The new stuff chronicles #19: custom built RC airplane

RC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J
Apr 14 2011

The plane that is still featured in my previous post has left us. The last crash was fatal. The motor was blown, the tail ripped to shreds and both wings kind of broken. So I decided to go to the local RC hobby store, get a cheap hand thrown free flight airplane, get a lot of tape, a new motor, an ESC I still had lying around and modify it for RC flight. This is the result.

As you may have noticed, these pictures are quite a bit bigger than my other pictures. There are two reasons for that: 1. I didn’t feel like resizing them to my usual size and 2. at this size there is more detail ^.^

I haven’t tested it yet, so I have no idea if this Frankenstein abomination is going to fly or just fall to the ground. What concerns me the most is the size of the elevator. I might have to remove it and create a larger one for it to be effective. I also think the rudder is rather small, but I don’t use that anyway.

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Flight movie and M-05 paint job

RC | Posted by Dr. J
Mar 07 2011

Last sunday I managed to strap a tiny video camera from Dealextreme.com to my T2M Smartfly Junior electric glider. Unfortunatly it didn’t last very long though. The video below shows the full first flight with the camera strapped to the plane. The second flight video was lost in a crash though. The camera must have glitched out on impact. And that crash also destroyed the camera mount. A tiny bit of plastic broke off and I can’t really repair that. However, I have found a new way to mount the camera on the plane, so a second flight video will be coming in the near future.

The camera actually came with two different mounts. The picture shows the second mount mounted on the plane.

This way the camera can also face slightly downwards, so more of the scenery can be seen in the next video.

The other thing on the showcase today is the new body for my Tamiya M-05 Pro chassis. First I got this Colt NSU TT body from RCMart.com. There were 2 bodies in 1 package, but I screwed up the first and the other one was faulty, but returning it won’t be possible, because I already tried to correct it more or less. So now I decided to get a real Tamiya body and the choice was the Honda S800 body. I didn’t paint it yellow as the instruction manual says, but blue instead.

This paintjob turned out pretty good on this very nice and highly detailed body. Looks way better than any Fiat 500 or Mini Cooper body originally available from Tamiya ^.^

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The new stuff chronicles #18: PS3 and another car

Movies, Playstation, RC, The new stuff chronicles, Videogames | Posted by Dr. J
Feb 06 2011

Last Friday I was at the Mediamarkt with a friend and I finally decided to get me a Playstation 3, or PS3 for short. I had actually planned this already for a long time, but now was the moment that it finally dropped to an acceptable price for a game console. I said that I had this planned for a long time already is because God of War 3 is a PS3 exclusive title. I have God of War and God of War 2 on the PS2 and after beating both several times I was really hungry for more over the top Kratos action. So on the list of games to get with the PS3, God of War 3 was the top essential. Just in case God of War 3 would leave me hungry for more I also got Dante’s Inferno. Dante’s Inferno is basicly exactly the same as God of War, but with a slightly different look. The gameplay is more or less the same, so it’s pretty hard not to like it. And while browsing through the available games I also found WipeOut HD Fury and I couldn’t leave that sitting there either. WipeOut is awesome. WipeOut HD Fury isn’t much different from the WipeOut games on the PS2, however, it is a little friendlier to beginners as WipeOut Fusion and WipeOut Pulse on the PS2 and it looks awesome, the controls are tight and it starts of easy, but gets pretty tough really quick.

At first the PS3 wouldn’t let me play the sound through my stereo set and video through HDMI, but a little hopping through the config menu’s fixed that. Surround sound is overrated. I still love my 15 year old Sony RXD7.

A good thing about the PS3 is that it plays Blu-Ray discs and DVD’s. So now I no longer have to use my XBox as a DVD player. Ofcourse it’s also possible to play DVD’s on a PS2, but I don’t have a media remote for that one and operating it with a wired controller from my bed is a pain. Fortunatly,  the PS3 has wireless controllers. But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t get some Blu-Ray movies with it as well. Here are the two I got.

Avatar needs no introduction and I’m not usually into French movies, but Amelie is quite a special case. It’s not very often that you actually get to love the main character in a movie, but somehow they pulled that off in Amelie. Check it if you want to see what I mean.

The title of this installment of The new stuff chronicles also says something about another car. So yeah, here it is.

This is a Tamiya F103GT with a full graphite chassis and some aluminum hop-ups. I got this second hand from a guy over at a Tamiya fan site and it replaced the only non Tamiya car I had in my collection, the Corally CCT which went to a Corally fan. The body has some impact damage and the chassis does have some scratches at the bottom, but that’s normal on a second hand car which has had some running time on a track. I don’t think I’ll be getting a replacement body however as this body is insanely expensive. Maybe I’ll get something else sometime, but for now this will do. I still need to get an ESC and motor for this one anyway, so I won’t be running this car yet anyway.

