This little power supply from Ready Made RC is a tremendous bargain. The specs are fantastic on paper – but it doesn’t pack quite as much punch as advertised. I have two large capacity (5200mAh) 6S batteries that I use to power my electric lawn mower. This power supply buckled after just 2.5 charges 😞 Here’s how it went…
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I’m in Le Drib’s vlog!
Actually my plane was in Drew’s vlog earlier this summer. If you don’t subscribe to his channel on YouTube, you should.
He was at Flite Fest East and flew his quad in the one combat session I dared enter. My plane is a white FT Flyer with blue stripes on the leading edge of the wing, along with American flags on the wings and vertical stabilizer 🇺🇸 It was also sporting a streamer that day 🎉
Converting to XT60
I did quite a bit more flying this summer than I did rc car racing. As the weather turns cold flying will be limited to golf dome outings with the local electric club and indoor FPV. In Minnesota the on-road guys drive on carpet indoors, so it’ll soon be time to race. One thing I’ve grown to like that is commonplace on quads and planes is the XT-60 connector. So I decided to upgrade all of my cars and even my rocket launcher to it.
Technically, an XT-60 pair is 2g heavier than a pair of Deans connectors, but with all of the other advantages, I’m still switching.
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Eachine DVR
Let me start by saying that the Eachine EV100 DVR (made for the EV100 FPV goggles) is cheaper and almost certainly works with other goggles. It can be powered directly by a 2S battery, which is commonplace for FPV goggles.
It is the add-on DVR I would buy today for only $15 if I hadn’t already purchased the Eachine ProDVR.
Stu (Stew?) confirms that the EV100 DVR is A-OK.
But if you’re like me and have the ProDVR read on. [Read more…]
Best budget flying radio: Taranis Q X7
Hands down this is the best radio you can get for around $100. The hobby is moving so fast, it’s incredible what this thing can do! When it first came out, I was skeptical as the go-to radio for most people flying multi-rotors was the Taranis X9D. The X7 has a form-factor very similar to the first Horus which was not initially well-received. But what FrSky had done with the X7 was take everything that was awesome about the X9D (OpenTX, haptic and audio feedback, telemetry, serial module communication) and put it in a Horus-shaped budget package.
I’m not going to go through everything about this radio, there are plenty of other reviews out there – several linked to from here. I just want to suggest an awesome setup that will not only do telemetry with FrSky receivers, but also Spektrum, FlySky, and any other multiprotocol module protocols that support telemetry.
This is a great complete transmitter/receiver setup that will cost you less than $200 and will control just about everything:
- Taranis Q X7
- X4R-SB (for multirotors)
- IRangeX add-on module (uses multiprotocol TX)
- Cheap FlySky RX for foam airplanes, or Telemetry RX for fancier models.
- Bind-and-Fly for everything else
Cheali Charger – free 4-button charger upgrade
If you have one of the ubiquitous “4 button chargers” you can likely upgrade the firmware to Cheali Charger. You’ll have to do some hacking to get there, but if you want to add features like LiHV and NiZN charging, and have 30 battery memories, it’s the way to go.
Example chargers that are eligible:
- Imax B6
- Imax B6 clone
- Turnigy A-6-10
- HobbyKing ECO 6-10