=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 369 ===
Title: LDO 369 - With Special Guest MenaceRC
Recorded: 2022-09-22
Hosts: Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Stephen "Belrik" Howell, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Andrew "Frank" Hyams
Guest(s): Greg "Menace" Spencer
Total audience: 1,857
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QStwfGRUfWA); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1350572950-letsdroneout-ldo-369-with-special-guest-menacerc.mp3)
=====================================

Check out MenaceRC online:
https://menacerc.co.uk
https://www.instagram.com/menaceradiocontrol
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/422909497/soldergo-the-smart-ergonomic-soldering-iron
https://www.instagram.com/soldergo_

#letsdroneout #LDO #podcast #MenaceRC #SolderGo #drone #mulitrotor #quadcopter #fatshark #impulseRC #ethix #brightontillifly #TeamBlackSheep #FPVUK #BLHeli #lipo #KISSULTRA #KissESC #esc #FlyDuino #JoshuaBardwell #Skitzo #Alien5 #MrSteele #FPVRacing #MiniAirShow #LondonFPV #UKFPV #betaflight #fpvdrones #FPVRacing #MiniQuad #podcast #fpvwing
let's drone out #BrightontillIfly #Fpv, #Drone, #Drone racing  #Quadcopter, #Gopro, #Drone,, #KissFc, #KissEsc's #FPVwing #LondonFPV, Uk, #Easa #betaflight #brightontillifly  #FPV #FPVdrones #letsdroneout #interview, #Jack. Brighton fpv, #Naze32, #Help, #Fix #Bug #blhelli, #flyduno #Let'sdroneout, Alien 5, FPV, Drone, #MiniQuads #Turnigy #MiniQuad #Racing #FPVRacing #FPV #FPVBrighton #FPVUK #lipo#rottingdean #MiniAirshow, #FPV Crash

[0.0] Jack: Hello! And you're listening to Let's Drone Out, a special thank you to our lovely patrons that helped donate so that we could pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things we say. Massive thank you to...
[14.0] Jack: Carlos Campos!
[16.0] Jack: Art Faulkner!
[18.0] Frank: Sam Dahmer!
[20.0] Curry: On with the show!
[22.0] Curry: Let's Drone Out now!
[52.67] Stephen: And welcome to Let's Drone Out.
[54.67] Stephen: With you this evening is everyone's favourite Curry Kitten.
[58.67] Stephen: Hello!
[59.67] Stephen: You have a present, Jack.
[61.67] Stephen: Hello!
[62.67] Stephen: And our guest this evening, Greg of Menace RC. Hello Greg.
[67.67] Stephen: Hello everyone!
[69.67] Stephen: Nice of you to join us.
[71.67] Stephen: And we understand you've got a few exciting developments that you'd like to update everyone with because it's been a while since we talked to you, hasn't it?
[79.67] Greg: Oh, it's been a long while, yes.
[81.67] Greg: I've kind of been hiding in France and back in the UK and, yeah, been busy beavering away.
[90.67] Greg: So yeah, we've got a few things to talk about and go over this evening.
[94.67] Greg: Excellent.
[95.67] Jack: I've got a question here from someone called Painless360. He goes, Greg, why isn't your shop open?
[102.67] Greg: Who? Sorry, never heard of it.
[104.67] Jack: Painless360.
[106.67] Stephen: I see the guy that does the FrSky tuning tips.
[109.67] Jack: Yeah.
[110.67] Jack: I want to buy batteries while I was in your shop open.
[114.67] Greg: He wants to buy batteries, oh my word.
[117.67] Greg: Should we talk about that first?
[119.67] Greg: Yeah.
[120.67] Greg: Yes, because he might be watching.
[122.67] Greg: Let's talk about some batteries.
[124.67] Greg: Right, so, well, we know there's kind of a looming recession.
[135.67] Greg: And I think the last time there was a session was probably what, 2007, something like that.
[141.67] Greg: So, I mean, I've been running menace now for, it must be seven years, seven years plus, something like that.
[152.67] Greg: But what I'm trying to do now is trying to sort of future-proof things so we can run a lot longer.
[160.67] Greg: I enjoy doing the job menace and I love it.
[163.67] Greg: But what I'm trying to do is diversify a little into a few other product areas to try and sort of future-proof the company going forward.
[175.67] Greg: And so this last year has been about sort of development and experimentation and sort of trying new ideas and exploring new avenues.
[188.67] Greg: One of the avenues, which I think Lee Painless 360 is very keen on, is batteries.
[196.67] Greg: And that's mainly LiPo batteries or lithium-ion cells.
[201.67] Greg: And what I originally started to look at, maybe manufacturing our own OEM branding batteries.
[214.67] Greg: But I think it's quite an involvement in that.
[219.67] Greg: So then I started speaking to other manufacturers of batteries.
[223.67] Greg: And this year I decided to work with Tatu, the battery manufacturer, Gen Z's Tatu that we know.
[234.67] Greg: And we've done an experimentation at Wings and Wheels where we thought, right, what we do?
[242.67] Greg: We create a live physical shop and we're bringing through a range of batteries.
[251.67] Greg: I mean, we tried to get pretty much one, at least, well, half a dozen of everything and just experiment and see.
[259.67] Greg: And so we set up a stand at Wings and Wheels and we had the range of Tatu, which covered their sort of fun fly, soaring, our lines, their general Tatu, Gen Z's batteries and so on, ranging from one cell all the way up to six cell.
[275.67] Greg: And, yeah, we had a very successful show. A lot of people were interested in the batteries.
[282.67] Greg: So, yeah, so we've done Wings and Wheels and we're in the progress of putting together a website.
[288.67] Greg: It'd be an e-commerce website. And where I'm kind of going with the website is it'd be purely for the UK market, because I understand that in the UK, it's much more difficult to get hold of LiPo's and get hold of quality LiPo's and LiPo's with the support and backing of the manufacturers.
[309.67] Greg: So we're going to open up a website. It's going to be called RC Vault. It's going to be open before Christmas, hopefully in November.
[320.67] Greg: And we're going to have the range of batteries on the website. We're also going to have pretty much the range of everyone's props as well.
[329.67] Greg: So the tagline is going to be props in power. And within that as well, we're going to have a workbench where you can come and get all your tools in sundry items for your workbench, along with all the cables and interconnects and all that sort of good stuff.
[346.67] Stephen: So, yeah, that's RC Vault. Excellent. And is that going to be linked just to Gen Z's or are you doing a variety of manufacturers?
[357.67] Greg: I think we will explore into other manufacturers, but we're starting primarily with the Gen Z's brand.
[364.67] Greg: There was a few things that I would really like about Gen Z's in the tattoo brands. And one of it was that they actually warehouse in Europe, which is good. So there's local support for the UK market.
[380.67] Greg: And the second thing is that they're offering much longer terms now on the warranties of their batteries. So I don't know if people are really aware of that or not.
[390.67] Greg: But that was something that I thought, you know, if we've got local support and we've got a good warranty system on the batteries, it gives me the confidence to bring this line of batteries in.
[405.67] Greg: And then what we can do in the future is look at other manufacturers and what they're offering and what they offer in the way of support and aftermarket and things like that and go from there, really.
[417.67] Curry: Is it painful to send batteries through the post in the UK? Whenever I look at like what's allowed in Royal Mail, they said not batteries, not unless it's inside some equipment that it came with or something like that.
[427.67] Curry: Do you have to have special shipping provisions and things?
[430.67] Greg: Yeah, unfortunately, Royal Mail is a no for lipos. And I know people do send them in the post. But yeah, you have to use a courier and you have to label the packages in a certain way.
[442.67] Greg: And the packages have to be packed in a certain way as well. And you have to have you marking on the side to say what exactly what's inside the package.
[452.67] Greg: You know, lithium, lithium polymer, there's, you know, there's different codes for different batteries and also contact details clearly on that warning label as well.
[462.67] Greg: So if there is any problems, they get hold of us pretty much straight away. But yeah, you have to use couriers, you know, like DPD, UPS, people like that, which means if you're going to go and buy just one lipo, you know, you're going to be paying a courier fee.
[479.67] Greg: So it's worth, you know, if you're going to buy by two or three at a time, and you can, you know, keep your shipping, you know, your local shipping costs down.
[489.67] Curry: So yeah, Royal Mail. No, I do like the idea of a contact details sort of if this package on fire, please contact Greg, he will direct you to how to put it out.