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Clod light add-on

Uncategorized | Posted by Dr. J
Jan 04 2011

Just like I’ve added some lights to my Sand Viper, I’ve now added some lights to my newly acquired Clod. This, however, is a little different.

The Clod’s standard body has light buckets in it’s front, but no other light buckets. The original (fake) light bar on it’s top broke off after an unfortunate roll and has been replaced by a functional light bar with 5 leds. The light buckets have been equipped with leds that came with the light unit that I have installed inside the body.

The head lights actually burn at just 50% when idle or reversing, but light up to 100% when going forward.

As you can see, these pictures where taken before the body was mounted on the chassis.

The unit also provides functional signal lights and brake lights.

Unfortunately the body does not have light buckets other than the head lights, so I just drilled some holes to fit the leds in at the right spots.

These pictures don’t quite give the full effect, so I’ll be recording a short video soon and post that as well. Stay tuned.

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The new stuff chronicles #17: CLOD

RC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J
Dec 09 2010

Pictures say more than a thousand words…

This monster is second hand and came with a battery, transmitter and a simple charger.

No testdrive yet, but I don’t expect this thing to be very maneuverable.

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Sand Viper lights add-on v2

RC | Posted by Dr. J
Nov 20 2010

The old version has been removed and a new version has come in it’s place. This one looks better, is brighter and has tail lights as well.

I just took it out for a spin about 15 minutes ago. That was close to mid nights, so it’s a good thing it’s not running on nitro :P

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Sand Viper lights add-on

RC | Posted by Dr. J
Nov 14 2010

It’s getting dark early these days and when I take my Sand Viper outside for a spin, I prefer to see where it’s going. So I built a light add-on to meet this demand.

The add-on is based on a light set that I bought for next to nothing at a local RC hobby shop. The bad thing was that the leds from the kit burned out almost instantly after applying power to them. So I took the plastic parts, some higher quality leds, a 4 way AA battery holder, some wire and a soldering iron and built my own head light add-on.

I pried 4 leds through a small piece of elapor foam and attached 2 wires at the back of the foam. I then soldered the led’s wires to the wire on the back of the foam piece. Lastly I soldered the battery holder to the wires on the foam piece and there you go: a very bright head light add-on.

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What if Windows 7 won’t install?

PC | Posted by Dr. J
Nov 03 2010

I have seen literally hundreds of posts on various forums about people who can’t install Windows 7 because of the very self explenatory error “Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. see the Setup log files for more information.”

Most people, including me, don’t know where to find these log files and nothing seems to help. Setting the SATA controller to IDE, AHCI or RAID doesn’t make any difference and it doesn’t seem to matter what kind of drive is being used. It can be an old fashioned hard disk like I have or a super high end SSD über drive, it all makes no difference.

However, I have found a solution that worked for me and might also work for other people, so I thought it would be nice of me to share it with the world. So here we go; chances are that the drives have been previously used and as such they are cluttered with all kinds of stuff that you need to get rid of. Here is a step by step guide on how to get on with it.

1: The first step is to boot the PC using the Windows 7 installation DVD. Then when prompted you select the language you’d like to use. In most cases there is really only 1 option, but just in case the pull down menu is still there.

2: Now you arrive at the point where you would normally choose “install now” but instead you click the “Repair your computer” link at the bottom of the window. At the windows that pops up you choose the option at the top. In the heat of the moment I forgot what either option’s label is, but you will need the first one, trust me.

3: Now you’ll arrive at a menu with several options and here you need to one at the bottom, and of this one I do know the label, “Command prompt”. Even though typing commands isn’t really hot anymore with Windows Vista and 7 these days, it’s a neccesary evil in this case.

4: Once the Command prompt is opened, type “diskpart” without the quotes (type anything without the quotes). Now you type “list disk”. A list of all detected hard disk drives is now displayed. Depending on how many disks you have you have to repeat step 5 and 6 untill you’re finished.

5: type “select disk 1″ (replace 1 with any disk number you still need to do)

6: type “clean” (and don’t forget to press enter after typing a command)

The clean command will remove any pointers to any partitions or volumes that are defined on the disk. Data on the disk will no longer be available after applying this command. Just in case you don’t want to have all of your data destroyed you could skip step 5 and 6 for some disks, just make sure you don’t skip step 5 and 6 for any disk you want to install Windows 7 on. This may also apply to installing Windows Vista, even though I have no idea why anyone would still want to do that.

The disks that I had this problem with had been running in a RAID10 array, so I had to clean them all before I could use any of them to install Windows 7 on. If your disks have always been stand alone it may be sufficient to clean only the disk that you want to install Windows 7 on.

I hope this post helps with overcoming this problem for anyone who might be roaming the net desperately searching for a solution. If you are already discussing this problem on a forum and then stumble upon this post, please don’t hesitate to post a link in your thread! Now do as I said and have fun installing the stubborn bastard that is Windows 7.

