Model aircraft nitro engine, computer-controlled

My brother's new engine being controlled from a laptop. He made a little makeshift frame for the engine, the starter's battery and the microcontroller. There is a program he made in VB6 on the laptop, which sends commands to the microcontroller via a serial cable, which controls a Futaba servo, which moves the throttle on the engine via a paperclip, which spins the propellor and spinner up to 17,000 RPM.

He intends to buy a plane chassis and RF transmitter/receiver to make a full remote-control plane in the near future - as soon as he has the money.

I apologize for the low video quality - I was recording with my PSP, and had to reduce the video quality because the memory stick was almost full. The video still ended due to it running out of space, though.

The engine is a Thunder Tiger GP42.
The microcontroller is an SSC-32 made by LynxMotion (yep, we use these in so many things).

We're just messing around here. =D

...And to anyone who's seen our "singing motor" videos - well, I'd love to do it, but he won't let me. -_-

Oh, and my brother goes by the name of "steeeven1" here at YouTube.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• model
• nitro
• engine
• aircraft
• airplane
• aeroplane
• Thunder
• Tiger
• GP42
• microcontroller
• SSC-32
• laptop
• computer-controlled
• VB6
• program
• Ripmax
• Trainer
• 40

[ripfree]

What's the hardware interface you used between the servo and the laptop?

[SomethingUnreal]

It's called an SSC-32 (SSC = serial servo controller).

[MrSquishedsquashed]

@SomethingUnreal Did you use a cable or a transmitter?

[SomethingUnreal]

@MrSquishedsquashed: Thinking back to 3 years ago, it must've been a cable. The SSC-32 receives serial data from the laptop, and we didn't have anything to transmit serial data wirelessly to it.

[MrSquishedsquashed]

Thanks im trying to build something I can fly from my laptop but finding parts is really tricky

[LMF5000]

@LMF5000 (continued) have you heard of something called a "servo tester"? It's a little unit costing about £5 (or less on eBay) which takes the place of a receiver for this kind of static testing. You plug in the servo and a power source, ideally a receiver pack or a 5V battery, and you can then control the servo output by turning a knob on the servo tester. Works great for ESC's too. So it's similar to what you've achieved here, just nowhere near as cool or flexible :)

[LMF5000]

You should try creating a quadcopter - I think the challenge would be fitting of the combined skills of you and your brother, especially with the programming involved.

Two more small comments - You've probably already learnt this since making the video, but I will tell you anyway - Keep away from the sides of a spinning prop. If a blade breaks off, that's the direction in which the blade will fly . So stay either in front of it, or behind it for safety, but never to the side. And 2 (continued)

[steeeven1]

yeah that would have been really cool, unfortunately i didn't think of that at the time of breaking it in. it would make a good commercial product actually :D

[acalthu]

VB6 is fine. Why make things more complicated than needed? Can you sequence the servo actions to go through the entire break in procedure automatically? You could have a commercial product in this. Let the computer do the breaking in.

[MarcusTheReverent]

fucking sweet

do you know any programs that can turn your laptop into a wireless remote control?