[501.67] Greg: I'll come running with a fire extinguisher or a bucket of water.
[504.67] Jack: You don't really put it out, you kind of just stop other stuff from being on fire.
[509.67] Jack: Throw it out the window.
[511.67] Greg: Yeah, it's it. It's all about just following the the regulations for shipping.
[518.67] Greg: It's a different game. And I mean, well, with RC Vault, we were thinking, you know, it's just just for UK.
[526.67] Greg: It's that's all where we want to operate with it, because it seems you start shipping lipos across borders and things like that.
[534.67] Greg: There's a whole new set of rules come into play and regulations.
[538.67] Greg: So, you know, very complicated. And I believe that right now there's a you know, there's a good opportunity for us to have batteries in the UK and in the UK business.
[553.67] Stephen: So, yeah, some people picked up on you being in France.
[558.67] Stephen: Are you back here permanently or? Yeah, 100 percent back here now.
[563.67] Greg: Yeah, we're living. I'm living in Wiltshire.
[567.67] Greg: Anyone knows where that is. It's near Stonehenge.
[571.67] Greg: Yeah. So back in Wiltshire, back in the UK, I've still got my place in France and I'll be popping out there from time to time.
[580.67] Jack: But, yeah, UK residents, 100 percent. Have you have you still got the Land Rover? How far is that going?
[592.67] Greg: I've still got a. Yeah, I've still got it. Yes.
[598.67] Greg: And how far is it going? I've driven it around the block.
[605.67] Greg: Yeah. So it's moving. It pulls.
[609.67] Greg: Yeah. Yeah. The engine's running. It's moving.
[613.67] Greg: Series two, isn't it? It's a 1965 Series 2A.
[617.67] Greg: Yeah. And I bought it without even looking at it, just had it delivered on the back of a trailer and it just wouldn't work.
[623.67] Greg: So, yeah, I just tinker with it from time to time.
[627.67] Greg: And yeah, it moves. Doesn't stop very well, but it moves.
[633.67] Jack: I'm nervous. Like, are you going to do the whole thing with or did Hobbie, Hobbie King used to send LIFO batteries via parcel force, but list them as lithium ion.
[650.67] Jack: Is that right? Yeah.
[653.67] Stephen: Hobbie King are not a recommendation for what anyone else should do.
[658.67] Stephen: They're not in business currently anymore over here.
[662.67] Curry: Are you saying you shouldn't store all your LIPOs in a massive bin and let us mess around with them randomly?
[671.05] Curry: Are we allowed to talk about that yet, Jack? I've still got footage of it.
[676.05] Jack: Yeah, I think so. Good.
[679.05] Curry: Coming soon, the video of the mysterious LIPO bin at Hobbie King, which we may have messed around with a bit shortly before we stole their Land Rover.
[688.05] Curry: No, it wasn't Land Rover. It's something else, wasn't it?
[690.05] Jack: Yeah, it was Land Rover. Was it? Or Range Rover. It's one of those two.
[695.05] Jack: They had a storage container full of LIPOs, you know, the reject ones that didn't work or being sent back or was low voltage.
[707.05] Jack: All right, have a look at this and it's just like this. You open this storage container, it's full of like swollen batteries of doom.
[716.05] Curry: I'll throw a match in, see what happens.
[719.05] Stephen: Oh my God. If that had went up.
[721.05] Stephen: If that had been refined before one of them goes and you get a cascade, surely.
[725.05] Greg: Yeah. Oh my God. It was pretty impressive. Was it just a plastic wheelie bin or something?
[731.05] Jack: No, it was a metal. Have you got the footage, Currie, to hand?
[736.05] Jack: Can you say the storage container and someone the size of Hobbie King?
[739.05] Stephen: I'm thinking like a shipping container and you open the door and it's just that fluid.
[743.05] Jack: It was kind of like that, but it was not deep. It was quiet.
[748.05] Jack: Oh my word.
[750.05] Jack: Yeah.
[752.05] Jack: If Currie can find it.
[754.05] Curry: I have to try and figure out what year it was from first before I start the mail room.
[757.05] Stephen: The fun you could have with a mailman in a situation like that.
[760.05] Stephen: Just pop a couple of nails in there and go running, hide behind a wall.
[764.05] Jack: Yeah. I miss that event now.
[767.05] Curry: There were boxes of like brand new stuff there, which we just assumed had gone sort of out of date.
[772.05] Curry: It's like best before whatever on batteries or something.
[776.05] Curry: They just shoved our boxes in there. It was crazy.
[781.05] Jack: A lot of them were the sort of like lipos that run airsoft guns, I believe.
[789.05] Jack: Pretty weird form factors, aren't they? Long stick ones.
[793.05] Jack: Yeah.
[795.05] Jack: I don't know.
[797.05] Jack: I don't know. So Greg, you have been making a soldering iron. Why?
[805.05] Greg: Yeah.
[808.05] Greg: I wanted to make a sold iron.
[811.05] Greg: There's sold nines out there.
[814.05] Greg: There's lots of sold nines out there, but I just thought, well, I can have a go at this and I can have a go at making a sold iron, which is hopefully better.
[823.05] Greg: Using it to solder with, et cetera.
[828.05] Greg: But on the process of development, it's been quite interesting because I was playing around with shapes of sold nines and things like that.
[838.05] Greg: I've done a bit of research, came up with a unique shape, which is very comfortable in the hand.
[843.05] Greg: If it's so comfortably, it could alleviate muscle fatigue and things like that.
[850.05] Greg: So I thought I'd have a go at putting a patent in on that as well.
[854.05] Greg: And the patent's gone in, it's accepted.
[857.05] Greg: It can take up to about five years for you to actually get your patent awarded, but it's in the process.
[865.05] Greg: So we can say patent pending as you know.
[869.05] Greg: But in doing the patent on the sold iron, also speaking to the IPO, we...
[877.05] Greg: Hi, my name's Greg, which is a...
[882.05] Greg: But also...
[885.05] Greg: I'm really excited to share with you today a product that I've been developing, which is a sold iron.
[893.05] Greg: I created this campaign on Kickstarter to help launch Solder Go.
[899.05] Greg: The iron is designed to cover all aspects of smart irons with a small case, yet having a full size soldering tip.
[907.05] Greg: The iron is portable, it's got sleep mode, wake mode, it's got rapid heat up time, can be powered from a battery,
[919.05] Greg: but also it has a very interesting but ergonomically shaped handle that fits comfortably into your hand.
[927.05] Greg: I've been into electronics from a very early age.
[930.05] Greg: I love computers and RC models and things like that.
[937.05] Greg: At school, I used to enter tech competitions, things like delivering an egg from a height safely with a machine
[946.05] Greg: or making a machine to find a candle and extinguish it.
[951.05] Greg: These were competitions that we entered in one.
[954.05] Greg: You have to remember that back then, this is the 80s, and no Arduino, no Raspberry Pi.
[960.05] Greg: From school, I went on to do an apprenticeship in electronics.
[963.05] Greg: And then after my apprenticeship, I would then work for a company designing power supplies for big OEM brands.
[971.05] Greg: 2015, I started my own company.
[975.05] Greg: It was making FPV parts for drones, and it's called Menis RC, and that's still going today.
[983.05] Greg: All the time that I've been doing these things, I use soldin irons every day.
[987.05] Greg: And the soldin irons I've got, they're okay, but I kept thinking, I can do better.
[993.05] Greg: I can make something that is going to be much better for me.
[997.05] Greg: So I set about designing my own soldin iron.
[1002.05] Greg: After some research, it became evident that a few people would suffer with muscle fatigue in their hand
[1009.05] Greg: when using a soldin iron for a long period of time.
[1012.05] Greg: So I delved deeper and researched this subject, and I was able to develop a case
[1018.05] Greg: which was much more comfortable to hold in the hand, and it alleviated this muscle fatigue.
[1026.05] Greg: So this design, the shape of the case, it was extremely unique.
[1032.05] Greg: So I then decided to apply for a patent, and also I've registered the design.
[1039.05] Greg: The ergonomic shape of the soldin iron handle was one of the main features.
[1044.05] Greg: The iron is also packed with some other features.
[1047.05] Greg: It has a 72-watt full-size soldin iron tip, which means it will heat up rapidly.
[1055.05] Greg: You can set the temperature on the iron.
[1058.05] Greg: There's a little joystick on the iron, and you can set the temperature all the way up to 450 degrees C.
