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Month: October 2015

ImmersionRC Vortex Pro-Tunes

Published October 27, 2015 by Dave Nelson

Vortex 285 – FPV Race Quad
Vortex 285 – FPV Race Quad

The Vortex comes with 10 “Pro-Tunes” that were developed by sponsored pilots before its release. I did a bunch of Googling after buying the Vortex to try and find more details about these varoius tunes and found nothing more than a short video from UmmaGawd about the Vortex.

So here are all the tunes as of October 2015. I hope they add some new ones soon that are specific to newer motor and prop combinations, especially DAL props.

Preset 1

Pilot: AntohonyRC
Props: Gemfan 5040
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 4S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Easy Rider

Preset 2

Pilot: BewweB
Props: Gemfan 5030
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 3S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Beginner

Preset 3

Pilot: BewweB
Props: Gemfan 5030
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 4S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Intermediate

Preset 4

Pilot: BewweB
Props: Gemfan 5040
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 4S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Race

Preset 5

Pilot: BewweB
Props: HQ 5x4x3
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 4S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Howler

Preset 6

Pilot: BewweB
Props: Gemfan 5040
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 4S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Freeride

Preset 7

Pilot: BorisB
Props: HQ 5045
Motor: Cobra CM-2204/32
Pack: 4S
Camera: GoPro
Style: Acrobatic

Preset 8

Pilot: Nocomp
Props: Gemfan 6045
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 3S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Freerider

Preset 9

Pilot: Porco777
Props: Gemfan 5030
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 4S
Camera: Mobius
Style: Extreme

Preset 10

Pilot: UmmaGawd
Props: HQ 50540
Motor: T-Motor 1806
Pack: 4S
Camera: GoPro
Style: Precision

In the next couple of weeks I hope to experiment with each of these tunes and see how each performs with the props described and with various DAL props.

DroneElectronicsMultirotorRacingRC

Immersion RC Vortex First Flights

Published October 20, 2015 by Dave Nelson

Vortex 285 – FPV Race Quad
Vortex 285 – FPV Race Quad

I have seen a handful of people flying Vortexes around the Atlanta area and after rebuilding my ZMRs like 5 times I decided to give the Immersion Vortex a try.

I bought it from Atlanta Hobby along with both the Carbon Fiber Crash Kit and the Plastic Crash Kit. I also got a cable to allow me to easily connect a Spektrum Satellite receiver without having to make a cable of my own.

I got it home, took it out of the box, connected it to a computer and installed all the updated and such, then was ready to fly. It took me a couple of weeks to have the time and place to fly it, it rained 3 weekends in a row.

Once I finally got to fly the experience was very good. I started out with the Gemfan 5030 props that came with it, Turnigy Nano-tech 3S 1300mah batteries, with a RunCam HD, and used BewweB’s Pro-tune number 2. It flew really well and was a lot of fun. Not what I would call fast or agile, but still fun.

Next up I put a Glacier 4S 1300mah battery on it with DAL 5030 props, it was much faster and a bit more agile. Then I swapped the props out for DAL 5045 Bull-Nose props, but they were too aggressive and drew more amps than I was willing to risk.

Right now I feel like the Vortex’s largest issue is the proprietary 12 amp ESCs. 12 amps is not enough to run 6 inch props on 4S batteries without burning them up very quickly, and right now you cannot get replacement ESCs and without doing something extreme you cannot use larger ESCs.

After 7 flights with a mix of 3S and 4S batteries the ground cable to the FPV camera broke at the connector. I fixed it by cutting up a cable from a RunCam FPV camera and soldering together with the Vortex FPV cable. I also popped the cap off the video transmitter’s antenna, found it and popped it back on, but I plan on gluing it on before my next flight.

Overall I think the Vortex is a decent quad, the trends have changed a lot since its creation and so it has fallen out of favor in comparison to smaller multirotors like the Shendrone’s Tweaker and Krieger, but that does not mean that it is not a good quad. I think it is suitable for fun-flying and even racing at a beginner to intermediate level.

Sorry about the lack of video, the RunCam HD was not at enough of an angle so about all you could see during my flights was the ground. A quick Google search will lead you to many videos of pilots much better than me flying the Vortex.

DroneElectronicsMultirotorRacingRC

Great Planes RealFlight 7.5 Review

Published October 13, 2015 by Dave Nelson

RealFlight is an RC flight simulator that you can use to practice flying RC planes, helicopters, and multirotors (drones). It is a lot cheaper to crash in the simulator than in real life.

RealFlight is a good flight-sim, I feel like there are other sims out there that have better physics and are more realistic, but RealFlight feels like the most polished and has many more options than any of the others. But to get the most out of it you will have to turn to the community around it.

There are many versions of RealFlight available and it can be very confusing picking the right one. You can get just the software, with a cable, or with a controller. To make it a bit more confusing there is more than one cable available. I went to my local hobby shop and bought Great Planes RealFlight 7.5 with Wired Interface which is currently $129.98 at Amazon.

If you buy this version you will also need a controller, I use the Spektrum DX6 controller (transmitter) and like it a lot. It is available on Amazon for $199.52 right now, which is a great price.

A great feature of RealFlight is that you can install it on as many computers as you want, but to use it you have to have the Interlink cable with its built in reset button to run it.

RealFlight will not run on MacOS so I primarily use Bootcamp and Windows 8 to play it. But I sometimes use Parallels with Windows 7 or Windows 8, it works but requires a fast Mac to work.

Community

After getting the software installed and you’ve taken a couple of test flights I recommend going over to RCGroups.com and downloading the RCG online field and then the RCG Killer Quad. After installing them and giving them a go you can see if RCG is hosting the field for multiplayer to have some fun with other RC Group members.

If the field does not offer you enough challenges you can open it up in the editor and make it more challenging. I added more gates and removed the stadium seating from mine.

The next place to stop is the Knife Edge Software Swap Pages. These are aircraft and airports created by other players.

Troubleshooting

The only problem I have had with the software is that when I load a new multirotor and try to fly it the plane flops around until it is crashed. This is fixed by flipping the auxillary switches, ‘Y’, ‘U’, ‘I’, and ‘O’, for me it is ‘O’ that usually does the trick.

Improvements

I hope that that next version of RealFlight includes more realistic physics, more realistic graphics, and a simpler interface.

Competition

Phoenix RC is the direct competitor and has its own flaws.
FPV Freerider is a multirotor FPV specific sim with a handful of maps.

Give them all a try, it is a lot cheaper than wrecking and rebuilding your planes.

ComputersDroneMultirotorRC

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

Published October 6, 2015 by Dave Nelson


I have re-listened to this series a handful of times now and it just gets better every time. I burnt through my credits on Audible faster than usual this year so to delay spending more credits I decided it was about time to listen to all 15 books in the series, I skipped Side Jobs this time.

Harry Dresden is such an amazing character and the world Jim Butcher has created is fantastic. But what makes the series so wonderful are the supporting characters, they are as unforgettable as Dresden.

James Marsters does an AMAZING job narrating these books, you owe it to yourself to listen to the audiobooks even if you have read the books yourself. He adds so much to them!

“PARKOUR”
“Polka will never die!”

I rate the series a 10 out of 10 and recommend everyone give Storm Front a try.

AudioBooks