz anymore and if you can why would you want to well here's not like so there's absolutely nothing wrong with 72 megahertz other than the odd stray signal that can take your
[27:11] airplane out of the air which was actually caused by that cell towers that's actually kind of a big deal i mean like you just kind of blew over that like i know that's not the big deal that works great i was being facetious i'm just pointing out that there's really no reason to buy 72 mega hertz even if you could when the 2.4 stuff is so good at only talking to its bound recipient oh it's binded yeah okay no and i agree like and the problem is too like 72 megahertz
[27:42] really it's an older like even if you found a 72 megahertz transmitter it's not going to be what's called like a computer transmitter i mean you might be able to get some of the basic versions but it's not going to have some pretty capable like i i have a couple of pretty capable jr i think 8103 is one of them that was pretty capable it was had a lot of programming and stuff like that and it was on 72 megahertz. But it was still on one airplane.
[28:09] Well, no, it had model memory and all that kind of stuff. Really? Yeah. So you just… The 8103, I think it could keep at least 10. So how did that work then? I mean, would you have like the same same channel in each receiver like I guess I don't understand synthesized remember like at the end of 72 megahertz they were synthesized so you had a module in the transmitter and your receiver had dials on it you could dial whatever frequency you wanted and that's how they operated
[28:42] oh I didn't know that they had synthesized i'm using air quotes synthesized crystals they could actually modulate the signal however they do that synthetically instead of using an actual no kidding crystal inside of a case yeah i remember like traxxas and stuff when i started with that you had the am radio or well i think they were am
[29:05] axis and stuff when i started with that you had the am radio or well i think they were am where yeah it was green red whatever and that was just yeah just the different colors was 27.195 or 175 i don't remember how close they were but yeah but anyway yeah at the end of 72 megahertz it was all synthesized so your transmitter like i said if if you were using that one transmitter for many different models, you would just either remember what channel that receiver was on,
[29:31] or in the case of my 8103 is I always had the channel number assigned to the model name. So it'd be like stick and then after the name stick, it'd be like 68 or whatever. I knew what channel to dial my module to when I turned the transmitter on. What module? The module on? On the back of the transmitter. Oh, okay. So, you hold the transmitter and then the frequency module on the back. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
[29:57] It had dials on it that you could dial, whatever frequency you wanted. Interesting. So, yeah. God, that sounds so like antiquated. I know. But man, at the time, not having to have a case full of crystals, some of our listeners probably remember that, having either a case full of crystals or, you just bought the same number for every airplane you had. And then when you showed up to the field, everybody knew you were on 68.
[30:21] So they would buy 70 or 72 or whatever. what I mean? The good old days. So that's 72 megahertz, and there's really no reason to buy it with 2.4. That's really what I'm trying to get at. All right. So next. Hi, Ron and Tom. Oh, by the way, this is from Chris Sylvia. So thanks, Chris, for checking in with us and asking us to answer this question for you. That wasn't awkward at all. you're doing great but seriously chris thanks for thanks for writing in he says i'm a recently
[30:52] minted listener and i've been flying electrics for 10 years or so nice yep ron likes to hear that i do very much i enjoy the podcast and i have a question that might be part of a show topic okay he says the deep cycle lead acid battery that I use for field charging needs to be replaced. He says, and I think it would be useful and interesting for you and Ron to go over the choices for field charging and their relative strengths and weaknesses.
[31:16] I have a two kilowatt portable generator and portable in quotes. I understand what he means about that. Those things can be head while here yeah but legging it to the field on a regular basis is a non-starter yes I can feel your pain the deep cycle battery is getting too heavy I need to hit the weight room probably I'm leaning towards a lifepo 4 12 volt battery from Amazon although you can apparently make your own for less if you have the electrical chops to do so.
