EMAX Nighthawk Pro 280 ARF

[jipp]

wow, that is cool. yeah levy! he is a humble guy. he is quite funny too. that is one thing we have going for us.. lots of stars.
kitt peek was fun. im jealous we did not get to see his scope. we met him after our field trip to kitt peek.
we had dinner and had a few beers.

chris.

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Awesome winning that little refractor. Those little 3" cheapies are not that great for astronomy, but are not bad at all for terrestrial viewing. With plenty of daylight you can crank them up to 60X/inch and still see decent. Although once you get up above 150X refraction waviness starts to be a pain.

I used to be heavy into it years ago, to the point, I ground a 6" mirror. That became a standard 6" Newtonian, that I still have. I also have another mid price 4" Newtonian. The south-east and being 15 miles from Raleigh is pretty much crap for viewing 6 months of the year. The late spring, summer and early fall's humidity, trees, late sunset, light pollution and bugs only supports the most hardcore hobbyists. Being out west is the bomb for celestial viewing.

And you're right about a cheap equatorial mount. Equatorial mounts without a drive, electric or hand, are pretty much only good for quickly finding non naked eye objects without having to pan around near objects.

 

[jhitesma]

Awesome winning that little refractor. Those little 3" cheapies are not that great for astronomy, but are not bad at all for terrestrial viewing. With plenty of daylight you can crank them up to 60X/inch and still
see decent. Although once you get up above 150X refraction waviness starts to be a pain.

This thing is pretty useless for anything. The tripod is horrible, even mounted on one of my nice bogen's it's barely usable. The optics are plastic and the primary lens has a crack in it. The chromatic abberation does make for some very pretty (if inaccurate) looking views of Saturn and stars. Terrestrial viewing everything just looks cloudy and the aberrations are more noticeable. On the upside...she can't do much damage to it so she can play with it by herself (she knows not to point it near the sun) the 5" OneSky she needs help with.

I used to be heavy into it years ago, to the point, I ground a 6" mirror. That became a standard 6" Newtonian, that I still have. I also have another mid price 4" Newtonian. The south-east and being 15 miles from Raleigh is pretty much crap for viewing 6 months of the year. The late spring, summer and early fall's humidity, trees, late sunset, light pollution and bugs only supports the most hardcore hobbyists. Being out west is the bomb for celestial viewing.

I was seriously starting to consider grinding an 8" mirror myself. In fact probably will at some point...but will be going total hardcore. My wife has given me the go-ahead to start planning a kiln so she can do pottery and glass fusing...but I want to make my own mirror blank. Been reading up on the sites of a few guys who've done it and with a decent kiln you can make a high quality blank from discarded table tops for next to nothing - since the cost of the blank is most of the cost of grinding your own it makes it dirt cheap to make your own once you have a kiln. And building a kiln isn't that big of a deal, just need a heating element, a PID controller (hey this kind of ties back into multis!) and a heat proof chamber. Firebrick isn't that expensive but casting perlite is even cheaper and will handle up to 2,000C which is plenty to cast a mirror blank.

But that's a very long term project. Won't be starting for a few months at least

And yeah, the viewing out here is amazing. Even from my red zone backyard I can see more stars that I used to see from out in the country in Ohio. Here's what a little over 2 hours of sky from my backyard is like:

30 minutes north of here we've in a green zone, another 10 minutes north (the place where people spell out their names in rocks that I like to fly over) and it's dark green/blue zone. Another 10 minutes north and it's purple zone. Or about the same time but on paved roads we can be off in the kofa mountains enjoying black zone skies.

Add in the general lack of clouds and obstructions...our sky is amazing

Summer viewing is gnarly though. The heat causes a lot of air turbulance and it's just miserable when it's still over 90 4 hours after sundown. At least our winters are great though!

And you're right about a cheap equatorial mount. Equatorial mounts without a drive, electric or hand, are pretty much only good for quickly finding non naked eye objects without having to pan around near objects.

