It has been a long time

The new quad.

Has been a long time since putting something on the blog. Someone in my Google plus circles asked about blogs and I realised it had been over two years since I last posted. So now I need to bring you all up to speed on what I am up to in the world of RC, electronics, and beer. In this specific case, RC.

So after the legendary fail of my last quad, I purchased one designed a bit better and hopefully a bit tougher. Below is the FPV250 From Hobbyking. Nice and cheap along with the long frame upgrade kit. I went with the AfroFlight Naze32 (I pronounce as the Japanese, Na Zey, not naize, Google translate it!) and a little 1300mah battery. With my Turnigy9x I linked it with the Hobbyking TR6A V2 6 channel receiver as it is smaller and lighter than the Turnigy 9x receiver. This flew very well with the Turnigy Multistar's and the Afro ESC's.
I have stacked it a few times, but only props were damaged (you can see the grass stains on the props, and a closer look will show the rear black prop is a bit oddly shaped). So it is still flying (with new props). Now I have been game enough to add the long frame with a camera mounted along with the fpv transmitter (footage to follow).

On the other end is a 110mm monitor which I have attached to the 9x. It cost around AU$16 for the screen from ebay. I decided on the permanence of the screen as I will use it for telemetry from some of my other craft, except for the real small ones. I'll write about the other craft later.

So now I am on my way to my first fpv and all up cost less than AU$200 excluding transmitter. But props and batteries will add to that in time.

Future plans include the new V2 Quanum fpv goggles from Hobbyking. I liked Bruce's review of them on RC Model Reviews and his specific comment on how immersive it was.

The last thing to get will be the osd. I have found them on eBay for around the AU$35 with the GPS. I will probably transfer the OSD to a plane or the choppa with fpv and just have a voltage osd for the quad in the end, but will be trying it out on the quad first as currently it is the only thing flying in my fleet.

Check out Bruce’s review of the Quamun V2 DIY FPV goggles.

My Very First Keg

My First Mini Keg

So a few weeks ago I bought my first Mini Keg from Mini Kegs Australia. Cost me AUS$29.00 delivered to the door (on special!) and is a 5 litre stainless steel keg as pictured.

Third glass, getting better

So I kegged some Coopers DIY Real Ale, my favourite home brew fermented with Coopers Brew Enhancer 2, mix of Dextrose, Maltodextrin and Light Malt. It produces a quite a well flavoured drinkable beer in only a few weeks of secondary fermentation and after about four weeks is really quite good. I have not aged it much beyond 10 weeks, but it just gets better for a really cheap DIY beer, costs me around $20.00 for Malt, Sugar, and bottle caps for 30 PET bottles.

As far as the kegging is concerned, it all went well until after I kegged, bottled, and read the instructions correctly.

I noted that the instructions called for decanting from the wort before pouring into the keg. It also mentioned adding sugar for secondary fermentation, this is where I did things incorrectly, so lets discuss secondary fermentation sugar.

A bit foamy

The Mini Keg distributor recommends using Coopers Brew Enhancer 2 for the secondary fermentation. And since basic recommendations is around 8gm of sugar per litre, it would call for 40gm of sugar, or around 2 Tbsp. I also added Brew Enhancer 2 to the rest of the bottles as well, as control. After packing up, I then read the instructions again for the keg, and noted that Min Keg recommend 1/3 cup of sugar for 30Litres, or around 2gm per litre, meaning I should have only added around 10gm into the Keg, or about 2 tspn of sugar for secondary fermentation. Oops.

So I tried the Keg after around three weeks and the result was a beer under a lot of pressure. I don't have the gas kit so I was planning on using gravity poured method. I did not want to open the top by pushing in the plug and have the beer foam all over the place as I was really concerned that would happen with the extra sugar. So the plan was to release the pressure by doing around a cup first then pitch into a glass, mistake two.

