Halloween

It was our normal Halloween, we had 4 Trick or Treater's.  Rielee was the first one, she looked real cute as a Greek goddess.  Jillian, Bridget and Tor were our next visitors.  Boy were they fun to watch!  Tor started exploring the house right away, the girls got their candy, then they started exploring.  I got a big kick out of Jillian, she was in Vera's storage room hollering for her dad, "Dad you have to see this, you wouldn't believe it".

Getting ready!

We spent part of the day getting ready for Halloween, I dug the pumpkins out of the shop and set out 4 of them.

We made a run to town for candy, Vera filled the pumpkin basket and decorated the table.

The deck by the french doors was really slick, so I sprayed it with deck cleaner, scrubbed it twice and hosed it off.  It was much better after that and I don't have to worry about a kid falling tomorrow night.

Wordless Wednesday

Too Wet To Walk

Yep, we wimped out this morning!  I had read that vibration can cause a ripple effect in the GoPro.  I have been seeing it in some of my videos and pictures, so I went out and balanced the quad's propellers today.  Balancing one prop is time consuming, I had to take a break after two.  All 4 of them were out of balance and there was one that was really bad.  When I got done the rain had stopped, so I got the GoPro and made a test flight with the quad.  It took 404 pictures during the flight and only 3 had ripple.  They were taken as I was coming down through some turbulence.  I spent some time today trying to clean up the electronic bench, I can see Formica in some places, so I must be making headway.

A beautiful day to work outside.

 

After the wind storm, a lot of leaves ended up on the decks.  I decided to clean them off today.

The first thing I did was take pictures and put the quad up to get some aerial shots.  Of course, I spent the rest of the flight blowing leaves off the house with the quad.

This is how the roof and decks looked after I got the leaf blower out.  I blew off the roof first, then I got all the decks cleaned up.  I had a good time getting the quad out between each step and making a flight to get more pictures.

This is the last flight on the quad today after I got the lawn mowed.  I had the camera taking a picture every 2 seconds, so I ended up with about a thousand pictures.

Vera came out just as I was finishing up and took my picture on the clean deck.

With all the work done, I got the Cobra out to see if it ran cooler with the fan on it.  I had taken some pitch out of the main rotor blades and it flew better.  I had put a 4 cell pack in it for this flight and right after Vera finished taking pictures the motor quit.  It was pretty hot, 222 degrees.  After it cooled and still would not run I pulled it out and it had burned up a winding.  I downloaded the logs from the speed control and discovered the motor was too high a KV (rpm per volt applied).  I did some research and I ordered a lower KV motor that is good for twice the power.

Church, Football, Football, Football and Motors

We went to church this morning, after we got home I started watching the games I had recorded.  The Seahawks had me worried for a while, but in the end they won.  After watching two more games, I got tired of sitting so I went to the shop and worked on the new quad.  I soldered the plugs onto the three remaining motors and got them mounted.

I had gotten a dummy surveillance camera with my last Amazon order because the cover looked like it would fit the quad.  I tore it apart and the clear plastic cover is going to work great for protecting the electronics.

My Parts are here

I kept checking the USPS tracking today and it never showed that my fans for the Cobra were available.  Just before the post office closed, I ran down, checked our box and there was two yellow slips.  I picked up my parts and headed home.  I had found a piece of pvc pipe that was just right to slip over the Cobra's motor and cut slots so it would slide over the cross brace and fit right up against the motor.  I made a mount for the fan and glued it to the tube.  Every thing looks great, now I need some nice weather so I can see if the motor stays cool.

This is the bottom view of the new quad, I got all the speed controls soldered to the power distribution module and then assembled the rest of the frame.

I got all the wiring and speed controls fastened to the frame and one motor mounted before I called it a night.

A Cold Rainy Night!

It was a good day, this morning we ran up to Centralia and delivered a quad that I had ordered for Bob.  We had a nice time there helping him get it set up.  On the way home, Laury texted and asked me to let Sam out for a while.  After we got home, I went up and let him out.  I threw the ball and he brought it back once, then started wrestling this small log around.  Pretty soon, he had enough bark off the middle that he could pick it up.  That is when the play got kind of rough, he wanted to play tug a war with it and was waving it around like crazy.  After a couple of short sessions of that, I decided it was time to go in before one of us got hurt.

James had his last home game tonight, in this picture he made a 5 yard run, the first time I have seen them use this play.

This is during a time out, it looks pretty intense!

James is taking a pretty good hit after a pass, this set of refs didn't seem to call roughing the passer.  Mark Morris scored on their first drive, but things went down hill from there and they lost.

The Mark Morris marching band preformed at half time.  Some how I messed up the camera focus and all the pictures from the second half  were blurry.

It Flies!

It has been about 20 years since the Cobra last flew!

