Know How... 116 (Transcript)

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On this episode of Know How we are going to fix your sticky Windows, your feedback, and then it’s quad copter madness.

Father Robert Ballecer: Welcome to Know How. It’s the twit show where we bend, build, break and upgrade. I’m Father Robert Ballecer.

Bryan Burnett: And I’m Bryan Burnett.

Fr. Robert: For the next 45 or 60 minutes we are going to be showing you some of the projects that we’ve been working on the last couple of weeks. We’re going to pull out knowledge straight out of our knowledge holes.

Bryan: Oh boy. Better have a bucket ready for that.

Fr. Robert: Before we do that we actually did want to talk about one story that has been making the rounds and it is interesting.

Bryan: It is interesting. It is a kick starter. It is 2014 and we’ve been wanting flying cars and on that list would also be hover boards.

Fr. Robert: We were promised hover boards, I don’t know why we don’t yet have them.

Bryan: It is the future, we are here. We are waiting.

Fr. Robert: So this kick starter is from a company called Hendo. They have made the first overboard. It has raised $304,338 out of 250,000 of their original goal. 52 days ago they are already fully funded. Most of the pledges in this kick starter will get stickers and shirts and a five minute ride on a hover board. But once you start pledging $299 or more and can you start to actually get the tech. It is what they call the white box developer kit. It actually has their hovering engine. If you had $10,000 you could have gotten an actual hover board. But they were only going to offer 10 of those and they are already all gone.

Bryan: So we watch this video here, but let's think about how this works. It is non-ferrous material that they are hovering over. This basic principle has been around for a long time. The first thing I thought of was Magnetic trains that use this. It is not like this is something completely revolutionary.

Fr. Robert: The principles here are not super Earth shattering. We’ve known about magnetism and repulsion for a long time. What they have done is a has scaled down the cost and they've scaled down the amount of equipment that you need to get a stable magnetic field. The problem is that if you ever put magnets on top of each other as you try to move them along it dips and wanes and then suddenly the field inverts. It is difficult to get a stable field repulsion because of all the currents that happen when you are dealing with magnetism. They figured out a very novel way of getting a stable field. Within those currents. You need to have a surface that is metallic, non-iron metallic. So that is kind of limiting the usefulness. But it is still cool tech. It is still interesting. I just don’t think it is going to be a hover board everyone thinks is going to be.

Bryan: The expectation is set to where you could just go out in the street and have her around. That’s what I want. But I don’t think there is going to be any skate parks or anything that have this material laid down.

Fr. Robert: In case someone shows up with the $10,000 hover board.

Bryan: The point you are making too is that on a skateboard it uses friction to help maneuver yourself.

Fr. Robert: It gives you lateral stability. A skateboard will move forward and back but it will not move easily side to side. A hover board has none of that.

Bryan: The example you gave me was if you want to experience this put oil on top of the granite countertop and try to stand on that.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. You are going to be slighting, you kind of have to have your balance perfect before you can start using it.

Bryan: We both have perfect balance. I don’t think we've ever fallen or run into anything.

Fr. Robert: I’ve never tripped.

Bryan: Were pretty much athletes.

Fr. Robert: Super athletes. So I am just waiting for my Hendo hover board and hopefully I’ll be able to go over water.

Bryan: You’ve gotta have power to go over water. I was waiting for that, thank you Padre.

Fr. Robert: Let’s take a break and talk about our first sponsor of Know How. And of course it is lynda.com. You’ve heard of Lynda right?

Bryan: I’ve been using it to play with Android Studio.