[1065.05] Greg: The screen on the iron will show you the actual temperature of the tip while you're using it.
[1073.05] Greg: The iron has also got a sleep and a wake function.
[1076.05] Greg: So if you put the iron down, it recognizes that it's not being held anymore, and it will go to sleep.
[1083.05] Greg: It does this to preserve energy.
[1085.05] Greg: When you pick it up, it recognizes it, and it will heat up rapidly.
[1090.05] Greg: The iron can be used in the field by connecting to batteries, or you can use it on your bench.
[1098.05] Greg: We have an optional power supply for it.
[1101.05] Greg: When you're connecting it to a battery, the iron will recognize which battery you've connected it to,
[1107.05] Greg: the number of cells, et cetera, and it will set a few parameters in the iron.
[1113.05] Greg: When it detects that the battery's got down to 20% of its capacity, it will warn you about this, just to give you a heads up.
[1122.05] Greg: Should you take it all the way down to 5%, the iron will shut down, so it'll protect the battery.
[1128.05] Greg: On the screen in the iron, you can actually flip it.
[1132.05] Greg: So the iron is good for your left hand or your right hand.
[1137.05] Greg: One of the other great features of the iron is that it's got interchangeable tips.
[1142.05] Greg: Now, to change the tip, you do not need any tools.
[1146.05] Greg: You just simply unscrew the end thing, pop your tip out, put the new tip in, screw the end clamp back on.
[1153.05] Greg: You're done.
[1154.05] Greg: I am so proud of this sold iron, and it gives me great confidence to bring this to the world.
[1160.05] Greg: Why don't you be the first to get sold ago and back this campaign?
[1165.05] Greg: And please share it with your friends.
[1168.05] Greg: Thank you.
[1169.05] Greg: Very nice.
[1173.42] Greg: Very nice.
[1175.42] Greg: Thank you, Greg.
[1177.42] Greg: That was horrible watching that.
[1181.42] Greg: That's always tough.
[1182.42] Greg: Oh, dear.
[1183.42] Greg: But yeah, I'll tell you what.
[1186.42] Greg: Putting something on Kickstarter was immensely scary for me because you've got to jump in there with a leap of faith
[1197.42] Greg: and you've not made this product.
[1201.42] Greg: You've done all your development work.
[1203.42] Greg: You're doing the tooling production, everything like that, but you haven't gone into production yet.
[1208.42] Greg: So this is not something that I would normally do.
[1212.42] Greg: But because it was a product which is quite a lot different from the FPV products that I currently do,
[1220.42] Greg: I thought it's a good way to get something out there and get early feedback from people and hopefully early adopters and so on.
[1232.42] Greg: And the first day or so, it was quite nerve wracking.
[1236.42] Greg: But as it's gone on, I've had loads of people contact me asking questions about features and things like that.
[1243.42] Greg: And it's opened my eyes up a little bit to maybe a couple of features we haven't even put into the iron.
[1249.42] Greg: A simple one is for our American friends.
[1252.42] Greg: I've done the whole iron in centigrade and we need the option for Fahrenheit for our American friends.
[1259.42] Greg: So that's being added into the code.
[1261.42] Stephen: Do you, though? They really should learn.
[1263.42] Stephen: They're not going to learn if you don't tell them to learn.
[1267.42] Greg: Oh, yeah.
[1268.42] Greg: Oh, God.
[1270.42] Greg: Yeah, it's an eye opener doing something like this.
[1273.42] Greg: And I've learned absolutely loads from it.
[1277.42] Greg: And it's given me, yeah, much more confidence going forward with this product.
[1282.42] Greg: I've got the right product.
[1284.42] Greg: And, you know, with a few tweets, we're going to have the product that I really want and hopefully a lot of other people enjoy and use.
[1291.42] Greg: So, yeah, it's a good process.
[1296.42] Stephen: So the first thing that jumped to mind when I saw this is I'm a TS100 user.
[1301.42] Stephen: I've seen them in all their clones that come up.
[1304.42] Stephen: And there's lots of customization on that courtesy of iron OS, which works with all these.
[1310.42] Stephen: And I've got things like you can change the screen to be upside down if you're a lefty versus right handed and things like that.
[1316.42] Stephen: Are you going to allow that software to work so you just get all those features on this iron or you're going your own way and building your own features?
[1325.42] Greg: We're going our own way, building our own features.
[1330.42] Greg: I know like the drone fraternity, they are, you know, very switched on bunch of guys and they like to tinker and get in and change things and all that.
[1342.42] Greg: But what we're trying to do here with the sold nine is make a sold nine which appeals to a much wider audience, not just in the drone area.
[1353.42] Greg: So we are quite an early stage.
[1356.42] Greg: I thought, right, we'll develop our own code and we'll have it closed so that, you know, when all I want is for someone to buy it, take it out of the box, use it.
[1366.42] Greg: They don't have to do anything else.
[1368.42] Greg: That's that was the sort of theory behind that.
[1370.42] Greg: So, yeah, so it's a closed bit of code.
[1374.42] Greg: But, yeah.
[1375.42] Stephen: Okay.
[1377.79] Stephen: If you consider any kind of USBC power as well.
[1381.79] Greg: This is this is one of the other questions that have been asked.
[1384.79] Greg: I mean, the iron itself does about nine volts up to twenty five point to twenty six volts.
[1391.79] Greg: So now if you think USBC or USB power banks or USB connectors, traditionally five volts.
[1400.79] Greg: So the iron won't work.
[1401.79] Greg: But with USBC, the PD version, you can have five volts, nine volts or 20 volts.
[1409.79] Greg: But we've got some work to do here because whenever you plug anything into a USBC, which is PD active, there's a communication protocol which actually tells the source what voltage is needed.
[1424.79] Greg: So what we're looking at doing is making a cable, which down in the connector end will have a chip, which will then do that little bit of communication and tell the source to give 20 volts to the iron in 20 volts.
[1438.79] Stephen: I'm going to say I've got one for a Dell laptop that does that.
[1441.79] Stephen: It takes a USBC PD in here and sets it to 20 volts and passes it out there 20 volts.
[1448.79] Greg: Yeah. Yeah. It's literally going to be something like that.
[1451.79] Greg: And I think it's I can't remember whether it's actually some sort of TI or someone like that.
[1456.79] Greg: They do an actual chip that you can integrate into the connector.
[1459.79] Greg: So it's probably inside that that device you've got there.
[1463.79] Greg: So, yeah. And I think that's the way to go, because not everyone's going to want USBC PD functionality.
[1471.79] Greg: But people who do, then they can have the option of that particular lead and be able to use it with the iron.
[1477.79] Stephen: Yeah. It looks like the new ones are coming up out at 28, 36 and 48 volts as well to do higher power.
[1484.79] Stephen: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
[1485.79] Stephen: Next generation is going to be able to really push a lot of power through it.
[1489.79] Stephen: I use DC for my most of the time.
[1491.79] Stephen: I'm just aware a lot of people have USBC power delivery everywhere.
[1494.79] Stephen: They've got laptops that run. Yeah. Yeah.
[1497.79] Greg: And again, it is one of those things that, you know, I having the Kickstarter, having so many questions coming in before we've gone to full production means that we can now give us a bit of time before we actually do production to to have a look at this and see how we can implement it,
[1518.79] Greg: which is one of the beauties of this, you know, the Kickstarter platform.
[1524.79] Curry: And it got funded very quickly. Was it 48 hours or 24 hours?
[1528.79] Greg: Yeah, it was a bit of a shocker, 40 hours. It was done.
[1533.79] Greg: And yeah, it was a bit of a shock because I put a timeframe on of 30 days.
[1540.79] Greg: I put a conservative figure on of what we wanted to achieve.
[1545.79] Greg: And I mean, a lot of people go on to Kickstarter to raise money.
[1549.79] Greg: For me, it was about I wanted to be able to do the first production run, but also, you know, make sure that the product was going to be accepted in the marketplace before we sort of plow on into production.
[1563.79] Greg: And that was kind of pre-orders. Yeah, pre-orders. It was kind of proved in that first 40 hours.
[1570.79] Greg: I think where we're at now, it's about 200-ish pledges, which equates to about 200-ish sold nines, which is a really nice sort of figure to do as a first production run.
[1584.79] Greg: Well done.
[1585.79] Greg: It'll probably creep up a bit more because I think we've still got about 19 days left because you can't stop the Kickstarter now.
