I recently had a chance to give the Parrot AR Drone a good work out and found that while it is an amazing bit of kit especially for the price it is definitely a revision 1.0 product and if there is ever a version 2.0 I believe it would be a must have product.
Ok I am about to start a process that I suspect will take quite a few weeks to complete. I am going to try and get some information out of the MAAA as to why certain items appears on their approved items list and some don’t, I am also left pondering the website design which looks like someones highschool project and is quite frankly embarrassing for a national body.
To see how I go in my own private little Don Quixote moment Read On…..
I purchased a Tamiya XB Levant a few years ago and not long after put it into storage while I moved towns/jobs. This week I finally found it again and decided to give it a run. The Levant is part of Tamiya’s Expert Built Series of Ready To Race models as opposed to the ‘build yourself’ kits which are the norm for Tamiya. The advantage of the XB series stuff is that you can start using the model straight away but this does come with a few drawbacks.
The first this is that you do not get the enjoyment of putting the kits together and in the process of doing so get to see how everything goes together and how it all works, this is especially handy if you need to repair or replace something later on down the track. The second downside, one that has reared its ugly head for me already, is that because you did not put it together yourself you cannot be sure that everything was put together as well as you would like it to be. I will come back to this later but first lets get one with a review of the kit.
I have got my hands on a Multiplex Funcopter from WorldHobbies, the Funcopter is a 450 – 500 size fixed pitch helicopter that is based on the old LMH Corona 120 . It has been bought out by Multiplex and has been spruced up but is it as indestructible as its predecessor ? Well read on and find out.
I have had the chance to test the E-Flite UMX – The Beast for a while now and have to say the the only thing more ever inflated than the hype is the price. While you can find plenty of reviews extolling the virtues of this little Micro, most seem to skip some of the more obvious issues
A fun little indoor electric with a small price tag or does cheap price mean low quality ?
Read on…
2.4Ghz Single Rotor Mini Helicopter
Can you buy a 4Channel 2.4Ghz Single Rotor mini Helicopter for under $AU100.00 ? Well yes you can, is it any good, well read on to see how it pans out
Updated 02/01/2011 – Update at the bottom of the article
I recently got my hands on a Twister CPX and I have been slowly trying to come to grips with flying a collective pitch Heli. The CPX is the much bigger brother of the other heli I have been playing with the Micro Twister Pro which is a fun little 3 channel indoor I/R heli which is cheap, easy to fly and tough as nails when you crash, the Twister CPX is none of these things, though when(if?) I master the CPX I suspect it will offer a whole heap more fun.
I heard on the radio today the the Qld government are claiming that the use of “Covert Speed cameras” is responsible for the record low numbers of fatalities this holiday season. Of course it would have nothing to do with the heavy rain and flooding that has had a big part to play in keeping the number of holiday travellers down, it is all down to speed cameras hidden or otherwise. Now the cash strapped Qld government can roll out more of the mobile poker machines to generate more income from motorist who will not realise they have been booked for speeding until a month later and will continue merrily on their way at exactly the same speed they were pictured. While I don’t disagree that speeding is an issue I do disagree that speed cameras are not just a quick and easy way for any government to raise revenue. After all if it was not profitable there would not be private businesses willing to contract to some governments to raise the revenue for a percentage of the Booty fine income.
I just wish the pollies would stop the cr@p about them saving lives and admit that more police would be a better deterrant, speed cameras are about one thing….revenue.
I have been using a few of these GT-2 Radios which I purchased from Hobby King and aside from a few quirks I have been very happy with them. For the very cheap price of AUD$16.52(plus shipping) you will receive a box which contains the transmitter and receiver, the radio comes prebound with the enclosed receiver so all that is required is for you to pop the setup into your vehicle and hours of hassle/interference free fun are yours to be had, well almost. As I will explain I have had the odd issue with the radios but as yet I have not been able to narrow down a cause. Essentially these are a very basic 2 Channel 2.4Ghz radio with servo reversing and a limited type of expo on the steering channel and are very good value for money, while the Tx does feel very plasticky it is not the worst one I have ever used. That honour belongs to the one supplied with my Tamiya Levant (belated review coming soon) which is an excellent prebuilt brushless 1/10 Scale truck with a cheap and nasty Tamiya supplied radio.
