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Flying High With Electric Power!
The Ampeer ON-LINE!
Fly the Future - Fly Electric! |
Site Table of Contents
| President: | Vice-President: | Secretary/Treasurer: |
| Ken Myers | Richard Utkan | Rick Sawicki |
| 1911 Bradshaw Ct. | 240 Cabinet | 5089 Ledgewood Ct. W. |
| Walled Lake, MI 48390 | Milford, MI 48381 | Commerce Twp., MI 48382 |
| (248) 669-8124 | (248) 685-1705 | 248.685.7056 |
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| Board of Directors: | Board of Directors: | Ampeer Editor |
| David Stacer | Jack Lemon | Ken Myers |
| 16575 Brookland Blvd. | 8908 Sandy Ridge Dr. | 1911 Bradshaw Ct. |
| Northville, MI 48167 | White Lake, MI 48386 | Walled Lake, MI 48390 |
| 248.924.2324 | 248.698.4683 | 248.669.8124 |
| Mailed Ampeer subscriptions are $10 a year US & Canada and $17 a year world wide. FREE on-line! | ||
| The Next Meeting: Date: Saturday, April 21 Time: 10:30 a.m. Place Midwest 5 Mi. Rd. Flying field, Northville Twp., MI | ||
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Ken Myers 1911 Bradshaw Ct. Walled Lake, MI 48390 Phone: 248-669-8124 Ampeer Paper Subscriber Reminder When subscribing to or renewing the paper version of the Ampeer, please make the check payable to Ken Myers. We do not have a DBA for the Ampeer or EFO. Thanks, Ken The next EFO meeting will be the first flying meeting of the year. It is being planned for Saturday April 21 at the Midwest RC Society 5 Mile Rd. Flying Field. The get together will start at 10:30. Please be aware of field conditions and do not drive onto the grass area of the field/pits if the ground is soft. This is very important. Remember that everyone who flies MUST have their Midwest membership card or their current AMA card. ALL Midwest RC Society field rules are to be followed at all times. See you then! RC Micro World Newsletter
At the end of January 2007 I received the following via email from John. Just want as many folks to know about this as possible. KM RC MICRO WORLD - It's a great monthly online magazine for modelers interested in the fast growing activity involving the building and flying of small RC models. In less than 2 years, RC Micro World has become the world's leading source of regular information about this activity, featuring What's New and Who's Doing it, produced by John Worth and including articles by famous personalities like Bob Aberle, Dave Robelen, Gordon Johnson, Matt Keennon, Dick Adams, Paul and Ralph Bradley, Stew Meyers , etc., many of who also produce articles for the regular print magazines.
John Worth, Executive Editor February EFO Meeting We thank Rick Sawicki for once again hosting a wonderful EFO meeting. There was a lot of good airplane talk all night, as the photos indicate. We also managed to get down into Rick's basement to have a go at it with our AirHogs. We just can't thank you enough Rick for your wonderful hospitality! :-)  Rick Sawicki shared his new RipMax ARF available from Tower Hobbies. It will be using a 3S pack and an old style (gray) AXI motor. Rick noted the many nice innovations in this kit. He also said that he was inspired to get it after a trip many years ago to England where he had seen three of the models flying very nicely in formation! He tried to get the kit at that time, but they were out of production then.  Roger Wilfong shared his 1/4-scale Clancy designed fun-scale bipe. Pres Bruning had three beautiful rubber-powered free flight models to share with us. 
Dave Bubolz shared his rubber powered free flight.   Jim Young has a good start on his Savoia Marchetti S.65.  Hank Wildman brought along one of the first commercially available coaxial helicopters.  Rick Sawicki also shared the info on his two combat foamies that will be used for full contact combat. After the show and tell, we all moved to the basement and struggled to fly in the same environment we flew in exactly a year ago. Oh, my, are we getting old? ;-) Lots of fun though.
Bill Evans' Saracen and Future Shock
You'll find attached to this email pictures of my two electric winter projects, both were test flown once and won't be flown again until after my club's mall show.  Both are Bill Evans' designs. The Saracen was originally a glider, but I used the remains of my defunct Zagi to convert it to electric. It was a twenty-some year old kit off of E-bay. The only modifications needed were to drill three holes in the trailing edge, two for motor mounting dowels and one for wiring, and a 1/16" diameter wire about 6" long on the rudder to keep the RX antenna out of the prop.  The Future Shock was also a vintage kit off of E-bay. This is the only Simitar designed for electric. I am using an Astro-Flight geared 25, APC Electric 11x7, and 14 RC-2400 cells. Pez Skrat test pilot.
