Completely FAILED Biology exam :(

Believe it or not I got that really cheap! There are people who collect brand new engines in box's especially old ones, this one has never been used but the guy was selling it on ebay as where the glow plug goes in the gold paint has been marked in a tiny spot!! Apparently to a collector that makes it ****! So I won it for £15!!

Sounds like an interesting project. I'll look forward to an update.

Mike.

Little Ghostman said:

This will be the biggest, if three are used then the other 2 are smaller than this one

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I've "played" with these engines since I was preteen.

Considerably more difficult to deal with (in ALL respects, especially if any synchronization is involved) than electrics. Is the device using them airborne or ground (or both)?

Its been granted a license as a UAV and will be fixed wing to get telemetry from something on the ground. I will update all the info at the weekend. I dont know the size of the plane yet as other factors need to be worked out first, but the plane is being designed by a RC guy who is really good. Dont want to to spoil it by saying too much too soon but the situation came around unexpectedly, the idea was never to do this, but a couple things changed and a solution needed to be found, I was contacted via the university because of my drone. The job is for a company, I have done enough work to satisfy the concept but need to do a prototype, after that I get paid to submit the design and they will have the thing built.

You are going to really like it, its got a bit of all sorts in and I have permission to publish everything except the details of what data its actually collecting and some of the reasons it needs to be done.
But one of the things I am looking into is an alternative fuel to up the distance, as nitromethane is out! So Cowboy your gonna love this project, RC diesel is second choice because its really difficult to adjust the compression in flight without killing the engine. I have been doing the back ground work on this for a while.

The project is to launch a web site I am doing, so more news on that later .

cowboybob said:

I've "played" with these engines since I was preteen.

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An old friend of mine was an avid radio controlled plane man, and made load's of different ones, including helicopters.

I went a few times with him, when he got together with various friends who also did planes - one of whom had been involved (with his father) in making and flying models for various famous UK WW2 based films.

The reason for mentioning this, is that my experiences of these engines was that they were always a pig to start - and everyone in the model club had the same experience, apart from this one guy from the films. He was using an engine made by Weber (the famous carburettor people), and it not only started first time (every time) it also revved smoothly and evenly just like a normal car engine. Just to make things even worse, he couldn't half fly the thing as well - for example he could fly it upside down, a couple of inches off the grass, directly towards his legs and simply step over it as it reached him Not something I'd recommend trying!.

Nigel Goodwin said:

An old friend of mine was an avid radio controlled plane man, and made load's of different ones, including helicopters.

I went a few times with him, when he got together with various friends who also did planes - one of whom had been involved (with his father) in making and flying models for various famous UK WW2 based films.

The reason for mentioning this, is that my experiences of these engines was that they were always a pig to start - and everyone in the model club had the same experience, apart from this one guy from the films. He was using an engine made by Weber (the famous carburettor people), and it not only started first time (every time) it also revved smoothly and evenly just like a normal car engine. Just to make things even worse, he couldn't half fly the thing as well - for example he could fly it upside down, a couple of inches off the grass, directly towards his legs and simply step over it as it reached him Not something I'd recommend trying!.

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Things are not so bad for glow engines now, they are pretty easy to start, they also now make 4 stroke petrol engines with CDI!! The main problem is if you go on a RC forum they think the electronic systems available to the RC are state of the art but to us alot of it is 5-10 years old. So while I have met a couple of great guys one who is going to design the airframe (probably based around a senior Kadet with custom wing), alot of the guys are well over 60 and very much.........I have 50 years experience and can tell you now sonny there is no way a micro stepper motor can control the throttle. Or you cant get 6Km telemetry etc etc etc. No offense to anyone here , engineers tend to be more open minded than hobby people on the whole.

My drone is a bit awkward to fully post as its being used for exams and the uni stuff, but this is better in some ways AND I can document all the bits that matter. Even for me I am pretty excited by this one, having done a fair bit of research there is a growing market for small (as in under weight and size license limits) UAV's with a decent distance on them.

The one side line I am looking at and I know will cause a bit of agro is powering a drone or AUV with a Glow engine and using it to generate power for a drone, but before we get into that i have since found papers on doing it. So hopefully it will be an interesting project. I will start detailing what the brief is at the weekend and what I have so far. The fuel side is something I am also looking at as I found some info that makes me think better fuels can be made for longer distance. BUT this is strictly a post papers to back up claims and or do experiments! I will also try and get some video done with my long assistant behind the camera .