The Gt-2 takes 8 AA batteries and has all of its switches hidden under a clear plastic hatch which can be a pain to open and which I suspect will soon be removed by yours truly. You can apparently bind multiple receivers to this radio but as yet I have not bothered as the radio has no model memory and it would mean re-adjusting trims constantly between models and at the price I bought them at it is more convenient to just buy a unit for each vehicle.
Having said all that I have had a few issues with these radios, when I switched one into a HSP Tyranno 1:10 Scale Nitro truck I found that I was getting a lot of interference on the throttle servo, whenever you steered the throttle servo would jitter around and caused the truck to surge around and make it very unpredictable. However I switched the unit into 1/5 Scale Petrol XRC RC2 and it had no issues what so ever and according to the person I sold the buggy to it is still going strong. The next issue I had was when I switched a 27Mhz AM system out of my Tamiya Levant and put in a GT-2 radio, I could not get the brushless speed controller to run through the setup procedure successfully and the whole time the steering servo would twitch back and forth as if I was getting crass channel interference. I switched the 27Mhz back in and the Levant was back up and running in no time, I also put the GT-2 into a Tamiya M03 Mini and it runs fine without a single glitch so far. My next plan is to put one of the other GT-2′s into the Levant and see if I can duplicate the issues.
On the whole I would have to say that the Hobby King GT-2 is excellent value for money but be aware that it may have an issue with your model so buy two 
.
I have been playing with one of these in the last few weeks and for the grand price of $74.95 from a local hobby store ( Wings over the Downs ) I have been having a ball flying it. The chopper is a 4 channel twin contra-rotating blade indoor micro copter, it comes with a 2.4Ghz Mode 2 transmitter (normal for Oz is Mode 1) and it is a very stable and easy to fly chopper which so far appears to be very robust, but it must be noted that while looking very nice most of the metal body cage can actually be removed to lose weight and it has no negative effect on the chopper.
Flight is very stable once out of ground effect and after just a few minutes you should be able to hover the chopper, the initial flight was taken up with trying to get used to a Mode 2 radio and trimming the helicopter with the trim buttons on the radio, once everything was dialed in I found that it was easy to hover and easy to fly around. Be aware though that the chopper is a no wind flyer as even then aircon in the office tended to give it the wobbles and send it shooting off in the direction of the airflow. Range is fine for indoors but in a very large hall it would be possible to move out of range which tends to lead to the chopper losing power and dropping to the ground this brings me nicely to durability which I am happy to say is an area this little chopper excels in, I have flown it into all manner of obstructions and have yet to damage a single part. The only mechanical issue I had was when someone in the office crashed it onto the floor and then accidentally hit full throttle, this resulted in one of the drive cogs popping loose and while this did mean pulling the metal cage off and popping the cog back into place I still think this is one tough little indoor flyer.
Front cover off and battery shown
One of the issues I have found is that the chopper does not have a low voltage cut off and this can mean accidentally running the lipo battery down to the point where you damage it or in my case accidentally leave it turned on and forget about it overnight leading to the lipo being drained completely and being killed by not being able to take a charge. As you can see in the picture the chopper does not have an easily removable battery and replacement will require some soldering to be done. Luckily Ebay has the (cheap) answer and I am waiting for the new batteries to arrive.
All in all I would have to rate this chopper as a 7/10, losing only a few points for no voltage cutoff and fiddly battery replacement.
Update – 01/01/2011
While the last battery change was succesful I have found that if you use a USB charge lead (available off Ebay) then you tend to get better flight time and battery life than if you charge from the transmitter. I am also looking at modding the chopper to take the same batteries as my Blade MSR .
I was reading an article in the Sydney Morning Herald website this morning which talked about how a squatter camp in Dehli was demolished as part of the preparations for the Commonwealth Games. The squatter camp has been on this site for approximately 30 years but is now being demolished because of its proximity to a new hotel built for the games and also it proximity to a few of the games venues. Similar things were done in China for the Beijing Olympics and while there was some press coverage of these events and some protest from other countries for the most part it was just ignored and thousands of people were displaced in the name of the “Peoples Games” and the Commonwealth Games.
Contrast this then with the international outcry when Mugabe demolished a squatters camp in what was called Operation_Murambatsvina which translates to “Operation drive out Rubbish” this operation was rightly condemned by the international community and even spawned a UN investigation into this force removal. But when it come to things done in the name of big business and make no mistake both games are now VERY big business then the the governments of the world seem all too happy to sit back and ignore what is being done. Of course I am sure that there will be much finger pointing and recrimination when people work out that all the looking the other way has done nothing to help our reputation with people in the 3rd world. I am sure that if there is a big terrorist event during the games (and it seems likely) then there will be at least a few people from those slums who will not shed a tear and may even decide that the radicals are in fact a better option for their future.