Clear but not many bubbles

So the cup just filled full of foam and being a nice rounded floor, managed to spray some over the coffee machine, cupboard doors and floor. I poured a glass and as one can see by the picture, the head ended very big and thinned very quickly showing very poor retention, meaning, I opened too early. I pushed in the top and poured another glass, still very foamy and not a lot of gas, so fermentation is going OK, but, too early. The taste was as expected, full, but the complete lack of texture really brought it down. The bottles did not fair much better at this point either. It was closer to six weeks before it became really well gassed, and even then light rather than fine.

Finally nice and ready for some Linux gaming

So I have since re done the Keg, but used the Coopers Carbination Drops as I know they work well, only adding 2 too the Keg, roughly the converted number for the drops according to the instructions. This brew is also the Coopers DIY English Bitter, my favourite of the Coopers international range of home brews. Costs me around the AUS$27 mark with 500gm of light dry malt and I get around 24 PET bottles. I'll let you know how that one goes, but I will be trying the bottles first and ensure the beer is OK for a better Keg expirience.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little story into mini kegs, and I will definitely be getting more, maybe even the full five keg and gas kit. They fit in the fridge just right, they look like they will stack well, and cleaning is really easy. They're also quite easy to transport and wont break when dropped, and I doubt they will explode either. I definitely recommend them for your next Coopers DIY home brew.

New Stuff

Hi, welcome to Maxx's stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff.

What stuff have I be playing with while it has been raining.

Quad copter stuff.

Well it has been quite a while since doing a blog and I am sure some of you are waiting to see the quad flying. Unfortunately the weather here has been pretty appalling. It has rained quite reliably on the week ends for the last few months. I have had some opportunity to test fly the quad with not too much success.
The main problem I have been having is the quad flips. I have checked the placing of the motors (as there are many conflicting posts as to the motor layout). Checked that it is X config and not +. Reversed the sensors, and every time two motors will speed up while they lift instead of slowing. So I bought the i86L controller board while I try to figure what is occurring with the HK 2.1. This board works really well out of box, but I have found that even with the gain turned right up, the thing is sluggish, it takes a good second before controls are translated, by which time the craft has collided with the kids fort in the yard.

The result is as pictured, and this pic shows after the repairing glue has dried. I did not secure it back into place while the CA was drying and now it is glued solid at this angle. When I have levelled it out I will be test flying again, with the radio rates turned right up and see if I can eliminate that sluggishness. Hopefully I will have the HK 2.1 ironed out and working by the time some nice weekend weather comes along.

Power tool stuff.

Some new stuff I have is the Hobbyking 6 in 1 machine tool. The original branding is the Unimat 1. I have wanted one of these since the early nineties when I first saw them. I had forgotten about them until I found it on Hobbyking, and at such a great price I got one. The picture shown is it set up on the work bench for wood turning. This can also lathe and mill metal, which I plan to do and try my hand at steam engines, and maybe even a schnuerle two stroke. There is a site in the U.K. that sell additional accessories as well, so there will be more bits to blog about in the future. 

So far I have just done some simple wood turning. The unit ships with some pine dowel so you can start turning right out of the box, but it is really hard to get the pine nice and smooth. I found out online that harder woods turn nicer, so I grabbed a piece from my tree out the front, a big beautiful Elm, and turned up the bigger cup, which I also made a lid for. It turns and finishes really nice, but you need to be very patient, it does take longer to turn something up as it needs to be done with a much smaller bite on the wood tool. I have some other things I am going to turn, which I will show in later blogs. I have had some of these planned before I even bought this and need to see if I can actually do it. Stay tuned.
Another tool is the cutter, which will come in handy when doing the scratch build planes. I still need to complete my Cessna180 and have my new Mini Stick from Hobbyking flying, then it will be onto the Cessna 310 from scratch. Yet to decide, Electric or Glow?
One of the guys at the club told me about converting a sewing machine to cut the wing ribs for planes. I still have the old sewing machine, but have not converted it as yet, and now I don't need to. I might clean and service it and actually start sewing, something else to add to the stuff list.