[1594.79] Greg: You've got to let it run its duration. So I'm sure over time more people will find it.
[1598.79] Greg: So it might be, you know, 250 or 300 or 300 lines by the time we've finished.
[1603.79] Jack: Yeah. What number will it get to before it starts getting out of hand?
[1610.79] Greg: I don't know. I mean, if it...
[1614.79] Curry: One million soldering eins are requested.
[1617.79] Greg: Yeah. Some people would say that's a nice problem to have. But I mean, just going back on where I am with Menes, it's always been...
[1629.79] Greg: What I've always been about is making the right product at the right price that just does the job.
[1635.79] Greg: And that is what I want to try and recreate with this owner.
[1640.79] Greg: And yeah, if it does go wildly out of hand, yeah, I must admit I'm not sure how I will handle that.
[1647.79] Greg: I'd have to get people, teams or whatever.
[1650.79] Greg: But I think, you know, based on that initial rush, that initial surge, and now it's just, you know, we're getting three or four more irons a day.
[1660.79] Greg: I think it's going to be well within our capability to deliver a good quality first production run for everyone.
[1669.74] Jack: Yeah. But speaking of Menes and antennas, Curry Kitten has had to buy some dodgy antennas from...
[1681.74] Curry: I'm happy to get them made.
[1684.74] Curry: This is... I had this conversation with Greg earlier because I was talking about OpenHD.
[1689.74] Curry: I said, Greg, I'm running 5320. Is this going to work?
[1694.74] Curry: And Greg's like, no, you're so far outside what the antennas are tuned from.
[1699.74] Curry: You might as well just put a coat hanger on there. So, yeah, I've had to find this other weird...
[1704.74] Curry: I showed a picture of it last week, didn't I? I can't remember now.
[1706.74] Curry: This other weird looking strange antenna, which goes down really low.
[1710.74] Curry: Because apparently these Wi-Fi adapters work better between like 51 something and 53 something, which is a bizarre...
[1718.74] Curry: They just put out more power down low?
[1720.74] Curry: Apparently.
[1722.74] Greg: It's probably a bit of tuning, the resonance of them.
[1726.74] Curry: That's what I hear. That's what I hear from people that are doing it much, much better than me
[1731.74] Curry: and can see what they're doing at like 30 kilometers where I go like 500 meters out and I'm like, oh, it's getting a bit freezing.
[1736.74] Stephen: I'm still skeptical about like when you're 50 meters above your own head and losing signal if that can really be the antenna rights.
[1744.74] Stephen: You've exceptionally bad luck if that was the antenna.
[1748.74] Curry: I'm full of bad luck. This is what I do. It's a reviewer. I've just had two things this week that didn't work.
[1754.74] Curry: I was like, does this work? No, send me a new one. But yeah, that's it.
[1760.74] Curry: But I feel it's more fun in a way if things don't work properly and you can keep working it.
[1767.74] Curry: As long as you get to a resolution at the end, it feels very satisfying.
[1770.74] Curry: Sometimes things too easy. I reminisce about what some people might call the bad old days of FPV.
[1776.74] Curry: And we were just so happy to have something get in the air and show us a vague picture shaking around and then you'd crash and you'd be like, yay, I flew something.
[1786.74] Stephen: Now you're like, oh, I punch out and I get above 95% throttle and there's a little bit of jello.
[1794.06] Curry: Yeah, it's these new guys coming into it. It's like literally they sort of buy off the shelf and they're like, oh, I was going and I did like a split S and there was a little bit of prop wash and I didn't like it.
[1805.06] Curry: And it's like the GoPro has taken out completely, but yeah, but I heard it and it's so people, people are a little bit too much perfectionist about it now.
[1813.06] Curry: Princess and the pea. Yeah, I just, I just like messing around and doing, doing stuff for fun. That's more like it.
[1821.06] Curry: Don't, don't have to worry about if your footage is cinematic because we know that's, that's the new buzzword.
[1828.06] Stephen: It's going to be 30 frames a second, more specifically 24 frames a second. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're not cinematic anyway.
[1837.06] Stephen: They've got way too much vertical FOV to be cinematic. Cinemascope, which should be like 2.85 to one.
[1844.06] Curry: That's right. That's why you have to cut the borders down just a bit more to see. Yeah.
[1849.06] Frank: This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience, downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio only.
[1856.06] Frank: Censored to please the iTunes people hosted on the internet, forwarded through to your podcast provider, downloaded, playing on your device and is now playing in your ears.
[1864.06] Frank: All thanks to our Patreons. Consider joining them and you'll also get other online benefits.
[1870.06] Frank: Find out more at Patreon.com forward slash let's drone out.
[1875.06] Jack: Here's someone who might be interested in your soldering iron, Greg. Make me lab. Yeah. If you want to mark it, it's all the makers.
[1887.06] Jack: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good, good market area to do. It's contact to know.
[1893.06] Curry: That's true. And Canadians speak metric, which is helpful. Yeah. Yeah. The Americans just need to buckle down and learn.
[1899.06] Curry: Ask an American what a millimeter is and they just hold their hands.
[1902.06] Stephen: Well, all the government people know proper standard units, but it's just the lay people on the street in America that they just don't have a clue.
[1914.06] Stephen: I know what a foul is.
[1917.06] Stephen: You say milli to them and they think it's a thousandth of an inch. They just lost the plot.
[1923.06] Stephen: But you go into the data center and everything's like, what size is that rack? Oh, it's 800 mil.
[1929.06] Stephen: OK, we're not talking millions of inch. No millimeters is 800 millimeters. OK, fine.
[1936.26] Curry: It's regular people know what they're talking about. Lay people don't know what they don't know what it is.
[1943.26] Curry: It's like, oh, this is so complex, this metric system. Why don't just have things in sixteenths of an inch? Oh, right.
[1949.26] Curry: Yeah. It's much better.
[1950.26] Stephen: It's standard multiples like 12, 14 or 16, depending on the phase of the moon.
[1956.26] Jack: I was in the print studio and every now and again, you pick up a ruler and you go to measure something.
[1960.26] Jack: You're like, what the hell is going on here? And it's one of the old letterpress through letters like everything's measured in pikes or whatever it is.
[1967.26] Jack: Pika, whatever.
[1975.26] Jack: No, no idea.
[1977.26] Jack: Yeah. So I don't know, Greg, I am excited about your soldering iron and thank you for making it somewhat left handed.
[1985.26] Curry: Cool. Oh, can you insert the display then? Well, I would like to say thank you for having a good design because I've been visiting lots of universities lately looking at product design people.
[1997.26] Curry: And I come back and winch every week about how bad it is and how unthought out it is.
[2003.26] Curry: And basically, you said, my hand hurts if I sold for a long time. Here's a hand or and you can solder forever, which is great.
[2011.26] Curry: And I also like the fact you can unscrew the tip. You don't have to find the Allen key that you've lost to get the tip.
[2016.26] Stephen: I do like the Allen key because it means I can swap tips when they're really hot without burning my fingers.
[2022.26] Stephen: What do you do after you unscrew it? You just throw it across the room.
[2026.26] Stephen: I use the pliers and just take it out with the pliers and then put the other one in.
[2030.26] Stephen: Whereas that ring is really difficult to unscrew, except if you use hands, you can't do it with a tool.
[2035.26] Stephen: So you want to wait for something to cool down and then swap tips.
[2038.26] Jack: Yeah, my soldering iron's got a flap to remove. Heat proof flaps.
[2045.26] Jack: There you go. Look at this made by Mattel. Kinky.
[2049.26] Jack: And you get the old soldering iron out. If you can imagine this. Sorry, audio listeners.
[2055.26] Jack: And you're just expected to just kind of touch the hot end with a flap and then pull the.
[2061.26] Jack: That's worse solutions. It's worse solutions.
[2065.26] Jack: It is horrible because you can totally feel the heat through this. This is like what I would class as.
[2071.26] Stephen: You might as well use a handkerchief then basically.
[2073.26] Jack: Yeah, you know those wrong people, you know, like you often find them at Airbnb's that have some sort of like what I could only class as like
[2082.26] Jack: nipple tweaking silicone oven gloves.
[2086.26] Jack: You know, I don't. Hang on. Mini. Mini.
[2092.26] Stephen: Nipple tweaking silicon oven gloves. What Airbnb's have you been going to, Jack?
