I finally lost it. A couple of days ago a friend and I were talking about how small this town is and how there is really nothing to do.
I took a look at robot kits. I make good money but for me the cost versus what you can do with them is prohibitive.
RC cars. Nope! Last one I put any serious money in to smacked the side of my house doing a killer clip. "Killer" meaning the model was totaled out. Too much sand in the parking lot on top of that. Gets in the gears and wears them out.
RC planes. Still looking into that. A nice foam model, electric with a camera would be nice.
RC helicopters. Whoa Nelly! Fly indoors... Inexpensive(relatively speaking)
I have seen some at ThinkGeek and other places online that go for like $50.00usd. Not a bad price for something to take my mind off the job.
So a quick check of local hobby shops and I find there isn't any in this small town. So off to Wally World. They have the AirHog rescue model. Less that 50.
I got it home and and the battery had a charge on it so I pressed my luck and put it in the air. Crash, Bang, Boom. On the floor more than in the air.
I finally noticed it's nose heavy and the crane hook was swinging around changing the center of gravity making it hard to control. The weight to lift ratio was more in favor of the lift. In other words the body is way too lite for the power the rotor applies.
So snip, snip and the crane string and hook was no more. Test flight. Still a little hard to control. Remember I said it's nose heavy and the body is way too lite. To kill 2 problems with one solutions, I added one jumbo paper clip to the end of the tail boom. Quick flight showed the center of gravity was now centered under the rotor shaft where it should be. Still it was too lite. A tap on the throttle would send it to the ceiling where it would hit then lose lift and crash. Sense this is a very low end model I had to figure out how to adjust the thrust to weight ratio myself.
Again I went to something handy. Not wanting to make it too heavy and also not wanting to throw off the CG, I went with the jumbo paper clips. One on each landing strut.
Another test flight and bada bing, bada boom, it flies damn near perfect.
Now I'm looking at some higher performance models that are electric and can be flown outdoors. Some of the online shops I looked at have some models that have advanced features like a gyro. A solid-state gyro is small enough to fit on the main board. The mainboard serves as the radio receiver, rotor mixer, rotor speed control, and several other items needed including the gyro.
Prices are more than reasonable for the size and capabilities of the helicopter.
I'm hooked...
I took a look at robot kits. I make good money but for me the cost versus what you can do with them is prohibitive.
RC cars. Nope! Last one I put any serious money in to smacked the side of my house doing a killer clip. "Killer" meaning the model was totaled out. Too much sand in the parking lot on top of that. Gets in the gears and wears them out.
RC planes. Still looking into that. A nice foam model, electric with a camera would be nice.
RC helicopters. Whoa Nelly! Fly indoors... Inexpensive(relatively speaking)
I have seen some at ThinkGeek and other places online that go for like $50.00usd. Not a bad price for something to take my mind off the job.
So a quick check of local hobby shops and I find there isn't any in this small town. So off to Wally World. They have the AirHog rescue model. Less that 50.
I got it home and and the battery had a charge on it so I pressed my luck and put it in the air. Crash, Bang, Boom. On the floor more than in the air.
I finally noticed it's nose heavy and the crane hook was swinging around changing the center of gravity making it hard to control. The weight to lift ratio was more in favor of the lift. In other words the body is way too lite for the power the rotor applies.
So snip, snip and the crane string and hook was no more. Test flight. Still a little hard to control. Remember I said it's nose heavy and the body is way too lite. To kill 2 problems with one solutions, I added one jumbo paper clip to the end of the tail boom. Quick flight showed the center of gravity was now centered under the rotor shaft where it should be. Still it was too lite. A tap on the throttle would send it to the ceiling where it would hit then lose lift and crash. Sense this is a very low end model I had to figure out how to adjust the thrust to weight ratio myself.
Again I went to something handy. Not wanting to make it too heavy and also not wanting to throw off the CG, I went with the jumbo paper clips. One on each landing strut.
Another test flight and bada bing, bada boom, it flies damn near perfect.
Now I'm looking at some higher performance models that are electric and can be flown outdoors. Some of the online shops I looked at have some models that have advanced features like a gyro. A solid-state gyro is small enough to fit on the main board. The mainboard serves as the radio receiver, rotor mixer, rotor speed control, and several other items needed including the gyro.
Prices are more than reasonable for the size and capabilities of the helicopter.
I'm hooked...