Yeah, my #2 contender was the Orion Starblast 4.5 which came on a motorized EQ mount for just $20 more. But the reviews of the mount said even light breezes shook it and I figured an EQ would be tricky for a 5 year old to get her head around...and would be less portable so we'd be less likely to take it out as often. Plus the mount wasn't sufficient to support a SLR on it so that rules out the main reason I want an EQ at some point. Add in the .5" smaller primary mirror and the OneSky just seemed like a better package all around. Plus the OneSky has a dovetail so it would be easy to transfer to a nice EQ down the road.

Ok, gotta go check out the FPV setup on this emax...might have a spotter coming over in a bit....

 

[jhitesma]

Had a few more ideas to try on the FPV setup but still can't get the stock setup to work. Thought maybe I had damaged the camera since those two nylon bolts are gone...But my spare camera is 5v only and this doesn't have a 5v feed for the camera. And my spare camera and my 12v capable cameras in my other builds all use a different connector than this uses.

But I did do a flight on the stock props when my friend came by. I was going to have him give it a flight to see how a real beginner would do with the stock settings. But...well

Not sure what happened to the audio at the end...my mobius seems to be freaking out even though it hasn't been airborne in awhile.

The good news is that motor that wasn't spinning anymore at the end of the video wasn't damaged. It's connector just came loose. Plugged it back in and it's fine. But the stock props that took such a thrashing finally met their match

And after seeing me crash like that my friend was scared to give it a try...plus we were both drenched in sweat from being outside for more than 4 minutes

 

[ExperimentalRC]

My family has a cabin in Northern Wisconsin which it AMAZING for stargazing. Last weekend I sat on our pier and saw a couple of meteors shoot across the sky. 4-5 years ago we decided to take an evening cruise in our boat and caught ourselves in the middle of an aurora borealis storm (I don't know the official word for it) and it was unreal. We sat out there for a good 2 hours and were absolutely awestruck. I didn't have any nice camera equipment at the time, but now that I do I've been waiting to photograph them. I've also tried dozens of times to get a time lapse of the stars, but I've never been 100% successful. This is the best one I have:

I've been trying to find out what kind of props it comes with stock and I think I might have found it out. I think they are DAL 6045s. This would explain the shape and why they are so tough. I've been wanting to buy some for a while, but I haven't found any reviews. How do they compare to the HQ6045?

 

[jhitesma]

Nice vid! I just have a little canon powershot A1200 (hey I keep forgetting this thing can do video....) I picked up for like $70 at a Costco 3 years ago because it could run CHDK. I keep meaning to make a better power cable for it so I can run it off a higher capacity battery and let it go all night. Also thinking about building a little barndoor tracker setup to do some simple deep sky stuff with it when we go camping this winter. Need to push those projects higher on my list...they're cheap since I think I have all the parts for either of them

That's the leading guess right now on the stock props. Fujin had some of the DAL 6x4.5" and they look similar...but his looked shinier. I may order some to compare. I really need new batteries too.

I only have 4 1300's I've been flying. 2 nano-tech 45-90c packs and 2 Turnigy 30-40c packs. All bought in one order around Mayish or so of last year. 1 nano-tech died almost immediately, less than 2 weeks of use. The 2nd didn't get used as much as a result and took longer to get used but still died after a very low number of gentle cycles. The two turnigy's have been serious workhorses that I've thrashed and abused on my Twitchity 230, my friends Warp, my emax 250, the hex just for giggles once, and once or twice strapped to FT-22 for a flight. One of them is still kicking. The other...just almost went up in smoke. Video is uploading. It just faded out fast and I couldn't climb even at full throttle. Picked it up and almost burned my hand. Got the pack off and couldn't even hold it. Got my thermometer a few minutes later and it was still reading over 170f. And that burnt lipo smell was in the air.

On the checker it's still showing 3.94 on two cells and 3.56 on the third. So looks like that third cell is toast. I need to build something to fly on 2S because of how many of my 3S packs are loosing cells

So I'm down to one 1300 and it's only a 35-40c which really isn't well suited for 2204's. I need better batteries to really give this a fair flight. I do have some 1500's but they're only 25c...they wouldn't keep up. My 2200's can keep up...but they're too heavy to really enjoy.

