Bartman
Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Hi everyone,
Got back late last night from Toledo, Ohio where the Weak Signals RC Club was holding their annual vendor show and hosting the ETOC (Electric Tournament of Champions) event.
If you're into more than one facet of RC and you've never attended a show like this I'd say you owe it to yourself to attend at least once in your lifetime. It was overwhelming to see so much RC stuff in one place and the models on display for judging/awards were just amazing.
As big as the show was though there was only a small amount of multi-rotor stuff. There were a couple of booths selling chinese import stuff and ReadyMadeRC was there with a booth but for the most part that was it! I was there as a guest of FlyingGiants.com (thanks SleepyC and Jim T.!) to deliver the XY8 I built for them to do event coverage with this year so I was able to hang out in their booth and answer questions about the heli. At the booth I spent some time talking to Jim T. Graham who runs RCGroups, he's a good guy with the job of maintaining sanity at the various sites they operate. I was honest and said sometimes the insanity is a turn off but the people behind the sites (Jim T., Sleepy C, Sleepy's wife Amy who does admin stuff, etc.) were all a cool bunch to spend time with. Frankly it was a little weird being a "forums guy" myself and hanging with the inner circle of RCGroups/FlyingGiants admin but that went away when we all settled in and just enjoyed the heavy RC thing going on around us. It really was a great time.
While there I met up with;
Max, from FPVmodel.com and the designer of the YUN-1 brushless gimbal. He's based in China and we had a very nice conversation about our little corner of the hobby and what's out there to look forward to.
I forget his name (he was very nice) but I also met the guy that runs FliteTest.com, they've got an interesting site, worth a look if you've never been there.
Tiger Motor had a booth! They had their motors there on display but they spoke so little english it was difficult to really have a conversation.
Manuel Santos, XFC competitor and Pro Photographer from Mexico City, Mexico was there and we spent a good amount of time discussing the challenges of flying a pro-level video camera in the high altitude (8000 ft) and hot climate of Mexico City. He's determined to do it so it will be interesting to see what the performance numbers look like when it's done.
Since I was there as a guest of FlyingGiants.com I was able to spend some time with the lead developer of the Real Flight simulator software, Ryan Douglas. He's a good guy with a pretty cool job so hanging out with him was a good time. My idea for him..............wait for it............. was to have an adapter that could be plugged into the computer so you can fly the sim using your FPV goggles! Huh???!!! Good idea?? no? It sounds easy enough but the image being sent to the goggles would have to be quality and field limited to reflect the view you get with an FPV camera. He nodded his head a little and looked at me like maybe, maybe not so we'll see. I thought it was a great idea! C'mon!
Hitec had the whole company there it seemed and I learned a few things from them. They're considering a servo with internal sensing different from a potentiometer and it would be programmable to much higher throws than what we have now with standard servos. If it's got torque and speed it would be a nice trick to not have to wire an external potentiometer while still getting lots of throw and precise sensing for a camera mount. Also, they've got a receiver that can take up to 8S directly from the battery. If your ESC's dont have BEC's and you're running larger packs, this is a neat feature as it eliminates the need for a separate voltage regulator for the receiver. Voltage regulators can be RF noisy. There's also a new Hitec Aurora coming out, the 9X and I just about begged for a sample for our product review area so we'll see if it happens.
Futaba and JR were also there but I didn't get a chance to stop in to see their lines. Airtronics is working hard to get back into the game and their radios seemed pretty nice and full of features while also being affordable.
Last but not least, I finally gave in to temptation and bought a Blade mQX. I know, I know......you're saying what the hell?? Go ahead and laugh but I saw them flying at the ETOC pre-show and I caved Sunday morning (I was really exhausted after a long week) while strolling past a booth with them on sale ($110). Since I've got it and it's in the box I might as well do a product review so look for that in a week or so.
Last last but not least, the flying at the ETOC was just too amazing for words. It's an indoor pattern event using really highly developed foamies. They fly super slow and with precision that would be difficult to believe if you weren't there to see it. RJ Gritter won the event, here's his freestyle video just for kicks.
Thanks for reading. Now for the NAB coverage............who's there other than Hoverflight and FreeFly?
