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Socoder -> Off Topic -> Hobby Pictures. |
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| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 17:50 | |
steve_ancell
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Here are some pics of a few of my R/C Planes. Sorry about the lack of picture quality, my webcam is crap. This little critter is very fast and twitchy, has been rebuilt twice due to engine failure. Just finished re-building second time round due to engine cutting out during take off, hopefully got it right this time.   This on is my favourite one at the moment. Very aerobatic and quick. Took 2 weeks to build, and has been re-built once due to pilot error (I hit a fence while doing a low flying pass) I made it stronger this time.   Here's my latest one, I've just finished setting up the engine and installed the electronics. I plan on testing this one out next week, weather permitting.   
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| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 18:46 | |
HoboBen
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Hey, that's a cool hobby  Do you do all of the electronics yourself then? That's cool The closest I've got to doing real electronics was crudely forcing together the parts for Cybot, a robot that arrived in parts with a magazine subscription. www.adrirobot.it/cybot/principale/cybot.htm (I can't find an English site!) I'd like to perhaps have a go at the airplane building one day. Is it an expensive hobby, do you think, or is the material cheap enough from hardware stores? -=-=- blog | work | code | more code |
| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 19:06 | |
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steve_ancell
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What I mean by electronics is off the shelf stuff (receiver, servos, Ni-Cad, wiring etc). The radio gear is the most expensive part (expect to pay £200 + for anything decent, although you can get cheap'n'cheerful crap that I don't recommend). I get all my stuff from my local R/C model hobby shop. It's a very exiting sport to get into. At some point I will do a basic tutorial and info. |edit| You can buy second hand transmitters and recievers, but always get it professionally checked before use. |edit| |
| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 19:09 | |
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HoboBen
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Ah, I see. Well, I'll skip on the radio part and instead give the plane an on-board A.I.  Cheers
-=-=- blog | work | code | more code |
| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 19:11 | |
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steve_ancell
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You can get R/C simulator, but you need a transmitter to plug into the interface. It's cheaper than learning by crashing the real thing, I currently have Phoenix R/C, it comes with the interface and costs around £80. |edit| You also need quite a beefy Windows based PC to run the simulator, and USB to plug the other end of the interface into. |edit| |
| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 20:07 | |
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steve_ancell
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Here's what the inside of the plane in the first image looks like. It comprises of a reciever, and those little boxes with the white bits on top are servos. The battery has to be put somewhere that allows the plane to balance correctly. These are the main wing and tail.   It's all controlled from this transmitter.  I paid £207.99 for this with a reciever, 4.8 Volt Ni-Cad pack, 4 servos, and mounting hardware. This one is quite a high level piece of kit, and can also be used to fly helicopters. I have seen some radio systems that cost as much as £2000 +, but I leave them one's to the championship flyers. Here's a big engine, it is a GP 61. In easy speak that's about 11cc, and it runs on the same stuff as those nitro cars that chavs race around car parks. I'm thinking about sticking this engine on the front of the WOT-4 (that's the yellow and black plane in the pics at the top of this topic.  |edit| To give you an idea of how big that engine is, the propeller on the front of it is about 14 inches. |edit| |edit| I forgot to mention, most R/C planes are made of balsa wood, so they are quite cheap to repair. Some of the kits cost around £80, but then you have to buy PVA glue, epoxy resin, cyanoacrylate (a stronger form of superglue), covering or paint, various tools, engine and radio system. As you can see even a basic plane can run into a few hundred quid, but the good news is if you buy a computerised transmitter, you can use the same transmitter for many models. You can buy recievers and sevos etc quite cheap. Although you can in theory just go to a large field and fly these beasts, I recommend that you join a R/C flying club. It costs around £70 a year, but you will get tuition from people with years of experience, and you will be automaticaly insured against liability. |edit| |
| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 20:33 | |
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steve_ancell
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If you don't want to build the planes yourself, you can also buy them almost ready to fly (ARTF). Some are around £50 - £100, all you need to do is add your own R/C system and engine. Fuel can cost anywhere between £7 and £25. Still interested ?... Here's a couple of links. www.flyingsites.co.uk/ And this one links to the club where I fly. www.brightonradioflyingclub.co.uk/ And these are the peeps that govern it all, and provide the insurance policies. www.bmfa.org/ |edit| If you don't want to join a club, you can just obtain BMFA membership on it's own for £27. BMFA's website also contains all the rules and regs. |edit| |
| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 21:19 | |
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HoboBen
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Cool, thanks for that info I think though, with my funds, I'll start out with a paper aeroplane. But, if I ever have a cheque for few million through the letter box for unknown reasons, I'll have to try it out Hey, but the whole insurance and liabilities thing... what does that cover? Something like crashing your plane into someone's face or window? -=-=- blog | work | code | more code |
| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 21:37 | |
magicman
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sweet. iv always thought building and flying RC plane would be fun.
-=-=- Stuff... Yeah... 
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| Sat, 24 Feb 2007, 21:49 | |
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steve_ancell
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The liability insurance is provided by BMFA www.bmfa.org. It covers maming and killing people, and animals, and property damage. It doesn't happen very often which is what makes BMFA Insurance and membership only £27 a year. If you join a club, the membership normaly includes BMFA membership. Club membership is normaly about £70 a year.