Fr. Robert: Very cool. Either action been using it for Adobe Premier it is funny because I've been editing with Premier for 10 years now. But, there are some things that I should have known and maybe I did know but I’m kind of recalling it now. You get rusty. That is what Lynda lets you do. You learn something brand-new, or refresh your knowledge on something you already know, or it lets you update your existing skills. Lynda Is the one-stop shop on the Internet for knowledge. A knowledge repository, a place to go whenever you need to update your skills or find out what is the latest and greatest in your field. When we use lynda.com we go to the easy and affordable way to help us learn. You can stream thousands of courses created by experts on software, web development, graphic design and more. lynda.com Works directly with industry experts and software companies to provide timely training, often the same day that new versions are really least. You will always be up to speed. All courses are produced at the highest quality, they are not like a lot of YouTube videos which, though I love, sometimes the lighting and software the sound is off or it is just a weird angle. You get none of that with a lynda.com course. You get perfectly produced a video so that you can concentrate on learning rather than nitpicking the production. Now their tools include things like searchable transcripts and playlists, certificates of course completion which you can publish to your LinkedIn profile so that potential employers know what you’ve trained in. Whether you are a beginner or advanced, lynda.com has courses for all experience levels. You get to learn why you were on the go with the lynda.com app for iOS or android and they've got one low monthly price of $25 that gives you unlimited access to over 100,000 video tutorials. A premium plan member can download project files and practice along with the instructor and premium members with an annual plan can download courses to watch off-line, which is perfect because sometimes you are going to be in a place where you need the reference. You need to be able to go through that transcript and find the answer to your problem, but you are not going to have access to the Internet. What you’re not going to have access to a fast connection. That is why Lynda lets you download if you become a premium member. They’ve also got multiple go pro courses including creative go pro photography and video techniques so if, like me, you are getting into quad copters and you are going to be mounting the go Pro learn up on that go pro first so that your video isn’t shaky were horrible and badly framed. Now for any software that you rely on, lynda.com can help you stay current with all your software updates and learn the ins and outs to be more efficient and productive. And you've got a special offer just for you to access all the courses free for seven days. Visit lynda.com/knowhow to try lynda.com free for seven days. And we thank Lynda for their support of Know How.

Bryan: if you are going to be strapping a relatively expensive go Pro camera to a relatively expensive quad copter you should probably learn how to fly at first.

Fr. Robert: It is funny because every once in a while see videos put up on YouTube and it is obviously someone’s first couple of flights.

Bryan: Those ones are fun though. I enjoyed watching those sometimes. Like the one where the guy goes over the canyon and is about to run out of battery so it goes back home and fly straight into the side of a mountain.

Fr. Robert: The best part about the video is they did the majestic music all the way up until it hits the tower. Drone technology is great unless you’ve got big columns of rock in the way. Speaking of drone technology we are going to be… this episode of Know How is brought to you by Take Down Notices! Anyway, lets talk a little it about Quad Copters. We got some feedback we wanted to talk about from our Google plus group. The first one actually came to us from a user by the name of Gilbert. He asked, “I’m glad you are doing a quad copter series I am planning on building one. I really like the idea of buying an inexpensive one to learn to fly on. I will probably buy the one you showed on the episode but I have a question about it. Could I use the control for the one that I built?” Gilbert This is actually an excellent question. We get this a lot because you want to be able to reuse your gear. You don’t want to just buy it once and then let it go to waste. First of all, congratulations on deciding to buy a trainer. They are fun, they are almost indestructible, and they will teach you how to fly a quad copter. This is the remote that comes with the quad copter. It is not a bad remote, it is a six channel and it is actually quite nice. This is a six channel that I am using for our belt. It is not super expensive that it is a bit heftier and it does have a few more options than the other one.

Bryan: And we use this for her lunchbox to do in week?

Fr. Robert: Yes. Here is the problem. If you get one of these trainers that board in the center is really the only electronics that are in there. You’ve got that in the four motors. Now that one board has the receiver, it has the flight controller and it has the electronic speed controllers. Which means there is no way to separate the receiver unit from that central unit to be able to reuse this controller. It doesn’t work. And it’s not going to bind you with the different receiver. So, it would be great if you could but it is not going to work. The other thing is this remote is going to top out at around 300 feet. Once you get 300 feet away you start getting weird things happening. The Fly Sky and some of the dedicated controllers will go much further and they actually have a homing procedure where the receiver loses its signal it will actually try to start coming back. If you go out of signal with the other one it will actually just drop from the sky. So, thank you for getting the trainer. I really think that everyone should start with the trainer because it is not just that it is going to survive all your crashes it is that even something like this, a simple 250 class this hitting new hurts a whole lot more than this hitting you. I have been hit in the head by these. If this falls from the sky it will cut someone. It will cause stitches.

