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Episode 78 Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are retained.
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[0:00] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. You do not sound any better. It's been a day, and no, I still feel the same. But what, it's okay, we're going to get through this. You might just have to talk more than me, and we'll go from there. I talk a lot anyway. You do. I seem to. So back to listener questions. You just want to dive right back into it, and you want to have a chit-chat first. I'll do a quick recap. So nothing has happened since yesterday.
[0:37] I slept. You did some sleeping. Yeah, me too. But aside from that, we didn't go to the field or anything like that. So there's really nothing interesting on that front to say. And if you listened to last episode, we were in the middle of listener questions, and we're going to continue that theme today. Yes. Tonight. This episode. This time. Yes. That we are recording. So once again, same thing I said at the beginning of last episode.
[1:03] If we read your question and you've asked it some time ago, I apologize that it's taken us so long to do that, to get back to you. But for the reasons we went to biweekly, we've been busy. Now, are we going back to weekly sometime? Yeah, the plan, I believe, right? When the flying season is over and fall is upon us, late fall, maybe early winter. I was going to say, let's aim for early winter. But yeah. Yeah, we're going to, our goal is to go back to weekly episodes.
[1:35] I did, I like, I did like the weekly episode. Well, and this sounds cheesy, but I like the weekly sort of check-in, with my friend. what I mean? Like I said, it sounds cheesy. I'm sorry, but for some reason when you said that, I was like, weekly sort of check-in, with my friend. what I mean? Like I said, it sounds cheesy. Yeah, I'm sorry, but for some reason, when you said that, I was like, who is he talking about? You meant me.
[1:53] I'm not the brightest crayon in the box at all times. It's okay. All right, then. But yes, I do agree with that. It's nice when, with two weeks, it seems like we go too long sometimes without checking in and talking to each other. let's see was that two weeks ago or last week i can't yeah so yeah weekly then it's harder for you to sneak surprises in on me all right so i'll just jump right prices i want
[2:14] surprises now well sometimes you oh if you have two weeks to do stuff you'll do something with the laser or whatever yeah you do something cool and don't tell me about it and then it's like a surprise when i get here i'm not a big fan do something cool and don't tell me about it, and then it's like a surprise when I get it. I'm not a big fan of surprises. Really? You don't like that? Well, I mean, I… You do, but you don't? I don't hate it, but… Oh, okay.
[2:32] I like it when you tell me stuff you're doing. I don't like to be surprised by it. Okay. Well, I'm doing nothing now. Because usually you're excited about it. I am. When you're doing it. I am. And the excitement has waned a little bit by the time I actually see the surprise, and you're like, oh, yeah, way i did this but sometimes the excitement is built by not telling you oh i see so that i actually push myself and get it done before you come out again and that was
[2:57] mostly with the doula stuff like i wouldn't tell you that i've built like three wings look at all this is a triplane it's a good idea now so what would if it a dualist is a dualist because it's the play on words dualist and also dual what would it try how would is that what the play on words for dueling yeah I guess I never thought of that right I just figured it was because of the wing or the engines. Well, it is, but it isn't.
[3:30] It's dual engines, but it's dual. A dueling type airplane? Okay. Would that be a triplist duelist? It doesn't matter. Let's move on. Alright, so moving on. So back into listener questions. I'll take this one since you're not feeling 100%. All right, this comes to us from Craig Straub. Hope I got that right. It says, first, I want to say enjoy your podcast very much. Thank you. I'm having a problem that I just cannot seem to figure out.
[4:01] Bought a fully assembled top flight AT6 ARF airframe only from one of our club members. This plane has never been flown. The problem I'm having is setting up the mechanical retracts on it. Those can be a challenge. This is my first time with mechanical retracts. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to get them to extend fully to the locked down position, and the left gear doesn't fully lock in the retracted position. I bought a retract servo. Okay, that was going to be my first question.
[4:32] It is a Spectrum 7040HV aircraft retract servo, and this servo is proportional, so I can adjust the endpoints in my radio, and even with the endpoints pretty much maxed out, I still cannot solve this. Any help you guys can offer would be much appreciated keep up the great work on the show craig let me take this one before you delve deep into why i might not be right okay it sounds to me that there's just not enough throw i would agree like he needs longer control
[5:01] horns yep it sounds yeah that's that so he've got the, he's got the proper retract servo. And the difference between a retract servo and a standard servo is the number of available degrees of rotation that you can use. So a standard servo, I think, is what, 120 degrees, 60 degrees? I think so. Either side of center. Don't quote me on it, because I'm probably wrong. But a retract servo is 180, so 90 degrees either side of center. Don't quote me on it, because I'm probably wrong.
[5:29] But a retract servo is 180, so 90 degrees either side of center. So he's got the correct servo. So, yeah, my first guess would be throw, and it sounds to me like he needs more of it. And to get that, I'm assuming the mechanical retracts have the plunger type actuating mechanism it's a it's a rod with a connection on the end of it for a clevis and it either pushes in or pulls out right and that's what raises and lowers it right so there's no way it locks it exactly and there's
[5:56] no way really to gain any travel at that end of the connection so the only option to get more travel is a longer servo arm. In this case, trying to get that connection point at the servo farther away from the servo horn screw. Does that make sense? So either a longer horn, or if you've got another extra, another set of holes to use, move it out, move it away from the center of the server if you can.
[6:27] That, I think, will probably get you going in the right direction. A couple of things I will say, just based on my experience with mechanical retracts, they are a pain. No question. And drag is the enemy. So any kind of rubbing, you want to make sure that those rods are not rubbing anything if you're using no resistance yeah if you're using them in a like if it's a plastic rod inside a housing and there's a bend in it or you have to snake it around a rib
[6:59] or something like that make sure that bend is as smooth as possible so that there's as minimum as minimal resistance as possible yeah would you ever oil the inside of that at all no there shouldn't be a need to i've never i've never done that i feel like adding lubricant is sort of applying a band-aid you're not really fixing the real problem and he says that one gear it doesn't neither one of them will lock in the down position and his left gear doesn't fully
[7:34] lock in the retractor position either so that tells me that oh that tells me that there's something wonky to use one of your words, going on with the geometry of the linkage. So I want to make sure I'm on the same page then. And I didn't get it until right now. So that's probably a single servo doing both retracts. Yeah. Maybe? I think so. I'm familiar with the airplane he's talking about, the Top Flight AT-6, and it is a single servo mounted right there. Well, I'm not, so good to know.
[8:11] But yeah, mechanical retracts can be tricky. You just have to make sure that the geometry matches from left to right. So then if we're talking, correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't know this, I'm just trying to picture it now in my mind. If we're talking one that works and one that doesn't. One that half works and one that doesn't work at all. Hold on, what? Yeah. He's got one that will lock up, but not down. And he has one that will neither lock up or down.