Well it seems the various newspapers in the News Corp Group are all screaming about how all but 75 of the asylum seekers since the Rudd government came in were granted visas. Of course none of the articles make any reference to how many asylum seekers were granted visas during the Howard administration, I suspect these figures would show that there was very little difference in the percentage of refugees granted/refused visas between the Howard and Rudd governments. But little things like facts and journalistic integrity seem to pay second fiddle to the need to continue to produce hysterical and frothing stories that pander to the lowest common denominator.
Seriously, take a look at the figure below (taken from here) and you will see that we take a very small number of refugees and of that figure only about 20% are boat arrivals. But it seems that Australians are buying into the rhetoric pushed by the Old and New Howard regimes. The politics of fear have been very successful for the Coalition beginning with The Tampa affair.
The Tampa affair was something that I consider a national disgrace, where the government not only ignored its obligations under the UNHCR accords but also ignored its obligations under International Maritime Law. We saw a government lie to its people and then go to the extreme measures of first trying to enact legislation called the “Border Protection Bill 2001″ which would have made it legal for Australia to forcefully remove boats from our territorial waters. Then when this bill failed they went ahead and excised Christmas Island and a large number of other coastal islands from Australia’s migration zone. All this in a bid to avoid a few refugees, most of whom were eventually (and very quietly) given refugee visas a few years later. The only reason the government of the day was never really called to account was that, just when people where beginning to realise exactly how badly the government had behaved, September 11 2001 happened. The Tampa affair was forgotten and the government was given a free pass to conduct itself in any manner it pleased with regards to refugees. The Children Overboard affair showed exactly how cynical the Howard Government had become, they blatantly lied about the situation to drum up support for themselves prior to the November 2001 elections. They did this in the full knowledge that by the time they got caught in their lie the election would have been won and by the time the the next election was called the public would have forgotten all about what they had done. This proved to be the case and I would have to say that these two incidents were what finally convinced me to change my vote and see them get removed from office, for a little while when Malcolm Turnbull was leader of the Coalition I was hopeful that they may be changing for the better but then Johnny Howard Jnr took over and they returned to the low level fear mongering politics that they favoured in the past.
While I am at times ambivalent with regards to the issue of asylum seekers, I do find the claims of invasion and terrorism to be a bit contrived. Face it, the terrorists have the money to fly into the country and have a false identity to avoid detection, so why bother to send them via an uncertain of leaky boat when it is easier and cheaper to fly them in via QANTAS .
While reading Dans Blog I came across a link to this Blog which had a clear and relatively unbiased breakdown of refugee numbers vs. asylum seekers etc. I just wish more people would take the time to read or research this rather than listen to and take as gospel some of our supposed journalists and media. Whatever your policitcal leaning I recommend a browse of the blog, you never know you may learn something
I am a huge fan of Dremel tools and I have owned a Dremel Rotary for quite a few years now but, in a recent house move I somehow misplaced my old trustworthy Dremel and all the attachments. So I used this as an opportunity to buy a new tool and rebuild my collection the biggest one I purchased with the tool was a Router/Shaper table which I figured might come in handy when building some of my RC Planes, so far I have used it to create a few templates and formers out of narrow gauge plywood and also create a small picture frame out of pine.
It’s good at cutting channels and doing edging but harder woods would be best addressed with a full size router. The Dremel works at high speed but does not have a lot of torque. It cannot churn its way through harder timbers and even some of the softer woods can cause an issue if you try and bury the bit into the piece, the best way to approach larger pieces is to make several shallow passes to achieve your final depth.
I bought a couple of Dremel brand bits with the table and managed to find a few knock off brand bits at the same time, the biggest issue with the Dremel brand bits is that they are expensive but so far I have not been able to find a cheaper brand that lasts as long. You need to make sure you keep your bits sharp as blunt bits will cause the Dremel to bog down and bounce around giving jagged cuts and ripping your timber.
I also found that bigger pieces will cause the tool to shift a little bit and can ruin a good pattern, the other thing which may be an issue is the continual dropping of shavings into the the tool could potentially shorten the life of the tool so make sure to keep the work area clean and to check the tool after each use. All in all I can see that the table will be a handy addition to my tools but may not be useful for everyone and it may be best to use a proper routing table if you are planning on doing a lot of jobs.