Bryan: Don't fly that over a playground or anything.

Fr. Robert: Children be careful. Second piece of feedback we have is from a user by the name of Ean. He write, “My home router’s DNS service is flaky. It is an action tech 1200, I can specify which DNS is to advertise from the router. Is there any reason to include the router in the list of DNS? I’ve moved its 192.168.1.254 entry to the secondary DNS spot using my ISP DNS at the primary. Steve Gibson’s DNS bench says that is the wrong way around for performance but I want to make sure I get reliable internet rather than flaky internet. Any advice?” Well, Ean. You’re in luck because we’ve got plenty advice.

Bryan: If there is one thing Padre knows, it’s routers.

Fr. Robert: And I would say the way you are doing it right now is absolutely, positively…. don’t do it.

Bryan: It doesn’t sound right. Because you can look up your ISP’s DNS address and I've done now that one of the ones that has been more reliable for me is Google’s DNS.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. So what I would say is dump both of those. You really don’t want to use the DNS server in your router. Because there really isn’t a DNS server in your router. It is just a DNS forward. You don’t want to use the DNS server for your ISP unless you have an exceptional ISP because most ISP DNS servers are way oversubscribed. They don’t spend enough money on the infrastructure so what happens is when you type in Twit.tv you get an extraordinarily long wait. Not because the connection is slow but because it is taking so long for that DNS server to give you the proper numbers for you to access that server. What you want to do is you want to use a third-party server with really good reliability and a good reputation. There are two that I can think of off the top of my head. The first one is Google, as you mentioned it is 8.8.8. Really easy to remember. The other one is Open DNS which is 208.67.220.220 or 222. Those numbers are stuck in my head. you will get much better performance. The one caveat is if you decide to go with a super high-end router like PF Sense, that can cache DNS entries locally which can be crazy fast but no, ditch the DNS server for your router. Ditch your IPS’s DNS and you can always drop by episode 81 of Know How because I did a full segment on fixing DNS.

Bryan: Play around with it because Google might not work as well in certain areas as others. Here in the North Bay it works pretty well, but maybe not where you live. So play around with it.

Fr. Robert: Actually I know that in that same Google plus grouping people were suggesting you use Steve Gibson’s DNS tool. Use that on both Google DNS and Open DNS and see which one works better for you. I’d say you put one in the first spot and one in the second spot and you can’t go wrong.

Bryan: Cool.

Fr. Robert: The last bit of feedback. This is from Jason. He had a questions about a segment we did the other day about fiber. Remember when we were talking about fiber taps?

Bryan: And how you would do it by hand?

Fr. Robert: You could. But you need a steady hand. but he wanted to know, “First is there a standard fiber optic network and second the only reason I would be interested in fiber optic is for speed. But every card I have seen me is no faster than Gig E. What speeds can your standard fiber home network reach?” Jason let me answer that backwards. Don’t use fiber for speed. We don’t use fiber for speed in networks because for example, 10 gig is about the fastest you can get over commercially available fiber. There is 40, 80 and 100 gig but those are very specialized. I can get that over copper. I've been able to get 10 gig over copper for about the last seven years. It is not about speed. What fiber gives you, is that it gives you distance. You can go a lot further with fiber and it also gives you the ability to not have any interference. A copper conductor is essentially an antenna. So if you run into a very RF rich area it is going to pick up stray symbols and then you get the transmits and your speakers down. Fiber is all glass and plastic so they are is no antenna to pick up those stray signals, so you are not going to get interference unless you get someone that cuts the fibrin is shining a laser into it.

Bryan: And the only thing that you are saying with distance but it is as fast as light can travel right?