Got back late last night from Toledo, Ohio where the Weak Signals RC Club was holding their annual vendor show and hosting the ETOC (Electric Tournament of Champions) event.
If you're into more than one facet of RC and you've never attended a show like this I'd say you owe it to yourself to attend at least once in your lifetime. It was overwhelming to see so much RC stuff in one place and the models on display for judging/awards were just amazing.
As big as the show was though there was only a small amount of multi-rotor stuff. There were a couple of booths selling chinese import stuff and ReadyMadeRC was there with a booth but for the most part that was it! I was there as a guest of FlyingGiants.com (thanks SleepyC and Jim T.!) to deliver the XY8 I built for them to do event coverage with this year so I was able to hang out in their booth and answer questions about the heli. At the booth I spent some time talking to Jim T. Graham who runs RCGroups, he's a good guy with the job of maintaining sanity at the various sites they operate. I was honest and said sometimes the insanity is a turn off but the people behind the sites (Jim T., Sleepy C, Sleepy's wife Amy who does admin stuff, etc.) were all a cool bunch to spend time with. Frankly it was a little weird being a "forums guy" myself and hanging with the inner circle of RCGroups/FlyingGiants admin but that went away when we all settled in and just enjoyed the heavy RC thing going on around us. It really was a great time.
While there I met up with;
Max, from FPVmodel.com and the designer of the YUN-1 brushless gimbal. He's based in China and we had a very nice conversation about our little corner of the hobby and what's out there to look forward to.
I forget his name (he was very nice) but I also met the guy that runs FliteTest.com, they've got an interesting site, worth a look if you've never been there.
Tiger Motor had a booth! They had their motors there on display but they spoke so little english it was difficult to really have a conversation.
Manuel Santos, XFC competitor and Pro Photographer from Mexico City, Mexico was there and we spent a good amount of time discussing the challenges of flying a pro-level video camera in the high altitude (8000 ft) and hot climate of Mexico City. He's determined to do it so it will be interesting to see what the performance numbers look like when it's done.
Since I was there as a guest of FlyingGiants.com I was able to spend some time with the lead developer of the Real Flight simulator software, Ryan Douglas. He's a good guy with a pretty cool job so hanging out with him was a good time. My idea for him..............wait for it............. was to have an adapter that could be plugged into the computer so you can fly the sim using your FPV goggles! Huh???!!! Good idea?? no? It sounds easy enough but the image being sent to the goggles would have to be quality and field limited to reflect the view you get with an FPV camera. He nodded his head a little and looked at me like maybe, maybe not so we'll see. I thought it was a great idea! C'mon!
Hitec had the whole company there it seemed and I learned a few things from them. They're considering a servo with internal sensing different from a potentiometer and it would be programmable to much higher throws than what we have now with standard servos. If it's got torque and speed it would be a nice trick to not have to wire an external potentiometer while still getting lots of throw and precise sensing for a camera mount. Also, they've got a receiver that can take up to 8S directly from the battery. If your ESC's dont have BEC's and you're running larger packs, this is a neat feature as it eliminates the need for a separate voltage regulator for the receiver. Voltage regulators can be RF noisy. There's also a new Hitec Aurora coming out, the 9X and I just about begged for a sample for our product review area so we'll see if it happens.
Futaba and JR were also there but I didn't get a chance to stop in to see their lines. Airtronics is working hard to get back into the game and their radios seemed pretty nice and full of features while also being affordable.
Last but not least, I finally gave in to temptation and bought a Blade mQX. I know, I know......you're saying what the hell?? Go ahead and laugh but I saw them flying at the ETOC pre-show and I caved Sunday morning (I was really exhausted after a long week) while strolling past a booth with them on sale ($110). Since I've got it and it's in the box I might as well do a product review so look for that in a week or so.
Last last but not least, the flying at the ETOC was just too amazing for words. It's an indoor pattern event using really highly developed foamies. They fly super slow and with precision that would be difficult to believe if you weren't there to see it. RJ Gritter won the event, here's his freestyle video just for kicks.
Thanks for reading. Now for the NAB coverage............who's there other than Hoverflight and FreeFly?
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