[31:47] What's the recommended amp hour capacity? Are the cheap Amazon batteries as good as the really expensive one from other vendors? So many possibilities. It would be, I'm sorry, it would also be good to hear about using portable solar panels for charging also. Be good to get your take. He says, best, Chris Sylvia. So, yeah. That's an interesting topic. It is. So, I'll start by assuming that he's talking about field charging his, like, flight batteries and things like that,
[32:18] and not using, like, a field box to ignite his glow plugs and stuff like that. Yeah, if he's flying electrics, I think that's a safe electrics i think that's that's a safe assumption i think that's the same i agree and and i'll start and then i'll let you because you're way more knowledgeable don't say that than i am i mean that's a fair statement and i will
[32:36] freely admit that but i will low bar but i will say that so for field charging, and this is probably a no-no, got it, but I don't fly a lot of electrics, right? So I'm not willing to invest in the big, the big batteries and stuff like that. So what do I do when I'm at the field? I pop the hood on my car and I plug my AC-DC 12-volt charger that, runs off of a a 12 volt battery right onto the car battery and i
[33:06] charge a couple of batteries and usually that's enough for me why do you think that's a no-no well number one no no safe distance like so the charger is sitting usually somewhere in the engine compartment of the car okay and then car's not running and then no but my leads to my to the batteries that i'm charging are usually not long enough to get the batteries safely away should something happen and well you could always charge them in a in a lipo case right
[33:37] or bag yeah true but if i'm charging if i happen to be charging some really high capacity batteries or some or a lot of batteries there's a good chance and i've seen it happen it's never happened to me but i've seen it going there's a good chance that you could run the battery down of your vehicle and then if you're there by yourself well now you're kind of stuck if there's nobody there to jump you so jump your battery i mean there
[34:05] there's a way around that your car has a nice generator built into it that's called your alternator that's true yes and if you're really worried about that honestly it charges up pretty quick to where it does charge your battery start it up for five minutes and you should be good if you really want you can take a a battery terminal or not terminals what's called the battery oh help me out here cables no not jump cables the tester
[34:33] i have one of the battery testers you can put on and it will tell you what your battery is at like your car battery right and after you charge the battery you can see if you need to to start your car a little bit to do it that way. If that's not what you want to do, like if you want it completely separate, that's cool too. If you're flying mostly electric, and chances are you've got probably some bigger electric airplanes maybe,
[34:57] and you want to fly a lot, then yeah, you don't want to buy a lot of batteries. You just want to charge them at the field. Charging off your vehicle is probably not the ideal situation but in my case it it does just fine yeah and i mean so for us like even we go out to the field with a full case of batteries if you have to charge a few like we don't fly that much in the day especially by the time you you sit there and you talk to
[35:23] other people and then you watch them fly and you talk about their airplanes and you sit there and you talk to other people, and then you watch them fly, and you talk about their airplanes, and you catch up. Well, maybe a little bit. Depending on who it is. But that's okay. But what if you don't want to use your vehicle? So, I mean, if you want to get one of the LifePo batteries or the LIFE, whatever you want to call them, they actually are a good replacement for deep cells.
[35:44] Like, they're lighter. There's a lot less weight that goes into them. They're cleaner. Manufacturing them is better. They last longer than a lead-acid battery. The life cycles on them is much higher. I've also heard they're better for the environment, if that's something that's important to you. So that could be important but the biggest problem i have with them is their price i mean they're very kind of pricey very very expensive yeah especially for the bigger ones
[36:17] yeah and well i'll get into that in a minute so if if that's how you want to charge, like I would buy the highest rated capacity battery that you can justify or afford, for what that is. I don't know a lot about electrical. You keep saying I'm better with electricity than you are, which, well, technically might be true. It's not by a huge margin. You understand it better than I do. Well, I know it's about energy density.
[36:44] So, if you're talking about gasoline, there's well i know it's about energy density so if you're talking about gasoline there's a lot it's very energy dense so there is a lot well okay so that's why you can get like a lot of a gallon of gas through a two or a two kilowatt portable generator would charge a lot of batteries compared to like a single battery or a deep cycle battery or something like that, just because there's a lot more power to be had out of it.
