The Next Video
The Video Day 1 Part 2
MacBook Pro: From Broken to ‘Like New’
After the Queens birthday weekend I pulled the laptop out of the 4×4 and went to turn it on. I got a nasty shock when the screen went all white, so as I do I got on google for an answer. I had many different answers which I tried (repeatedly) with no luck. After a week of trying and hoping it would work, I took it to apple to have a look at. They gave me the same answer before I walked in the store which was the “white screen of death”, which could be fixed for a small sum of $800. Considering that it is a 2011 model I was not going to spend that kind of money on a 4 year old laptop. The white screen of death means you have a dodgy logic board or for those living in the windows world a dodgy motherboard. Once again I took to google to see if there was a solution to fix a logic board, and to my surprise there was … and not a solution that I would have even considered. The solution was to pull apart the macbook and take out the logic board and then put it on a baking tray and put it in the oven for a mere 7 1/2 mins at 200 C. What the !?!?!? Yep, and that is exactly what I did. I figured that I had nothing to lose. I have macbook that doesn’t work, so if it didn’t work I would have lost nothing other than a little to much time in the kitchen ( I tell you that was 7 1/2 minutes to long in my opinion). Anyway if you have read this far you are wishing that I would just get to the point, and yes it did work. I now have a functioning macbook once more.
Logic board has been taken out.
All ready for the oven
The Video
High Country Trip
Finally after 2 years of no four wheel driving, it finally happened. I met up with a couple of mates at Woods Point after work Friday night. That part of the trip took a little longer than I thought it would (like 3 1/2 hours). Any how we got set up and had the fire going with a couple of drinks at hand, and discussed what the plan was for the morning. The next morning we didn’t have to hike to far for our first challenge. The last time I tried this I had the Hilux and it just wasn’t up it. I was feeling quite nervous when tempting this, but that was not the case, put the front and rear lockers on and just cruised up in no time at all. From there we drove past Crows Hut and down to the cascades, which we found to be a popular destination, and also made our job of finding a camp site more difficult. Once again we got settled with a fire and drinks were soon in hand. The next day we had some sore heads and didn’t break camp until 12:00 pm. This days journey to the Jamison valley was awesome, we had all the seasons and conditions. It was a full on day. I even got bogged and Mr Mods got me out. With journey taking us up to Bluff hut were there was plenty of snow and couple of snow ball fights, and then down into the valley to another awesome camp site. This is where I farewelled the boys and headed home to a nice hot shower and my own bed. This was definitely one of the best trips I have done.
One labeled Switch, Three To Go
Its about bloody time I say. 2015 is the year I get back out in the rig and I’m going to start tidying up some of the crappier jobs that were done on it before me. Late last year I took the roof rack off because of some dodgy wiring that I wasn’t happy with and I still need to buy approximately 10 meters 12 AWG of red, black and green wire. I have already purchased a fuse box to install and label, which I think is a lot easier than having the fuses all over the place, especially out in the bush. The fuse box also has an LED at each fuse, so if the LED is out then thats the fuse I need to replace. Looking forward to labour day long weekend in March. This will be my first trip in 2 years.
Yes it does activate my “Driving Lights”
IDOMUD Rises Again.
With being a busy little baby maker, I really haven’t had much time to get out and do much 4×4. Cup day weekend only being a few weeks away, I’ve started working away on the beast and making sure that she is up for a small trip away. Hopefully I can.
F450 FPV
Flame Wheel 450 with FPV
I have been so excited since Saturday night when I ordered my Fat Shark RTF (ready to fly) FPV gear. Well now I have it and it is all set up and ready to test fly. Now when am I going to get to test it, that’s the difficult question. My dear wife’s birthday is this weekend and we are having a night in the city. Hmmm I’m thinking Saturday morning or late Sunday afternoon. I wish we were in daylight savings time!
Upgrades
Spektrum DX8
He He everyone loves upgrades. Today I went out to test my new Naza GPS and 4S batteries, which meant I changed from 10 inch props to 8 inch props. I got to the garage and plugged the battery in and went to to the transmitter on and it just beeped at me “ERR”, not what I was expecting. This has happened a couple of times now and I have to change all the settings in the transmitter. Most of the setting are done on the PC through the DJI Naza Assistant, and you forget about the few, but very important settings that must be changed on the transmitter in order for it to work. I read the manual and they have talked about a button battery being embedded deep in the guts of the transmitter, so I thought about pulling it apart, and then I thought even if I do find and get this battery out, the provability of finding one of these batteries today … Not likely. So I went option B … A new transmitter, a Spektrum DX8, it’s pretty mad and works well with the quad. So now I have a spare transmitter (that I can take my time with to repair it) which I will be using for my white prop plane and my electric jet (which still hasn’t had a successful maiden voyage yet).
Flamewheel 450 with GPS
GoPro Home Test
F450 Firewheel with JR Radio
Trialing F450
Flying
Its been a long time in the making. I have tried to use a helicopter and it just kept on attacking me. Now I am happy with F450 Flamewheel quad copter. On it today I have my new gopro camera (which I was scared of writing off on first flight). Today is its virgin flight. It all went well.
This is by far the easiest build and fly I have ever done. I highly recommend this quad to a beginner or a mad professional, there is just so many options you can choose from with usb pc connection.
I had a few hiccups along the way, like having the Naza computer sideways when it should be facing forward. Then I built the craft sideways so there was no where to put the camera. A rebuild was in order and I tried to do that to quick as well and had some undesired effects, but all in all its happening.