Fr. Robert: You are going to get the same speeds with copper. But what this will give you is that it will give you distances in kilometers rather than in feet.

Bryan: Very cool.

Fr. Robert: And now, back to the first question. Is there a standard for a fiver? There are actual multiple standards for fiber. The one that you need to know is a difference between multi-mode and single mode. Next week I will show you, I can actually show you the difference between multi-mode and single mode fiber. That an easy way to imagine that is a multi-mode fiber the laser inside this little cable is bouncing back and forth until it gets to the end. In single mode fiber it goes in one smooth line it never hits the sides.

Bryan: So is it faster then?

Fr. Robert: It’s not that it’s faster it is that you can get the signal to go longer. Much, much further.

Bryan: So would it make sense to use fiber in a home network where it is not very long distances between?

Fr. Robert: Not at all. It is more expensive and you are not going to get any speed. The only time I would suggest using fiber in a home is if you've got a huge home where individual runs would be longer than 300 feet or if for some reason you lived next to a radio station. And the RF is that bad.

Bryan: Or if you had a guest house way out in the yard or something?

Fr. Robert: I've actually done runs outside of my house to a neighbor’s house with fiber. For the simple reason that it doesn’t conduct. I’m in some stormy areas and I don’t want a lightning strike to conduct through my copper. So I used fiber. But those are really odd cases. Here is another thing about fiber. When you start looking at standards what you really want to look at is the one a look at these things. These are FSP’s. These are modules, that allow me to interface equipment with different fiber technologies. When I say different fiber technologies I mean the wavelength of the light that it transmits. These are 850 nm. You can swap out these modules for different speeds. Like these are all one gate, this is it 10 gig and it’s crazy expensive. That you are using the same fiber, you are just using different types of light through it. To get different speeds.

Bryan: Because it doesn’t matter what the actual material in the fiber is, it is. just what..

Fr. Robert: There is higher quality fiber. For example this is what is called a LC connector and it looks like a little skinny barrel. These are LC modules. This is what is called an SC connector. These are a little bit older but they are still very good to use. The nice thing about these is that I can convert back and forth because all I need is two pieces of fiber for every connection. One inbound and one outbound. It makes it super simple when you are setting up a data center if a connection is not working you can typically just roll it. Just flip it. Then it works. So, plenty of standards. Use it at home? No.

Bryan: We use it here at twit but we have a very specific use.

Fr. Robert: By the way, people are commenting on my ziplock bag. If you will notice this is my bad fiber bag. Anytime I've got bad fiber it goes in this bad.

Bryan: What quantifies it is bad?

Fr. Robert: Typically it just means it is dirty. Like this is a dead module that is why I don’t have it. I would never, ever take a piece of fiber and just jam it into an SSD because any whale or dirt that you got on the edge of this connector is now jam.

Bryan: Can you just rub it on your shirt? To get it off? Or lick it or something? Is that how fiber works?

Fr. Robert: I will destroy you.

Bryan: Should I not have been doing that?

Fr. Robert: Don’t even get me started. We’ve had a piece of fiber hanging down from the Know Hole, wrapped around pipes and shoved back in the ceiling. Now when we come back we are going to go all into Quad Copter frames. Continuing Series for our quad copter build. You need to choose a frame before you start choosing all the equipment you are going to put on the frame. We are going to show you how you go ahead and choose that. But before that, hey Windows 8.1 users: you got some sticky windows? Let me help you fix it.