[37:10] The solar panels thing, like, I think that's kind of cool, and it would be interesting to try, but you'd really have to figure out how many panels you need. And if it's cloudy or late in the day, you don't get the output that you would get like at high noon. High noon? Isn't that what it is? Are late in the day, you don't get the output that you would get at high noon. Yeah, high noon. Isn't that what it is? What are we, in the West, man? Maybe out on the street at high noon.
[37:33] What do you call it then? 12 o'clock? Noon? Noon. I'm fine. High noon, because then the sun is right above. Listen, if you can make fun of me for saying atop, I can make fun of you for saying high noon. But high noon, I think, is actually maybe different than noon. High noon is when the sun is right above you. No? Am I just making that up? I could just be making that up. Isn't that why it's called noon? 12 o'clock is 12 o'clock.
[37:58] Like, 12 o'clock, the sun is always directly, at its highest point. Is it? No matter where you, well, I mean, within, what is it, 15 degrees or whatever it is. Is it really? Yeah. Is 12 o'clock always the center of the day? I think so, yeah. That's why we move the time shifts. I don't think that's right. Well, maybe not. I could be completely wrong, too. I probably am wrong. We might need to look that up. At any rate, the amount of output you're going to
[38:27] get depends on how much depends on how much sunlight you're getting and of course that changes based on time of year too right but i think like harbor freight had the the little 12 volt i think i think they're like 45 watt solar panels but it's big yeah it's expensive and those are really just designed to sort of keep your battery charged right really kind of a low yeah so it's not going to be something that
[38:50] i mean you're not going to have this tiny little solar panel setup that you're going to be able to take with you it's going to be a decent size if you're going to try and charge something with it and they're fragile right solar panels are kind of fragile not necessarily no i mean they can be And they're fragile, right? Solar panels are kind of fragile? No, not necessarily. I mean, they can be. I mean, you can do a lot with them without breaking them.
[39:13] I can imagine that a solar panel charging setup, to get the kind of power out of it, I think you would need to charge multiple batteries. It's going to have to be sizable. Yeah, and expensive. Like fill up the back of the SUV such that there's no room for airplanes big, I think. Well, they fold, but I see where you're going. I don't think I'd worry too much about solar panels. It would be interesting to see something like that work, though. Yeah. I mean, I think that would be…
[39:40] If somebody did the math to figure out exactly how many panels you need and what your output's going to be and all that kind of stuff so to our listeners there's our there's our challenge we issue to you do the math and figure out because we don't want to yeah because we're lazy i mean just to not put two pine a point on it yeah they're easy but if okay so if you just want to use a battery i would switch to the new chemistry and get rid of the old lead acid.
[40:06] Yeah, I would agree. And buy as big, like I said, as you can justify and carry. I haven't bought one yet, so I don't know a good place to buy them, but if you do a Google search and check out reviews and stuff, you can usually find decent places. Like the cheap LiPo batteries that i bought through amazon i think they've worked as well if not better than some of the expensive ones so yeah me too i mean if that
[40:31] helps i have no problem buying batteries on amazon yeah i i also like i've bought receiver batteries no nickel metal hydride and i've they seem to perform just as good as the the more expensive name name name brand name brain name brain name branded batteries name branded or name brand name brand name well they're branded with the name right okay i don't know either way i have no issues buying batteries from amazon yeah
[41:00] me neither they seem to perform just just as well i agree one of the nice things about the the life pole batteries though that i saw is they list the amp hour capacity oh that's handy so if that you can kind of figure it out so it'll tell you how many batteries you'll be able to charge off of it roughly yeah there's it's a ballpark yeah there's
[41:21] always going to be losses the charger takes that or takes energy whatever the heat gets produced it's not going to be one to one but if you buy like a 100 amp hour deep cycle battery theoretically you could charge 20 20 5 000 milliamp hour battery or batteries since all all 5 000 milliamp hours is is 5 amps. 5 amps. 5 amp hours. So you can kind of do it that way. If you fly using smaller batteries, you'll be able to charge more,
[41:52] and you can just kind of do the math on your own to figure out how much it is. Just convert your milliamp hour battery, what that's listed to, to amp hours by dividing it by 1,000. And then just continue on and divide that by the amp hours that your battery is to find out how many you can get so much math yeah i said that wrong divide the amp power your main battery is by what you figured out your small battery amp power is and that will tell
[42:21] you how many it can charge yes exactly i'm. I'm getting really, yeah, it's affecting me. I'm sorry. This is not a good day for me. I'll tell you what, I'll take the next one too. Okay, I appreciate it. All right. So this is from Alan. He says, I have listened to many of your podcasts and learned some good stuff. Thanks. You're welcome. You're welcome, yeah. We like to hear that. That's our goal. Not sure if you had an episode that touched on soldering and related tools. We have not.