Need to find somewhere I can get some of the DAL6045's and a decent pack or two so I don't have to pay any extra shipping

 

[jhitesma]

And here's the death of my other Turnigy pack

Last flight of the day/weekend will be up soon. Lots of crashing due to the fading light messing up my perception...should have put the LED on Broke a DAL prop as well.

 

[jhitesma]

Ok, one last flight from this weekend, last flight of the day today. Sun was going down and I kept getting mixed up due to the lighting.

I did do some testing about water resistance though for those who are wondering how well the coating protects the board

 

[Cyberdactyl]

Hehe, I was wondering how the heck you get evening condensation on your grass out there. . . I then saw the sprinklers.

 

[jhitesma]

Hehe, I was wondering how the heck you get evening condensation on your grass out there. . . I then saw the sprinklers.

Yeah, I knew it was a bad idea to fly with the sprinklers on...even worse that it was getting dark and really messing with my perception

But I was curious to see how well the coating worked. Did well. The quad got wetter than I intended and I didn't have the yaw rates high enough to really shake the water off well

It's a little messy and water spotted now but still works great.

I've had it apart the past few days working up the nerve to try flashing blheli 14 to the ESC's. Not quite ready yet...but soon.

I've also been talking to emax support about my problems with the FPV setup. It's starting to sound like this isn't actually a 32ch VTX and that one or more of the bands are locked out. First they told me:

"The incorrect frequency chart you mean on the manual, that is bacause the FR4 is expanded for standby. So the datas are the same as FR3."

Which doesn't make sense as the FR4 band is listed twice and the frequencies for FR3 aren't listed at all. I asked them to clarify and they replied back:

"Hi, The FR4 is not available just for spare."

Which seems to be the opposite of what they said the day before. But still doesn't make a lot of sense "just for spare"?

There definitely seems to be a language barrier thing with emax's support

But it's sounding like I may need a different RX to work with their VTX. So for now I've swapped one of my other VTX's and cameras onto it until I can get the stock setup worked out. The replacement antennas I ordered to test with arrived yesterday...but I accidentally had them shipped to my parents house in Ohio. Doh. So they're being reshipped and won't be here for a few more days.

BTW - Seems they're fairly popular at gearbest (is my review helping maybe?) as they're already out of stock on the ARF's again. But they did get in the RTF's and now have those available: http://goo.gl/8NOypn

 

[jipp]

i would think your review helped.. why else would they go out of stock so quick. with a sorta new product.

your video made me go check the door.. as im waiting for the post man. and i heard a thump i thought door, oops.. my bad was your quad hitting the ground i have a zmr pdb/frame and 2 sma extensions in the mail... and a new video game to keep my mind busy while i continue to heal.. i can say my nano qx is getting a work out the string bit was the ticket. i fly 7 1s 180mah 45c battery's at a time. thats a lot of hovering, nose in and nose out, and just flying around in a very small space... i figure its helping with muscle memory, etc.

i figure im gonna build a zmr fpv frame.. before i mess with the thug frame.

chris.

 

[jhitesma]

Weather will break soon, then it will be easier to do more outdoor flying. I just really took advantage of the slight dip in temps last weekend...but this weekend I've got a bunch of stuff planned and the monsoons are back so it's nasty humidity outside

That giant project that's been consuming my life for the past 6 months launched last night. It's still a bit of a soft launch and we're still dealing with a few things as it goes live...but for the most part I can get back to a regular routine again finally. Plus apparently people sending me free hobby stuff makes it easier to convince my wife to let me spend money on more hobby stuff...I would have suspected that to work the opposite way but I'm not complaining! So 2 new tattu 45c 1300's are on their way thanks to the MRSS sale.

So next week/weekend I should be able to give this a better thrashing Just debating whether to wait for the new packs before I try reflashing the ESC's. We'll see...depends on how much time I have to look into the flashing of silabs chips this weekend.

Also got a semi-surprise in the mail from Switzerland today. I knew a certain forum member was sending me some old parts he didn't need anymore...but what came in the box was more than I expected. Looks like I'll finally get to experience the joy that is a windestal tri But that's a discussion for another thread

Right now the 280 is sitting gutted on my bench waiting for me to try and flash those ESC's. Or figure out what's up with the FPV transmitter. No further reply from emax yet so I'm still unclear whether or not it is a 32ch TX or not. Wish I had a frequency counter that went that high....I do have my eachine FPV setup on it and working...but really want the stock stuff working so I can give it a fair review as well. I've heard that the stock CMOS camera is prone to jello but otherwise it should all work well...starting to suspect more and more that this just doesn't include the FR3 band after all and that's why I'm having issues.