[2097.26] Stephen: I want to see your. I am in Brighton.
[2100.26] Stephen: Oh, right.
[2102.26] Jack: Oh, look, this is. Yeah, look, look at it.
[2111.26] Jack: And these wrong. And sorry if you're audio listeners, you've got no hope.
[2115.26] Jack: But it's these people. Look, and they just fit over your hand.
[2120.26] Jack: That's like some sort of weird muppet mouth.
[2123.26] Jack: And they're tiny and you can feel the heat.
[2126.26] Jack: It's just so bad. Look, 10 centimeters by eight point five.
[2130.26] Jack: They're wider than they are long. It's awful.
[2135.26] Jack: That's enough of that. Sorry. Back on track.
[2139.26] Jack: What made you want to create a soldering iron, Greg?
[2148.26] Jack: Or do you not want to talk about that?
[2150.26] Jack: The cramp. Yeah.
[2153.26] Greg: No, I just look at things and think I could do it better.
[2157.26] Greg: You know, I try and do.
[2163.26] Greg: I try and do things that, you know, try and offer something new as well.
[2168.26] Greg: And obviously that didn't come until later on.
[2171.26] Greg: And I think over the years I've made so many weird and wonderful things.
[2176.26] Greg: And a lot of things just get put back on the shelf.
[2179.26] Greg: But yeah, this one I've carried on through and yeah, I'm pleased with it.
[2184.26] Greg: Yeah, it's great.
[2186.26] Stephen: Will users be able to tweak the shape of the handle and make it more ergonomic?
[2191.26] Stephen: Maybe put some extra finger holes in and whatever they want.
[2195.26] Stephen: Are they going to be able to 3D print casings and swap them or anything?
[2199.26] Greg: That's something I've not thought about.
[2202.26] Greg: I mean, whilst we're going through that sort of patent stage,
[2207.26] Greg: it's probably not prudent to share files.
[2211.26] Greg: Fair enough.
[2212.26] Greg: Because that might have an effect.
[2213.26] Stephen: So it's the design patent on the shape of the handle specifically?
[2216.26] Stephen: Yes, on the shape.
[2217.26] Greg: We've done design registration with the IPO office as well.
[2222.26] Greg: And again, that's all based around the shape of the handle and everything.
[2227.26] Greg: So yeah, it's probably at this stage.
[2232.26] Greg: Yeah, we probably wouldn't do that.
[2234.26] Greg: But yeah, maybe in the future that could be an option.
[2239.26] Stephen: I was just thinking everyone's different and some people might want this fatter or thinner.
[2243.26] Greg: Yeah, that's it.
[2244.26] Greg: I mean, I've tried to make the shape as universal as possible by lots of people trying the shape.
[2252.26] Greg: I mean, I 3D printed tons and tons of these cases and just kept tweaking and trying.
[2259.26] Greg: And until we ended up with something that everyone thought was, yeah, this is this is nice.
[2264.26] Greg: So yeah, nice.
[2267.58] Jack: How do you feel with yoga?
[2269.58] Stephen: Y-O-G-H-U-R-T.
[2273.92] Jack: Oh, H. Thank you.
[2276.92] Jack: Sorry.
[2278.92] Stephen: But why?
[2279.92] Stephen: Should I ask?
[2281.92] Jack: No, you're good.
[2284.92] Jack: Yeah, I bet you don't miss the goat, do you?
[2287.92] Jack: No.
[2290.92] Curry: Oh, exciting clip, people.
[2294.92] Curry: Can you guys hear this or no?
[2298.92] Stephen: Not right now.
[2300.92] Stephen: You're not saying it's in that shipping container, are you?
[2303.92] Jack: Yeah, metal buckets.
[2306.92] Jack: Holy.
[2307.92] Greg: Oh, my God.
[2309.92] Stephen: It's just a small.
[2312.92] Stephen: That is a cut off.
[2314.92] Stephen: It looks like a cut off shipping container for our audio viewers.
[2317.92] Stephen: They've got a shipping container and sort of just cut it in half and put a metal panel down it.
[2322.92] Curry: So tempting to push Jack in the box there and close the door.
[2325.92] Stephen: I don't think they're metal buckets.
[2327.92] Stephen: I think the empty paint cans, it looks like.
[2329.92] Stephen: The cardboard boxes on top of those completely, no organization, just stuff bunged in there by the hundred.
[2336.92] Stephen: And each one of the boxes with the battery system.
[2339.92] Stephen: That's one of the weird gun batteries.
[2341.92] Stephen: There's a giant kind of five and power or some chunker sitting at the front there.
[2346.92] Curry: Everything else is just absolutely huge amounts of everything.
[2351.92] Curry: Every every one of those boxes was full of batteries in the buckets and some are just chucked in.
[2358.92] Curry: And every one of those have a risk.
[2360.92] Curry: And there they are.
[2365.26] Jack: Was it fun times?
[2368.26] Jack: Just that was a particularly swollen one.
[2372.26] Jack: What what fresh hell is this?
[2376.26] Jack: That is actually nuts.
[2379.26] Stephen: Yeah.
[2380.26] Stephen: You the sewers of Brighton.
[2382.26] Jack: Yeah.
[2383.26] Jack: Oh, yeah.
[2384.26] Jack: That was a discussion last night.
[2385.26] Jack: Did you find it in the end?
[2387.26] Stephen: I didn't know.
[2388.26] Stephen: I was looking back at Halloween ones.
[2390.26] Stephen: I couldn't figure out which Halloween one.
[2392.26] Stephen: A lot of them were very lengthy and very messy with just like Tony laughing and putting on wakes for what seemed like an eternity.
[2398.26] Stephen: So I know.
[2399.26] Stephen: Yeah.
[2400.26] Jack: Yeah.
[2401.26] Jack: Yeah.
[2402.26] Jack: I'm sorry about Patreon.
[2403.26] Jack: But yeah, Greg, whatever practices that you, you know, do in within your company, you'd be safe to say you'll be doing a better job.
[2415.26] Curry: Yeah.
[2416.26] Curry: We'd like to order a big metal container right now.
[2418.26] Greg: I was going to say, where can I order one of those?
[2423.26] Jack: Mad, isn't it?
[2424.26] Greg: Oh, my God.
[2425.26] Greg: It's terrible.
[2426.26] Jack: Yeah.
[2427.26] Jack: Mate, that container, Joe, I reckon is probably still there.
[2432.26] Jack: There is no way.
[2434.26] Stephen: But the weird thing is loads of places claim they do battery recycling.
[2438.26] Stephen: And indeed, our bin round is supposed to collect batteries for recycling.
[2442.26] Stephen: But it says put them out there on top of the bin.
[2445.26] Stephen: And I do that.
[2446.26] Stephen: And they just ignore them every single time.
[2448.26] Stephen: Just leave them there.
[2449.26] Stephen: Never take them.
[2450.26] Stephen: And the only time I've seen them take the batteries for recycling, the bin men looked at them,
[2455.26] Stephen: left out as we were asked to.
[2457.26] Stephen: They just looked at them.
[2458.26] Stephen: And then they went, and just throw it into the truck with everything else in the big crusher.
[2464.26] Stephen: I'm like, fine.
[2469.26] Stephen: Yeah.
[2470.26] Stephen: Yeah.
[2471.26] Stephen: Why?
[2474.26] Stephen: So how do you, you know, how do you get rid of stuff like that when you've got a bad batch or something or where people have returned bad cells?
[2482.26] Curry: As far as I can tell, Hobbyking's idea was you throw them in the big pan or bucket and you keep doing that.
[2491.26] Curry: And then when the buckets fill up, you probably find another bucket and you keep doing that.
[2495.26] Curry: And then you move to another warehouse once that one's gone.
[2497.26] Curry: Yeah.
[2498.26] Curry: And then you move to another warehouse and you say anything left here is yours now.
[2501.26] Curry: And it keeps going like that.
[2505.26] Curry: Who knows?
[2506.26] Jack: Yeah.
[2507.26] Jack: I guarantee if I happen to be up that way with Frank or someone else, yeah, we'll go visit.
[2518.26] Jack: And I guarantee you that that container is still going to be there.
[2523.26] Jack: Wow.
[2524.26] Jack: Because like, who's going to go there and be like, yes, you know, like, maybe every day.
[2532.26] Stephen: You imagine going down to Sainsbury's or somewhere that does battery recycling for that and be like, hey, I've got a couple of batteries.
