Bug e-fun

I have an orange glider, Bug e-fun or something, around 600mm wingspan.
I have receiver, servos (rec from the flea, 1x metal servo from butterfly and 2x 5g servo which was aborted from Orange), new motors (1806 or something) and 6A esc (turnigy), both from Hobbyking.
Let's modify it so I can test how much thrust I can get from the 1806 motor/esc and GWS 5" prop combo.

Bug-e fun has low dihedral.
It didn't flip over and remain right side up when I last flew it.
It ought to be enough, but maybe it isn't.
Maybe the introduction of a 5" prop will make things too interesting.

I must have rudder, so let's settle for full-house and have ailerons and rudder control.

Cutting and bending steel wire components

A thought on cutting and bending steel wire.

I know things like bending radius and how to calculate cut lengths based on steel property, but this knowledge is applicable only to rebars and not the small wires used for modeling.

A bending jig would be useful for our purpose, but I think it is an over-complication and is beyond me. I rather rely on simpler tools, like a plier and an optional side cutter. I have been doing that but I was not successful with making repeated steel wire components (whether handed or not). They just didn't come up identical.

One experiment had me trying to grip and bend two wires at the same time. There are obvious limitations, and it didn't work well.

I think to be accurate, the wire has to be bent individually (when using a plier) and the bend points must be marked identical, which means it must be precise enough to the nearest half millimetre or so. A steel wire is too small and my eyes too old to mark the bend points accurately. I need something that is easier to measure, mark and see. My proposed solution is to first tape the wire with masking tape, then to measure accurately and mark on the masking tape. I will try that when the opportunity presents.

Model Inventory: Red Butterfly, off to a good home. Flea stripped. FMS P51. Katana.

I gave up the Red Butterfly to old man Wong (including the two feeler/eyes for balancing).
I have to "make room".
He has sinced stripped and returned me my servos, esc, motor and receiver. I have now a vacant model memory #4.
Hope he can make it fly and enjoy it.

I didn't manage to get the flea to fly and while it is not beyond repairable, I gave up trying. Maybe someday I will do another one, I have some hunches.
I will strip the electronics out and re-use them somewhere.
I think the wings are fairly good and so I will keep them.
The fuselage will be junked and this frees up model memory #2.

I will not repair the pranked FMS mini-P51.
I will strip for salvageable parts and this frees up model memory #1.

Undecided about the fate of Techone's Katana (the second model).
I am not up to repairing the cracked carbon tube of the fuselage aft of the wing's trailing edge.
Maybe I should scrap it too since it is not seeing much use anyway.
This will free up another model memory.

Then I will be left with the two Techone's Mini-Popwing (#5 and #7), the mini-piper cub (#?), the canard (#?)

When is it time to replace the lipo?

Not how much the battery is bloated. It seems some batteries bloat more than others while still performing ok and it also depends how hard we used them. I have not seen anyone advising to throw away a battery just because it is bloated.

Observed symptoms when balance charging:

• When a 2S doesn't reach 8.4v, a 3S 12.6v, and ends up for eg 8.2v.
• When the difference between cells on a fully charged battery is almost 0.1v
• When a full balance-charge for a depleted battery is only half the battery's stated capacity.
• When the balance-charger times out at 120mins.

Observed symptoms when flying:

• When you observed that you have barely enough power for level flight near the end of each flight and yet the depleted battery reads 7.4-7.6v for a 2s.
• When you observed that the power model loses impetus suddenly on 2 consecutive occassions.

Reunion of MiniPopwings

Orange, meet Fire.
Since you flew out of sight and I couldn't find you, Fire has been doing what you did well in your element.

Fire, this is Orange.
When Orange was but a speck in the North-West corner of the sky, with wind North to South, it turned invisible against the blue and white backdrop, all it took was just a brief moment of lapse, as much time as it took for me to look behind my left shoulder.
Orange was brought back about 2 weeks later when Angus found it in his school compound. His school is North East from where I was flying.

Now I have two MiniPopwings.
Orange a bit weathered, but functioned nicely (receiver, esc, motor, servos, everything except the 2S500mah battery), infact, I think the many torrential downpour it has experienced, has somehow made its EPP smoother and it seems to glide better then before.

Yesterday afternoon, it flew more than 20 minutes.