[42:50] No, we have not, actually. He says, I've gotten into the RC hobby this past year, and I'm getting the basic supplies one should have. I recently had a need to solder a servo wire, and I'm unable to do so. He says he went to lowe's and got an iron and some solder wire i went to his local flying field today which this is not today but that's what he says today to show one of the guys who knows a lot and was told that i the iron i
[43:18] bought was too big i never opened it so i can return it and try again to get something better for the specific you hobby. He says, you guys have been good about explaining details and highlighting key tools to have. Would you be able to suggest a website I should look at? And if there were a particular model or features to look for, size of solder wire, et cetera. He says, thanks, Alan. So, Alan, thanks for listening to the podcast.
[43:44] I'm glad that we've been able to get some good stuff to you. But as far as soldering irons go, so I use a hobby-specific soldering iron. It's actually a soldering station. Yes, I have one of those also. Which actually, even though I say mine is a hobby industry one, it's actually, I think, a rebranded something similar to what you use. Okay. Keller. Yeah. Yeah. Is it Keller? Heller, I thought. Heller.
[44:17] But either way, what you're looking for is an iron that gets really, really hot, obviously. And if you're using one of those soldering type guns if that's what what you had there that you pull a trigger and it's on and then you let go of the trigger and it's off yeah those while you can make them work it takes it takes practice and yeah it's kind of a pain and it's yeah definitely a pain because you have to hold it
[44:42] on instead of just holding an iron you have to hold this thing with the button on to generate heat, and then that kind of takes up a hand. you can't really. Yeah, but they do heat up very fast. I mean, it's usually just a few seconds and it's ready. So what I would say is I don't know what he bought. Right. He doesn't actually say. Yeah. It's important to use electrical solder. Yeah. There are some big differences between electrical solder and plumbing solder. Oh, yeah.
[45:10] Plumbing solder usually has like an acid core, which helps. Well, it helps it kind of like,. Okay, I don't want to get into it too much. But it helps it actually adhere to the copper pipe. It kind of etches it first so that the copper can hold. adhere to the copper pipe. It kind of etches it first so that the copper can hold. It does not work well on electrical stuff, especially the small delicate stuff that we do because
[45:32] that acid can actually eat away at the connections and corrode it away. It's also, like plumbing solder is also thicker, which is a pain because it takes more heat in order to melt it right so i have personally i use a couple different solders one of them is an o5o diameter he was asking about diameter which is pretty thin pretty thin especially compared to plumbing stuff thousands and the other one is 032
[45:59] diameter which is even thinner thinner still and I actually prefer the thinner stuff because it seems to flow better and it seems to melt quicker, which kind of makes sense because there's less physical solder at that tip to actually make it or to actually need the heat to melt. Does that make sense? It does. And it's rosin core as opposed to acid core, which means that it has the flux built into it, so you don't have to pre-flux. Ooh, pre-flux.
[46:31] Okay, you don't have to pre-flux your joints, which, ew, ooh, anyway. Like you said, I also, oh i'm off track like you said i also have a soldering station you use one i use one as a dial you can dial you can adjust the heat so have you ever soldered anything less than full i mean honestly honestly no i don't either i'm like i mean if it's delicate and you don't want to melt stuff around it, yeah, don't turn it to 800 degrees like I do.
