Velocity EP finished, but with glitches

Yesterday i finished the electrical work on Velocity EP. I installed a 2S2P 1.2Ah LiPo battery in it. It won't be too powerful but should suit the motor that came with the model. I'll upgrade to brushless later. COG was perfect at first try, although i worried it would be too far back.

But there seems to be a problem: with low throttle all servos and motor are glitching. With zero and full power this disappears. Here's a video about it:



My best guess is a faulty ESC.. but if anyone has any better ideas, please post comments.

I'm not sure if i want to fly the model in this state.. The elevons make quite large movements so it might be risky.

RC Update

Long time no post.. So here's a update on my RC stuff:

Belt CP:

Just came from flying. Results:

Blades broken, some plastic stuff broken in rotor hub. I already ordered new parts for 15€ or so.
I have ONCE flown it so that battery runs out. 2 times it has broken by itself (main gear strips gears VERY easily) and two times i've crashed. Previously i bent tail rotor axis as it hit a rock.

My flying skills have been advancing.. Instead of just hovering, i managed to do two 360 degree turns. After the second one i crashed.

Velocity EP:
It's not very fast to build for a RTF so i haven't finished yet. Currently it's missing only electronics.

Installing Ubuntu Hardy on compaq 6910p

For the common Internet knowledge (we just spent 2 hours hunting for this information):

You must add debian-installer/framebuffer=false kernel boot option to install Ubuntu Hardy on compaq 6910p. Otherwise you get black screen on boot.

For more info:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

I hope this is fixed in Interpid. At least after installing and upgrading packages no tricks are needed.

Update 31.3.2010: This issue STILL exists in Ubuntu Karmic. Looks like i'll have to make a bug report when Launchpad is online again.

IL2 1946 on Wine

I just installed IL2 1946 on Ubuntu Hardy with Wine. No problems - it installs and runs just fine.

EDIT: I heard that network multiplayer works also perfectly. I haven't had time yet to test it.

New toy AGAIN

Today was a RC show by local rc dealer. We went to see it and after it went to the shop just to see what they have.
I won't explain this too long as we have to leave to a burlesque party soon, but i bought a new RC plane which was on sale. It's a Thunder Tiger Velocity EP, a flying wing much like Zagi but with a small fuselage. I paid 39€ for it, not bad. It's smaller than the aging Zagi 400 i have, and looks nice.
I've been looking for a replacement for my Z400 for long as it's "worn out". It NEVER got damaged beyond repair and i loved to fly it.

Here's a link with specs and picture:

http://www.modelflight.com.au/thunder_tiger/thunder_tiger_velocity.htm

First "flight"

I went to local football field to test-fly the helicopter. Yes, i broke it, although it never took off.

I should have spent more time with googling how to use the controls. This one is has 6 channel radio. It has 2 extra trim knobs and some kind of toggle switch. I didn't know what they do. More about them when i have done my googling. My previous "non-toy" helicopter was fixed-blade with 4ch radio. I was able to fly it without problem.

First i noticed that the rotor spins up VERY fast when giving any throttle. It's so strong that it turns the nose 45° when starting. After the initial jerk the throttle works like expected. Except - it won't take off even with 75% throttle. I know that real choppers have constant RPM and adjust lift with blade AOA. I have no clue how to do that with my RC chopper.

I also noticed, that switching the mystery switch on left spun up the rotor slowly - maybe it is some kind of startup switch? I'll find out later.

Ok damage pic:
The main gear was stripped, probably by the violent motor starts. I already ordered new one from dealextreme for $6. This (and 2-5 days of waiting) is the cost not reading the google first (the fine manual had nothing about the mystery controls).

Oh, it's a Belt CP: http://www.rchelicoptershop.com/catalog/ek1he014a-esky-beltcp-yellow-rtf-version-p-300.html?gclid=CJax48Dw0ZUCFQsZQgodkUrihw

I bought it from ebay, final cost after shipping and taxes was around 200€.

EDIT: here's (mostly) answers for my issues: http://helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=68558

New toy

I has new toy! Waiting for battery to charge and wind to settle down. More later..

Slot car racing

Today i constructed a huge Scalextrix track at our gentlemen's club. We have 2 large boxes of track parts and some more. It was surprisingly fun. I've driven on a 8 slot track also at Nokian Renkaat, but it was nice to create own track. You can see about half of it in the photo - large part of it is behind the table.

