Jay Lagare

Fixing A Broken VTX

By Jay Lagare on Monday, April 10, 2017

I burnt out my VTX03 during a crash so I got and installed a VTX01 on my Tiny Whoop. But this afternoon, I was inspecting it when I noticed a burnt component. At first, I thought it was a capacitor. First step is to find out the part number. But the component was burnt beyond recognition. So I searched for photos that show the part and found this:
After some more digging, I found out that the burnt component is actually a resistor, a zero-ohm link. Link, that’s like connect, bridge. So I just simply bridged the terminals of the burnt resistor with a bit of solder.
And just like that the VTX03 lit up back to life!

General

Skylanders Portal USB Power Mod

By Jay Lagare on Monday, April 10, 2017

Jeanne has Skylanders Trap Team for the iPad. It’s a fun game. Precisely why it is always running out of batteries. Even Eneloops don’t last long enough. Fresh AA batteries have a voltage of about 1.7V. Three in series gives about 5.1V. That’s almost about what a USB port is giving. So I figured, why not mod the portal to get its power from a USB port?

General

Low-Profile Tiny Whoop Build

By Jay Lagare on Wednesday, April 5, 2017

I wanted to keep the canopy for my first Tiny Whoop build but the VTX03 was a bit too big so I had to settle for a more technical look. And then I burnt the VTX out in a crash. So I got a VTX01 and did a rebuild.

General

CX-10 Microsoldering Job

By Jay Lagare on Monday, April 3, 2017

I crashed my “racing” CX-10 and when I picked it up, it was dead. No spinning props, no lights, nothing. I checked the power from the battery to the board with a multitester and it’s fine. With a heavy heart, I decided to disassemble it for parts. I removed the props and was about to unsolder the motors and the battery when I noticed that the board seems to be missing a small part (see pic, not mine). I went back to the crash site (aka kitchen floor) and sure enough there was a tiny component lying there. It’s surface-mounted but since I didn’t have a heat gun or soldering paste or even flux, I had to make do with my soldering iron and soldering wire. I put tiny amounts of solder onto the tip and gradually pre-tinned the pads and the feet. Then I positioned the component using tweezers and pressed the tip in to melt the solder. It was the tiniest soldering I’ve ever tried and it wasn’t pretty. But once I was finally done, my CX-10 was alive once more!

UPDATE 4/4/2017: And it broke again. This time pulling a pad off. It’s the end for this board :(

General

Tiny Whoop Build

By Jay Lagare on Friday, March 24, 2017

The Tiny Whoop is essentially a Blade Inductrix with the canopy removed and a tiny camera mounted on top. Thus, it’s a natural evolution for the Furibee F36 and other Blade Inductrix clones. But I don’t like the top-mounted camera, so I decided on a low-profile underslung camera build.