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The new stuff chronicles #16: new PC chassis

PC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J
Oct 30 2010

My previous post was about a new racing chassis and now it’s about a chassis again… Well… This time it’s a completely different kind of chassis.

My main PC (Centurion) was having severe overheating problems and I decided that the cause of that was the size of the chassis. While the CoolerMaster Centurion 534 isn’t exactly small, it was very clear to me that it’s wasn’t quite big enough. I had lots of trouble fitting in all the cables on my PSU and that prevented any kind of good airflow. The thing sounded like it was going to take off into space at any moment. So I finally decided that I was just going to get a new chassis and my when I saw a review of the Corsair Graphite 600t on www.tweakers.net I instantly knew that that was going to be it.

Here are some pics.

As you can see on the first photo there is more than enough space in this chassis. All cables of the PSU are “hidden” behind the motherboard. There quite a lot of space under the sidepanel behind the motherboard which I think is pure genius. There are only a few cables running through the case itself which gives it a very clean look and it’s also very open for airflow. And there is a lot of airflow going on in there with 2 200mm and 1 120mm casefan. The speed of these fans is adjustable through the knob on top of the chassis. Compared to before, Centurion is very silent right now.

At first I was surprised that the PSU is mounted at the bottom of the chassis instead of at the top, but it actually makes sense. It’s a heavy component which can cause a lot of damage if it would ever fall down, which can’t happen now. It also happens to make it easier for cable management. There are no external 3.5 inch expansion bays. So there is essentially no room for a floppy drive, but who needs that anyway? There are 4 external 5.25 inch expansion bays which can be used for stuff like optical drives, hard disk backplanes, tape drives and other stuff like that. Inside there are 6 3.5 inch bays in front of one of the 200mm fans. Here you can mount your hard disks and have them appropriately cooled as well. Unfortunately there is nothing here to properly mount 2.5 inch disks. Most SATA SSD disks are 2.5 inch, so if you want those in here you’re going to have to be a little creative.

I have only one graphics card, which is a big one though. But as you can see on the first pic, there is more than enough space and it would even be possible to fit in three of those babies.

Another great thing is that it has 4 USB 2.0 ports on top at the front instead of the usual 2. Of course there are others with 4 or even more, but most of them have only 2. There is also a USB 3.0 port there and a Firewire, or IEEE 1394, port as well as the usual headphones and microphone ports. The power and reset buttons are also located at this panel and it all looks very stylish.

The chassis opens without any screws and also the 5.25 inch and 3.5 inch bays don’t require any screws. The back slots do have screws in them though. Overall, I love my new PC chassis :)

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The new stuff chronicles #15: mini

RC, The new stuff chronicles | Posted by Dr. J
Sep 30 2010

After a lot of thinking I finally decided that I wanted to take part in next season’s RC competition over at the club (www.erceracing.nl). But none of my cars are very suitable for any of the classes. The CCT doesn’t fit into any current class, the FF01 is too old and slow and TA05 isn’t fitted for any of the classes that I would want to compete in. The TA05 would be allowed in the modified class, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll be blown away by even the weakest competition in that class with their way to powerful motors.

So then I decided that I wanted to ride with the mini class and that mend  that I had to buy a new chassis as any of my other cars are too big to be allowed into that class. The mini chassis class is 1:10 scale just like the others, but they are based on considerably smaller cars like a mini cooper or fiat 500. I, however, got my chassis without a body, so it’s just small and not based on anything. Here are some pictures of my new Tamiya M05 Pro.

Unlike most RC cars, this one isn’t 4 wheel driven of rear wheel driven. Instead it’s a front wheel driven chassis that is very front heavy. The rear weighs next to nothing while the front is pretty heavy with the motor, drivetrain and steering mechanics in the front. The electronics are in the back though for good measure and the battery goes just a little to the front from the center of the chassis. The biggest difference that this chassis has compared to it’s predecessor (the M03) is that the  steering servo is mounted in the back of the chassis instead of the front. This all for the better distribution of the weight. This better weight distribution means that this chassis is more suitable for use with lipo batteries than the M03 was.

I chose this chassis, because it’s the latest front wheel driven M chassis by Tamiya. It comes in several different versions and this is the M05 Pro Blue Plated Version. I actually picked the Blue Plated Version, because it had the exact same price tag as the normal black one, but this one just looks cooler. The electronics are just mounted on the chassis for good measure right now. The speed controller isn’t connected to the motor and has no connectors on it for a battery. And also important, it’s just the standard motor that comes with any Tamiya RC car (except for Pro versions, they don’t come with a motor) conveniently called “Silver Can” by the community. It’s a low cost and low performance motor that probably won’t be used in this car at all. Like I said, it’s in there for good measure.

I’m not yet sure whether the rear body posts will remain on there like this. The body I want to buy probably won’t fit with these body posts, so I’m probably going to have to replace them sometime.

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