[2539.26] Stephen: Yeah, I know.
[2541.26] Jack: Those things explicitly say like no lipos on them.
[2547.26] Jack: I know that for a fact.
[2549.26] Stephen: How are you even supposed to dispose of lipos then when you've got that many?
[2554.26] Stephen: Is there even a valid way of disposing of them?
[2556.26] Curry: I don't think there's any valid ways.
[2558.26] Curry: I think they get shipped off to Bangladesh or something where small children trying to assemble them by hand for components and things or or stuff like that.
[2566.26] Stephen: You know, you'll see a child that's like stuck little pinwheels and turned it into a toy bus or something.
[2572.26] Stephen: They're like driving it along.
[2574.26] Stephen: Huge five and power lipo with little wheels stuck on the side.
[2578.26] Stephen: Lovely new toys.
[2581.26] Jack: Yeah.
[2582.26] Jack: Like it makes you wonder like, you know, like what Fabra did with all the lipos at Radio C.
[2592.26] Stephen: You have to leave the UK because of this incipient lipo risk.
[2599.26] Stephen: I mean, was was that why they kind of gave up?
[2603.26] Jack: I think it's more the giant fine they acquired in America.
[2610.26] Jack: For the milliwatt.
[2612.26] Stephen: They're lucky they haven't picked up a giant fine for this lot.
[2616.26] Greg: Yeah, it'll be coming.
[2619.26] Curry: So, Greg, is anything anything new happening in your antenna development or have you been so busy with everything else at the moment?
[2627.26] Greg: Yeah, there's some else.
[2630.26] Greg: So, yeah, in Menace land, despite all this other good stuff that's happening, I'm still doing Menace design work.
[2640.26] Greg: And I mean, for an eternity, I've been trying to design a small antenna that everyone wants.
[2647.26] Greg: Everyone wants UFL, MMCX, but our current range of antennas are all SMA.
[2652.26] Greg: They've worked brilliantly, but, you know, everyone wants the UFL and MMCX for small drones, for all the digital stuff and everything.
[2660.26] Greg: So we've been working on new antennas.
[2663.26] Greg: I'll just hold up this.
[2666.26] Greg: So we've got these are prototypes and they're working.
[2670.26] Greg: We've got to do a little bit more tweaking with them.
[2673.26] Greg: But this is the UFL version.
[2676.26] Greg: It's about 11mm diameter.
[2679.26] Greg: It's about 16mm long.
[2681.26] Greg: We've got about 6cm of cable with the UFL on the end.
[2686.26] Greg: And the UFL one, I've got set scales here, you know, just is 1.7g.
[2692.26] Greg: So it's really quite light.
[2694.26] Greg: And then we've got an MMCX one.
[2697.26] Greg: Here we go.
[2699.26] Greg: Similar size dimensions for the case, but obviously slightly thicker cable because the MMCX connector needs that.
[2705.26] Greg: And that one comes in at 2.7g.
[2710.26] Greg: What we've done here, we've employed a technique for the elements inside where you actually mold the elements on an injection mold tool.
[2723.26] Greg: And you inject the polymer, which has got an inert metal in it, and then use a laser to actually etch onto that molded piece, the elements of the antenna,
[2737.26] Greg: which means you can have a very highly accurate way of producing the antenna production.
[2743.26] Greg: And doing it this way, because everything's molded, if you're crashing and bashing and everything, nothing's moving inside.
[2751.26] Greg: It's all nicely solid. There's no wire to move around or anything like that inside.
[2756.26] Greg: So, yeah, it's quite a technique. It's a new technique for me.
[2762.26] Greg: It's made elsewhere in other places, other manufacturing processes, but it's something we've adopted into these new antennas.
[2771.26] Greg: And, yeah, we're in the sort of final development stage of these.
[2778.26] Greg: And, well, I haven't got any dates as such, but at least I can sort of show you them.
[2783.26] Greg: And we are, you know, they're imminent. They're incoming.
[2787.26] Greg: So please, because I think for the last two years I've been saying, I'm going to do a small antenna. It's here. It's in my hand.
[2794.26] Jack: They are so small. Do you want to just give them a little...
[2799.26] Curry: Does this mean there's something other than pagoda, or is it all hidden inside now?
[2804.26] Greg: This isn't pagoda. This is something else, yeah.
[2808.26] Curry: Something else that's too secret to talk about.
[2811.26] Greg: Yeah, we can talk about it in detail at another show when we're ready to go with these.
[2817.26] Stephen: Any plans for tubes or reinforced cables like TruRC were doing where they did a tube and you could also get like a carbon fiber tube to even beef it up more than that?
[2827.26] Greg: We can certainly look at doing things like that.
[2830.26] Greg: I mean, my first step is to get the antenna done and get it out there because I think, you know, in our range of antennas,
[2838.26] Greg: it's these small antennas that we've had missing for such a long time.
[2842.26] Greg: So I'm so chuffed that we're going to soon be able to fill the gap in our range.
[2848.26] Greg: Yeah, so that's something new. That's coming. It might be here by Christmas.
[2854.26] Greg: More than likely it'll be here in January or February time for a realistic time scale on that.
[2860.26] Stephen: And I've seen people use those on five inch more and more these days.
[2864.26] Greg: Yeah, yeah, they're getting there. I mean, they are antennas that is.
[2869.26] Greg: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the way things are going with the digital and the way the digital processing is cleaning up signals and allowing us to fly further.
[2879.26] Greg: This is, you know, these are great to put onto your drones. You don't need that whopping great big antenna that's mounted so far up above all the other electronics.
[2891.26] Greg: Yeah, we're in a really good age of digital night, so it's great.
[2895.26] Stephen: Cool. Yeah, I saw Wesley Varti doing his range test.
[2902.26] Stephen: And he'd done range tests with DJI and HD0. He added walksnail to the mix and he was getting 31 kilometers on that.
[2912.26] Stephen: But ironically, the walksnail kit was absolute trash on the stock antennas, but did a lot better than DJI when he moved to proper antennas.
[2921.26] Stephen: So there's definitely some gaps in the market there for people who are antenna vendors to jump in and show the manufacturers how it's done for that digital kit.
[2931.26] Greg: Yes, yeah, absolutely.
[2934.26] Jack: So, yeah, the only thing I will ask Greg, and you will hate me for this, is with the UFL, can you please include a small little bit of glue?
[2948.26] Jack: Some glue?
[2950.26] Jack: Yeah, you know the antenna glue?
[2952.26] Jack: Why would you not have your own glue, Jack?
[2955.26] Jack: Well, because...
[2956.26] Greg: What, just one blob of glue in a little bag in each antenna?
[2960.26] Jack: Yeah, or something, you know, the...
[2963.26] Curry: Maybe as you push it in, something bursts and it just blobs on it.
[2968.26] Stephen: Yeah, because it...
[2969.26] Stephen: Why don't people just buy a tube of glue for two quid and have it last for years rather than...
[2974.26] Jack: Because it goes off. It goes funny.
[2977.26] Jack: I just wonder if you could just get a small little, you know, small little packet that just comes with a bit of glue and then you can kind of just...
[2987.26] Curry: I have to ask, does everybody feel the same way as me if you're taking the UFL antenna off?
[2992.26] Curry: It's a bit like bomb disposal, so you're so quiet and you're holding your breath and you're like,
[2996.26] Curry: I really hope this doesn't break because you're gently...
[2999.26] Stephen: Do not move it sideways, only move it up. Do not move it sideways.
[3003.26] Curry: I think it was you, Greg, that talked about how many connections and disconnections you're supposed to have in UFL.
[3011.26] Curry: It's a tiny number, isn't it?
[3013.26] Greg: Three.
[3015.26] Greg: Is it 10 on a UFL?
[3016.26] Curry: If I get to 10, I'm lucky. Normally, something's ripped off by them.
[3020.26] Greg: Yeah, it's sort of like when you've got test equipment, you have to think about the connectors and how many times you're putting antennas on and off.
[3028.26] Greg: Even if you're using different antennas, your test equipment connectors, you have to think right after I've used that so many times,
[3034.26] Greg: I'm going to just be sure I'm going to swap that out for a new one.
[3037.26] Greg: So you have to be mindful of that all the time as well with UFL.
[3041.26] Stephen: Yeah, and I'd say for the person who said hot glue gun, no, because hot glue is not bendy.
