Don't forget - no flying this Saturday morning
A Safety Reminder
Description
One of our club members works in the Fire Service and has told us about a recent 'Call Out'.
"I had to deal with an incident early this morning involving A Lipo fire at a house in Eastham. The Lipos were for a small heli, so only a couple of cells and low mah. However they had been left on charge in a conservatory over night, with the occupier believing that the charger cut off would suffice. Luckily the conservatory doors into the house had been closed, otherwise we could have been dealing with a much more serious fire. Family of five in the house, including two children under 5 all suffered smoke inhalation."
The message is clear, don't trust your charger to shut off when Lipo batteries are 'full'
Never leave them unattended when charging
Never recharge Lipos inside your house
For extra safety at modest cost use a 'Bat Box'
Cleaning up an old engine
Description
I bought an Enya 35 engine with no guarantees from eBay. It arrived in working order but caked with resinified castor oil. This has a plain bearing crankshaft so everything barring the carburettor/piston, conrod and liner was dropped into a syrup tin with a pint of glycol antifreeze (must not contain methanol-some do) and gently brought to the boil. (I would have hesitated to treat a ball raced crank in this way.)
The house rapidly filled with noxious fumes and a Divorce having been narrowly averted, the job was later completed on a gas barbeque at the bottom of the Garden.
Mono ethylene glycol, the main component of antifreeze, boils at 197'C but in an open top can will not catch fire until 410'C. It is relatively easy to reach a boiling simmer, but great care should naturally be taken to avoid splashes to the skin and particularly the eyes. Dont inhale the fumes and bear in mind that MEG is very toxic, as little as 2 tablespoons-full if ingested, could be a fatal dose.! It took about 30 minutes to reach the simmer stage, successfully achieved without getting badly burned fingers, and was then allowed to cool down.
On removal, the components were washed with water and a long bristled brush reached the parts not already spotless. It now sparkles like a new motor!
Safety note-
This procedure is considered to be hazardous and should only be conducted with due care and with adequate supervision where applicable. The use of leather gloves ,safety goggles and a sturdy apron, is recommended.
Cheshire Falcons can accept no liability whatsoever for damage to property or injury caused to persons (or nearby animals / pets) if attempting to follow the above method of cleaning.
Check and Check Again ( preferably before installation)
Description
I was fitting and adjusting servos, snakes, clevises and the rest, to a model bought on eBay
but some items should not be re-used when they have clearly taken a battering in earlier models.
On that basis I bought a new 5 channel Rx and a new on/off switch with charging lead.
Only when the installation was complete did I discover that the charging lead was dead.
When I investigated, I discovered that 2 of the 3 soldered tabs behind the switch were 'dry' joints, a fault which could easily have destroyed my model.
A case of shoddy manufacture with no quality control. You quickly learn which suppliers you can trust, you will find some of them them listed on our 'useful links' page.
Rechargeables for a Sanwa RD 6000 Super Tx
Description
I decided to replace my Tx batteries with 2,500mah NiMhs to give me more flying time. The battery arrived complete with a compatible Hitec type plug wired the usual way ,centre pin live. Consternation when I noticed ( fortunately in in good time) that the Tx was wired outer pin positive. A simple matter to change the pin position , of course, and then I read the large print warning in the Instruction Book not to confuse such connections.!
If you do then just drop the Tx in the nearest bin!
I notice though that the recharge plug is +ve connection innermost, in the usual way.
PS the Tx is a masterpiece of computerisation, it works & recharges fine, so I must have made all the right connections!
Avicraft recently reported unexpected dangers when using Superglue.
Description
An interesting observation that you should not breathe the fumes if Cyano'd joints are subjected to excess heat when sanding or drilling.
Your 2.4 GHz aerial may be small, but watch where you wave it.
Description
Did you know that if you inadvertantly left your 2.4GHz transmitter switched on in the house, it would almost certainly disrupt the way your wireless router worked. This is why
Beware the strength of epoxy adhesives.
Description
I have just reinforced the firewall of my Acrowot as after 2 years of heavy use the OS61FX was beginning to move slightly. I bolted the new ply face to the Box section whilst the epoxy cured. But instead of smearing the bolts with grease, I simply sprayed with WD 40.
Mistake... I had to grind the head off two of the bolts, the nuts were firmly epoxied in place!!
Dont get lazy!
Description
Fourth flight of the day , about an hour in the air, with my Avicraft Panic, my SC53 was tuned to perfection & had been pulling well
when without warning the throttle jammed open!
Although I had a niggle that the flight battery might soon pack up on me, I realised that I could occasionally blip, and managed to drop the revs to about quarter throttle, but still far too fast for a damage free landing. The engine note would just not drop to tickover!
Nervous about a fly-away, I practiced close-to circuits and low figures of eight for about 20 minutes till the fuel ran out ( before the flight battery did!) and then was able to safely deadstick...Phew...
That is when I discovered that the Throttle Stop Screw had vibrated so loose that the carb rotor had been trying to escape.
By some miracle I did not lose the screw & spring..
The message:- check & check again!
Safety First
Description
I dropped my WM Spitfire 63 into my new 'corkscrew' restraint and started the engine on about quarter throttle, I did not expect the model to drop its nose and escape!
Fortunately, there was no serious damage to man or machine, but in future I will use a rubber band as shown.
Sloppy Wiring
Description
Todays lesson!
Outrunner motors are great
until they short out their feed wires &
burn out the ESC.
(This glider did not survive it's 'landing')