[8:38] If I'm reading this correctly. Let's see. Cannot get them to extend fully. So neither one extend fully to the locked down position, and the left gear doesn't fully lock in the retracted position. So that would just be like length of pushrods though, right, you think? Yes. So, okay. Length of pushrod would fix one issue, but may not fix the other how does this work then because if you're talking okay we're going to talk we're going to talk this one out because
[9:13] i'm trying to figure this out too so if you have a retract on each wing you're going to have your servo right in the middle preferably right directly in line between center between the two gear okay and that's how the top flight kit is designed where that servo mounts that's exactly where it's mounted how and it's 180 degree servo yes so how do you not get the okay so as it's who how am i going to describe this one without messing it up my question is when they're both
[9:47] out okay so you have let's just say it's a a circle that you're working on on the servo horn okay when you have the the connection farthest apart and then you twist that 180 degrees, how do you not get those to touch each other? So did I explain that well enough? I understand. I knew where you were going with that. Can you clarify in case other people don't? So what Ron is talking about, trying to talk about, if you imagine a straight line, okay, now put two points on that straight
[10:20] line, right? Now cut that line off a quarter inch away from either one of those two points right so now you've got a straight line you've got two points on it and then after that two points you have another quarter of an inch of that straight line let's imagine that straight line is a piece of wire okay if that makes the image right if you rotate that 180 degrees those two points are in the exact same place how are we not going to get our control horns or our rods?
[10:47] How are we going to keep them from binding? From touching each other, like from hitting each other when it spins. And the way to do that is I call it an S-bend, but it's not really an S. It's really more just kind of an arc. And it looks… Oh, don't draw it. You've got to explain it. I'm going to, but it looks like that't draw it you got to explain it i'm going to but it looks like that and then i can't see a thing that you just drew so anyway so it's basically a half loop
[11:12] right so you take you take and the way i do it is i take a pair of needle nose pliers and this is one of those rare occasions where i use easy connectors chastise me if you want to cue the dramatic music but and i'll explain why here in a second well number one it's ease of of get it easy set up but right but anyway but because they also pivot on the control horn a little bit differently without having that piece of wire on
[11:46] the back side to potentially interfere with something else okay so if you have a kind of a hook shaped bend in the push rod where it goes into that easy connector and then you have an opposing one on the other side then you rotate that 180 degrees they don't interfere with each other but does that make sense i think so so instead of having it come out in line it's going to come out 90 degrees to where it is doesn't have
[12:12] to be 90. whatever whatever you can get away with 45 degrees from contacting each other at that 180 degree travel point and that's okay to do though because you said that it needs to be as straight as possible. As straight as possible. And the key is as frictionless as possible. Therefore, no binding. And the control rods themselves have to be supported. It's hard to support a control
[12:38] rod without also getting some degree of binding. So it's a lot of trial and error. Now, in this case, on the Top Flight ET6 kit, I know for a fact, at least in the instruction manual I had back in the day, it actually had a diagram, bend the wire in this shape. And pretty much laid it out for you if you bought their retracts and all that stuff. But anyway, so the geometry has to be the same. So the bends in those rods have to be identical, right?
[13:10] Otherwise, if you have one bent, kind of one way and one another way, the travel is going to be different. Even though they might reach the same end point, at the same… Like one end point might be the same, but the other end point wouldn't? Exactly. Is that what you're saying? Okay. So up might be all the way up, but down might be the same but the other end point wouldn't exactly
[13:25] is that what you're saying okay so up might be all the way up but down might be a little off on one exactly oh that's hard so it takes a lot of trial and error and that's and if you remember when we talked in the gear episode i think it was that's why i put the mechanical ones as like my number three even though i've had success using them and I feel like I could probably have success using them. That's why I chose not to use them on the dualist because I went with pneumatic.
[13:53] The easy, easier ones. Which was easier to set up, yeah. Okay. Well, Craig, if that doesn't answer your question or doesn't help much, send us a picture. Yeah, yeah, pictures always help and if you haven't if you haven't sorted it out by now yeah send send Ron or me a picture of what you're talking about and then I'll try to dive a little deeper I think you understand now kind of what I talk I kind of do yeah I've never set one up before and then also I understand now here's
[14:21] another thing maybe make sure that your servo is not rotated 180 degrees in the mount that top flight provides for you in the wing because the the so if it's facing the right way you mean so you want the the servo horn to be either the top or the bottom really backwards ideally you want the output shaft of the servo to be in line with the two actuator rods of the gear. Okay, I can see that. If it's not, then you're going to be off geometry-wise, and you might get pulls different lanes.
[14:53] Okay. Perfect. That's another good thing to look at. So there you go, Craig. Hopefully that helps, and if not, let us know. Send us pictures. All right. Let's move on. Okay. All right, so here we go. Here's next. This one comes to us from Adam Beshara. Or Beshara. Beshara. I don't know. I look at it and I say Beshara. So from Adam. Yes. Thanks, Adam, for writing in. He says, hey, guys, would you be able to talk about using a wattmeter?
[15:22] I recently purchased a wattmeter to try to make sure my propeller choices wouldn't melt anything. But after listening to the electric motor episode again, it made me think there are other uses. I also don't really know what all the different numbers mean. I see the amps and assume I'm good if that number is lower than what's written on the ESC. Some of my planes run on three-cell or four-cell, like the Turbo Timber. Should I be changing the prop if I switch between battery sizes,
[15:50] and how would I test that with a wattmeter? That's actually a really good question. I'm sure there are other and better uses for a wattmeter, and I'm betting I'm not the only one with these questions. Thanks for all you do. Thanks again, Adam Beshara. Hey, Adam, thanks for writing in. That's a great question. It is. I'll first off say that there's really not a lot of other uses for a wattmeter. I mean, it's a tool that does its job well, and it's a tool that you need in
[16:20] order to do that job, but it's just kind of specialized i think to do what it does so i will say that so if you go back and listen to the to the motor episode especially the one that you put together really the one that we did yeah yeah but i mean if you go back and listen to that and and do the math the watt meter is really only kind of verifying it's not really a tool that i would say you would use to design maybe a setup because if you've chosen the correct
[16:53] components with the correct numbers and the number the math adds up correctly then a watt meter could be just used as to to verify yeah trust was verified exactly right so yes but i will say that if this is a plane like he said a turbo timber or i think that's what he said that plane obviously has been built already by a company that has done the hard stuff for you yeah so if you are using
[17:21] propellers that they suggest if you're using a battery that they suggest, if you're using a battery that they suggest, you should be fine, no problem. You don't have to worry about it. I agree. But if you are trying to do something on your own or you're not sure exactly what you want to do, the wattmeter is, I think, the best tool to tell whether or not you're pulling too many amps through your system. Okay. I mean, I can't think of anything else that really will do what it…
[17:49] Like I said, it's designed for a specific purpose. It's designed to test high current. Right. So it's not something you'd want to test maybe on your radio system, like if my servos are drawing too much. There's other testers for that. Yeah. A wattmeter, meter yeah i would say is pretty much just for testing what we're talking about here yeah and it's just for electric airplanes yeah i mean you don't need them at all for nitro or gas and so the other thing with
[18:16] that too you can also use it to tell you how much power in watts that your system is generating so you can kind of use that to not only make sure you're not pulling too many amps through to melt things which is a good thing to do yeah but it will also confirm like wattage per pound to suit whatever style of flying you want if you remember we talked about that way back way back when i don't remember what the wattage per pounds were. What was it?