[3047.26] Stephen: It needs to be bendy. Hot glue will just fall off certain boards.
[3052.26] Jack: No, I just think that little quality of life of getting a tiny little Menace RC Greg packet,
[3060.26] Jack: because you could just make a load of it and you could sell little individual...
[3065.26] Jack: Do you remember when Super Glue came out with the little, you know, individual, like little mini packs?
[3072.26] Jack: If you did that...
[3073.26] Stephen: Child sized.
[3074.26] Jack: Yeah, the...
[3076.26] Jack: Yes.
[3077.26] Greg: Just enough to glue one child down while you go out down the pack.
[3080.26] Greg: Yeah.
[3081.26] Greg: So if we do that, does that mean then we have to only sell the antennas to 18 plus?
[3090.26] Jack: No, you can't. It's not sold.
[3092.26] Stephen: Well, that is the thing.
[3093.26] Stephen: You see, it's going to be spirit based glue, which means you're shipping a fire risk instead of just an antenna,
[3099.26] Stephen: and you'd have to have it signed for because you're shipping...
[3103.26] Stephen: You know, you can't buy glue on the interwebs now without signing it.
[3106.26] Jack: Actually, yeah, it is quite solvent. Yeah, you're right.
[3109.26] Jack: Yeah.
[3110.26] Greg: Maybe.
[3111.26] Greg: The idea is great.
[3113.26] Greg: Sorry.
[3114.26] Greg: We'll put some thought on that.
[3115.26] Greg: Oh, shut my mouth.
[3116.26] Greg: We'll put some thought on that.
[3118.26] Stephen: Although the brand Menes Glue...
[3122.26] Stephen: Yeah.
[3123.26] Stephen: That's catchy, isn't it?
[3124.26] Jack: Menes Glue.
[3127.26] Jack: Surely, if it's such a small amount, then it's not enough to get totally high.
[3132.26] Jack: You can't get a proper buzz off it.
[3133.26] Jack: Yeah.
[3134.26] Jack: We've just got to find out what that amount is.
[3136.26] Greg: Yeah.
[3137.26] Greg: They'd be figuring out how many antennas they need to buy.
[3140.26] Jack: Yeah.
[3142.26] Jack: If you could do little tiny 5-gram little things with the antennas or sell them separately,
[3151.26] Jack: you'd make a fortune because you can't...
[3153.26] Curry: You might as well just buy the glue separately.
[3155.26] Stephen: Really.
[3156.26] Stephen: I mean, we all know you can buy this stuff from AliExpress, places like that.
[3160.26] Stephen: It costs a pittance.
[3161.26] Stephen: I'm not really sure.
[3164.26] Stephen: It's a bit of a hassle to ship solvents.
[3167.26] Jack: Quality of life.
[3169.26] Jack: Side feed antennas, Greg, people...
[3173.26] Curry: Can someone explain what side feed antenna is before Greg answers that, please?
[3177.26] Curry: I don't really understand.
[3179.26] Greg: You want the cable going in like that, don't you?
[3181.26] Greg: So you can mount it in a wing.
[3183.26] Jack: Say what you're displaying for the audio people.
[3186.26] Jack: Oh, my...
[3187.26] Jack: Sorry.
[3188.26] Greg: I'm holding an antenna...
[3191.26] Greg: Definitely.
[3192.26] Greg: ...vertically with the cable horizontally at the base of the case of the antenna.
[3199.26] Greg: And Greg.
[3200.26] Greg: I assume that's what everyone means by side feed.
[3204.26] Curry: Oh, I see.
[3205.26] Curry: Because if they had it just laid down in the wing, then the polarization would be different
[3208.26] Curry: and then they don't want to point that bit round or something.
[3212.26] Curry: Yeah.
[3213.26] Stephen: Didn't you used to have that special wing antenna that was like a bump that's on wing?
[3218.26] Stephen: So it's a downward-facing one, yeah.
[3220.26] Curry: Yeah, the Aeropod.
[3221.26] Greg: And yeah, still, we saw quite a few of those, actually.
[3226.26] Greg: Really, really good antenna because it uses the Pagoda.
[3231.26] Greg: There you go.
[3232.26] Greg: Got a picture of it.
[3233.26] Greg: There you are.
[3234.26] Greg: Right.
[3235.26] Greg: There you go.
[3236.26] Greg: Aerodynamic antenna for wings.
[3237.26] Greg: So, yeah, you mount that, the antenna, you sink it into the wing and then you've got
[3241.26] Greg: that nice little arrow case which goes over.
[3243.26] Greg: Yeah.
[3244.26] Stephen: We don't need no stinking side feed.
[3247.26] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[3248.26] Jack: But I don't know if people maybe want something a bit smaller.
[3252.26] Jack: Yeah.
[3253.26] Greg: But again, we'll get this little antenna out there.
[3257.26] Greg: Then we can look at variations of side feed, packets of glue and tubes on the leads.
[3267.26] Jack: Find out how much it is and I will bankroll the...
[3272.26] Jack: Filling glue on the dark web.
[3274.26] Jack: Oh, my word.
[3276.26] Jack: Yeah.
[3277.26] Jack: If you won't, I will partner with Greg and I will make the little sniffable glue sachets.
[3285.26] Jack: And when I sell loads of them via Greg's shop...
[3289.26] Jack: We partner up.
[3290.26] Jack: We could have, you know...
[3291.26] Jack: Only Greg would be laughing.
[3292.26] Stephen: Greg and Benis Arcee and Sticky Jack's glue emporium.
[3296.26] Stephen: Maybe the...
[3297.26] Curry: You can extend your Etsy shop, Jack, just having individual sachets of glue and then
[3302.26] Curry: spend all your life walking back and forth to post office.
[3305.26] Jack: Yep.
[3306.26] Stephen: No, I know.
[3308.26] Stephen: The trouble is the glue emporium coming to you soon.
[3311.26] Stephen: Yeah.
[3312.26] Stephen: Not in any way affiliated with RC Vault.
[3318.26] Curry: Oh, my word.
[3319.26] Curry: Sticky Jack sounds like some of my parents would warn me about, which is fair.
[3324.26] Greg: So, in other Menace news, we was doing a little bit of work with Andy Arcee on Smoke.
[3333.26] Greg: Smoke, yeah.
[3335.26] Greg: So, that kind of took a little bit of a backseat where I've been focusing on the old sold nines
[3341.26] Greg: and that.
[3342.26] Greg: But now we're coming through with the sold nines.
[3345.26] Greg: We're going to get back on that and hopefully what we will do, we will get that into production.
[3351.26] Greg: And again, probably about a January, February launch.
[3354.26] Greg: So, it's just in time for everyone doing their springtime builds on their planes and whatever
[3358.26] Greg: ready for next summer.
[3360.26] Greg: So, hopefully we can have a lot of smoke in the sky next year.
[3364.26] Stephen: So, you're going to be doing a full system or is it an igniter?
[3367.26] Greg: The first one is an ignition system.
[3372.26] Greg: So, you basically, you rely upon one of these smoke grenades by, is it Enola Gay ones we've
[3382.26] Greg: been using, which are particularly good.
[3384.26] Greg: Oh, yeah.
[3385.26] Greg: I think that's what we had.
[3386.26] Greg: Yeah.
[3387.26] Greg: Yes.
[3388.26] Greg: But we use a processor system.
[3389.26] Greg: And we've done a very tiny little board because I don't know if you know all the history of
[3393.26] Greg: it.
[3394.26] Greg: We started off, we used the Menace RC switch.
[3398.26] Greg: Andy put it on his plane.
[3400.26] Greg: He sent the plane up in the air, switched the switch on, didn't switch it off.
[3405.26] Greg: And the little e-matches, when they blow, they don't blow open circuit, they blow closed
[3411.26] Greg: circuit.
[3412.26] Greg: So, then it took out his back in his plane and smashed his plane up.
[3419.26] Greg: You need a little bit of isolation from the power feed.
[3424.26] Greg: Yeah.
[3425.26] Greg: Yeah.
[3426.26] Greg: There's all that.
[3427.26] Greg: All considerations of all permabilities of usage.
[3430.58] Greg: And we've done a little microprocessor igniter.
[3434.26] Greg: And it just sends a pulse, which is long enough just to hit that e-match.
[3441.26] Greg: And it's pretty reliable.
[3443.42] Stephen: And it's separated nicely from the flight controller and receiver and everything.