Electronic Stuff.

Another new stuff item is the Arduino from Hobbyking. They are starting to get into robotics which I was kinda hoping for in an earlier blog and they have delivered. I have so much stuff in my wish list now, it is ridiculous. Well this is going to go into my old real robots ... robot. Remember them? I bought the whole lot and they where fantastic. Played soccer, voice recognition and a really good programming interface (that only ran on Windows). Well I am going to try and revive the old robot with some new internals and see if I can get it running again. I got the LCD push button shield for testing and uploaded a program I got online to the Hobbyking website. It gives a basic test and some info about how the LCD screen works in the source code, but should be a good test for the Arduino boards. The info is not by me by the way, I just did some minor changes to make it work with the model from Hobbyking.

Video Stuff.

The last lot of "new" stuff is my new mic stand, shock mount and pop filter. This will be used for making videos and producing cleaner audio. I have had the mic for quite a while. purchased online for $15AU and it can do both shotgun and hyper-cardioid for internal audio, but it does pop really badly (or I should say I pop really badly). It is powered with a 1.5V battery and came with a quite reasonable lead. The shock mic mount put me back $15. I was planning on making one, but found that I would not be saving all that much if I did that with a piece of conduit and the fittings to make it fit to the stand still came to around $15 excluding the driving to go to the various shops to get the parts, reducers where my biggest problem.

Home made stuff!

Another addition to the "stuff", also video related is my auto prompter. I have been wanting to make one for a while, and although I am adept at using power tools, I was wanting to make something fairly cheap and easy. I got my inspiration from a Indy Mogul video clip (below), but I wanted to simplify it as much as possible and actually use "items from around the house". There seem to be a lot of videos on how to do this, but they always have some item that is a tad unique, such as a wooden box, that is not common to the average house hold (such as mine). This one is done with just a cardboard box, tape and some scrap hooping iron. There are some "extra's", and if you don’t have any hooping iron, you can usually find some from a construction site in the scrap bin, just ask for some one to get it for you, or make sure you are wearing appropriate foot ware and cloths (no thongs or shorts!). I might do a tutorial on this later, with some info on getting a good design idea before you start. I have since lined it with some scrap black cotton, thanks from the other half (thankful she is a sewer, check out her magic with cloth including this kids game board that has been published in Homespun magazine).

The Inspiration stuff.

Anyway, that is it for now, and I hope to have a bit of content over the next few months they may interest you or inspire you to try something new. Please enjoy the Indy Mogul clip on making an easy and cheap auto prompter, and my question for this blog ... Just how many hobbies do you actually have? Comment below, or write it on some masking tape and stick it to a pigeon.

 

TL;DR. Wrote about lots of new stuff and ask "How many hobbies do you have?" while listening to the Juanitos.

All original content released under the Creative Commons License BY. All other content copyrights and trademarks held by original owners.

 

My new Asus Eee PC and Ubuntu One

The new Asus Eee PC.

