Painting a foam rc plane

Kashkai

While I've been flying, modifying (and repairing:o) rc planes for 2 years now, I've never had a go at painting one. I have a couple of planes that could do with some freshening up so I bought a tin of acrylic spray paint yesterday planning on doing a simple paint job. However I've read online that some people clean their planes down with menthelayted spirit first while others lightly sand theirs prior to painting. Has anyone got any tips?

Bruthal

You can probably just paint straight on if they were already painted anyway. I painted the canopy of the cularis black, just using a standard tin of black paint.

On another note, i made up a microcontroller ciruit to bring on lights on a plane, and flash some of them, we can change the program for the LEDs to flash whatever way we like. It can be plugged into the receiver to allow switching them on and off through a spare channel.

One of these days i will get around to trying them on a radian. Could probably do a night FPV then. Lights handy for landing.

Kashkai

Where did you get the lights Robbie as its something I've been thinking about too. On these grey overcast and still fairly dark mornings, some lights would help with orientation.

Bruthal

I have not actually put them on a plane yet, but i was given a set of led`s like the ones hobbyking sell, here, to test out the circuit.

I think they sell a receiver operated switch, but i made one because it means i can program the chip with the pc, to some of the lights to flash on and off, which would be good on the tail maybe. I just made it on the prototype board for now, but will etch out a small pcb properly.

It certainly would be good for landing in the dull light situations like you said. Often the wings just dissapear when the plane is head on coming in, and the wings are edge on.

Kashkai

Agree with you there as my Hobbyking Kinetic glider (a very fast 800mm wingspan bird) can almost disappear when coming head on, or going away for that matter. I was toying with the idea of putting a light on each wingtip and a strobe on the tail and hooking them up to the rx.

Bruthal

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I was toying with the idea of putting a light on each wingtip and a strobe on the tail and hooking them up to the rx.

Yes thats where these micro controller chips come in. They can be programmed on the pc, so after the circuit is setup, for instance, flick a switch on the radio, and all the led strips come on, and one or 2 sets can be flashing, as fast or slow as was programmed into the chip.

I had 2 chips on the prototype board, one to sense the receiver pulses to switch on when the gear switch was switched, and this then switched the second chip controlling the led`s. 2 chips and a transistor for each led set, and thats it.

I think hobbyking probably has receiver operated switches, and flashing leds anyway, so it can be done that way.

A night time FPV flight is the main aim at some stage, and landing lights would be needed for that.

The eagle tree has an artificial horizon for their system now, which would be needed for that, or going into clouds which we did already. Its disorientating with no horizon, expecially if we put the power on to climb.

Bruthal

I rewrote the entire program for one of these micro controller chips. I made a small clip of it bringing on 2 sets of leds. I might put it up later, one set comes on constant and the other flashing, when you switch the channel its connected to, on the radio.

Would look good on a plane id say.