Some of it sounds easy to start with but when you go into it there is a few real challenges! the frequency being used is 868MHz, I am not dealing with the legal side but its been approved for use for this project and apparently in the UK 868 is a frequencies you can use for UAV's but Jim would know better than me, I am letting others deal with the legal side. The telemetry to and from the UAV for flight and live feed camera is done using 2 transceiver chips operating on 4 different channels, but i will post all the chip details when we get there, the telemetry data the UAV is designed to collect in on a different frequency but the why's and what the UAV is actually collecting isnt something I am going into, besides lets be fair the bit that matters is the machine not the data .

One more week of exams! then some time and a few odd exams here and there, but after next week I should have alot more of my time freed up, i also get a massively reduced timetable, but might go into school in the morning to use some equipment.

My mum also wants something made but will save that for the weekend, its not a huge project but I know you will understand why hers is special to me when i tell you what it is

Should you new GF sign an NDA?

Little Ghostman said:

But one of the things I am looking into is an alternative fuel to up the distance, as nitromethane is out! So Cowboy your gonna love this project, RC diesel is second choice because its really difficult to adjust the compression in flight without killing the engine. I have been doing the back ground work on this for a while.

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I'm lovin' it already .

In flight compression adjustment on the "true" rc diesels (as apposed to "glow" types) is a significant issue.

This project is going to be a lot of fun to follow, especially for one of those

Little Ghostman said:

guys ... well over 60

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.

cowboybob said:

I'm lovin' it already .

In flight compression adjustment on the "true" rc diesels (as apposed to "glow" types) is a significant issue.

This project is going to be a lot of fun to follow, especially for one of those .

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Your not one of 'those' guys trust me .

These are the ' I have been doing this for 50 years and I know all there is to know about it' types. A recent example was an argument on glow fuel, nothing to do with me to start with, until someone said you cant get bugs in glow fuel because alcohol in any concentration kills all bugs. So knowing what I was gonna say I asked what about acetone? I got the reply dont be silly Acetone is very highly toxic to bugs.........

So it kicked off When I posted a paper that goes into detail about Clostridium (often found on potatoes) being used in the past in fermentation to Make ABE Acetone Butanol and Ethanol. So two alcohols and and Acetone.
I thin listed 42 different microbes that can make alcohols and pointed out brewers have trouble with fusel oils which are a mix of mainly simple chain alcohols like Butanol and isoamyl alcohol. Even after I posted the paper and pointed out where alcohol comes from I was told your just kid and the paper means nothing lol. Even ETO dosnt have any equivalent to some of these guys . But having said that there is a couple who are helping and they are great guys, alot like many of you, one is a very long time scratch builder and designer of RC planes.

Another works in fuels (real fuels) and thinks there is some merit looking into a new fuel blend for what i am doing, he has given me alot of information on the technical side of what I should be aiming for. Slow start at the weekend, exams out the way in hopefully 10 days, then full steam ahead!! I have 3-4 days a week after that point to devote to this. Some of my other time is needed for soap

KeepItSimpleStupid said:

Should you new GF sign an NDA?

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Nah the only bit that is really confidential is the reason behind the 'WHY' it needs to be done, it was never ment to be this way but something changed and dropped alot of people in it, when you know what the reasons are it dosnt sound too drastic, and if the UK BREXIT I might be able to actually explain, but at the moment no one wants to talk about what we are collecting.
The final plane and code will change enough from the prototype that I am more than happy to detail it. All I have to do is show how it could work, nothing really secret about that as alot of the info I got from papers on the net anyway.

Anything that turns out to be a no go area is likely to be small stuff, for example the actual code I use for object isolation I wont publish, but the code that does something very similar and is what i based mine on I will publish. That kind of reads wrong but you will see what I mean as we go along.

Its not a race to jam as much into a single chip as we can, while weight matters its very much a redundancy based project with alot of small sections working together. Not my first choice but its what was decided on so its what i am working too.

There are a few rules i got to stick too some I dont understand but hey ho, one is I cant land with more than 5% fuel on board, I dont know if this is a 'law' or a company 'rule' or something some one in the company dreampt up. I have asked and all i get is sorry but we cant change that. We are flying over a SSI area (actually several), so we have restrictions on fuels ect rather than dump fuel at the end i will have to circle and burn off or being glow fuel I have another more interesting way .

Right time to stop waffling!

FORGOT!!

I was told this morning we have to sit the exam again! but we are sitting the exam from a different exam board. they wont say which but my Bio teacher isnt happy as she thinks we wont have covered the work, so my guess is it will be an english exam board paper based on A level in England.

Personally having sat the paper we did i have no fears on sitting another one. Considering this is supposed to be the highest level of secondary education exam, i thought the paper was designed to make figures look good and not weed out the bright from the not so bright.