Well I bought myself Asus Eee PC 1015B recently. Although a very handy little machine now, I still have some fine tuning to do, especially with the power side of things.
I am sill waiting on the new RAM to arrive. I ordered a 2Gbyte stick as the specs said that you cannot use anything higher. I then found out that the limitation was due to Windows 7 starter and not a hardware one. This made sense considering the CPU is an AMD C50 dual core 64 bit and should be capable of much much higher specs. So I then ordered a 4Gbyte stick. As at writing (on the train going to work) I am still waiting for the arrival of either. It would have been nice to pop in a 8Gbyte, but I could find no one selling a single 8Gbyte stick, they all came in kits with two for 16Gbyte total. Well I figure 4Gbyte should be enough anyway with what I want to use it for.
Of course, the first thing I did was start to load up Linux the instant I turned it on. I had created a start up USB stick with Kubuntu on it ready before it had arrived.
Well, it struggled to boot, I was using an ancient 2Gbyte Sandisk and read somewhere that the unit has trouble with a particular Sandisk stick (I later learnt that this is also was a problem with Windows 7 Starter and not the hardware). I tried a newer Lexar stick, and same thing.
Well, check some hardware specs, and the Asus (now called Muaddib, from Frank Herberts "Dune", after Paul Atreides Fremen name) has a USB 3.0 slot. So I race off and get a high speed USB stick to try and load Kubuntu.
The main problem I was having was that the installer appeared to be having trouble seeing the hard drive to allocate partitions. So I booted into the Kubuntu desktop and configured up the partitions. I was then able to seemingly progress from there, I actually got Kubuntu to "install" but it would not boot. When I booted back into a live session and looked at the hard drive,it looked all normal, but just would not boot.
I then tried the alternative version of Kubuntu, followed by the DVD version, all with no luck. I was getting quite a bit worried and the hard drive light was not working, and thought it might be a bit hard to claim warranty after I had erased the windows partition including the recovery partition (wanted all that 320Gbyte I could get and was not planning on recovering to Windows 7 ... ever). I then had a thought.
What if it was Kubuntu and not the Eee PC. This did not seem logical as I had tried three different images all with the same results, but I thought, why not. So I put in an Ubuntu start up stick while I downloaded the new version of Bodhi to try. Well, lo and behold, Ubuntu loaded and ran with out a hitch. When I got Bodhi, I loaded it up and it ran great.

So, not the hard drive but something with Kubuntu. I remember I had some trouble when I was loading Kubuntu on the main system, but I did get there eventually.
I ended up loading on Ubuntu and installing the KDE desktop from the main repositories. I have quickly gotten used to KDE work flow and Bodhi/Enlightenment was starting to be a bit of a struggle in small fringe area's I seemingly have gotten used to (Similar things that Gnome shell took away as well, but another story). But with a bit of learning, I may go back to my original Linux desktop from over ten years ago, Enlightenment.
So the system is running fine, and I am writing this on the train going to and from work, which is one of the main points of getting this device. There are still people on the train who take up two seats for them and their "lap top" PC, while I sit next to a young chap and his small DELL system with no major space issues for either of us (although mine started from off quicker than his starting Windows 7 from sleep ... hehe).
The next part of this project is to get the system tethered to my mobile phone, either by wifi or bluetooth. I don't care which, just so long as it is wireless. Also waiting to see if the 4Gbyte RAM will improve both performance and sleeping, currently it cannot recover from sleep which is a bit annoying.

Final bit.

I am now writing from my desktop PC, having synced across the earlier part of the draft blog via my Ubuntu One account. This is starting to turn into an awesome little tool and I am sure I will be leasing more space in the future as my music and videos get synced from this desktop machine and my phone and the Eee. I love that I can take pictures on the phone and have them synced over to my desktop. I know Google has a similar feature, but I like that I can have my pics on a hard drive sitting on my desk available to me with out a network, that is why I use it for the Eee that is currently not on a mobile network. I can edit on the Eee and when it is on a network, it synchronises my documents.
Question, are you an Ubuntu One user? and how do you find it compared to the other cloud options out there? And if you are not one, do you use a "cloud" service? and how do you find it?

Xcopter Quad Build - Weeks eight to ten and eleven - Lessons Learnt

Hi, welcome to Maxx's stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff.

Micro Quad fully loaded

Xcopter Quad Build - Weeks eight to ten and eleven and some Lessons Learnt

I have missed a few weeks, mainly because not a lot has been happening in the stuff area, just getting batteries and the balancer and other parts. The story begins with week eight and receiving the the green props and the BESC programming card and male to male servo leads, (there are ten in a pack, so enough for two multi's with some spare) nothing much spectacular and came to the door for $44.00, knocking the average over to $30.65.
I wanted the card because, well, one, it is easier to program the ESC's and two, I wanted to try out the music option on the ESC's. Programming is really easy with one of these, no trying to flick the throttle and counting etc. The music available is ... well ... interesting. It did not come with "Flight of the Valkeries" but a part of Beethovens "Fur Elise", which I selected. I also programmed the ESC to reduce power with low voltage and to have a normal start.

