What Did You Do Today???

leedude1

leedude1

Member
Prepping for a funfly tomorrow, but I will be the odd man out as its an NAFPV event. One of my co-workers is running it and he told me to come down and that id have a placed sectioned off where I can do my thing.
Will give me couple of days of down time and allow me to tweak some settings on all my birds. Since I've gone to governor mode on all but the X5 (which I probably wont change until I swap out the Gaui ESC .. don't understand the taiwenglish instructions to set up the gov there) In all honesty the power to weight on the X5 is awesome so I've never heard it bog...may just leave it...ain't broke, don't fix it.
Pissed that im still waiting on some servo gears f0r the 450, popped a few on a tip over and ordered them almost two weeks ago...figured they would be waiting for me when I got back from New York, but saving a few shipping bucks put may package on the back of the truck in the slow lane it appears and they only left the shop last Friday.
Have a great one folks.
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
This year has been a little weird on the Jalapenos. The year started off at some of the most mild Jalapenos that we have ever had. I'm talking, those banana peppers were as hot as the jalapenos. Now though, they have cross pollinated with the little peppers you see in the bowl.... And those are Serrano peppers. Those have made the jalapenos as hot as the serrano peppers making them the hottest jalapenos we have ever grown.

And this is the first year we have been able to get the bell peppers to do anything. I already have a gallon bag in the freezer with diced bells in it that we cook with, and I'm fixing to fill up another one....

Oh, and there is egg plant in there as well. that is what the dark purple plants are. We put that in the spaghetti tonight. It was pretty good.
 
Rob Lancaster

Rob Lancaster

Active Member
Wow, nice peppers!
I grew some gypsy high breads before. They were sweet and great on pizza...

Hey about the cross pollinating part. I didn't know that plants like what's in the garden can cross pollinate like that. I figured that some lab work would be needed for that.
Does that make you nervous for any reason? You know, keeping the strains pure for good seeds and such?

Ok now; what did I do today?
Well yesterday my bro and I decided to replace two steel clamps on our antenna mast. We need to pull maintenance again on the 30 year old unit so we can get it ready for a new VHF beam antenna. Oh man! This job went from removing the old UHF comm antenna from the mast, and then the from the house; (the easy part)… But when we tried to pull out and separate the sections, let's just say, it was a real Hillary man!!! (The hard part)…

Here in Hawaii we have a MAJOR rust problem with anything made from steel.. Even stainless steel will rust out in certain applications but not nearly as bad. As far as galvanized steel, it's no match for the salt air and corrosive chemicals coming from the big islands volcano... I'm just glad the connector pins on my rc stuff is made of GOLD,, no problem!

The bad news is, the two top sections are fused together with rust and are now one.
The good news is, we did finally separate the two lower sections and that's all we need for this antenna; hurray!
We will wire brush them good, and then use some Rust Lock on the steel. That will turn the rust to iron phosphate and arrest it... But of course in Hawaii, only temporally... That's why we'll spray some new galvanizing on them and grease the hell out of them this time too... Actually, this steel was exposed to the full on outdoors for 365 days a year, for almost 30 years, so I cant be that surprised that there's not much of the original left. The bottom section was replaced about 10 years ago and a killer drain we designed for the mast was installed. The bottom of the mast must drain good or you're f$%#d!!! Whoops, sorry.... That upgrade has proven to be a good upgrade. You know what they say,,, hind site is 20/20 clear,, isn't it now, ha!

Well folks, that wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be but heck, we knew the job was dangerous when we took it... In Hawaii; you got's to know there's lots of rust dat you just don't see on the inside.. :biglaugh: Have a look at the holes in the PVC drain/anchor >>> The steel mast never comes in contact with the wet ground. And the 4 gauge copper ground strap connects the bottom of the mast to the adjacent ground rod... I hate to say it but that dang lightning rod is only about 6 or 7 feet from this here computer terminal were I'm sit'n right now, yikes!!! That damn earth ground better work as needed or I'm toast.... :concern: :nono::dizzy:

The PVC anchor below ground is actually a T- joint.. The strait down drains into the earth and the T part fills with cement and locks that babee in place. Use a level folks! You know how I know? he he heee...…

Hey, the Trex 450 Pro build is coming along nicely.. I might have a couple of questions coming soon too, but not here and now.. I'll start,, I'm sure in a short time, a thread for that guys, thanks.....
Rster...
 