I have posted all of the original construction articles for the Simitar series at RC Groups,
www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=502443
Big Fun for the Money!
These pictures were taken on March 13, 2000 when we did our first few flights of our two new GWS Tigermoths. They were flown by recently retired auto executives Rich Utkan, EFO vice-president, and EFO member James Maughan.
James Maughan & GWS Tigermoth
The Portable Plane Perch
I received an email from Tony (tbgiambruno@msn.com) about his portable plane perch. His Web site is: PortablePlanePerch.com
A123/M1 Info
Dear Ken, Here is some information on my experience with A123 batteries that may be of interest to your readers.
 I added a balance tap using a made-up cable from All Electronics. It has what looks like number 18 wires and a flat nylon shell. I think the part number is CON-235. There is a lip on the female (battery side) nylon part to retain the header. I Dremeled that off. I used the female balance connector and wires from the discarded DeWalt electronics module and soldered the wires to the mating male header that goes to the battery. The DeWalt plug fits the Blinky connections. I used red and black Sharpies to mark the positive and negative sides of the nylon housings.  Another thread on RCGroups had directions on how to hack the Astro 109 for A123 charging. That was more difficult to do because of the tight quarters and surface mount components. I wouldn't recommend this mod for anyone who hasn't a lot of experience with printed circuit rework. What the mod does is fake out the battery voltage sense to terminate the charge at 3.6 volts instead of 4.2 The voltage display will show what it thinks the battery voltage is, not the real voltage. I put in a switch to select LiPo or A123. I don't know what Astro Bob thinks of that; hopefully I won't blow up the charger again and have to send it in. I was able to charge my 4-cell A123 pack at close to 8 amps!
Take care and keep in touch,
Another DX-7 Curiosity
John received the following email and passed it along to me. I thought it interesting enough to share with you. I have removed the names from the email that John received from a well-known RC magazine publisher, but I can verify that the person making the statement is well known and respected in this hobby. "First & Last Name disassembled my DX7 at the Perry, GA show, and we now know for certain that the JR XP7202 and Spektrum DX7 transmitters DO NOT have a lithium backup battery." Bench Supply for Charging
Hello Ken, I sent the message below to Bob Aberle and he suggested I send it on to you. I knew Bob and George Myers when they worked at Grumman and I was working for Hewlett Packard. George got me into gliders and I later did frequency validation for transmitters at the NATS using an HP Spectrum Analyzer.
Regards,
In one of the last month's publications there was a suggestion in the Tips and Tricks section about using a fan to cool a LiPo battery during charging. The suggestion was to purchase a fan from Radio Shack.
Best regards,
The March 2007 EFO meeting was held at Ken Myers's house and was one heck of a model meeting night. There were a lot of planes and a lot of good and useful plane talk!  EFO VP Richard Utkan brought along is shoulder-wing Clancy Bee. It is pretty light with a brushless motor and LiPo batteries and should be a good flier. With the lighter than recommended power system he used "heavy" type wheels to get the balance to work out.  Paul Sockow brought along his new kit for a Cessna that Hobby Lobby recently had on one of their Wednesday "Crash" Sales. It was carefully passed around and viewed by all. It looks quite nice but it seems that a lot of work will be required to complete this "ARF".  Jim Young showed the fuselage for his Laird Pesco Special "Meteor" named Matty. It will have sheeted foam wings. He will be powering it with an Astro Flight 05 brushless geared motor and using a Li-Po battery. He is building it as part of an ongoing design contest on RC Groups. The 5-view below Jim's plane is not of his plane, but one that Ken is starting to work on, a Vultee BT-13 "Valient".  Keith Clark brought a Ted Davey designed E-3. The Davey kits were some of the first available as marketed for electric flight. Unfortunately, with the power systems available at the time, they did not fly very well. With todayŐs power systems using light brushless motors and LiPo batteries, according to Keith, his E-3 is a wonderful flier! He said that he brought that one along to jog my memory, and it certainly did! J |
Richard Utkan & GWS Tigermoth
To Reach Ken Myers, you can land mail to the address at the top of the page. My E-mail
address is:
KMyersEFO@mac.com
EFO WEBsite: http://members.aol.com/KMyersEFO/