Week nine and I got the charger, nylon screws and nuts all for $31.84 making the average now $30.78. again nothing much here except I had to do some research on how to use the charger and have posted a good Youtube link below from Bruce of RC Model Reviews. I also mounted the controller board. I am planning on putting the receiver on top of the controller, but having it firmly mounted may be a bit tricky.

XT-60

Week ten brought in the battery and prop balancer, all for $42.12 with a final average of, $31.91. Except ... The battery (from the Australian warehouse) came with the XT-60 connector, not the JST which is on the Micro Quad. This was the first time I had seen the XT-60 and it is a really great connector. Good surface area connection and nice and firm with out having a lock (the 60 is for the 60Amps it can carry without melting). I also like that if it is hard to get apart, you can use a screwdriver without risking shorting the connectors like what can happen with the Deans connectors, which is what I use, until now.

So, for week eleven, I order a battery from the International warehouse with the JST connection and a packet of male and female XT-60, so I can convert all my other gear to XT-60. I also ordered some wire as well, along with the USB programmer for my Hobbyking radio. This cost an additional $20.89 now bringing the average down to $30.91, but adding a week to the build.

So total all up is $340.02 having spent $81.88 of that on postage. I will do a proper break down for the Quad in the next blog with the gear that was actually used on the Quad.

This does include a pretty good camera and other gear that will be used for other planes as well including a battery that will go over to the Cessna 180 as it has the XT-60, and I have already started a plan of attack on the next planes. Finish the cessna 180, start on the cessna 310, convert the 0.25 glow to electric, and get the Mini Stick done when it arrives.

Preparing up the gear for the test flights and lessons learnt.

Little IC broke it's bag of smoke

So the first thing I needed to do was charge the battery. I need to do this to check the balancing and vibration. I have balanced the props, but the motors need checking. I also have to check the motor directions and make sure they are correct. I have the battery in the garage and it is a bit dark, but I would like it charged for checking and flying first thing tomorow, being the Saturday. I plug the charger onto the car battery and plug in the battery ... in the darkish light. I set the unit to charge, and ... no battery connected!. What the???. So I turn the light on to see what I have done wrong, and that is when I see the smoke! I check the unit and battery. What I had done was two things.

1. Put the source connections on incorrect polarity. Yep, the positive gator was on the negative terminal on the car battery, and vice versa.

2. The other thing was the gator clips on the charge leads from the balanced charger where touching, causing a short circuit, hence no battery connected error.

Well, I corrected the source connections, and took care of the gator clips on the charge end and connected the LiPo ... and ... No battery connected :(. I killed the charger. As can be seen by the picture, one little IC is popped and now the device is not functional.

So, what are the lessons learnt.

1. Don't try and connect electronic equipment up in the dark!

2. Check that nothing is shorting out.

3. If a charger shows any signs of being damaged, don't use it. Throw it away as LiPo's can be volatile if not charged correctly, and a damaged charger will most likely not charge but actually damage your batteries.

How to charge your LiPo battery with the Hobbyking balanced chargers.

Well that is it for the last four weeks. Next week will be real flights, I hope. I have some test flights planned before the proper first recorded flight and a brand new and bigger charger on it's way. Along with that I bought a spare motor as well, as one of the motors do not appear to turn freely, and I am not sure if this will have an impact on performance as it does seem to run o.k.
Unfortunately I have not been well, so the work has slowed for the last two weeks (also why this is late as well), it has been a bit to cold and wet to hang out in the garage and I really need to get better for work, so I can pay for all this stuff!
So ... Ĝis Revido.

