Friday 11 January 2013

Shipping times from China!

Just a quick reminder that the Chinese New Year this year falls on February the 10th. If you're planning on ordering any items from China then be sure to get your orders in soon or risk long delays as everything shuts down for a few weeks and then there will be a big backlog to clear.

2013 is the year of the snake. As the Chinese use the Lunar calendar for their festivals the date of Chinese New Year changes from year to year. The date corresponds to the new moon (black moon) in either late January or February. Traditionally celebrations last for fifteen days, ending on the date of the full moon. In China the public holiday lasts for three days and this is the biggest celebration of the year.


Thursday 10 January 2013

Silicone Anti-Vibration Dampers

I just spotted these at  http://www.infinity-hobby.com and they seem to be pretty good value for money compared to what I have previously seen for silicone dampers. They come in 3 different compounds, which will presumably help filter out different frequencies of vibration. I've ordered the a set of 4 medium compound dampers to test and will report back with the results when I receive them.


Saturday 5 January 2013

A Quick Look At The RCT800 Smart MultiRotor

I just thought I'd do a quick 'show and tell' on the RCT800 Hexacopter frame which is available from RCTimer for a very good price at $59.99. At this price and from what I've seen so far, I may just have to add one to my collection.
It's a surprisingly large copter at 80cm motor to motor distance which allows the use of some 14" props for serious amounts of power. The good thing with the arms is that they are also compatible with the 450 frames, which would allow you to fit upto 16" props on a 450 style quad put together with these arms. The extra length does of course make them more prone to flex and wobble, but nothing too bad. 

My friend Guillaume has put his together incredibly using 6 2830-14 750KV motors spinning 14" props on 4S!!!! This just shouldn't work, but somehow it does and it flies remarkably well, with no noticeable heating of the motors (this might change in summer, but it's currently winter here in the Alps and the outside air temp is quite low) and it comes in at ~2kg complete with a 5000mAh 4s lipo. With this setup he is getting about 10 minutes of flying time, with quite a bit of aggressive flying thrown in.

Here's a couple of photos and a video of the RCT800 in action. 








Happy New Year 2013!!!


I hope that everyone has had a great Christmas and that Santa brought them all the RC gadgets that they wished for! 2012 proved to be an epic year for multirotor aircraft and all of that looks set to continue in 2013 with loads of new products set to come out this year. With the competition really hotting up last year we really saw prices like never before and although I can't see prices coming down any further we might expect better quality products for the same price in 2013.

With it now being cheaper than ever to get into flying RC models, particularly multirotor flying hand and face shredders, the start of the New Year seems like a good time to remind people about safety. Please be careful and have a fun and safe 2013! Check out my Multicopter Safety blog for some hints and tips on keeping things safe. Multicopter Safety