 Fr. Robert: If you’ve been using Windows 8.1 with multiple monitors then you have probably noticed that Microsoft has changed the way it allows the cursor to move between screens. Before you could just easily glide from one screen to the next but Microsoft has locked in the cursor so that you need to have a little bit of speed in order to get through that border. Otherwise it will just bounce. Believe it or not this is actually a feature that makes sense. Microsoft wanted you to have an easy way to snap windows inside each display and that is what that cardboard or does. But if you are used to the way that Windows 7 treats multiple monitors it can be a bit jarring or downright annoying. Unfortunately Microsoft really does not want you to mess with the settings that would change the hard border. Fortunately, we don’t care what Microsoft wants. To fix your sticky Windows you will need to use the Windows Registry editor. That is a pretty powerful mojo so I am going to take you step-by-step, in fact it is so powerful I am going to remind you again of how powerful it is in about 24 seconds. Hit the Windows key, then start typing regedit. You should see an entry for regedit.exe. right-click the entry and choose run as the administrator from the drop-down menu. The Registry editor window will now open. We are going to be editing registry keys. These are the configuration settings for the OS. Let me repeat, this is powerful mojo. So be very careful in here. The registry controls the way Windows works and changing the wrong settings can make your OS completely unresponsive. Follow these instructions step-by-step to avoid borking your installation. First find the key labeled hkey_current_user in the left column of the editor. Click the triangle next to the key and a new set of folders will drop down. Now select the triangle next to the control panel, then click the folder named desktop. You will see multiple objects in the right-hand column. Scroll down to the one labeled mouse monitor escape speed all one word. If that entry does not exist, then right-click in an empty area of the column and create a new d word value with the name of mouse monitor and escape speed. Double-click that entry and a screen titled edit d word will open. Set the value data to one and leave everything else the way it is. Click okay. Moving back to the left-hand column but staying within the hkey_current_user key, click the triangle next to software. Then Microsoft, then Windows. Which should also open current version. Then click the triangle next to immersive shell and now click the folder titled edge UI. In the right column you will again see entries. You need to find the key labeled mouse monitor escape speed, all one word. But again if that entry does not exist, then right-click in an empty area of the column and create a new Q word value with the name of mouse monitor escape speed and click that entry and a screen titled edit Q word will open. Set the value data to one and leave everything else the way it is. Then click okay. We now need to restart Explorer so that the new settings will take. You could just restart Windows, or you can hit control out delete to bring up the task manager. Find the task labeled Windows Explorer and click the research button and the in the task manager. The UI will refresh and Windows Explorer will restart with the new settings. Now when you move your mouse between screen borders there should be no hard border, no sticky Windows. Be free. Run wild. And experience the power of the registry hack.

Fr. Robert: I know there are people in the chat room who were saying I never had this problem with Windows.

Bryan: I have a dual monitor set up that you were saying side to side is not affected.

Fr. Robert: Side to side is really not a problem. There is no edge border. The problem is if you stack monitors if you have them up top you are always going to run into that cardboard or problem. For a while it didn’t bother me that that will idea of having to give your mouse speed to break through some imaginary barrier like that.

Bryan: To be fair if you also get kind of crazy with monitors.

Fr. Robert: I do.

Bryan: Like might edit machine was just two monitors until you came along and said you could put more monitors here. And the next thing I know I have quad monitor setup.

Fr. Robert: I don’t know what it is I use them all. I have four monitors for my desk here and they are always full of stuff.

Bryan: It always looks like something sinister is happening too. Because you usually have IP Viking on one screen, the chat room on the other one. Okay Padre you've got a tower of quad copters here. I heard you like quad copters. I have a feeling we wouldn’t be able to fly all these at the same time.

Fr. Robert: Since these don’t have any electronics on them they won’t fly so well. So what we've got here is a representation of the quads that we are playing with. We’ve got the trainers. We’ve got the trainers are what we call a 250 class. And we’ve got this which is a 250 class, this is the one that we are going to be building the most. We've got this bad boy which is a 450 class, we are getting bigger. And then we’ve got this monstrosity that looks like this would be a…

Bryan: Like a weapon.

Fr. Robert: This is a full collapsible frame copter called a 525. I’m going to talk a little bit about why you would choose different types of quad copter frames. The 250 is the simplest. This is what I like to start people off with in their builds because it is a unibody. You’ve got a single frame that has all the members that you need to be able to mount your motorists and your controllers in your electronics. This is the flight controller that I’m using.