Well it seems that Senator Steven Fielding the political front man for the Assemblies of God Church is suffering from a major case of sour grapes, he lost his Senate seat in the 2010 elections and the whole Family First party has basically been made irrelevant in politics, however due to the peculiarities of our political system he will remain in his Senate seat until July 2011. So in a fit of pique he has said that if the 3 Independents do form a government with labor he will block any piece of legislation they put through the Senate. So basically someone has taken his toy away from him and he is spitting the dummy and trying to dictate the direction of Australian politics. This little episode is indicative of his whole term in office where someone who had a tiny (< 3%) percentage of the vote and who does not in any way represent the mainstream view suddenly hold the balance of power and gets to tell everybody how they want you to be behave. That is the biggest issue I have with our system is that it allows a bunch of 1 trick ponies and religious zealots (ok, that last one was a bit catty) to start pushing their own agenda and dictating to the Australian public and in the end I fear we will end up with a situation very similar to the US where right wing religious groups with a very small overall percentage of the vote are pushing the government in directions that are less than desirable.
Well on the weekend I had the first opportunity to use the wireless router function of my HD2 and after all the dramas I had with tethering an iPhone it was a breeze to use and two people were able to use my phone for internet access within 2 minutes, score 1 for the HD2. However, so far I have found that the HD2 suffers from a few issues :-
But on the whole I am still very happy with the phone.
Well it seems we have managed to go and donkey vote ourselves into a hung parliament. Currently as things stand neither party is able to form a majority government and so all the power rests with 3 independents Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakshott , all of whom are former National Party members and most of whom have had a colourful history to say the least.
I am predicting a Labor Minority government that will only last at most 6 months before we have to go back to the polls, of course that will be contingent on Labor not self-destructing in the next week or so which may be difficult for them to resist. Realistically Labor should have won the election as Tony Abott appears to be deeply mistrusted by the public and very unpopular but somehow Labor managed to run one of the most ineffective campaigns I have ever seen and managed to come across as weak indecisive and more than a little bit corrupt.
Ozzie politics, gotta love it.
I still find it amazing these days that companies seem to think that their I.T. department is expendable and is generally treated as an afterthought. A lot of businesses seem to forget that if the computers go down work stops, period. Yet when it comes time to make cuts the I.T. Dept is generally one of the first to be looked at, as it is usually seen as an expense generating Dept with no income producing potential but it is I.T. that keeps you working and helps you maintain productivity and thus keep making money.
The I.T. sector, in this country at least, is a mess and while I am normally anti-union I think I.T. is an industry that could benefit from some union organisation, I.T. tends to be split into two areas:
When people see articles showing the average wage for the I.T. sector they may not realise that the figure is being significantly skewed by the first group, who tend to get paid in the $80K-$150K a year range. However the second group can be paid as low as $36K a year for a full time position, now I am not saying that every person in I.T. lives in a dungeon and works for pennies but on the whole they do tend to be treated as an afterthought. Companies do need to remember that if your I.T. Staff get disgruntled enough they can cause you a world of grief, the next time you have a power failure see how much work gets down when your I.T. infrastructure is shutdown and then remember those guys from I.T. have the ability to do that at any time.
So remember be nice to your I.T. Dept, they aren’t that bad.
I was perusing an article in Sydney Morning Herald and I saw an article by Paul Sheehan this morning where he was essentially saying that not only was Julia Gillard lying but that the unwashed masses would lap it up and vote for her anyway. While I am surprised that the fact that politicians lying is still news I noticed that Mr Sheehan has pretty much thrown out any semblance of unbiased reporting by failing to point out any of the foibles of the Coalition and that he is equally biased when it comes to international politics.
While I understand he is a conservative and that the Liberal party have a lot of policies that are in sympathy with his viewpoint, I cannot abide when someone claim to be a journalist but fails to meet even some of the most basic checks against bias, he of course he covers himself well by framing his articles under the heading of opinion pieces. I do have to laugh at his ‘holier than thou’ attitude where he essentially says that Labor appeals to the lowest common denominator when he himself panders to that precise demographics with his Anti- Muslim and Anti-Immigration rants articles. The Howard government of which he is so fond was a master of playing the politics of fear and appealing to the vocal redneck element despite this being contrary to what the parties core beliefs used to be. But Mr Sheehan hides behind what is left of his journalistic integrity while braying about the evils of Labor like Chicken Little saying “the sky is falling”.
