What made you happy today?

[C8RKH]

Haven't had a drink since New Years Day @pete.  How about you?

 

[pete]

5 hours ago, C8RKH said:

 

Can't remember

[Gjk]

Finally removing the veneered dash masks in order to re-veneer.

[bogle]

My old 91 SE was not very pretty.  My brother's 90 SE is just awful.  But the cost re-veneer is ridiculous in the states. 

[Escape]

I just scraped off the broken veneer and then painted the wood black (or rather had my father paint it, I'm better with a spanner than a brush). I think it looks good, I'm not a big fan of wood in sporty car and the wood does have a nice grain so it doesn't look like plastic.

[ramjet]

I must admit that I was in two minds about the wood look when I first saw the SE.

[bogle]

4 hours ago, ramjet said:

I must admit that I was in two minds about the wood look when I first saw the SE.

The wood grain veneer was the only part of the 91 SE my wife liked.  Me, not so much.  Filip can you send a picture of your stripped down and sanded veneer?  Also, it would be nice to see the brushed results.  I would like to send it my brother.  He wanted the carbon fiber look, but I think your solution is best all around.

[Escape]

The dash is still at my father's, but he's send me some pictures. A bit hard to capture the details on the black surface. But if you look up close in reality, you can still see the grain and texture of the wood. Which I like a lot.

[Kimbers]

3 1/2 days into being back at work and off for a working holiday again!

this time staying in Esher in Surrey at our fave Boutique hotel and Selling artwork at Sandown!

[pete]

Best to buy shares in that hotel then

[ramjet]

When Halley's Comet passed the earth way back when, my mum had me purchase a set of the Tasco binoculars that they released for the comet passing.

I eventually got them from my brother after they had lived a great many years in Darwin. Took them a part and cleaned everything and carefully greased everything and reassembled them.
When I was finished, the binocluar views were very much not in line with each other. I went looking up the info for collimating binoculars.

Found the info, but never got around to it. The biyearly airshow was on this weekend and Liz was not able to see the planes very well. I dragged the binoculars out of the cupboard, went and found the info again and get set up to do the collimation.

Long story short, I found one prism which was not sitting correctly from after I had cleaned them. Removed the spring retainer, reseated the prism, refitted the spring.

Binoculars all good now. 

Oh and I have been mucking around with the batteries from the Phantom and finally getting changes in the LEDs so maybe I am getting somewhere with them. Here's hoping.

[ramjet]

Well it looks like dogged persistence may have paid off. 
I might reward myself with some naked campfire dancing. Or not.🔥

[bogle]

What are the circuit boards for?

Edited March 6 by bogle

[exeterjeep]

Related to the drone that he is repairing?  

[ramjet]

The circuit boards are on top of the smart batteries for the drone. It looked like they were both dead. Via the board circuitry, they wouldn’t charge. I bypassed all the electrical trickery and charged the cells directly. Reconnected the boards and bingo, two working batteries. 

[Bibs]

Braver than me, LiPo batteries terrify me! 

[ramjet]

Well, I don't think it worked. Just to check the drone, I connected the charger to the drone and the drone went through all its beeps etc so the drone works. Even though the batteries show 4 green LEDs when they are turned on, they do not show any voltage across the contacts that would connect to the motors. When I attach the charger to a battery, the following occurs: LED 1 and the power LED light, then LEDs 2,3,4 light consecutively, then LED4 goes out and then the power LED goes out. Then the pattern repeats. I have also tried turning the batteries on so that they might discharge and then I could try charging them again, but after a period, the batteries turn themselves off.

At the moment, I have the camera and its gimbal in bits as the putz damaged that as well when he crashed it. It looks like there may be a piece of magnet broken off in one of the gimbal motors as it grabs in different places all the time. I have to work out a way to pull the motor off the shaft. Going to be making a very small puller.

I have also found some cracks in the lower half of the body under two of the motors. I really want to get this going, but I am not sure if it is going to be more trouble than it is worth. A new battery at least. And I doubt it is possible to buy parts for the camera. I can only presume that you would have to buy the whole camera and gimbal unit.

I'm still happy though.  

[Bibs]

I'm sure it would fly if you stood far enough away from the bin! 

Cracked body is dangerous. It if fails mid-air, you could hurt someone so I'd file that in the round filing cabinet and go buy a DJI Mini, either original, 2 or 3 and have some fun with that instead.

[ramjet]

I made a thing. It's a three leg puller for a gimbal motor.

[Escape]

I'm guessing that's in millimeter and not inch?

[ramjet]

Yep. That's millimetres.

[ramjet]

Camera gimbal is all back together after I straightened the middle piece of the gimbal as it was quite bent from the drones previous meeting with the brick wall. Fiddly bloody thing.

I know the drone fires up as it should, so I might invest in a battery and see what happens.  

[ramjet]

Conclusion made today. Batteries are toast. 

[johnpwalsh]

5 hours ago, ramjet said:

Conclusion made today. Batteries are toast. 

Ah well, you tried.

[ramjet]

It's actually not the cells as bypassing the board with all the electrical smarts on it fires the drone up so the cells are fine. The issue appears to be with the PCB on both batteries and they are both just dead. Chances of a duplicate issue on two separate batteries?