[18:51] I think it was 80 watts per pound for trainer. Gosh, I don't remember. Yeah. I think 80 watts per pound for trainer. Then it went to 100 watts for sport type. Okay. That sounds right. I don't remember. There was something after that.
[19:07] And then 3D planes were 200 watts per pound. And EDF, I think, were up to 300. EDFs were up there, yeah. They don't remember. There was something after that. And then 3D planes were 200 watts per pound, and the EDF, I think, were up to 300. Yeah, the EDFs were up there, yeah. They take a lot. Yeah. So it will kind of tell you what wattage it pulls also. Right. So let's go through this for a minute. If you're working on an airplane without a manual,
[19:20] I wouldn't worry about changing out props between a 3-cell and a 4-cell. Would you? No, not really. Because let's think about that. I mean, we're adding, so from going to a 3-cell to a 4-cell, we're adding roughly 4 volts. Roughly. Okay. Less than that. Yeah, 3.7 nominal folds it's probably not going to be enough to to hurt anything really that's where i might i actually might take issue with
[19:55] that really so when you throw a higher voltage at something then your amp draw drops because we know amps how all that works. Oh, that's right, it does. However, what you have to take into consideration is you're not just throwing more amps at it. You're actually throwing, I'm sorry, you're not just throwing more voltage at it to where it's running at the same speed at that voltage. You're getting more speed out of it.
[20:19] So I would still check both batteries, 3S and 4S, to make sure it's right. But I would not, to make sure it's right but i would not or to make sure it's not pulling too much but i would not i definitely would not be changing every time to kind of keep it close okay i got you yeah so does that sense yep yep that'd be a good use for the wattmeter yeah so if he has one which he says says he does, you can check it. Yeah.
[20:48] I mean, like I said, I would check each one, but I wouldn't worry about changing it. I don't know which one he has, but the one that I have. He doesn't really say specifically which one he has. Watt meter, that is. Yeah. So I have what's called the Watts Up watt meter. I don't know if you're – you are, I'm sure, familiar with that. I've heard've heard you mention it yeah and that goes back i don't even know if you can get them anymore that
[21:07] goes back eight or ten years when i first did it or when i first got stuff but when you hook these up they get hooked up between the battery and your load so you have to make sure that like where you unplug the battery from the airplane is where this thing goes. Right. So you plug it into your battery, and then it gets plugged into your ESC. And really, like, it tells you other things, but I don't worry about it. I just worry about the amps.
[21:38] It's a quick check just to make sure at full throttle I'm not pulling too many amps with the system because you can melt it, and I don't want to do that. So once that you're under there, pretty much I'm not pulling too many amps with the system because you can melt it. And I don't want to do that. So once that you're under there, pretty much I'm done. Like I don't do too much. Have you done any, like I know it's maybe a little deeper than he wanted to go,
[21:56] but have you done any testing at all yourself, like what pitch does? I mean, obviously it's going to increase the amp draw, but is there a correlation like, okay, going from a 10 by 6 to a 10 by 7 how many more amps is that one inch of pitch actually worth yeah i don't know okay exact numbers but it's the same thing like with with nitro if you're getting to what size you want to go with you can go up and down and then change the pitch
[22:24] right so it's the same go up an down and then change the pitch right so it's the same go up an inch lose an inch of pitch kind of thing same same for that for overall draw roughly it's another thing yeah another thing you can do with it like i said is the watts to find out where you're flying but you can see the voltage of your pack you can also see like how much the voltage
[22:46] drops when you go full throttle yeah but i don't i really don't follow much with that either oh okay it's not it doesn't really tell me anything that i'm interested in like if you want to get into the weeds and get deeper into it you can get more information out of it but it's not something that i necessarily i don't want to care. But it's not something that I necessarily, I don't want to say care about, but it's not something that I worry about. Also, when you're checking things
[23:12] like readings on the ground are going to be a little bit higher than when you're flying. It unloads in the air. Gosh, what else? Oh, the other thing it shows is the amp hours. Like how many amp hours it has used during the session that it's plugged in. Oh. So you can kind of use that to get a rough idea of flight time if you want to. Once again, I don't figure flight time that way.
[23:36] For me to figure flight times, I actually fly the airplane for a set amount of time and then pay attention to how many milliamp hours I put back into it when I charge it. That's how I do it too yeah and that's that's about all i all i really worry about one thing with mine though is it shows amp hours as opposed to milliamp hours which is not a big deal but it's kind of annoying when you have to do conversion by a thousand it's simple enough conversion
[24:03] though so if it shows that you took one 1.5 amp hours out of the battery, it's the equivalent of saying 1,500 milliamp hours. You just move the decimal point around. It would be nice for everything that was kind of listed in the same base number. But why would they do that? It would make things too easy. Yeah, you can say that again. So, Adam, thanks for writing in.
[24:27] yeah you can say that again so adam thanks for thanks for writing in hopefully that has given a little bit of clarification a little guidance on watt meters yeah i feel like i'm rambling more like i can't like i cannot physically like i don't know i can't make a sentence it's it's it's weird you just made a sentence see you're fine it took me a year to do it all right so next jim noble he
[24:47] says good day gentlemen oh he starts off with gentlemen so i said good day i recently started to listen to your podcast great job by the way thank you i'm in the process of 3d printing my first rc aircraft where would you recommend purchasing the electrical parts? I live on the east coast of Canada. A. Canada, A. And we are very short on hobby shops. Second question, what brand of transmitters, 6th Channel, would you recommend? I don't need top of the line.
[25:18] Hey, this kind of goes back to the last episode there. I don't need top of the line, but more of a budget one that can have a few models on it. have we got the transmitter for you thanks and keep up the great work jim noble jim thanks for thanks for asking i'll take the six channel transmitter here real quick get yourself a flysky fs six eye we just gave one away on the show a month or so ago six I or I six I never
[25:45] remember this I six you're right okay yeah anyway either way one of us on like 58 bucks or something like that have they might be cheaper now I don't know but it was a very very capable radio six channels had three model memory I mean for the money to get into the hobby in my opinion you can't go wrong so look into that and I think you can actually get receivers for that now separately because I think at the time you had to, no you could get receivers
[26:15] that's right, you could get them on Amazon I think they were like 8 bucks, 8 or 13 they were really really ridiculously cheap so there you go that is also where i would go for electronic parts oh really and well if you don't have anything close oh for the 3d printing yeah absolutely well no for like for airplanes yeah yeah if you can't get anything like actually in town or close like that like for us we don't have a hobby shop near us it's a two and a half hour
[26:42] drive to get up there yeah unfortunately i get a lot of stuff from amazon yeah you can do amazon hobby king has some good stuff too if you don't mind waiting forever to get it that's the thing i don't like about it yeah well you have to be careful hobby king has two warehouses oh that is such a pain they ship from the us which i think is in ontario california and then there's one in china yeah somewhere so make sure when you're shopping
[27:04] on hobby king if you're in the us or if you want it shipped somewhere so make sure when you're shopping on hobbyking if you're in the us or if you want it shipped from the us make sure you click on that us warehouse link and even then there are times it will pull things up from the international warehouse is what they call it and i when you're trying to combine shipping and figure all that
[27:20] stuff out it gets it gets confusing ebay I- I think there's a way on Hobby King where you can only see what's in the US warehouse too. I know, I've clicked that before and it will still unfortunately give me stuff from the international warehouse. Yeah. That's annoying. It was with covering when I was looking for covering a year ago. That's annoying. Because I thought I was getting everything. I thought I had it all perfect and it said in stock, in stock, in stock
[27:40] and I clicked checkout and it said, these are not shipping from the same location even though i told it u.s warehouse only okay well and then it gave me problems that it was out in the united states warehouse and blah blah blah right so 3d printing this is all you well ron not necessarily i mean it is about making the plane but if he's trying to get electronics for it that's the same place for it but did you read it differently that's the same place for it.