[47:09] But it's always all the way up and it's full blast. Yeah. And it works. I mean. Have you ever changed? So mine came with several different size tips for the actual iron part of it. Have you ever actually tried any of the other tips? I have not. Yeah. I mean, like, I understand. For what i do i don't have to i understand the usefulness of them for other things yeah so alan is talking specifically about hobby so let's let's assume he's talking about rc hobby so probably
[47:39] will be the same type of soldering that we're familiar with right so there's really no reason to change the the tip or the the the heat range now if you could use it for other purposes that all bets are off but well so here's here's kind of how i look at it like if i'm soldering a dean's connector because dean's i think are the most difficult ones to solder you look at me like you disagree I yeah I mean that to me those
[48:08] I think hobby King sells them the XT whatever they see 60s are they the ones that have the base of the yellow and all that you have to actually get the wire in and solder it yeah I find those more difficult than really these connectors yeah so here's why I find the Dean's connectors difficult. You have to quickly get that heated up and get the solder to flow into it. Yes. So that you don't… Onto it. Onto it, sorry. Yeah. So that you don't melt the actual… The housing. The housing.
[48:40] Yes. That that blade, that splay, whatever you want to call it the the piece of yeah it's not a pin because it's flat spade terminal terminal thing goes through and if you leave the heat on for just a little bit too long it makes them very hard to plug into batteries there's tricks to the trade so the way i don't know the trick of that one then okay a little
[49:01] how-to here real quick on soldering and Dean's connector whatever connector you're soldering plug its its mate into it that helps hold the pins in alignment right oh see again and then pre-tin pre-tin the boy I do that yeah if they're pre it takes nothing like it takes a tap of the iron with a little bit of flux I like to use flux i don't like flux really yeah i don't like flux cord wire and why is that just i have more control like i can i can determine how
[49:31] much flux goes on there instead of the wire telling me how much flux is going into the joint so do what you use then like what kind of yeah i use harris stay bright silver solder oh you silver solder okay that's all I use, ever. Okay. And it's really actually kind of thick. It's probably a 16th inch, 125 thousandths roughly in diameter. 125 B8. Okay. So it's 62 thousandths roughly. Okay. Yeah. So that's what I like to use.
[50:02] Anyway, it takes less than two seconds touch the iron especially if it's hot yeah touch the iron to the to the blade you've already got a little droplet of flux on it or paste flux paste works nice because it doesn't roll off of it and then you touch there into it and have that solder handy and you just it's it's quick and it it it almost introduces no heat to the joint and then well the end of your wire is pretend also
[50:32] then you get that you hold the iron onto the onto the wire before you put it on and i i like to use the little soldering helper helping hands yeah i forget what they're called i think that's what they're actually called you can get them on amazon they're really really cheap hey i got mine harper freight tool of the week it's time for rc plane labs to love the week helping hands hands anyway so i set my joint up
[50:58] that way so that they're together and then you touch the wire or touch the wire yeah with the iron yeah and that that solder flows together and it like i've never had a problem with missile misaligned pins on a dean's connector here's the only thing that scares me about the way you're talking about doing that have you ever had a cold joint where it melts i'm sure i probably have especially back in the in the RC car days when I had to solder
[51:25] everything yeah but on an airplane I've knock on wood I've never produced a cold solder joint okay on a battery connector that I put a horror as electronics be controller or a server or anything that that technique works on everything I'd see and that's kind of how obviously I pretend both of them to because I think That technique works on everything. I see. And that's kind of how, obviously, I pre-tin both of them, too, because you're wasting too much heat if you don't.
[51:58] But I guess I get mine just a little bit hotter than you do when I'm doing the tinning process. And, like, honestly, on wire end, it doesn't matter as much. No, no. But on the connector, especially if the – or on a board, like if you're soldering something back to a board, which I've done, that technique works every time. I'll try that next time.
