Hopefully I can get going early. The weather is about to go bad again here tomorrow evening.

 

So I spooled the thing up and let it run (no blades) for about 15 minutes just to let the main gear wear in...... Smooth! Virtually no vibration.

 

I went ahead and did the registration thing. I don't quite know what to think about it yet.

 

Now I know what number to put on my drone when I do LAX flybys on runway 03
Simon

 

How can they track you though? does it have to be on your helicopter?

 

It's supposed to be visible somewhere on the craft where it isn't covered by a canopy or anything. It doesn't have to be visible while in the air, just somewhere they can find it if..... say, someone crashes a drone and damaged person or property, it can be traced back to owner (for example).
I'll either put mine on tail boom or canopy..... haven't decided yet.

 

Are there FAA police? What are the fines for not having a sticker, and does it cost to register?

 

Any unmanned aircraft system (UAS) between 250 grams to 55 lbs must register. (over 55lbs is probably commercial license)
$5 registration fee, currently under rebate (free) till Jan 20th.
Must carry registration info (printed card or paper in wallet, etc) and reg. number on aircraft.
Failure to register: up to $27,000 fine.
Criminal penalties up to $250,000 fine and/or imprisonment of up to three years.
It is left to local law enforcement to monitor or enforce the new law unless some major event warrants the direct attention of the FAA, FBI, or whatever Federal agency is necessary.

 

WOW..... gee the FAA have not done things half hearted. So little johny with his 56 gram christmas drone could be doing time or charged $27000 dollars because his parents fail to register his toy? I could imagine police over a PA SYSTEM .... Johnny! Put down your drone! If you fail to comply you will be shot! Johnny does not put down his drone... what now?

I suppose it was inevitable however. Seeing how drones are being used and abused by some people. This must be causing a huge uproar in the states....

 

I hope they don't shoot Johnny. Maybe i should sell my drone just to be safe (lol)

 

Little Johnny is safe. He's below 250g.

 

We've seen it all before. C.B. radios required an operators license until the FCC deregulated everything with less than 5 watts output...... So little Johnny could play with his Space Ranger communicator and not need a license.

 

Since I'm sitting here still waiting on parts......
My curiosity led me to finally get a good look at a Mini Protos on the MSH site. ...... Wow. I might have to get one of those when I'm done with my "TRex" phase.

 

I flew one for a few years @Beaver. If i wasn not flying the 380 i would be flying the miniprotos. The only thing it cant handle well is huge power due to an oversized motor because of the belt - ie the belt will strip after about 30 flights. But other than that, out of the box a 6s setup is quite powerful. A great helicopter i can promise you...

 

Right.... I've heard you speak highly of it before.
I can see what you mean about the belt and big motors. Why they didn't design in the same type of double guide roller assembly they use before the tail boom, but use it before the drive pinion as well to maximize belt contact around the primary pulley. It would have made for a full 180° belt contact around the drive pulley instead of only 130° (estimate) which probably would have solved the stripping problem and require only slightly longer belt. I'll have to put that on my engineering "bucket list".

 

Afterthought: even one guide pulley on the slack side of the belt would work with proper placement.

 

Oh, SNAP! They already did it. (didn't see it before)
Never mind.

 

Yes thats correct, they have already provided a pulley. Infact if you put a few spacers in behind the pulley it provides a little bit more contact onto the main pulley. Most of the belt wear came from two issues, one introduced by us.... we used to use a solid pinion on the motor shaft - so there was no one way bearing inside the pulley. The one way bearing used to be a common point of failure with over powered motors on the minip. My recommendation is to use the stock 6s minip motor. Its pretty darn powerful but not stupid powerful like the xnova i had.

There was talk about a new minip. but i assure you that for even moderate-hard smak the stock standard minip 6s is the way to go. Allways go 6s for the following reasons!

Its more efficient. You will get more flight time from each pack.
There is power all the way until the end. Your batteries last longer
For the same power the batteries are cheaper

The minip is a very nice solution that ticks many boxes. The ONLY thing that is not favorable today about the minip - is the repair time compared to something like the goblin 380. There are many small parts and changing a frame can be time consuming. A major crash on a goblin 380 will take you an hour - if your slow at fixing helis. Its just a different generation helicopter.

 

Complexity of repair isn't much of an issue with me.
I'm several "generations" behind still being fairly new to the Heli world. I'll make use of the CopterX/T-rex at this stage of my development. Next year I may be ready for MSH or SAB. I have quite a bit of learning to do before then.