Pinewood Derby EDF + FPV

Today was our Pinewood Derby race! It was a lot of fun. We had some technical difficulties with the new timing system, but we were able to work it out. Eventually we resorted to using an iPhone shooting video at 1080p 240fps. We were able to deturmine winners very accurately from the instant replay.

My entry was an outlaw class for the second year in a row. It was only for exhibition, because nobody else would challenge me. I'd love to have some competition!

Here's some pictures of the build.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Here’s a video of an exhibition run.

Here’s the same run from FPV!

I’d love to have some challengers! This is the same build from last year. I just cleaned up the wiring a good bit. My wheels are terrible, and I have no idea if the CG is right. It’s just pure power.

Icon A5 6:18min flight & Crash!

I got the kids on the bus this morning, then met Leigh for a budget meeting. Luckily I haven't spent as much as I thought I had on RC stuff! 😂

I know the wind is great before 9am. So I thought I'd get a quick flight in before starting on church stuff. Yesterday was a 14hour day with the funeral in the morning and evening youth group sandwiching a full day. I'm a bit tired, but the brisk 46degrees is waking me up!

I know I still have some issues with the Icon because I keep losing throttle control. It did it again several times today. It doesn't have anything to do with range because I did it close and far away.

My radio is also telling me when RSSI is low so I know range is reading correctly.

The other issue is tip-stalls. I had a lot more stalls today. It seemed even with some throttle on it easily stalled. I don't know if that's a function of the terrain/wind I'm flying around or if that's just an issue inherient to the Icon. Either way combining stall with loss of throttle is a recepie for disaster!

And that's what was on the menu this morning. . .

Here’s the RunCam Split footage:

Here’s the final seconds DVR from the goggles:

Here’s the autopsy report footage:

Here’s the autopsy report images:

I really should have figured out the throttle issue before I flew. I’m using the iRangex 4 in 1 module on my Taranis QX7 with the Spektrum AR636A that came with the Icon A5.

Possible issues:

• iRangex + Spektrum AR636A + Failsafe on telemetry lost

  • The Radio says “Telemetry lost” when the throttle cuts. But I can tell in the goggles that I still have control of the control surfaces even when throttle cuts out. It could be that my model setup is expecting telemetry, and triggers failsafe when it loses it. There is no failsafe option on the multi module setup on the transmitter for this model. Maybe I need to set that up with the Spektrum receiver. At this point I really don’t trust that receiver with my radio.

• Battery C rating?

  • It’s only 25C. I did a stress test running full throttle for some time and it didn’t brown out or have other issues. So I’m inclined to rule that out.

• ESC Bec

  • The esc BEC is powering the receiver. Perhaps it browns out and resets the receiver. But then why would I have control of other surfaces?

• Your thoughts? What am I missing?

Icon A5 8:02 Flight

Today I had a funeral in the morning that took most of the day. I got back to the office and had a conference call. My brain is mush and youth group is tonight. I just got some new floureon 3s 2200mah batteries for the Icon and I got the new prop yesterday.

The wind was between 5mph - 12mph. I felt it as the plane was shaking when I first took off. I flew without the plastic canopy and I think that introduced a good bit of drag.

The Runcam Split is on the nose now. As you can see it's pointing down which made for nice ground video, but disoriented fpv.

Take off was fine. I was really surprised how far I flew in a short amount of time. I’m thankful for the 200mw VTX. I only had a couple blips in my fpv feed, and that was only a line or two for about a second. I had trouble getting it low and slow enough to land. At one point I tip-stalled because I was turning too sharp at low throttle. Thankfully I was able to recover easily since I was flying FPV.

After the 8:02min flight I still had enough battery to keep flying. I can probably fly for 12 or even 15 min. I’ll have to track it here and find out on a calmer day.

landing was good the new landing gear is holding up fine. Steering was fine. I’m really happy to have this plane flying again!

One more quick flight waiting on the van with the teens. My radio said “Telemetry Lost” and the throttle cut. So I need to figure out fail safe and stop it from doing that! Off to a tea party with our Church Kids!