[28:04] But did you read it differently? I did. Oh. No, you're right. Yeah, I read that. He's already got the airplane and got it printed. Yeah, well, he obviously already has a 3D printing machine, too. I thought he was talking about, like, the parts to build a 3D printing machine. But no, he already has that. Oh, no. Okay, I didn't read it. That's why I was confused by the way you took it. Yeah, Amazon is a great resource for all the electrical arts.
[28:28] And if you're printing a plane, 3D printing a plane, I'm assuming it's not huge. Right. Because that would take forever. So Amazon has a kit that I bought several months ago that had, it was a 2212, I think, 1400 kV brushless motor, 30 amp ESC, and two 9-gram servos, two propellers. I think that's it. Yeah. And it was about $20. $20. I know. Crazy. Actually, I bought three of those. And they actually work really well.
[29:01] We fly them in the sandpipers. Now, you might not trust the servos on a plane that you 3D printed. Yeah. Because that takes hours. Like, I know 3D printers take forever to print. So you might not trust that with those. Like, we did it on a Foamy that, if you crash it, you're 10 minutes and you have another one cut out and made. So I don't care. But motor and speed control and propellers that's still a
[29:25] heck of a good buy yeah so there you go jim thanks for thanks for listening in yeah look online and questioning yeah i don't know how hobby king those are the two sources we would probably recommend yeah i don't know how stuff works in canada with import fees or duties or what but you have to probably pay attention to the small print. Yeah. You could also shop online at hobby shops if you can find any that way too. That's true. If you're looking for something specific. Yeah.
[29:53] Well, and that's a good point. There are a lot of, I don't know if I'd say a lot, but there are hobby shops out there that specialize in, say, one brand or one type or whatever. So if there's something specific that you're looking at, a Google search will usually bring those hobby shops to the surface. And then, yeah, there's a couple of hobby shops that I deal with out in Oregon and Washington state that I get my YS parts from. Oh, okay. So yeah. Anyway, next is from Ron.
[30:29] That's from Ron. Ron. That's all it says. From Ron. So, Ron emailed us. Not me, Ron. Ron and Tom. My third plane was a GWS Formosa, a little foamy pattern plane. After it crashed, too serious to fix i ordered a replacement which i finished last year but have not yet flown i'm making the conversion from 72 megahertz to 2.4 hey that kind of ties into it yes it does so have just reconfigured it with a spectrum nx8 outstanding very nice yes yes i love that A bit of a learning curve here.
[31:05] Thankful for YouTube videos. Yes, absolutely. The Spectrum manual pales in comparison to my high-tech Optic 6 manual. Ron, in this case, I could not agree with you more. The Spectrum manuals are really not user-friendly. They leave a lot to be user friendly like when we were out of the field yesterday flying i had to get online and download the manual for yours to try and figure out how i couldn't get my flap to work yeah 350 some odd
[31:39] page manual yeah and it still was i like i could not figure through, you couldn't follow along in there step by step to get to what you had to do. So Ron, I feel your pain on the Spectrum manuals. Unfortunately, my only advice on that would be just work through it. Plug through it and figure it out. Like what I would do, like on my laptop, I would download the PDF manual and then control F if you're familiar with that function. It's a find function.
[32:09] So if you're looking for, let's say, flap. You can do that on your phone too. Control F and then flap and then, yeah, you can. Because that's what I ended up doing when I pulled up the PDF. There was a nice little search thing. So I was like, all right. That's exactly. Flaps is what I looked for and I think there was 35 results. Right. So Ron goes on to say, he says, one modification I made was to replace the single aileron servo with two to allow for aileron differential and flap runs.
[32:36] Cool. More than once on landings, I stalled and dropped a wing, so I like the idea of flaps. I agree. I like flaps, too. They're fun to play with. For aileron differential, I started with 15% and could hardly see a difference. So I upped it to 40%. And now on high rates, I have 22 degrees of up and 15 degrees of down. For flapirons, I have minus 20 and minus 30% respectively, which you can see in the pictures below. He sent us some pictures. What do you think? Good starting points?
[33:09] Good starting points? Boy, I don't know what's the matter with me tonight. I plan to add elevator mix to the flaps once I see if it balloons or not. Wrong. All right. So, yeah. Differential. So I'll start with differential aileron. Well, hold on. I want to ask. Okay. I'm going to take start with differential aileron. Well, hold on. I want to ask. Okay. I'm going to take it a different way. Okay. Flapperons.
[33:28] So are flapperons helpful if you have strip ailerons versus the ailerons that are out on the wingtips? Wouldn't you want, like, shouldn't flaps be more central to the airplane? Or does it matter? Okay. So if you ask five people that question you'll probably get five different answers okay trial and error okay so on some airplanes i like flapperons to play with like for instance on the stick i have them set up on on the stick and they're fun to
[33:57] play with but those are those are full wings are full length strip yep and those are fun to play with i don't really have any adverse effects from using them. In fact, I have no trim or mixing setup so that when I drop the flapperons, I don't have to add any weird elevator mix or anything like that to keep it from blowing. Which is surprising, actually. But on my Contender, which I flew yesterday with the engine trouble,
[34:23] which maybe we'll talk about someday in another episode. But it has a big center flap, and then it has two ailerons that are outboard of that flap, but they're tapered, right? So the ailerons are thicker on the inboard end of them, and then they taper out because the wing kind of has a tapered shape to it. And then they taper out because the wing kind of has a tapered shape to it. There's an odd shape to it, yeah.
[34:45] So that the ailerons are very, very, very small cross-sectionally at the end of them, like out by the wing tip. And I actually have flapperon dialed into that. And it makes the airplane do some really weird things when I drop the flapperon. It's not set up now because I didn't set it up on the oh okay i was going to say i didn't notice that go down when you're playing that's why but on the old dx8
[35:10] i have it i have actually two switches i have a flap switch where i can drop that big center flap and then i have another switch a three position i think it is that i can drop the ailerons or droop the ailerons as if they were flaps but then still still also get… But it does weird, so I never use it. That's why I didn't really bother setting it up on the other transmitter because it does such weird things with elevator trim. Like what's it do? Does it get squirrely?