I am packing it out for the first attempt, I had the wrong servo paddles on it and it was hard to control.

It flew much better after putting the right paddles on it.  I still have a few things to get adjusted the way I want.

I went up to let Sam out after lunch today, I threw the ball once, he got it and headed into the brush, he dropped it and started looking for a stick.  There is a piece of 4 inch alder in front of him that he tried to get out.  He broke all the limbs off of it and finally got a 3 or 4 foot piece pulled out.

Then he got a branch and started breaking it up and playing tug a war with me.  This evening, I researched some fans for the Cobra, the motor is running pretty hot because there is no air flow where it is mounted.  I ended up ordering one and a couple of other things we needed.

The First Concert of the year

We have been lucky this week weather wise during our walk, it was nice again today.  I got the tail rotor blades tips painted yellow and after I was done, the balance was almost perfect.  I also got copies of my new AMA card printed and heat sealed in plastic.  Vera made the best lunch today, chicken broccoli casserole, it was so good we had it for dinner also.

Mark Morris held their fall concert tonight at RAL auditorium.

James is part of the mixed advanced choir and they sounded great!

This is Mik and James after the concert.

Ok, what did I do with it?

After our walk, I stopped, got the mail and big surprise, the motors and props for the new quad were there.  I took it out to the shop since I had to do some soldering on it.  When I was ready to solder the speed controls, I could only find 3!

That started an afternoon of looking everywhere with no luck!  I did find some other things, a new flybar for the Cobra was the best one.

We went down to BK and picked up dinner, then we drove down to Lions Pride Park to eat and watch the fishermen.  We noticed some smoke up by the Rock, so we drove over to the dike to see what it was.  It was just some fishermen's fire, but we noticed the clouds as we were leaving and took a couple of pictures.  Then it was back home to do a little more looking, but I still came up empty handed, so I went in and watched Monday Night Football.

The new washer

I was sure happy when I got the call at 8 AM from Home Depot that they would be there with the new washer within 30 minutes.  That meant I could probably run down to the swap meet in Vancouver today.  They were right on time, unpacked it, moved it into place and hauled away the old one.  We got to the swap meet about 10:15, it was a small one, but friendly people and quite a bit of stuff, I ended up buying one electric motor.  From there, we went to Costco to pick up a few things and we managed to fill the cart.  The lines were long, backed up into the aisles in most places.  The line we were in moved fairly fast, then the manager came over and pulled us out of line and took us to a different register and checked us out.  Everything went so smooth today that we made it back to Castle Rock before the post office closed at 1:00 and I was able to pick up my new quad frame.

After we got unloaded, I went to work installing the washing machine.  I guessed right on the hoses, so hot is hot and it only took a couple of times adjusting the feet to get it level.  Vera has already ran a couple of loads of clothes through it and it seems to be working fine.

A Great Game!

Mark Morris had their homecoming game tonight.  Vera and I headed down early so I could get my monthly blood test.  Then we made a stop at Home Depot for new hoses for the washer that is coming tomorrow.  We still had lots of time before the game so we went to Applebee's for dinner.  I had the Shrimp Scampi Linguini and Vera had their 7 ounce steak and they were both delicious.  We went over to the game early so we could get a parking spot close to the gate as it was raining pretty good.  We had a wait for a break in the rain before going in.  The picture is the opening kick off and it was raining like mad then.

James is under center for Mark Morris's first offensive play, it was still raining hard.

4th and 20 after James got sacked, he threw this pass 24 yards for a first down.  The rain let up after the first quarter and it was pretty nice after that.

James threw a 23 yard touchdown pass just as the half ended to put them up 15 to 0.

This is the crowning of the homecoming queen at half time.

This is James and Gage after the game, there were lots of happy kids after the win.

James is getting interviewed by the Daily News after the game.  He did a great job tonight, he was 6 for 6 passing with one touchdown pass.

James' friend Dalton with his mom Holly is getting photo bombed by Mik and his dad Eric.

The Light

The cosmos is still blooming in this crazy weather we have been having.  I went out this morning and the primer I sprayed yesterday was dry so I sanded the blades and gave the backs a coat of camouflage brown.  While I was doing that, I decided a light in the paint booth would be nice.  I had a couple of small under the counter fluorescents  that looked like they would work fine, so I mounted them and started working on wiring.  I discovered shortly that the paint booth would not close with two lights mounted inside.  I removed one and moved the other to the center and the problem was solved!  Since I had gotten the GPS quad controller working and programmed, I decided to build a new quad for it and I got all the parts ordered this evening.

Our only sunflower this year, we didn't plant it the chipmunk's did.  They have buried the black sunflower seeds from the bird feeder all over the place, they are even coming up in the gravel pile.

Vera has this rose sitting by her chair, another thing that just keeps on blooming.