Help me Tom Cruse, I'm on FIRE!

I somehow managed to smoke 2 of the ESC's on the Hexacopter.  I got curious about what happened and opened one up:

 There's your problem.  One of the chips reflowed the solder on it's pins, and another got so hot that it actually blew away some of the case.  Luckily this didn't happen in flight, but when I was switching batteries.

The other thing I noticed is that these boards are DIRTY! Solder flux all over the place.

I'm ordering 6 new ESC's to replace the one's on the Hexa.  I don't trust the remaining 4.  The other change to the Hexa is to heatsink the ESC to the aluminum arms.  This should help prevent another overheat.  

Build: Hexacopter for a friend

A friend of mine expressed interest in having a multicopter build with GPS and autopilot ability.  I've built a quadcopter for myself using the ardupilot APM 1 board from 3DRobotics (which I've added LED's underneath for some night flight and for easier orientation in flight.)

I've had a lot of successful flights with the board, and it's survived a few crashes, including one where it got completely submerged in a pond.

DIYDrones, where I got the APM1 board from, now sells the APM 2.5 board.  This board is sweet.  It comes with a voltage/amperage monitor that also powers the board, meaning you no longer need to rely on the BEC from the ESC, and diminishing the chance of having a brownout while in flight.  

Test flights soon to come.

Overheating fish tank

My parents decided to hold a garage sale about a week ago.  While searching for stuff I wanted to keep, I came across a 5-gal aquarium.  Over the weekend, I setup the tank, got a couple of guppies, and now enjoy a bubbling fish oasis in my living room.

For the most part, everything worked out great, except for one small problem.  The tank lid has an incandescence lamp for providing light, but it also heats the water.  Because it's such a small tank, the temperature continually rises, making it so I can only have the lamp on for about 2-3 hours before the water gets above 85F.  After searching the local pet stores for an LED aquarium lamp and failing to find one, I decided to improvise a little.

Left: new LED bulb, Right: old lamp bulb

Searching Home Depot, I happen to come across a Philips 3 watt LED bulb for about $15.  LED bulbs are still pretty expensive, but I took a chance on it, thinking if it didn't work, I'd find a different use for it.

One little, two little, three little fishies...

So far, so good.  The LED bulb is just a bright, and seems to make the water a little less yellowish. Current temperature is hanging around 78F.  I'm going to leave it on overnight and see if there is any temperature fluctuation.  While this wasn't a huge project, it reminded me that even if the specialty stores don't have what you're looking for, you can always find something that will work somewhere else.

Lets Begin...

Lets start this thing out right.  My name is Colt.  I have many interest and hobbies.  Some of these include electronics  games, 3d printing, legos, remote control models, and many other various and probably weird things.  I've decided to create this blog to record my progress on any of the projects that I've been working on.  Mainly to force myself to actually follow through and finish them, but to also show them off.  I will update this site at LEAST once a week, if not more often.

So, lets begin...