Radical RC Workbench – Page 33 – Thoughts from the workbench of Radical RC. The online retailer of electronics and kits for radio control aircraft. Dave Thacker shares his thoughts and knowledge of electronics, batteries, kit design and overall enjoyment of the hobby.

3D Printed Aircraft Takes Flight

Springfield Ohio’s SelectTech in September of 2011 reports sucessful test flight of the worlds first privately funded 3D printed aircraft. Designed by Frank Beafore and Beth Galang, flown by Jade Lowrey at Springfields Beckley Municipal Airport. Aircraft is powered and guided by electronics from Radical RC. Powered by Himax brushless motor, Castle Creations ESC, and Kypom Lipo battery. The aircraft was manufactured on a Dimension 22 1200 ES Printer which works by fusing together strands of ABS plastic. The printer can make parts up to about 10″ long. The aircraft is an assembly of many sections. The wing panels are made with ribs, skin with a light cross hatch structure under the skin (a Radical RC suggestion) to allow the skin to be made thin and light weight. In each rib with each panel are premade holes to accept the carbon rod spars. Total printing time was about 5 days.

Generally the 3D printing process is used to make prototype parts to verify designs before making a hard tooling investment. However, SelectTech demonstrates that projects with complex mechanical requirements can be manufactured and put directly into service very quickly.

A story was published in the Dayton Daily News Business section on Nov. 13, 2011.

Cooper Smithing Co.

Cooper Smithing Bike
One aspect of our hobby I really enjoy is the interesting people I get to meet and converse with. There are tons of professionals, engineers and skilled craftsmen of varous sorts that touch into the RC hobby at one time or another. Many are not aware, but we supply goods into other disaplines. One of those is the custom bike building world.

Joe Cooper ording a new A123 4S2P writes: “These batteries have worked out so well for me, I have one on every bike I’ve built, here’s the latest in need of some power: www.coopersmithingco.com/pgunbaby.html

In 2010 Cooper Smithing took 2nd in Modified Harley Davidson in the AMD World Championships of Custom Bike Building. They don’t mess around at Cooper Smithing Co.

RCExplorer.se Excellent Discus Launch Vid

WANTED: Mini Ultra Stick Wing

John in the shop has a good fuse and could use a wing. Even a broken wing or 1/2 wing would be welcome. Please contact me if you have one available.

First Manned Multicopter Takes Flight!

Check it out, see if you can figure out the controller logic to make this safe as possible. A step beyon fly-by-wire for certain. Maybe with some aluminum, rivits and 4 quad boards you too could be seated above a blender. 😉

Dave

2.4GHz: Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

Artical at Model Airplane News written by: Dave Horvath

This is an important artical explaining some of the reasons why 2.4ghz has issues. People can be counted on to always presume that newer is better. I was very late to start using 2.4ghz due to reliability issues. With about 1/3 of our hobby being replaced by newbies every year, it makes perfect sense that not many lifers are left that remember what standards of reliability we had acheived with 72mhz. Dave Horvaths artical is important reading to gain a broader understanding of how things work.

Dave Thacker

RadicalCast #007

[display_podcast]
We discuss New Battery Lasts 1500 Cycles, Avoiding Miracle of Flight Enamorment, Thinking Through a Power System – a continuation of our power system theory series started in Radical Cast #002. We discuss an actual model I fly, the GWS Sky Hero. You’ll want to have the Setup and Performance Chart below in view to follow along.

RadicalCast007StudyNotes

GWS stock photo for Sky-Hero — Thinking Through a Power System product link at RadicalRC.com

Jeb Corliss “Grinding The Crack”

These guys don’t usually make it too long, enjoy the glow while it’s there. The video is awesome.

Dave

Another Wright Stick Takes To The Skies

Jack Sheller writes: Finally got her going. CG just where you said. Flys great. Built a sled for takeoff.

Jack reports on paint used: Just cheap Ace Hardware “Touch ‘n tone” Antique white, # 55281830. I took a piece of canvas with me ant that matched the best.

Nice Job Jack!

Doc Brown Power Supplies Checked For Possible HAM Usage

I’ve had several inquirys wondering if these power supplies can be used for Ham purposes. A local Ham checked one out and writes:

Dave …
I’ve used this with a Yaesu FT-817 (5 watt, around 2 amp), scanned across the bands, and found several places where there are “birdies” or RF that can interfere. It seems to be on the power line, since I had no antenna attached at the time.
1.805 MHz, 1.784, 1.685, etc. These likely come from the switching mode, since the signal disappears when the power supply is unplugged. I would suggest that HF ( from 1.8 MHz to around 30 MHz) may be usable on some bands, but not all. At VHF and UHF frequencies it is well filtered enough to use, that is at 140 MHz and 430 MHz. With its current level it could run a 100 watt repeater at VHF nicely.
Of course, this isn’t at the same level evaluation as someone at the ARRL or FCC labs, since I have not measured the actual level of signal involved. I can not see anything on the Tektronics oscilloscope, but it only goes to 2 mV/cm. A signal at that level would be rather loud.

John Hepner KA8ZSB