XCopter Quad Build - Week seven

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

XCopter Micro Quad Build - Week seven

This week was a really exciting week, I got the last ESC, Hex drivers, 2M screws and lock nuts, along with the three bladed black props all from Hobby King. Came to the door for $24.00 with an average now of $28.15 .... Except. I failed to check the hex drivers size. The smallest is 1.5mm, and I already had 1.5mm drivers and needed something smaller for the motor. You may remember from week four I needed to rotate the mount of the first motor so its wires would enter the micro frame more comfortably. So I had to go to the local hardware store and buy an entire set of Allan keys for $20 so I could get a 1.3mm, 0.9mm and 0.7mm. I think it was the 1.3 that was small enough. That has now brought the average to $30.61 ... dang, budget is now blown and will have to work hard to bring it down, and get it done in ten weeks.
The hex drivers are great, that feel really comfortable and allow good force but good control as well, superbly made, just pity they do not come smaller.
I love the props, I think they look fantastic along with the spinner, so next week I will have the green props to help with orientation while flying. Along with the screws I received means the motors are now mounted as can be seen on the picture.

I was amazed with myself, having been born with ten thumbs I did not lose one single screw or nut!
So now all the ESC's are soldered in and hot glued to the frame, the motors are mounted and also soldered. Until I get a battery, I will not be able to tell if the motors are running in the correct direction, but a quick de-solder, a swap of two leads will fix that. Next week I will also be getting the BESC programming card, servo leads and 14mm nylon spacers for the receiver.

For the video, I thought I would show something a bit different. These little guys come from the University of Pennsylvania. They are robotic and programmed to fly like this. Enjoy the tune, James Bond Theme.

 

P.S. Since I received the USB AVR programmer, I have been experimenting more with kkMulticoperflashtool and have found how to use it in Linux and all the features that come with the program. Slowly producing a Video on that so keep an eye out, hope to get it up soon.

XCopter Quad build - Week six

Maxx's Stuff

Hi and welcome to Maxx's Stuff, I'm Maxx and this is my stuff!

In today's world, I manage to have some time to learn, play, discover and tinker with new things and I get to share all that with you.

XCopter Micro Quad Build - Week six

This week I got the last outrunner and two more ESC's at $30.57 from Hobby King. Brings the average to $28.71. I thought I would use the week to prep up the solder joints and the three ESC's (fourth in the next week).
I measured out roughly the length of wire needed on the ESC three phase side. Because the outrunners need to go in a certain direction, I plan to do any direction change with the motor connections so the ESC connections can remain fairly neat. For those who may not know, to change the direction of brushless motors, you just nee to swap two of the three phases, I will most likely get into more detail when I start running up the Quad.

I have "tinned" the connections on the frame, the ESC and motor wires. I had to use cored solder as my flux has dried right out, and it is a trip to either Morwell or Warragul to get more, and I could not be bothered driving to Morwell, or waiting until Monday to get some from Warragul (I work in Warragul). But the cored stuff came out good as can be seen in the picture.

I use an old scope iron with 2mm tip. It managed to tin everything o.k. and I think it will be quite adequate when I put it all together.
Flite test have put a review up of the Micro Quad. This is the one from Hobby  King for $99.99, a bit cheaper than what I am spending, but I am enjoying the weekly products and doing little bits of research, but next week I will be showing some real building.

The latest "The list" update.

I Now need to get the USB programming lead for the Hobby King 6ch radio. This will get included in the price, but come under the "For other aircraft in the fleet", I think I can still remain on target, but I am really pushing the $30 for ten weeks. Hopefully I will get a video out about how to program the HobbyKing radio on Linux, or find a good one online.
Anyhow, hope you enjoyed the video, do a search on Youtube for the Micro Quad, there are some great videos, including this one with a crash.

Ĝis revido amikoj!