Chemistry Exam Part 2 (practical) on next Thursday! This is one I am looking forward too

Little Ghostman said:

being glow fuel I have another more interesting way .

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Something involving a catalytic action... ? And I am very curious how you'll determine having reached a 5% fuel level....

Little Ghostman said:

... This is one I am looking forward too

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Confidence in one's competence is, in my opinion, half of the final grade. You can't beat it as an advantage in the education game (actually, life in general).
<EDIT>

Little Ghostman said:

The one side line I am looking at and I know will cause a bit of agro is powering a drone or AUV with a Glow engine and using it to generate power for a drone

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You're not heading down the slippery over-unity slope, I hope, AG?

alec_t said:

You're not heading down the slippery over-unity slope, I hope, AG?

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LOL.

I was just about to start the thread and the one of the rules was going to be.....................

The only thing we cant do is over unity, everything else is just a problem lol. If I accidentally slip the wrong side of the laws of thermo etal then please point it out, I intend to creep the edge and push the boundaries but I am not going down the flux capacitor route I promise!

I have made it pretty simple.

What I am going to do is use patents and papers to base things on and where there isnt any i will do the experiment to get the answer. So while its fine to say I doubt that's gonna work, equally its fine to do the science and try it to make sure.


The ironic thing and something you may not know.................. I started getting good (sounds arrogant sorry) I started to improve (sounds better) when I read this in your signature

"Every problem has a solution (given the right information and resources)."

Seriously since reading that it has made me look at things in a different way, to me as long as it dosnt break a golden then its just a problem that hasnt been solved yet, and to solve a problem all you got to do is work hard at it.

So thanks, unknowingly your sig line a couple of years ago has been what has driven me to try things out despite reason saying it wont work, I look at it and if it dosnt break a golden rule then its just a problem and therefore doable somehow.

The part about a quad powered by a small RC engine has been done (sort of) I have the papers and the material to back this, we have also reached a point in electric motor technology that might tip things in out favor. the problem isnt can it be done, because it has been done, the problem is how small can we go before it cant be done. thats the question i want to answer

Look at the main guys on this site like yourself and cowboy and spec,Jim etal (too many to name). Now imagine a company who all those guys working in it...................

Google,CERN,NASA all rolled into one wouldnt have the brain power of that lot working together. So yes i am confident, I have access to some of the best people around and I have been collecting tips and info of each of them for five years! Now how many get that kind of education?

Some people think I am smart, but the reality is the only smart thing i have done is use the opportunity to condense centuries of experience and knowledge from other's into my little head .

Little Ghostman said:

I am not going down the flux capacitor route I promise!

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HEY! The Flux Capacitor isn't over-unity! It's real, and it actually works! I've seen it work on three separate occasions! How DARE you suggest otherwise????

DerStrom8 said:

HEY! The Flux Capacitor isn't over-unity! It's real, and it actually works! I've seen it work on three separate occasions! How DARE you suggest otherwise????

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Sorry Matt your right!! I should have been more honest and simply said I wasnt smart enough to build one . Also I cant afford a Delorean! OK flux capacitors are allowed seeing as you have provided proof of there existence.

Also we have a key meter for our electricity, not sure if you have them in the States but here you can have a type of electric meter where you buy your electric upfront on a kind of smart key, you put it in the meter and it gives you X amount of electric until you top it back up. I dont think the key could hold enough to charge a flux capacitor, i forgot the W's needed but our 120A panel is likely to be too small to charge it up!

Little Ghostman said:

I got the reply dont be silly Acetone is very highly toxic to bugs.........

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Yes, and humans. Be careful it's a neurological issue and can create permanent damage to the brain. Read the label, it also will seep into the bodies tissues on contact. Wear rubber gloves.

Just ask any old painter, he'll tell you..............Um, ah. I think so cause I was just diagnosed with cancer a week ago.

kv

killivolt said:

Yes, and humans. Be careful it's a neurological issue and can create permanent damage to the brain. Read the label, it also will seep into the bodies tissues on contact. Wear rubber gloves.

Just ask any old painter, he'll tell you..............Um, ah. I think so cause I was just diagnosed with cancer a week ago.

kv

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sorry to hear that KV

my point was acetone used to be made by bugs, for a while it was the industrial process, no chance me being a painter! I cant stand the smell of wet paint!!

Little Ghostman said:

Lindsey is aware of what i am working on and she also knows i am behind on a promise I made, spoke with her tonight and the plan is I go get a beating from her dad for an hour or so then she is coming back to help me get the next bit of the project done.

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This sounds like an excellent opportunity by way of an apology for cutting the visit short and also thanking her for helping with your project to give her a box of chocolates or similar. But first find out what she has a sweet tooth for.

spec