So, it’s already half-way through January 2013 and I’ve got to ask myself…what’s been goin’ on that’s made it go so fast? Well, there’s always SOMETHING going on here at the Nation to make the time pass crazy fast. A look back at the past few weeks gives me a clue of why I haven’t… more »
So, I finally figured out what caused my Furion to crash. After digging through all the bits and pieces that I picked up at the field after it went in, I found a swash linkage rod that was missing a plastic link on one end. Upon further review of the rubble, I also found a… more »
This week has been slow and mostly boring on the heli front… đ Other than some testing of the MKS servos that I’m reviewing and getting the gasser ready to rock, there hasn’t been much else going on. No flying, of course… In fact, the rain is beating down on my soul as I write… more »
This is a quick little tech tip for those of you who have ever had trouble getting your nitro or gasser model engine properly aligned with the clutch stack. First off, what are the symptoms of a misaligned engine and clutch stack? Well, on the bench you can feel a roughness or unevenness when rotating the starter… more »
…and while I haven’t quite figured out the reason for this one, I suspect that I will eventually. Of course, I’m talking about the mess that is two of the three helis in my fleet pictured above. So, as you’ve heard in the last episode or two, I’ve been getting shit from Nick about not… more »
This blog post comes to you from Thanksgiving 2012…incidentally, this also marks my three-year anniversary in the hobby! It’s been a great time so far and I’m quite certain that there’s much more where that came from. Three years ago today, I brought my T-Rex 500ESP up into a hover in a parking lot near… more »
I get a lot of questions surrounding the the differences between leading and trailing edge control on flybarless systems…What’s the difference? Should I care? This one trips up a lot of people because of the complexity of the topic, but I think it’s worth explaining. First and foremost, in today’s FBL systems where the delta angle… more »
It’s always interesting to me to see how other people apply the word “team” to their lives. A lot of people I’ve met and worked with were never fortunate enough to truly realize the unstoppable force that a real team can be. I have the good fortune of being able to work with some of… more »
HeliCommand X-Series Flybarless Controllers Written by Justin Pucci  Thanks to Danny Melnik at DemonHeli and Joachim Eulefeld at Captron, I was able to get my hands on the somewhat mysterious Captron HeliCommand HC3-Xtreme and HC3-SX flybarless controllers to test out and review for the Nation. I only say âmysteriousâ because with the multitude of… more »
A quick note to clarify the need for and use of ferrite rings… The ferrite ring acts as a common-mode, inductive filter of the high-frequency noise produced by the switching of the MOSFET’s inside of the ESC. Basically, it prevents the AC current fluctuations inherent in MOSFET switching from progressing beyond the ring itself (it… more »