[35:33] As I recall, when I drop the flaprons, I lose a lot of my aileron authority, so it doesn't roll very well because, remember, like I said, the ailerons are very, very thin. And when do we use flaps? Usually at lower air speeds, so there's not a lot of air moving over those small ailerons so i do lose a lot of roll control authority especially when i have those things dropped but it does really really float and then i think it balloons big time when i drop that
[36:00] but it's weird when i drop that big center flap it doesn't do any of that it just goes straight it just slows down that's weird and that's a big like yeah it's like a barn door it almost looks like a break yeah i mean really the shape of it and stuff yeah so but yeah to answer your question my question your question yeah not his yet Not his yet. You just have to trial and error. Start small with Flapron until you get used to its characteristics when you drop it. And start high up.
[36:33] Yeah, yeah. Speaking of mistakes high a couple episodes ago, start high so you can figure it out. So Ron's question is here. So he talks about aileron differential and his flat bronze and if I thought there were good starting points. So looking at his pictures, yeah, I think so. Usually differential aileron, way, way, way, I'm going to date myself again, way back in the day
[36:57] before computer mixing and all that stuff, we used a big round servo wheel on top of our servo and instead of mounting the control the push rods in line with the output shaft we would mount them up or down so that when the when the wheel moved it would give you that differential throw okay makes sense yeah i gotcha soically, we always went with more up than down. And the thought was, at least back then, differential aileron would…
[37:33] So the act of an aileron dropping down into the slipstream as opposed to moving up into the slipstream, down seemed to cause more drag, and it would tend to, instead of creating more lift, it would create a lot of drag with that lift. So what it would do is it would roll the airplane, sure enough, but it would also sort of want to drag it. So we would always have to add some sort of, manually, we'd have to do it with our thumbs.
[38:05] We'd have to add a little bit of anti, what I would call anti-rutter. So if we were making a left rolling turn, you would roll to the left. But because of the drag on that down facing control surface, it would want to roll sort of the airplane the opposite direction. So we would anti-roll it with the rudder to try to. So it direction so we would anti roll it with the rudder to try to so it was a lot of stuff going on with the sticks and if you weren't really
[38:29] talented which i wasn't we would just mechanically change that so that we got more like like he's talking about here more up than down so we didn't get a lot of that drag we took a lot of that drag out of it but we still got the roll authority with the other one that was moving up. Does that make sense? No, I understand. So has that been designed out of airplanes now? Because that doesn't seem to be a thing I've dealt with, with airplanes. Yeah, I think so.
[38:56] I think it's probably more to do with the slower trainer type airplanes or maybe airplanes that are designed to maybe fly a little bit slower, it seemed to be affected by it more than like the really aerobatic airplanes. But the airplane he's talking about is a Formosa. I'm familiar with that airplane. I actually had one of those. Of course you did. Well, it's a Foamy. It's a Foamy electric, which should surprise you. And they were kind of
[39:26] quirky little little buggers they would they would do that weird you'd roll them over to the left and they would want to sort of kind of turn up and yeah the differential aileron which we did in the computer radios just like just like he described i can't remember what the numbers were but yeah i always had more up than down on the ailerons, which, it's fine. You can do that easily enough with endpoints on a single surface, but when you have two opposing surfaces,
[39:54] it takes computer mixing, and yeah, Ron has it figured out here. And then for flapperons, yeah, I would start, if you're going to play with those in flight, I would start with the minus 20% first and see how that does. And give yourself, like we've said before, a couple of mistakes high before you go trying it. But yeah, I think your setup looks pretty good and I wouldn't be afraid to try it. Fun. Next, I'm going to let you read this one too because my nose is getting runnier.
[40:30] Okay. So this one came to us from the Contact Us form on the website. It's from Mike Amsbaugh. He says, I'm a retread. Retread is in quotes here. So I'm a retread in RC planes, having been born with a natural passion while growing up in the 70s and early 80s. I owned probably every Cox control line they they made, and even experimented with some early electric RC toys. I also built some rather complex balsa
[41:00] models, but none were RC. Then, know we all know the story then life happened i had a 20-year career in the military thank you for your service i appreciate that and also recently entered semi retirement from my civilian job he says i finally got some spare time and three exclamation points so in my mid-50s i've re-entered the hobby in a big way. I have four foam electrics and one Balsa model
[41:25] that he hasn't built yet, with a nitro motor ready to install. As a newbie trying to catch up, I'm like a sponge trying to soak up as much RC information as possible. And that led me to you guys and your great podcast, he says. I've been meaning to drop you guys a line, but never felt I had much to say until yesterday. That's when I listened to episode 70. Wow, he says. Both of you showed a level of humbleness and willingness to adjust to your listeners' wants.
[41:58] That's refreshing and appreciated. Then the episode proceeded with a Q&A to listener letters. Double wow. This was like drinking water from the proverbial technical RC fire hose. I'm reluctant to say, but the pace was probably too fast for me to intake, but that assures that I'll be listening to this episode multiple times. If you can capture the intensity of covering so much technical information in such a
[42:26] condensed time frame and while keeping the presentation interesting, that is a winning combination. I will be back and certainly look forward to drinking from the RC Firehose. Mike Amspaugh. That's a nice message. I love messages like that. Yeah, I admit I don't usually like having people say we do a good job, it makes me uncomfortable. But that one felt good. I like getting messages like those,
[42:51] because it's always hard to tell if we're meeting our listeners' expectations. And feedback like that, and negative also, really helps us know kind of what direction to go in the future. Yeah. We do take feedback seriously absolutely we do because without feedback we don't know if we're doing things right yeah we're not growing unless we unless we incorporate what we get in the feedback so because i'm not a genius about this
[43:19] you're not i know it all about this so people want want different things, and we kind of go by what people tell us they want to hear. Yeah. So we thank you for the feedback. We appreciate it. Mike, thank you. Yeah, thanks for taking the time out of your day to send that to us. It's very, very much appreciated. I think that was the episode where we announced we were not going to do YouTube videos anymore for the podcast. Was that 70? I think so like i could be
[43:46] wrong but yeah it was about that time yeah okay and that wow has that made it easier on me yeah yeah you especially with the editing and stuff yeah which reminds me we should probably put something together soon to put out there on youtube yeah it's it's been so we do have ideas and we have things i know we don't have time time and i feel like he's talking about how good of a job we do on questions and all that
[44:12] stuff and it's funny that we're back on questions now i still like i'm sorry i don't feel like i'm at 100 like doing my bestest so if i if I'm dragging out more, I'm still not quite feeling 100%. So sorry about that. I follow what you're saying. We'll get better hopefully next time. Well, I think you're doing fine. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the positive reinforcement. Okay, you're welcome. The proverbial pat on the back. Proverbial. Another proverbial. That's hard to say.