 

[jipp]

sounds like a solid plan you got. its cool your wife looks at free stuff as a blessing.. if its free its for me, as my grandma use to say..

but my grandma use to say nothing is truly ever free. heh.. so we wont tell your wife, the free stuff is like fishing bait to fish.. nibble here and there is free.. but once hooked! heh..

that is cool you scored a david tri. should be fun to see what you do with it. i use to think i wanted a tricopter but im not sure now.. but im thinking for now il be ok with basic quad stuff as i continue to learn and grow as a pilot.. once i get bored with quads and want to try something different then i'll build one, seems like a good plan.. .

plus it will be good to get experience with how a tri flys too. i figure every type of quad i learn to fly will have to make be a better pilot id hope in the long run.


yeah temp are getting close to switching over to winter.. its monsoon on/off hot/cool.. it just does not know what it wants to do right now.. other than its hot and muggy by mid day.. but early morning its nice and over cast.. so i figure we get our nice weather soon.. ill give it by middle of sept.


i not sure what cam to use with the ZMR. i bought the sony cam everyone recommends with the 2.8 lens.. in the metal case etc.. for 40.00. but im not sure if i should just buy a cheap 12.00 cam for the zmr frame and save the better cam for another project.

what are your thoughts on this? are these very durable? if they are and the chance of me ruining a cam are slim.. then i do not mind saving 12.00 or whatever a cheap board cam cost for the one i have already sitting on my desk.

speaking of FPV. last night at 3am or so i went out side.. coyote's woke me up, anyhow i bring this up as it was almost a full moon. and i swear i could of flown my quad no problems, thats how bright the moon gets here on a full moon.. its nuts. laughs.

i was thinking i bet you could fly fpv at night time on a full moon here.
anyhow, the plan is to get a zmr 250 setup fpr FPV next month if all goes well. my frame should be here any day, taps, taps fingers on desk waiting..

also im thinking of maybe ordering 4mm arms for the 250 kit too. the thug has 5mm. ill use the hovership feet with the zmr 250 with 2204 size motors.. i have 4 2204 emax in my box, not sure if ill use them or try some others. just thinking out loud, ill probably just keep it simple and do 2204 emax version of the zmr, to compere to the 1806 emax zmr.. plus it will be nice to have a spare quad on hand in case i crash bad lll have a fun backup ready to go. my logic for adding the FPV gear to the 2204, as it will be a little heavier so the motors should keep things zippy, compared to adding wait to the 1806s..

well, i have seven 1S 180mah battery's charged and ready to start hovering, nano on a string time. laughs.

chris.

 

[jhitesma]

that is cool you scored a david tri. should be fun to see what you do with it. i use to think i wanted a tricopter but im not sure now.. but im thinking for now il be ok with basic quad stuff as i continue to learn and grow as a pilot.. once i get bored with quads and want to try something different then i'll build one, seems like a good plan.. .

plus it will be good to get experience with how a tri flys too. i figure every type of quad i learn to fly will have to make be a better pilot id hope in the long run.

Yeah, I'm really hyped about the tri. The tilt has seen better days...I did some repairs to it but it still seems a bit beat up. Replacement bits on order.



Speaking of becoming a better pilot. I dusted off the old Syma X1 since my daughter has finally been showing interest in wanting to learn to fly my stuff. Flying it again I was amazed at how much better I could fly even a simple auto-level only setup like that. It's always fun to go back to an airframe I was having issues with and have it suddenly be more interesting for me after I've gained additional skills.

i not sure what cam to use with the ZMR. i bought the sony cam everyone recommends with the 2.8 lens.. in the metal case etc.. for 40.00. but im not sure if i should just buy a cheap 12.00 cam for the zmr frame and save the better cam for another project.

what are your thoughts on this? are these very durable? if they are and the chance of me ruining a cam are slim.. then i do not mind saving 12.00 or whatever a cheap board cam cost for the one i have already sitting on my desk.

