December 16, 2011

  • Friday 16th December 2011

    Friday Evening: Thickening high cloud, breezy, cooler 15C. I went to town on the bike today to go and get the post, but there was nothing again.

    Yesterday was sunny and calm 18C and we went to Beccies for lunch, then on to the Ondara shopping centre for Xmas shopping and a Big Mac...

    Tuesday moring was clear calm and sunny 19C, I went to town to get the post and the little Solo Pro had turned up from NZ. I found that it had a bent tail shaft and thought the box looked a little "second hand" but when I tried to fly it the thing was uncontrolable, it kept flicking round and it nearly flew away before crashing on the lower terrace. I'll give it this, it's pretty strong as nothing broke that time, but then when I tried a simple hover, it suddenly dived tail first into the ground and stripped the nylon main drive gear.... It is so badly set up, not as they claim "fly out of the box" I also suspect it may have been a "return" and maybe someone fiddled with the settings to try to get it to fly and I have been fobbed off with it. There is no way the tail shaft can bend on it's own! So that was that, on to the net to order spare parts for this one.... with the thought to quickly "sell it on"

    Wednesday Chrissie came to town too and we went to the supermarket, I went to the post and the spare parts for the T Rex tail had finally turned up.... I was sure I had ordered two of these as I thought I might need more and when I checked I had, except I had ordered another "one" as well at a later date and the "one" had arrived.... Typical!

    Normally this would be fine, the rest should be here Monday, but I have been setting up the T Rex inside so as not to damage it again...... well that was the theory anyway!

    I had worked out that the sudden tail flip that resulted in  the first lot of gears being striped was caused by the gyro being reversed, so I had got the direction of the servo right all along..... I sorted that out and found the tail was still wagging a lot when I powered up.... On reading about the solution it soon became clear that this particular gyro was very difficult to set up and did cause a lot of tail wagging..... The solution was to replace it with the new Turnigy one I had been waiting for (it was the one I originally intended for this model anyway) and that had turned up last week eventually

    I put the model on a smooth floor, without the main blades so everything will just spin, then I powered up, the tail wasn't wagging, but then suddenly the tail flipped around so fast it hit my foot.... Bugger, there go another set of gears, this bloody gyro was in reverse and despite my best efforts to avaiod any contact, it still managed to touch my shoe and strip another gear box and it hasn't even left the groung yet! To be true I getting really pissed off with the continual delays, it seems I never have the right part when something goes wrong, and it seems something goes wrong all too often! God only nows what the damage will be when the thing does fly and crash!