[44:40] I like that word. All right, so the next one is from Liam. He says, hey guys, Liam here. It's been too long since I sent in something. I recently was at my local airport volunteering, hey thanks for volunteering, with a medical helicopter. I'm sorry, when a medical helicopter came in for fuel. Instead of the chopper stopping his rotors, the owner of the airport ran up and hot fueled it, in quotes. After seeing this, I wondered if y'all have ever hot-fueled your RC airplanes.
[45:10] Also, have y'all ever flown FPV? That's first-person view, I believe, FPV. I've been dipping into it a little bit, and it's thrilling, he says. He says, keep up the great show, Liam. Thanks, Liam. Good questions. Yeah, yeah. I i'm gonna start with fpv okay because that's actually a very common theme that we get with our our listener feedback people want to see episodes on fpv i like fpv i think fV would be awesome, but I cannot do FPV.
[45:47] I get so motion sick so quickly that I physically just cannot do it. My kids got a virtual reality thing. I love playing some of the games in there, but they have to be sitting in a chair and not moving, where everything is moving around you. But as soon as the movement starts, which would be exactly how it would be flying FPV in an airplane, you move very fast. It just makes me nauseous instantly, and I don't know if I'm getting too old for it
[46:19] or if it's just motion sickness that I can't handle to begin with. It's weird. So I have no problems riding in a car with someone else driving. I have no problems riding in the backseat. I have no problems riding on a boat, in an airplane, any of that. Like even roller coasters at my age, it's no problem. But our friend Bob let me, this has been a while back, let me put on his goggles and try to fly one of his airplanes,
[46:44] and I made it about a minute and a half before i felt like nauseous same thing you described almost like a vertigo maybe that's it that maybe that's a better definition yeah yeah and yeah fpv it's it's very like especially like some of these guys that put on the goggles and race the and i i'm not a big drone fan but these guys that race these drones like in races and stuff and some of the footage they get it's incredible it is and i'm sure that's what
[47:10] liam something like that is probably what liam is talking about i can only watch that for a few seconds at a time same thing like i i just it just i don't know what it is it's something my brain doesn't like it yeah so and the fpv is cool we've tried it i haven't neither neither one of us like i actually haven't tried fpv oh you haven't tried it no oh i actually tried it yeah it did it made me very queasy i know it would just based on how
[47:36] bob has no problem at all with it different people can handle it yeah and it's what's really frustrating about it though is it's not just a sickness that ends when you take it off. No. Like it will ruin the rest of my day. Oh, and that wasn't my experience. I mean, it didn't end as soon as I took the goggles off, but within about 15 minutes or so, I was fine again. I've done it, like I said, on the VR, which is the only thing I have to compare FPV to. And it was hours later i still had a
[48:05] headache really yeah wow okay so yeah that really so that's why i'm scared really to try the fpv anyway well you shouldn't do it unless you have somebody spotter right next to you which i'd have you right but there you go i don't i just can't do it yeah all right so hot fueling hot refueling that sounds interesting but i don't see a reason for it sounds dangerous for yeah so so for airplanes or helicopters in the case that liam witnessed here
[48:35] yeah on the rc side i i personally don't i don't really see a need for it i mean i guess it'd be kind of cool but i actually kind of look forward to those little breaks. When I'm done flying, I land, shut everything off, and then listen to the peanut gallery critique my landings or whatever. The camaraderie that kind of goes along with it. I enjoy the downtime, if you will. So I don't mind.
[49:11] And honestly, yeah, I mean, I'm not sure, coming in, hot fueling and going right back up, I'm not really sure that I need that kind of flight time. And maybe there's some sort of racing or something that would require that, perhaps, but nothing I'm familiar with. Yeah, I was going to, we're talking about RC airplanes because this is an RC airplane podcast.
[49:23] It is. But way back in the day when I used to race rc cars yeah we would we would hot fuel them yeah run into the pit gas them up real quick with the fuel gun while it's running and then out we go there's no really fast spinning propeller on there exactly though that's what i was kind of getting at these really your thunder there's really no that's okay there's really not a lot of danger involved when you're doing it with
[49:43] the with an rc car but yeah like you said an airplane, you've got this spinning prop up there and the muffler hanging out on the side, which is usually pretty warm. Yeah. By that time, it's burnable. Yeah. I don't really see the need, but I could see a couple of different ways that it could probably be done. The Traxxas fuel tanks have those snap open lids. You could probably incorporate something like that in a hatch or something like that if you really felt a need for it.
[50:07] I don't. I don't feel a need for it. But yeah, it's an interesting take on that. But thanks for the message. Liam, thanks for writing to us again. That's one of our regulars, or used to be a regular. It's good to hear from him again. Alright, so this next one, do you feel comfortable taking this one? Are you still okay? Would you like me to read this one too? Go ahead and do it. All right. I'm sorry. That's okay. So this next one was an email. It came from Frank,
[50:34] and Frank says, hi, Ron. Hi, Tom. Love the podcast. Thank you. I have a question about charging LiPos. I use the pigtails that have all the different charging leads on my two port charger i accidentally plugged a second battery into a charge port that was already in use thinking it was plugged into the second port how do you keep the charger leads separate thanks frank that's a good question well it is. Frank, I'm assuming what you're talking about is you're,
[51:07] he's talking about a two-port charger. So it's a charger that has two, it's basically like two chargers. Yeah, like two chargers in one, right? Or in one. So he's got two outputs. And then on each output, he has, I call them an octopus or a squid or whatever. But it's one of those things that plugs into your charger, and then the other end has five or six different types of plugs on it. A ton of them. Yeah. So you can, you can charge different types of maybe, well, yeah,
[51:33] types of batteries with different types of plugs. It's just convenient. Yeah. So it'll have like a Deans on it. It'll have an XT60. It'll have a charging lead for maybe a, like a GS or a JST. Yeah. Charging a LiPo starter, a Ni starter. Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to think of what else, because there's usually more of them on there than that. Oh, there's mine. Oh, an EC3. Yeah, mine has a Deans, an EC3. It has an old Tamiya-style plug. It has a JST. It has, did I say EC3?
[52:04] I said them, but… EC3, mine has one of those on it. It has two blank leads on ES, did I say EC3? I said them, but. EC3, mine has one of those on it. It has two blank leads on it that you can put your own connector on. Yeah, so, and what we do is we plug one of these into each port on the charger, and then we can charge two different types of batteries simultaneously.
[52:26] And what I'm assuming Frank has done here he's had a battery let's say in port number one or port A or whatever he's had a battery cooking on that one and he's got let's say another battery cooking on the other one and he's taken maybe the battery that he had on one maybe it's laying over to the side and you don't really see it or notice it or whatever and he's taken another battery with a different type of plug obviously and plugged it into that octopus or that charge
[52:50] lead adapter thing while the other battery is cooking on that same thing i'm assuming that's what he did so i took it as he had a battery charging and then he had another one he was putting on and he plugged it let's say he's charging a dean's and then he had another one he was putting on, and he plugged it, let's say he's charging a Deans, and then he had an XT60 that he was going to plug in, a different type of battery. Instead of plugging it into the XT60 port on number two,
[53:15] he plugged it in on the one that already had a battery into it. Okay. I mean, is that what you were saying? Yeah, same basic, yeah. Gotcha, sorry. That's all right. Just want to be clear. Yeah, so, and his question is how how do you keep the charger leads separate so like you don't you don't use them i do not and mostly for that reason because i first off that's too many wires just sitting there it like makes me
[53:40] physically uncomfortable just seeing the the mess of wires. I don't like looking at that. I also have concerns with shorting out charging leads. Like if you're charging a Deans, let's just say a Deans, that has the male part sticks out, and you have a hot lead sticking out. Same if you have the nice starter lead and all that kind of stuff. There's just too many, in my opinion, opportunities to short something out when you have a battery on.