Out here you'll probably need the better cam to fly. It's so bright out in the desert and the dynamic range on these cameras is so bad that you don't get much detail in anything unless you run a good camera. That said....flying when the light is dimmer and using the cheap camera is a good idea until you get the hang of it because the camera can get destroyed up front like that. They can take a decent hit if they're designed to break-away...but if they're mounted too solidly they can break the board fairly easily.

speaking of FPV. last night at 3am or so i went out side.. coyote's woke me up, anyhow i bring this up as it was almost a full moon. and i swear i could of flown my quad no problems, thats how bright the moon gets here on a full moon.. its nuts. laughs.

I have flown at night like that - it's fun Lights on the quad can actually make it harder in a full desert moon

i was thinking i bet you could fly fpv at night time on a full moon here.

I'm sure you could with the right camera and lens. But it's beyond my skills right now, I wouldn't even try!


I'm starting to suspect that emax changed the specs on the VTX on the second production run of these and that's why my manual is different. On RCGroups some people with the first batch of these are using boscam RC805 RX's with no problem. But at least one other person with one from the same batch as mine is having the same problem. So I may not be able to test the stock video gear at all unless I buy a new RX. Not to happy about that.

On the upside these arrived today:


Should do a bit better than my old beat up 30C pack I've been flying on and finally allow me to see what kind of performance I can wring out of it.

 

[jipp]

ohhh, nice battery's id like to be donated 2 large tattu battery's for a AP bill i think we need two 6s for a 600 size ap machine right?. laughs.

ok, my mail box did not get filled up with offers from a tattu rep. pff. laughs.

thanks for the tip on the camera.. i guess we can not skimp on that here in the desert. i think ill have to take it out of its protective case unfortunately. i will see if it fits with out it but i sorta doubt it. since the zmr frame seems to have that camera mount made from..

well at least it was only 40.00 for the sony 2.8 job. and from all the crash videos iv seen can say iv seen a on board camera get taken out al that often. im sure its happen but i can not think of one at this time. i waiting on the rsa extension cable to arrive so i can use it when i mount the rx stuff as you guys recommend it to help protect the vrx antenna pcb part.

so emax is using a different vRX.. i wonder if they fixed the problems you saw in the first one.. or why they changed to a different version..

if i feel up to it i think i may do a dry run fit with the frame and see how things may go together. i can do that with out moving my bad leg so doctor should have no issue and i can get a better feel of how the parts may or may not go together.. plus im bored.

to the point i rebuilt my first nano qx. i ordered new motors/props.. frame.. and now i have two nanos flying... and they handle so different from each other.. i was quite surprised how different.. and quite happy too. as they are fun to fly.. the original nano i bought, and rebuilt today.. is so damn twitchy.. it keeps you on your toes you do not relax with that one for much time.. or it will be in a 45 degree angel heading to the floor and you better be quick on the stick to save it.. as you only have like 10 feet from the ceiling to the carpet.... while the new one is very docile.. yet can get you in trouble if you dumb thumb it but you have to really try lose control of it.. of course flying in red led mode or acro i guess blade may refer to it.. not sure. anyhow.. its good practice with both of them.. keeps your brain in a constant state of anarchy on what to expect next. heh. and now i see why some say the nano qz is so stable while others say twitchy.. it really depends on what you get.. and how good the generic tune is for whatever deal of the day hardware comes on the FC for it to work with.


that tri looks fun.. does it use the 20.00 FT tail unit? looks like it will be a little floaty too.. but fast as hell in a strat line? heh.

 

[jhitesma]

ohhh, nice battery's id like to be donated 2 large tattu battery's for a AP bill i think we need two 6s for a 600 size ap machine right?. laughs.

I'd love to have someone donate batteries to me. Those came out of my pocket

so emax is using a different vRX.. i wonder if they fixed the problems you saw in the first one.. or why they changed to a different version..