There was some really fancy power segment (what ever it is called) which had a lcd screen and could count lap times and total time for number of laps. Unfortunately for some reason i got only one car to work with it. The system also allowed racers to change track on special railway switch like segment. We timed 15 laps with it and i got the best time \o/.

After that we decided to race with 2 cars and changed the 'power segment' to more traditional one and removed the track change switches. Racing was fun & furious although we had to count laps manually.

Some time i got feedback from IRC that i should mount a video camera to a car. Why not?
I taped my old good Z150 phone on a car and set it to record video.

Here's the result. Don't mind the crashes. Turn your monitor 90 degrees clockwise before watching.

Blogging with N810

Testing.. looks like even image fromcamera works. I'm at a football game so there's time to test things..

Gliding at Teisko

Today was finally nice weather and i decided to go gliding at Teisko airfield. I got an
ASW-24 to fly and flew 1h 45 minuties in initially good but degrading weather.
Highlights of the flight were flying with a large flock of cranes and a hawk. Unfortunately i didn't have camera with me. Btw cranes fly inside clouds. I didn't know birds do that, but they rised into the cloud in thermals.

Ok back to subject. I logged the flight with Nokia N810 and Maemo Mapper software. Unfortunately N810's GPS sucks, and the track has some missing fixes.
I found nice service called EveryTrail which can display a GPX track on Google Maps.
It even integrates to Facebook.

Check it out:

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=42521

I noticed that it's not a good idea to fly with motorcycling jacket on. Mine has so thick padding at elbows that i was unable to raise the landing gear in cramped cockpit.

Simpit running X-Plane & IL2FB

I carried gaming PC and controllers downstairs and tested thee simpit finally wiith X-Plane and IL2FB. I'm not happy with image quality- it's got way too little contrast. Sky looks bright, but ground looks very dark on standard settings. I adjusted the image with nvidia-settings, and with some brutal brightness/contrast/gamma adjustment i got it to look decent.
But i'm still not too happy with it. Looks like i'll have to lend a real projector from work some weekend and see how the image looks with it. If anyone has a old projector for sale (say, <300€) in Finland let me know.

Oh, i forgot to mention that current projector is made of TFT panel and old overhead projector.

Sergei gunsight

Sometime this summer i bought a WW2 style reflector gunsight from russian 23mm anti-aircraft gun "sergei". It cost something like 25€ or so, and i decided it's cool for some reason. I might use it in my simpit project later. I managed to get IL2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles running perfectly on wine. Possibly i could fly IL2 in fullscreen mode and use the hardware gunsight.. that would be cool :)

The gunsight is missing a light source to light up the reticle. It is visible if the sight is pointed to light but i want to add a real lightbulb so that it's bright always. I just noticed, that the cap on Pisang Ambon bottle fits the lamp socket perfectly.. I'll have to drink it away and mount the lamp in the cap. I'll post more when there is progress.

Gunsight reticle with Maglite as light source.

Simpit building

I spent few hours on simpit v2 today. As a introduction, it is a home simulator cockpit, something better than just throttle, keyboard and stick. I'm using a 52" rear projection screen for out-of-window visual and a 15" TFT for instrument panel. The software i run is X-Plane 9. There are 2 pc's running the simulator - one "master" machine for oow visual and simulation, and one for instrument panel. There are panels with buttons & switches on both sides of instrument display.

Today i mounted the seat on old plastic box and modified the panel from old simpit to stand against the projection screen. Now it starts to look like it's going to be finished soon. I was so excited, that when i went upstairs to get joystick & pedals i forgot the keys to hobby room inside and locked myself outside.. I'll have to call the door opening service tomorrow, and pay 15€ for service >:-P

My old simpit (v1):
http://www.modeemi.fi/~cosmo/projects/simpit/

First post

Hello

I decided to start a blog about my various hacking projects. I think it would be more practical than explaining the same things to everyone on irc & real life. This is strictly a "nerd" blog, so i won't tell any personal stuff here. I may start another blog for them later ;)

My current active projects are

• simpit v2 (simulator cockpit)
• a demo for stream demoparty
• web forum reader gui
• adding lamp to a "sergei" AA gun's gunsight
• .. and a lot of smaller projects