[54:08] So every squid that I'm charging leads, I'm just going to call them squids from here on out, because that's what I call them. So every squid that I've ever, not everyone, but the ones I've purchased recently, like in the last few years, have protections in place so like on the dean's plug it has a cap that goes over the exposed terminals when you're not using it the the glow heater nice starter
[54:33] lead it has a rubber sleeve that if you pull down on it will pull it down and completely cover the actual metallic contacts that the glow heater goes down on. Okay. And then all the rest of the plugs have sort of built-in protections. Like they don't have exposed pins. Well, they're still exposed if something gets… But I see what you're saying. They're not as exposed. So they're not going to just short out laying on my workbench. Okay. Okay.
[55:04] And I guess I didn't realize that the couple i've seen hanging in different hobby shops throughout the years that i've paid attention but not paid attention have had barely sticking out and that's just what's giving me that impression i could see why that would make you nervous yeah so i didn't i didn't realize that was a thing with with the plugs on it yeah yeah maybe maybe the older ones older ones, and there's different brands, right? The ones that I have, I think I bought down at
[55:29] a hobby shop down in St. Louis a while back. But it has a cap on the Dean's plug and then the pull-down rubber sleeve thing that goes over the nice starter lead. And then the other plugs are all sort of built-in, have built-in protection. See, I guess I don't mind just having different, charging leads that you plug in when you need to do one. That doesn't bother me having an extra one sitting around. I mean, I have those too.
[55:58] But yeah, I really, really mean personally, I like the convenience of not having to have, five different types of charge leads if i can just have one yeah it's the only one i have to keep track of i fold it up i keep it in the little bag and it's always there i'm not trying to well where did i put that where did i put that jst lead where did i use that last what
[56:21] i mean yeah no i get it and here's another thing you happen to, let's say you have your JST lead plugged into your nickel metal hydride battery charge receptacle on your airplane, right? And you unplug the thing from the charger. Well, now you have two of these, banana plugs. That's what they're called. Banana plugs that have a battery hooked onto the other. Now these things can be shorted out. So, I mean. I mean, sure. I guess. I can be shorted out. So, I mean. I mean, sure.
[56:46] I guess. I've not ever done that. Well, no. Probably no one has done that. But, I mean, it could be done, right? So, I mean. I gotcha. You can protect. You can design protections in and people will find a way to get around them. Yeah. And I guess. Yeah. Okay. I can see that. I prefer to have the cleanliness of not having so many different wires hanging out. But he asks, how do you keep the charger leads separate? Is yours on a single port? I don't find a need to. I have a high-tech
[57:21] multi-port. It's a two-port, I think. So it's a two-port, I think. Okay, so… Yeah, so it's a two-port charger, and I have never had a need to keep the leads separate. You kind of kept separate enough just by where they're plugged in? Yeah. And now does the port come off of the same side of the charger? What do you mean? So, like… Yeah, both ports come off the front of the charger.
[57:44] Okay, I was going to say, I've seen some to where the ports are off the front of the charger. Okay, I was going to say, I've seen some to where the ports are on opposite sides of the charger. Oh, I got you. And I've seen others where they all come out of the same side. Mine all come out of the front. Okay. Yep. Well, I guess if you need to separate them, just use different colored tape maybe on one. Oh, you could do that, right? Like yellow electrical tape, because I know you can get
[58:03] a bunch of different colors of electrical tape. Yeah. You could wrap everything up. Yeah yeah that would be one way or just just be careful yeah maybe if you're gonna charge two batteries just lay the batteries in front of the charger in front of the ports so which one's going to which port maybe and don't hide the battery like yeah don't kind of if you're charging lipos you should be charging them in a bag or a case.
[58:26] So maybe run that set of leads into the case with the battery. That way hey, this lead is in here with this battery. Yeah, that's actually a good idea. So yeah, that's one way. Okay, well, that's one way to do it. Lots of ways to skin that cat. Do people skin cats anymore? I don't know. I hope they never did. That's kind of gross. It is. All right, so you want me to take this one too? Oh, yeah, that's fine. I mean, this is yours. Well, it's to me, so act like you're asking it,
[58:53] like you're the person. Okay, so I texted us and didn't tell us my name, but I said… Someone texted us and didn't say the name. Okay. He says, or she hi ron hello okay any update on your balsa order are you going to say on the podcast who you've placed your order through i personally have an order through boss balsa and i'm dealing with the same issues you are yeah i. No name with this one. Yeah. Really, honestly, this came as a text with no name. That's it.
[59:29] I mean, that's who we're using. We're using Balsa Balsa. Yeah, that's the one. Well, you. I haven't used it yet. I have a credit. Well, you're trying. You've given them a ton of money. I haven't. I haven't actually placed it. Well, I can't place it right now. No, you can't place an order, but they have your money. They do. So anyway, I have not had any updates yet from them. The last time I got any information out of them was on, I don't remember the exact date. It was in June. Wow.
[59:59] So it's been a long time ago. Yeah. And they told me that my order would ship that week, three months ago. And it obviously hasn't. And no replies to the emails. No replies. I've emailed. I've done the contact us form through the website. I have sent them more messages through the Facebook Messenger. Oh, Facebook. And I got nothing. Nothing on Facebook either, huh? No. Facebook Messenger is ghosted also that's unfortunate so hopefully it will happen soon because
[1:00:30] this really is kind of like pushing off working on things but it's getting to a point like because yeah here pretty soon we're gonna be out of the flying season and into the building season and we have some really well a really big project we need to do that we're going to work on and here pretty quick yeah and also very soon i'll be needing to place my order as well which i don't even know if you can and i can't even like it's
[1:00:57] not even accepting orders right now so they're not panicking yet no because i haven't placed i mean i've spent the money i was gonna say, you should be panicking more than I am, but I'm less panicked than I really thought I would be because I still, for some reason, have it in my mind that, this is a reputable business. I understand things happen. Absolutely, yes. But what I do not appreciate is the no communication. Honestly, tell me, hey, I'm backed up. Sorry.
[1:01:27] Orders are going to ship in three months. Cool. That sucks. But at least I know something's happening. Don't tell me, yeah, it's going to ship this week and then have it not ship. Right. But that's just my personal problem. No, I don't think that's too much to expect. And we've beat this horse. This horse is dead. Yeah, but this horse is unfortunately getting decayed, and it's getting worse and worse, and I still don't have my balls up order. Yeah. Anyway.