Just to clarify this is still just speculation, I'm still waiting for a solid answer from emax about the VTX. I'm also still on the first one I haven't got a different VTX from emax to try. My nighthawk is from the second production run though. The first production run had arms with cutouts in them - the second production run has the solid arms. The first production run came with the manual emax has online with the E band frequencies listed - the second run appears to have come with the manual I got with F band frequencies shown twice and no E band frequencies. People with nighthawks from the 1st production run have reported success with the Boscam RC805 - more than one of us with the second production run are reporting failure.

that tri looks fun.. does it use the 20.00 FT tail unit? looks like it will be a little floaty too.. but fast as hell in a strat line? heh.

It uses David's tail unit designed to fit on the 10mm booms. The FT tough tilt is designed for 1/2" booms. A new top plate for the pivot was <$8 with shipping.

I'll be starting a thread about the tri soon.

 

[jipp]

jason - yah i was joking about the battery's being donated i know you paid for them.

i have a question for you. could you explain to me in a simple term how the 4 bands work with fpv as to our hobby. what are the bands?
why did bascom, immersion decide to use different protocols.. is it to0 be more propitiatory? or is there a benefit to the one they picked over in the UK, since that is where they are based.

i just need to start getting a better understanding how this fpv works. i really do not like thinking its just magic and it works..
thanks, if this is to complicated, ill understand.. i just need to start somewhere and i figure you could help narrow it down to how it applies to our hobby as that is all that im interested in.. i have no desire for ham radio etc..

i did the whole CB thing back in the 90s.

chris.
p.s

8.00 that seems more than fair especially coming from sweeeeeeeeeeeeden. look forward to your feed back on how it flys.

 

[Ocean]

jason - yah i was joking about the battery's being donated i know you paid for them.

i have a question for you. could you explain to me in a simple term how the 4 bands work with fpv as to our hobby. what are the bands?
why did bascom, immersion decide to use different protocols.. is it to0 be more propitiatory? or is there a benefit to the one they picked over in the UK, since that is where they are based.

i just need to start getting a better understanding how this fpv works. i really do not like thinking its just magic and it works..
thanks, if this is to complicated, ill understand.. i just need to start somewhere and i figure you could help narrow it down to how it applies to our hobby as that is all that im interested in.. i have no desire for ham radio etc..

i did the whole CB thing back in the 90s.

chris.
p.s

8.00 that seems more than fair especially coming from sweeeeeeeeeeeeden. look forward to your feed back on how it flys.

Immersion bands increase by 20Mhz each channel and avoid the frequencies of 802.11ac Wifi in Europe (the maximum frequency allowed is 5720Mhz, 20Mhz off the default Immersion channel 5740Mhz)

Out of interest are Immersion or Boscam based in the UK?

 

[jhitesma]

Bands are just sections of frequency recognized for a shared purpose.

Bands can be further sub-divided into smaller bands as well. So while 2.4ghz is a band and 5.8ghz is a band they can be further sub-divided.

There are official bands which are recognized by various regulatory bodies (Such as the FCC in the US or the ITU internationally)

Wiki has more details than I have time to put into an explanation right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_spectrum#By_frequency

Within a band sub-bands can exist for various purposes.

With the 5.8ghz video situation the "bands" that are talked about are really just common grouping of channels. They all use the same "protocol" (which isn't even quite the right term) as this is unencoded analog transmission. "Channels" are just recognized frequencies, and bands are just groups of channels.

At this level none of these are official designations from any kind of authority - they're just defacto standards that have developed organically. So that's why you see "bands" referred to by various names "FR3" vs. "E" vs. "boscam".

I know you say you're not interested in Ham...but really...it's the easiest way to learn and is necessary to be legal with most usable FPV setups. It's well worth the time to look into IMHO.

Boscam is China based. Immersion I'm not sure of...they list Hong Kong as their official address but I'm pretty sure they actually operate out of mainland Europe.

 

[jipp]

Immersion bands increase by 20Mhz each channel and avoid the frequencies of 802.11ac Wifi in Europe (the maximum frequency allowed is 5720Mhz, 20Mhz off the default Immersion channel 5740Mhz)

Out of interest are Immersion or Boscam based in the UK?

Immersion is in the UK..

i think Boscam are japan? or china maybe..

chris.