[3446.94] Greg: Yeah.
[3447.94] Greg: You can connect it via a separate source.
[3449.82] Greg: You can connect it to the same source if you're that risky.
[3452.3] Greg: But yeah, a separate source.
[3454.02] Greg: You could connect it to the balance lead of the LiPo or however you want.
[3459.46] Greg: And the other great thing about it is that you'd have one igniter per e-match per smoke
[3465.74] Greg: grenade.
[3467.1] Greg: But I've got like a little bus system on them so that you can then connect them up.
[3472.18] Greg: So you can connect as many as you want.
[3474.46] Greg: They all run on just one channel.
[3476.0] Greg: So each time you hit the switch on your radio, it'll fire the first one.
[3479.7] Greg: Then it'll cascade to the second one, the third one, the fourth one, and so on.
[3483.42] Greg: So you could set up however many you want on your aircraft and then just pull through
[3490.54] Stephen: them.
[3491.54] Stephen: So that was always a bit of an annoyance.
[3492.62] Stephen: You blow the smoke, and then you'd have to come in and change it.
[3495.94] Stephen: You've got plenty of batteries, but the smoke's finished already, even on a quad.
[3500.9] Stephen: It only lasts half a battery or so on a quad.
[3504.1] Greg: Yeah, that's it.
[3505.1] Greg: So if your model can carry the weight of however many smoke grenades, that's going to be your
[3512.06] Greg: limit, isn't it?
[3513.66] Greg: If you can carry four, you can do four different colours and set them off.
[3516.9] Greg: Fantastic.
[3517.9] Greg: For your whole battery.
[3520.5] Greg: So yeah, we've made that as universal as possible.
[3522.98] Greg: It was all done with little solder connections, but we're doing a change in the board at the
[3527.78] Greg: moment just so that we can have all the connectors on it.
[3531.34] Greg: So it'll be pretty much a plug and play.
[3533.9] Greg: Just plug it into your receiver and into your LiPo and away you go.
[3540.18] Greg: So yeah.
[3541.18] Greg: Excellent.
[3542.42] Greg: Very cool.
[3544.42] Greg: Anything else coming out?
[3546.46] Greg: That is all the imminent stuff that I can share with you guys today.
[3554.94] Greg: There's loads of other stuff I tinker with, but yeah, those are pretty much imminent.
[3559.18] Greg: Yeah, they're imminent.
[3561.7] Greg: And yeah, we'll see those come through.
[3563.54] Curry: That's not a bad amount to be going on with, is it?
[3565.78] Greg: No, it's quite a lot.
[3567.78] Stephen: Awesome.
[3568.78] Stephen: Well done.
[3569.78] Stephen: That sounds very promising.
[3570.78] Stephen: I'm looking forward to seeing all that appear.
[3572.74] Greg: Cool.
[3573.74] Greg: Yeah.
[3574.74] Greg: As things happen, I'll keep you guys updated and hopefully come back on and share further
[3582.02] Greg: details with all these things.
[3583.42] Stephen: Yeah, it'd be nice to see some videos on that.
[3585.58] Stephen: I dare say if Andy's got a hold of it, he'll be putting out a video in the near future,
[3589.54] Stephen: I guess.
[3590.54] Stephen: Yeah, I think Andy really did one, didn't he?
[3592.9] Greg: Yeah, he's got some stuff up on his channel already.
[3595.82] Greg: He hasn't gone into the details of the product yet, but he's definitely got footage up there
[3600.94] Greg: of it in use.
[3601.94] Curry: That's what I meant.
[3602.94] Curry: Yeah.
[3603.94] Curry: There's a comment from Stubbsy saying, before you go, Greg, are you sponsoring any great
[3607.62] Curry: event in October in Fekinam by any chance, lol?
[3613.9] Greg: We might be, yeah.
[3615.9] Greg: Yeah, Stubbsy's got in touch and we'll be providing some prizes for one of their races
[3624.9] Greg: in October.
[3625.9] Greg: So we're supporting the drone finals up at Buckminster and also, yeah, we're helping
[3636.02] Greg: out Stubbsy and the crew there with a few prizes and whatnot for their event as well.
[3640.7] Stephen: So yeah.
[3641.7] Stephen: Nice.
[3642.7] Stephen: Good luck to everyone there.
[3643.7] Stephen: Hope you have a great time.
[3645.7] Stephen: Do you know what date that is?
[3648.34] Greg: Who, me?
[3650.06] Greg: Yeah.
[3651.06] Greg: No.
[3652.06] Greg: It's in October.
[3653.78] Greg: I can look.
[3654.78] Greg: I can look.
[3656.3] Stephen: See?
[3657.3] Stephen: Post the date so we can tell everyone where and when to go on the show if people want
[3660.58] Stephen: to come and look.
[3661.58] Stephen: There we go.
[3662.58] Stephen: 30th October.
[3663.58] Stephen: 30th October.
[3664.58] Stephen: All right.
[3665.58] Stephen: And that was Buckminster, right, or Wings of Fekinam.
[3669.66] Greg: No, the 30th October is the Wings one.
[3673.26] Greg: Then you've got the finals, the drone racing finals at Buckminster as well, where we're
[3679.1] Greg: supporting, which I think is the week before.
[3683.1] Stephen: Okay.
[3684.1] Stephen: Excellent.
[3685.42] Stephen: Don't you think it's sort of a final wing race 2022?
[3689.7] Curry: It's nice to see that wing racing has now become a regular thing.
[3693.38] Curry: It was so many years at Mini Air Show about being a maybe thing and has turned into an
[3698.3] Curry: actual thing, which is great.
[3699.78] Jack: Yeah.
[3700.78] Jack: It's beautiful.
[3701.78] Jack: I'm proud.
[3702.78] Jack: Right.
[3703.78] Jack: So unfortunately, that is all we've got time for.
[3706.3] Jack: Greg, a bit of a menace.
[3708.7] Jack: You'd be fantastic.
[3709.7] Jack: Thank you so much for coming on.
[3712.5] Jack: Thank you for having me.
[3715.3] Jack: Yeah.
[3716.3] Jack: You're welcome to still hang around for the OMA, if you want.
[3718.78] Stephen: Good luck for all your business endeavors.
[3720.82] Stephen: Good luck with RC Vault, and good luck with Go Solder.
[3723.38] Stephen: Cool.
[3724.38] Stephen: Thank you very much.
[3725.38] Stephen: Solder Go.
[3726.38] Jack: Solder Go.
[3727.38] Jack: Solder Go.
[3728.38] Jack: Solder Go.
[3729.38] Jack: And let us know if you're interested in Sticky Jack's sticky stuff.
[3735.58] Stephen: Sticky Jack's Gloimporium.
[3736.58] Greg: No, you've put it like that.
[3739.58] Greg: No.
[3740.58] Greg: Sticky Jack's Gloimporium.
[3741.58] Jack: Oh my God.
[3742.58] Jack: It might be a thing.
[3743.58] Jack: Yeah.
[3744.58] Jack: Oh dear.
[3745.58] Jack: Maybe I should get rid of the original initial FPV and just go with Sticky Jack's.
[3759.22] Jack: Sticky Jack.
[3761.22] Jack: Right.
[3762.22] Jack: Sticky Jack's Tactus.
[3763.22] Jack: Oh no.
[3764.22] Jack: That's evil.
[3765.22] Jack: You've been listening to Let's Drone Out, as you can tell.
[3772.5] Jack: We've been trying to get a bit more RC topics and you know, wall-to-wall RC stuff.
[3780.26] Jack: So forgive us for our messing around.
[3783.14] Jack: You've been joined by everyone's favorite Curry Kitchen.
[3785.46] Jack: Goodbye.
[3786.46] Jack: The man with the lovely mustache, Stephen.
[3789.54] Jack: Cheers.
[3790.54] Jack: Good night.
[3791.54] Jack: My personal friend of the show, Greg from Menace RC and RC Vault.
[3797.62] Jack: Thank you.
[3798.62] Jack: Good night.
[3799.62] Jack: Sponsored by Solder Go and I am Bright Until I Fly and this was Let's Drone Out.
[3806.14] Jack: Thank you Patreons.
[3807.58] Jack: We love you.
[3808.82] Jack: We love you Patreons.
[3809.82] Jack: Thanks.
[3810.82] Jack: Thank you.
[3811.82] Jack: Good night.
[3812.82] Jack: Telemetry lost.