home made fishing gear

A spin off from make your own planer board plans. I put my progress on home made folding planer boards and my planer board reel. I made a fishing line stripper and posted a video of it on youtube. Check it out.
home made fishing gear

free online targets

I recently finished several official size targets that you can download and print. For the most part these are official NRA sized targets drawn from the NRA handbooks. These are primarily geared towards practice and postal matches.

Official postal matches are sanctioned by the NRA, these targets are for "un-official" matches held online or via email.

Follow me to the targets----->

restored lithium-polymer battery

Caution, do not try this at home. This is against every precaution on the warning label of the battery.

This spring I found that my newest Electrifly 3s lithium-polymer would not charge. I checked with a voltmeter and found that the battery had just dropped below the voltage where my hobbico mkII would charge it.

Undeterred by the warning label, I decided to trick the charger. I assumed (apparently correctly) that the lithium-polymer mode is the only one (of three) that checks voltage. I set the battery to charge on NiMH mode and watched the voltage. I let the charger bring the battery up the less than half a volt to the proper zone, and switched over to lithium-polymer mode. I watched the balance of the cycle with no problems, and have been flying all summer on this battery.

ever have one of those days?

power supply mod

I built my power supply for working on electronics and charging batteries. I started at the murray state website. I used a 200 watt dell power supply that I had from a dead pc. Radio Shack has the 10ohm 10watt wire wound resistor that you will need to create resistance to keep the power supply running. While there pick up some binding posts. I primed and painted one set of binding posts yellow and blue for the 12v and 3.3v leads (to match the internal leads of the power supply). I had a switch in stock for this project, but would probably buy this switch for the next one. Where connections need protection this heat shrink tubing works well and helps if you want to color code. By adding an auto style 12v receptacle I can plug in all of my car chargers for phones, PSP etc. I bought a few sets of banana plugs at Radio Shack. I soldered some leads with alligator clips for easy temporary connections like running in a brushed motor. Leads with banana clips on both ends jumper to my Hobbico Quick Field Charger MKII. For $60 I can charge NiCD, NiMH and LiPo batteries.

planer board plans

Fishing is a good distraction from work. It's as hard as you want to make it. I enjoy trolling the coastline of Lake Michigan in the spring when the sun is out, the water is blue and the salmon are close to shore. I made some planer boards and have posted the plans at http://planerboard.blogspot.com
Trust me, these are not difficult to make.

how super glue works

Super glue is an acrylic resin monomer called cyanoacrylate. It polymerises with water.

Let's break it down. Ever have it where you put super glue on two plastic parts and it takes forever for the glue to harden. The glue needs water to harden. Your fingers are an excellent source of water, so just put some glue on your fingers and squeeze them together. Already did that huh? Acetone (the primary ingredient in nail polish remover) softens hardened glue. Try spraying some water on one piece of plastic and put the glue on the other then make sure they are lined up when you touch them together cause the will set up right now! You also can glue and hold the pieces then spray with water. link to anionic polymerization

Looks like our old buddy cyanoacrylate is a major component of Liquid Band Aid. It works great!