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Tony

Tony

Staff member
Started out the day before ever going to bed transferring files. Yes, again. Reasons.... Then, once that was finally done, I went to bed. Woke up at about 1700, had some coffee then made the wife and I some stuffed bell peppers since we actually have peppers that we can use. And yea, they turned out awesome! Now though, I'm working on the wife's car trying to repair this damn flex joint which completely blew out (I should have put "blue out" just for Randy...) and cause a massive exhaust leak. It is like there is no muffler on the car, sounds like crap. So I took the front of the exhaust off and I'm getting ready to weld in a new piece of pipe to fix the leak. Screw that flex joint lol. Repairing a crack in the exhaust is easier than this damn flex joint.

And woohoo, it's still hot and humid as hell out side. Enough for me to get severely overheated and dehydrated. So I"m in here now cooling off and shoving fluids down my grocery chute. Yes, it's water... flavorless, bland, boring friggin water. When I'm done with this car, I'm making a pot of coffee lmao.
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
Okay, after completely destroying my left shoulder and not exactly getting the welds where they should have been, it's done. And what I mean about the welds is, I didn't have anyone else with me to help me get everything lined up. You can weld on the exhaust while it's in the car, but since I was having to lay under it on the ground and not stand under it on a lift, I decided to just do it outside the car. Well, I was about 1/8" off on my weld and it is causing some issues down the exhaust. Not a huge deal, but kind of a deal.

The other bad thing about this is this is a solid exhaust now. The flex pipe was there so that you could put it in, and the engine could still rock forward and backwards. This is a temp solution because if it stays this way, it will destroy the exhaust manifold. I just don't have the money for the whole cat pipe at the moment... But, the car is quieter than it has ever been which is nice...
 
wasfixedwing

wasfixedwing

Member
Tony. Have you thought of just replacing the flex pipe part of the cat assembly. If that's what is needed. There is a universal part available in different I.D. and length.
Pep Boys or NAPA may stock them. Or, a call to some one like Midas. They might sell the part to you or do the job for a reasonable price. I know here in Canada, that front pipe starts around $600.00 and goes into nose bleed territory. Just an option. I owned a NAPA parts store for a few years.

Don
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
Midas? I would rather burn the car to the ground hahahaha. But yes, I'm going to put a flex pipe on it, I just had to do this in the meantime because the engine was sucking cold air back into the manifold, and that is worst than having torque on the manifold. You can at least drive it now while I look for the cheapest flex joint I can find. they are ALL going to fail in a couple years so might as well not spend that much money on them.

down here, the cat pipe, which is a complete bolt in install, is about $200. Good price for it, but you need $200 lol. I'm having a little trouble coming up with the $40 for the flex joint with the longer pipe attached to it. Makes it easier to tack it while it's in the car so that I know it's lined up correctly.

That reminds me, I need to get a 2" pipe expander. Tired of these butt joints and gap filling lol.

Oh, and you owned a Napa? That's cool. I thought about working for them back in the day, but never went and got my ASE cert for parts and electrical I think. Should have.
 
wasfixedwing

wasfixedwing

Member
Been there done that with the money. No one seems to be able to answer this question. Why is it so hard for money to come to you and so easy to go from you?

Have a good day.

Don
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
So I brought in my two biggest planes thinking I could just hang them on the wall, get the rest of the planes and hang them on the wall and everything will be golden... Well, that is just not the case.... This office is not big enough for my planes lol.
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
So that Decathlon (the red one lol) has a wing of almost 6' (SIX FEET). I'm in a little bitty room in my house and my desk is inside a U spape with tables on both sides that I have to walk around. That Decathlon sticks out from the wall about 1.5' (Foot & a Half) making it tight to walk to my desk. And here I was thinking that I could get ALL OF MY PLANES in here.... I mean I could, but there would be absolutely ZERO space to do anything lmao.
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
Then I need a bigger house. My wife absolutely will NOT let me put my planes on the living room ceiling... again...
 
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