[1:01:54] All right, so final one of the episode. Yeah. I don't know why you looked at me. Well, I just wanted to see if you wanted me to read this one. Yeah, I really don't want to talk. Okay. All right, so this one comes to us from Steve. No last name. He says, Steve asks, how often do you guys change or charge your transmitter batteries? That's actually not a bad question. So me personally, I charge mine every time i the transmitter battery
[1:02:25] now i charge it every time i go fly usually the night before do you i do interesting even though like my new radio the ix12 it's it doesn't really seem to use actually a lot of battery when i when i like yesterday when we flew it every time time? I do. Okay. I think it's probably something that's a holdover from years ago. Yeah. When we were using the big, the brick style NICAD 9.6 volt.
[1:02:56] I think they were in the transmitters and, we were producing a lot of power with a lot of spillage on on the on the frequency anyway yeah so i think that's just a in in my head that's a whole you probably don't need to do that these days because the 2.4 stuff is so efficient it really is it doesn't seem to use up a lot of power well okay then i guess this is my confession time so my transmitter came with the nimh the 2000 milliamp hour cell i replaced that i think it
[1:03:28] it's with a life battery i think is what it was on my display it tells me the voltage so i know every time what my voltage is at i have charged that once this year really really well to be fair you haven't flown a lot but it has been sitting on a lot but i've flown a decent amount you've done some stuff like that too with it on so it's not like it hasn't been used that's something yeah once this year yeah and same thing i mean my
[1:03:58] dx8 has the same display oh yes it's the same one as I have. Yeah. What about your new one, though? I charge them. It has a – so the iX12 has like an Android interface. Yeah. So it looks like a cell phone, so it has the battery thing. It doesn't – oh, no, I take that back. It does actually tell me the voltage. And it's never below – I forget what the number is, but it's rarely below 90%. Yeah.
[1:04:24] Whatever that voltage is. Well, and see, you've got to think, too, like when I'm flying, that it's rarely below 90%. Yeah. Whatever that voltage is. Well, and see, you got to think, too, like when I'm flying, that's the only time mine is on. Like, you don't fly. No. I'm talking about your new one. It's running the operating system, but it's not transmitting. Right, but it's still doing something. Like, with yours, you said you turn yours on at the beginning of the day.
[1:04:42] It takes several minutes to boot up, and then it's on all day. It might go into sleep mode, but the transmitter is technically on using battery the whole day until you turn it off, which is different than what I use. I disagree with the way you said that. So the transmitter is not on. It's not transmitting. The operating system is on, much like a cellular phone, but it's not transmitting. What do is on much like a cellular phone but it's not
[1:05:06] transmitting what do you call the box that you hold in your hand that you move well that is a controller come on well any other time since i have met you that's been your transmitter you've never called a controller at any rate yeah just out of habit i charged the night before and the reason the night before back in the nikad days obviously you charge it tonight before that way you have the most available voltage that morning when you go
[1:05:38] fly and now i do it the night before because well well, frankly, I would forget to do it probably in the morning. But also with like so my iX12 and also my DX8, those have lithium batteries in them. And as we've discussed before, you don't want to store those things for months on end at 100%, right? Well, they're not lipos. Well, they're lithium. They're lithium batteries. It's the same type of chemistry right not quite but i mean yes but not exactly well yeah bad for
[1:06:15] them to be stored for long periods of time at 100 would you agree with that well yes they will degrade them so it's not the it's not the most opportune thing to do. I don't charge them after my day of flying because I don't want them sitting until the next time I fly at 100%. So I let them sit at wherever they happen to be discharged to, and then I charge them the night before, with the thought being I don't want them sitting around at 100% because that's bad for maybe.
[1:06:43] Yeah, I get that. Okay, well, that's interesting. maybe. I get that. Okay. Well, that's interesting. Like I said, mine has been on forever. So he says, how often do you guys change slash charge? So change. How often do you change your transmitter batteries? Okay. I don't. I haven't either. However, like the transmitter we gave away ran on double a's well so maybe that's what so there's a voltage threshold and then you have to obviously replace
[1:07:10] them and so i wouldn't i don't know how long a standard double a like energizer or something like that would work would you get well yeah i guess it would depend a lot but like i don't know how much more it would take out of a battery like that than what we fly with does that make sense yeah probably probably not much difference i wouldn't think probably not but in the case of my dx8 it has the battery that came in it now i got it used
[1:07:39] but it has the battery that came in it when i got it which is a lithium ion or yeah it would be a lithium ion. And I have not replaced it. No, those came with the NIMH, because I bought mine brand new. I'm not saying they didn't. I'm just saying I bought the transmitter used, and when I got it. Okay, sorry, you said when, okay, I understand now. It had that battery in it when I got it, and I have not replaced it. I have not replaced mine either. So, but I mean, these are.
[1:08:03] It was a month or so after I got that that I got the updated battery because I didn't want to do with NIMH. And so it's been eight years now, nine years, whatever it's been, and it's still working fine. Now these are not like high capacity or high discharge, like a flight battery. We're not like abusing these things. So probably okay. I mean, maybe there's a time mean, maybe there's a time limit. Maybe there's an expiration date, but there's not one printed on the battery. No.
[1:08:31] And I have no plans for replacing mine anytime soon because it still takes a charge just like it should. The voltage is still where it should be, wherever that is. So yeah, I have no plan. I think it's a single cell, isn't it? It's that low voltage, isn't it? Mm-hmm. No? I don't think so. Because I know one of the… I'd have to go look, but I don't think so. I think it's at least a two. Okay. Well, either way, it's still pretty low voltage.
[1:08:57] Well, no, it has to be because mine says 8.2 volts. So that answers that question. Yeah. So I have not had to replace a lithium battery in my transmitter but if it's using dry cells alkaline batteries yeah you have to replace those below that threshold voltage and if you've got a manual with your radio it'll tell you when you need to replace them there you go read the manual yeah so all right that's it that was the that was
[1:09:22] the last one that's all of them if anybody has any questions, please feel free to let us know. There's many ways to contact us. I promise we will get to them eventually. We do. We do. We honestly, if there are questions, we get to them. I promise. We really do. It just may take us a while. All right. So that's all I got. Yeah. I'm finished. How are you feeling? I'm still, I'm okay. I feel a little cloudy. Yeah. I feel like I sound cloudy, too. You sound raspy. Yeah. Not in a good way.
[1:09:55] I hope you're not coming down with something. I hope it's not the COVID. The coronavirus. I wanted to say the corona, and then I wanted to say COVID at the same time. I'm not running any temperature, so it's just piper started school again she's taste everything can you smell okay is that okay yeah so piper started school and i think she is maybe bringing some stuff home oh all those little germs of people she's never been around before and yeah so that's the price
[1:10:22] we pay with pre-k. Oh, that rhymed. Nice. Okay. Well, until next time, I'm Ron. I'm Tom. Have a good night. I'll see you later. Yep. Good night. Bye. 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 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.
[1:10:51] Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.