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| Sun, 25 Feb 2007, 08:05 | |
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steve_ancell
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More info for anyone that's interested, and needs to find a local club. bmfa.org/clubs/clist.php |edit| The discipline codes on the club lists indicate stuff that is normally not allowed, or what they don't support. |edit| |
| Sun, 25 Feb 2007, 08:20 | |
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steve_ancell
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Another tip... If you buy magazines on the R/C flying subject, they sometimes give draft plans in the centrefold. All you need to do is buy some balsa wood from a materials supplier, and be good with a measuring tape and hand tools.
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| Sun, 25 Feb 2007, 12:10 | |
power mousey
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steve, I have a friend at work. His name is Daniel. By the way, he is 21 years old. He has a cousin who is 36 years old. His cousin is into this aeroplane flying thing and also radio kit cars. I asked Daniel how much it costs for these kind of hobbies and interests. Daniel told me that with the cars and custom makes and accessories its well over $3600. Whoa!! Pretty expensvie hobby and interest. Danny told me that is definitely true. um...I'll stick with lifting weights, 3d animations, dancing, and a little horsebackriding at times. Among some other things and interests too. Even my brother Mark said that owning a horse and caring for it and feeding it...is like buying and maintaining a Porsche.  cheers, power mousey |
| Sun, 25 Feb 2007, 13:43 | |
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TheMadProff |
They're so pretty pictures. I really want to make these models, but so far, they haven't quite got past the design stage, and their helicopters. Can you give any tips for me, cause so far, its not going well
-=-=- ''It works, but I'm not sure why it works...'' |
| Sun, 25 Feb 2007, 15:09 | |
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power mousey
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yeah, steve I like to make some of these models too. but they are so expensive. I could buy those toy model kits but I don't think I'll have the patience with gluing the parts together with the glue or rubber cement. Besides I'll probably get all sticky and stuck with the glue on me. And get high into the sky smelling all the fumes too. Now, if I could pick up a radio controlled flyer model ship of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek....ahhhhhhh that would be totally different. No, just joking. cheers, the power mousey |
| Sun, 25 Feb 2007, 16:09 | |
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steve_ancell
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Mousey... You can pick up some gear at cheaper prices on the net. If you know how an aeroplane wing works, it's not too hard to build your own design (cheaper too). TheMadProff... I will start putting together some sort of tutorial on this subject soon. |
| Sun, 25 Feb 2007, 21:46 | |
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steve_ancell
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Ere Mousey... a R/C Starship Enterprise is not entirely impossible. I've been told that almost anything can be made to fly if it is light enough and balanced corectly. Oh bugger, that's another idea I've got stuck in my head. Now I will have to try to build one. If you think about it logically, the Starship Enterprise is just a frizbie or discus with a tail, it should'nt be too hard to make one. I think it would be best to propel it electrically though. An engine might provide too much torque and cause it to bank left all the time, unless I can get my hands on a very small engine. I will keep you posted on that one. |
| Mon, 26 Feb 2007, 08:59 | |
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power mousey
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steve, what starship design are you going to use? www.starshipmodeler.com/trek/trekship.htm triumphant treks power mousey |
| Mon, 26 Feb 2007, 09:22 | |
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steve_ancell
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Not sure, but I know I will need something that I can view from all sides, top and bottom. I will probably make a small one out of polystyrene foam and experiment with it to find it's centre of gravity, and to see if I can get it to glide. If that's a success, then I will build a large hot wire foam cutter, and construct a bigger one. That will be the point where I will try putting a powerplant on board.
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| Mon, 26 Feb 2007, 09:31 | |
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steve_ancell
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The main reason why I believe that it could work is, if you think of how a wing works, it's curved on top. This causes air to flow quicker over the top of the wing, causing a drop in pressure. The air pressure under the wing will then be greater than that on top, which causes lift. Now if you were to cut a frizbie in half and then look at it from the side with the cut edge facing you, you will notice that it is very similar to a wing section. The only reason that a frizbie spins is to stabalize it, so if you add a tail you don't need to spin it.
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| Mon, 26 Feb 2007, 13:22 | |
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steve_ancell
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All the Enterprise models look like they might fly, the NX01 looks like it would be the easiest to land.
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| Mon, 26 Feb 2007, 15:40 | |
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steve_ancell
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Yeah cool. A club member told me you can get flying saucer ready built too. It's basically a flying mono wing, probably quite fast too.
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| Mon, 26 Feb 2007, 15:46 | |
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steve_ancell
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Ere Mousey, I forgot to ask... Are you into Star Trek in a big way ?. If so, I don't suppose you have any Enterprise schematics like those that come from Star Trek fan clubs. If so would it be possible to scan it an send post it on the forum or something. Please in advance . If you haven't, do you know anyone that has got any ?. |
| Mon, 26 Feb 2007, 18:02 | |
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steve_ancell
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It looks like I made a fairly good guess then, it's true that an Enterprise can fly. I still plan on building one though coz they may have already done it, but I haven't. Mine will probably be made from styrofoam though. Thanx for that info Agent Smith.
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