Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Pipe Dream II


Forming a company and designing craft to sell is a fool's errand compared to moving on water like this and getting paid by Red Bull to do it...  and in Tahiti as I recall.

It's a power-hungry project compared to my own dubious efforts, but the difference is ~ it works.

But only to a point, however. The wheels are supplemented by hydro-skis and the rear tire is more like something off a pedallo than anything you'd want to run on the road.

With western civilisation advancing now along the same road that Rome ran when its thoughts turned to circuses, however, this is as good as it gets.

(Robbie Maddison is from Australia... we in Britain prefer the pedallo).

Monday, February 3, 2025

Pipe Dream I


Since 1990 Theo Jansen in Holland has been assembling what he calls 'strandbeests', made exclusively from electrical piping and able to walk along the beach powered only by the wind. Straight out of Da Vinci's textbook, they've been viewed millions of times on YouTube: genius, as ever a step away from madness.

Thursday, January 9, 2025

Prop-Guards


To anyone building drones the absence of prop-guards might raise warning flags, and so I've addressed the issue with spars borrowed from the mono-ski and an 8' length of dowelling from the timber yard around the corner. Yes, I could have used carbon-fibre but no, I can't be arsed.

Monday, January 6, 2025

Wire My Even Bothering?


...after an entire afternoon trying to get a motor to talk to a F(uck)UTABA transmitter?

Achilles heel seems to be the lack of instruction from the suppliers, which frankly could have stayed in the mandarin without making a difference on the day.

Principally the side of that ESC that you need to see is hidden from view, beside the fact the single lead emerging from it bears no relation to the five wires that do.

Thankfully (and doubtless reluctantly) there's a video now from which the lower image is cut. Looking at it, I realise with Dumbledore's hat on what I may have been missing.

The text accompanying the upper image appears to say the throttle is calibrated after two beeps from a motor connected to receiver Port 3 (which is normally attributed to throttle settings).

An addendum however suggests this is much too easy for the 80A ESC, which must presumably be programmed with the three wires marked 'Programming' on the video.

Your mission Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to find out which port that plugs into and then try again.

Three takeaways from this though:

Firstly I spent a lifetime flying airliners, something that when made as complicated as possible was considered a positive virtue by its proponents.

Secondly I'd a brush with computing, which all now agree should be made as simple as possible if we're going to buy millions of smartphones every day.

Thirdly, Chinese firm DJI captured 80% of a global market by making drones fly out the box.

Management guru Peter Drucker suggests the role of companies is to organise things for us so that we don't have to: and why you sleep securely at night whilst I grapple with this shit.

Many of you ~ yeah, right ~ will have been wondering what a yellow Return Back Wire could possibly do. ESCs basically send broad-brush instructions down the line to fast motors like these that drive propellers, but require information in return from motors operating relatively slowly like those driving RC cars.

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Friday, January 3, 2025

One Small Step-Motor for a Man #2


Let's look at connecting an RC transmitter to a receiver. And take the gum out of your mouth.

First thing to note that ~ designed by nerds for nerds ~ it's not obvious how to turn it on. It's either of the two chrome switches in the middle. Don't ask why there's two... just be happy that the light comes on.

First thing to note is that the Futaba 'Secret Squirrel®' HOME/EXIT key necessary to return to the system screen is that chrome strip on the left, just below the side-stick.

The side-stick here controls the throttle, and as a safety feature this should be left closed (lower stop) throughout, which is to stop people from inadvertently turning on things so that the motor and propeller elsewhere take out a bystander's finger.

Of most interest here is the TX (transmitter) voltage top right. Run this down and the cat will sail off into the sunset of its own accord.

Ignore the SYSTEM menu, and the MODEL select. The latter allows nerds to use the TX with a range of different types, whereas thankfully we'll be dealing with only one.

Instead press the LINKAGE menu-pick, with a side order of fries. With more options on this next screen than a Chinese takeaway, we need only SYSTEM TYPE.

According to 'Chip' on the FUTABA video, five time aerobatic champion, our receiver is an 18-channel FASSTest type, with built in telemetry like an F1 car. This means it can send data back to you like the afore-mentioned onboard voltage level.

Pressing this, and then the LINK button, should connect the receiver. Doing this while the RX was powered up, the TX was not a happy bunny ~ may just be me, but you may have to power up the RX after initiating the process.

Once this is done ~ you'll agree it's not rocket science ~ the screen below appears.

Note that it provides the Receiver ID, which sadly cannot be personalised. Also shows the voltage (3.8V and not the 5.0V I guessed at tho' the RX will run on a range of some three to six volts).

It also provides the BFS voltage, which is not the big friendly giant but the status of the batteries powering the receiver. Should it drop below par, the throttle will shut the power down and stop the boat.

D/L is download interval for data, you can speed this up at the cost of the control data being sent up-link, but like... who cares?

More exciting is the fact that it says SINGLE up there, which can be switched to DUAL or DIVORCED.

This affects us, as it affects the TELEDRONE as I'd like each pontoon to be a snap-on module that's self-contained with its own battery, RX, ESC, motor and propeller... and this may be a means of sending control signals to an RX on each drivetrain.

It's not knowing that makes life exciting, just like Christmas Eve.

But turn it all off now, and go to bed:

Hobbywing X-8

Referring to the airboat seen in the previous post-but-one and speculation regarding the motor in use, it turns out it was the above. I guessed looking at it that it was on a par with T-motor's U13 that I've used on unmanned drones, though in fact it is nearer half the power... which is good news for the prospects of an uncrewed cat in terms of its potential speed and the required power.

(Note the X-8 integrates the speed controller and indeed supporting arm in a package, much like how personal computers evolved from separate electronic components into the laptop I am using here today. Expect this to be one of the more exciting trends in 2025, but don't whip yourself into a frenzy over it...