Bryan: That looks a lot bigger than the…

Fr. Robert: Yeah. Because this is a way more powerful controller. I can do all these crazy settings that make it more stable, make it more agile, make it more hostile. It also has detachable feet so that it stands up. The nice thing about this is that it is very easy to transport. You are not really going to have to worry about where you put this thing, it will fit inside of the bad once you take off the landing feet. And it is super stable. This is the second kind of frame that I have been playing around with. This is the 450, they call this one the flame wheel. The idea is that you’ve got these for independent arms fastened onto this. I like this feature this panel here is actually the power distribution. So it is a PCP. But that distributes power to your electronic speed controller from your battery to your motors. The other cool thing about this is that these are super lightweight members but it also means since they are individual if you break one you can get a replacement without having to replace them all. Unless of course you smash the middle. Putting this together was really easy. Imagine most of these frames are like sandwiches. You have the arms, you have a layer at the bottom of the arms and a layer at the top of the arms. That is what gives you the most stability. Something that I have been doing a lot with the 450 is sort of figuring out the optimal load balance. As you get bigger you kind of start moving weight away from the center of the quad or you can have issues. This is the 525. The 525 is going to run into problems because it is so big. It is very hard to transport a 525. So this one was designed to be collapsible. It uses a bunch of these fiberglass parts with weird landing gear. This is the part that allows you to open up and close them.

Bryan: You want to tighten that down when you’re in flight the right?

Fr. Robert: Oh yeah. This is probably my least favorite of all of the builds that I’m doing. I flew this one over the weekend and I just don’t like it.

Bryan: Can you pinpoint why?

Fr. Robert: I think it just that it is not as rigid as I wanted to be.

Bryan: It doesn’t give you as much control as you would like?

Fr. Robert: Yeah. There is a bunch of different things that I don’t really like about it. But, I’m not saying that you’re not going to like it. Another thing is that this was also really cheap. Of the three frames this was actually the cheapest. So, it is going to have issues.

Bryan: And the controller for this frame, is that a controller?

Fr. Robert: This is actually a power distribution. So on this one the power distribution is integrated. On this one the power distribution comes in on the little board. On this 250 the power distribution is just this harness. It is a cable harness that has power coming in to the battery and going out to each of the individual electronic speed controllers. Here is the fun part. No matter how small, or how big your build is, every quad copter is going to have the same basic parts. You’ve got a frame. On a frame he will have motors, on the motors you are going to have props. Those motors will be connected to one electronic speed controller each. It is just this little device which allows me to electronically control how much power is going to the motor. So this one has four of them because you need one for each motor. So you are going to have the four ESC’s, you are also going to have the flight controller, you saw that in the video. It is inside this case. This will give me control over the handling characteristics in the setup of my quad copter. But it also controls the for speed controllers which in turn control the motors. And then you have this. This is the receiver which plugs into my controller, which controls the electronic speed controllers, which drive the motor, which get the power from the battery. So every quad is going to have those basic part. No matter how big or how small. In fact, if I wanted to I could strip all the pieces off of this and put it on this 525 frame and it would work. It would be kind of crappy because these motors are small but it would work.

Bryan: And then this controller that you have works with this remote that you bought. And then you've just link them together?

Fr. Robert: Yeah. In the more advanced remote control setups you can buy additional receivers and then you use what is called the binding buttons on the back of this there is a key that I can press to bind it to that particular control. So, I could buy one transmitter, by three receivers and then bind to what ever copter I want to fly that day.

Bryan: How much was that controller again?

Fr. Robert: $60. It is not that expensive. There is much more advanced ones. Many people decide to get a more advanced model because they are going to be doing this a lot. So they can do multiple FPV or some other weird stuff. But you could just buy several receivers, put them into all your builds because you are not going to damage your transmitter. Your transmitter is not in the air so it is going to last. Now people are going to be asking what is the advantage of getting a big or a small frame. Like we have seen with the trainer, small frames tend to be a little bit easier to control. And you can fly these things indoors, they don’t hurt as much if you get hit.