[52:14] And just to quickly tinning, what we're talking about is adding metal solder, in this case, to the surface that you're going to be soldering together first before you actually solder the pieces together yeah yeah and then the process is adding a little bit of heat and i like to use a little bit of flux and that gets the solder to flow heat and solder and it's on the joint and it's on the wire just an easy way of connecting stuff together yeah so that's that's
[52:42] kind of a basics on soldering that's that's how's how we solder. That's the tools we use. We use soldering stations, which if you do a soldering station search on Google, you will have many, many, many results. I'm sure. Yeah. What's a good one? I mean, like, so the one I use is actually, it's made by a company called
[53:02] Hakko, H-A-K-K-O. But it's, it's more or less like, well, it's made by a company called HAKKO, H-A-K-K-O. But it's more or less, well, it's either a copy or the Duratrax, which I don't think is even Duratrax anymore now that I think about it, was a copy of it maybe. But it's the same thing that you can get Unger, U-N-G-A-R, makes one. It looks just exactly like mine, even though mine's old.
[53:26] just exactly like mine even though mine's old but if you do a soldering station search it's just 110 volt you plug it into the wall and mine has a dial on it yours has a dial on it and so it has a the base and then a power cord coming off a base and then a cord going to the iron and then the iron has a little stand that has a little spring thing you plug the iron into when
[53:42] when it's resting yeah and that keeps it away from touching stuff. Yeah, exactly. It has a ceramic little ring that your iron plugs into to keep it out of the way of stuff, or at least mine does. Mine just has a housing it fits nicely in. That's really all soldering station is, is just a place to store it. Yeah, and just make sure you're using electrical solder not plumbing solder and you should develop a technique and try it a few times first because it's it's not it's
[54:12] not an easy skill yeah but once you get it it clicks yep it's not that if you're going to be in the hobby for any length of time you're going to eventually have a need to solder something yeah you buy a battery that doesn't have the correct connector on it or whatever which that's always for always seems to be the case yeah yeah so anyway yeah there you go soldering but xt like you you think xt60s are more difficult
[54:36] like the xt60s they have they're they're hollow pin yeah they're the ones i'm thinking of it is they're hollow pin that you have to get the wire down in. It's hard for me for whatever reason. I just figured it out. I could see it moving. So getting the solder in the hole is not too big a deal, but it's once you get the wire ready, getting everything hot and liquid enough to then sort of press the… I'm not tinning the outside of the pin to help transfer
[55:06] the heat that's what i'm doing wrong i just i don't tend the outside of the pen either so you don't when you tint it you don't let some run kind of outside and no it's all the way on the inside only really yeah okay and so what i do is i will fill that up almost full with solder yeah do it you melt it in there. And then with the little helping hand thing that you're talking about has the alligator clips. Right. And I always put that through the front.
[55:32] So it's actually going into the outer part, like where you would actually plug something else into the… The female end or whatever, yeah. Yeah, depending on what it is. So that way it holds onto it that way, and I can kind of get it tilted up higher at an angle. Once I get that filled in and I get the wire tinned, when I set that on top, I just melt the top of the wire.
[55:53] The tinned part on top of the wire, and then that's enough contact where it will transfer the heat all the way down into that, and it will liquefy, and then I hold it as I pull the soldering iron away a little bit. I must be doing it because I'm always trying to heat the pin because i figure that's where all the solder is no because i do the same thing i don't fill it but i mean i get a good amount of solder in there and
[56:12] then okay well i'll try it your way and then sometimes too like if i put too much in there and it comes out when it solidifies i just file that off because solder is easy to file off if you have too much on the outside of it yeah There's no reason not to clean it up a little bit just to make sure there's no shorts. And then you run your shrink tubing over it to make it all safe and good and melt it and you're good. Or melt the heat shrink tubing. Shrink it. Shrink the shrink tubing.
[56:42] Shrink the tubing. I think for now I want to end one, and let's take a little break and see if I can't feel a little bit better, and let's come back and do it again tomorrow. So part two, we will get on to. Yep. And hopefully I'm feeling a little bit better by tomorrow. We'll figure it out. Yeah, figure out what's making your nose all runny. It's pretty gross. Everybody, thanks for listening. We'll be back with the
[57:06] next episode which i guess will be out in two weeks from now but we will get that recorded tomorrow and get it all up for you and move on from there so thank you for listening until next time i'm ron i'm tom hope i feel better later me too good night good night we hope you enjoyed this episode of the rc plane lab podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com
[57:30] 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