Bryan: That is an advantage especially if you are working in a confined space like that, we tend to. The disadvantage you don’t have as much battery. And it’s not like it could carry anything either.

 Fr. Robert: This one could do and FPV system. You’ll also notice that I’m grounded right now waiting for my replacement props because I ran this into a chain-link fence. When you start using these do not fly with damaged props. I’m going to say that several times. There is a temptation to say oh, it’s not so bad. But these are spending several thousand times a minute and if you have a damaged prop and it just breaks off it is going to throw shrapnel. Very bad. Don’t do that. In fact if you are going to be doing that you really should be wearing safety goggles. I don’t because I am a bad boy.

Bryan: You are a rebel.

Fr. Robert: No, because I am stupid. You are absolutely right. The bigger the quad frame the more it can carry. And the more means bigger motors. Bigger motors equal bigger props. Take a look at the prop on the 250 and then take a look at the prop here on the 450 or the 525. The reason for that is if I try to put a 10 inch prop on this the props will run into each other. So the larger frames can do these 10 inch props without a problem. They won’t run into any other propeller on the assembly. The 525, you can actually use 12 inch props. That is getting ridiculous but you could. The bigger the prop, the bigger the motor you are going to need and the bigger motor you need the bigger speed controller you need. And then the bigger battery you need. It is kind of diminishing returns. You could make a huge quad copter out of everything but then you are going to have to put more electronics into it, which means you need more battery and then it makes it heavier and so it decreases performance.

Bryan: Does it make it more squirrelly as it gets bigger?

Fr. Robert: I think my building skill just isn’t at the point where I can make a big quad and make it fly nicely.

Bryan: The trainer when we have we can fly in circles around things. If you get good enough at it.

Fr. Robert: I’m not saying it is not controllable, it is harder to control a bigger one. Start with the smaller one. Now there are some things about the fourth 50 that I like. With this style of quiet, with these size props I do get a lot of power. I actually get more stability than a trainer. Because think about it, if I take my thrust and I push it out a little bit further I have a much more stable platform. Even a 250 is like one column of thrust, they are so close together.

Bryan: Doesn’t get pushed around a lot in a breeze?

Fr. Robert: It can get pushed around. So what I would say is there is a couple of things you should think about when you are going to choose the frame for your quad. Choosing the frame is really going to guide all the decisions you make about your quiet from hereafter. If you get a smaller frame it means a smaller motor, which means a smaller prop, which means smaller speed controllers, etc. So, choose wisely. The first thing is how much area do you have to fly your quad? If you live in the middle of his city and it is really hard to find wide-open spaces don’t get a huge squad. You are not going to be able to fly this thing. Get something like this. Because this I actually could fly indoors. I would never fly a 450 indoors unless I had a palatial estate. You will hit everything. We could fly it in here because there’s no expensive equipment in the studio that we might break. The second thing is how will you be transporting your quad? If you live in a place with wide-open spaces a 525 with a non-collapsible frame might be perfectly acceptable. If you have to put it in a car or on a bike smaller frames are better or collapsible frames are better.

Bryan: And whatever fits your budget to the bigger you get the more money you are going to have to spend.

Fr. Robert: Now also are you going for speed or are you going for maneuverability or longevity? I would say if you are going to embrace then get a 250. They are smaller, you can stretch out the wheelbase and you can really get them going. 450 and 525 can carry a lot more, but they don’t have the agility of a 250.

Bryan: So if I want to race them get a 250. If I want to do some…

Fr. Robert: Go Pro shots or something, get a 450 or 525. Again as we said, you can transport the gear back and forth on frames just get different frames.

Bryan: What about build time? How long did it take you to put that together?

Fr. Robert: This is slightly faster because it is unibody. I didn’t have to assemble anything. This one was slightly longer. And this one took a long time and I really don’t like it. It was mostly because, especially on these cheap frames the instructions are so bad that basically I had to figure it out on my own. It was….

Bryan: You didn’t get this at IKEA did you?

Fr. Robert: No, it was an Amazon thing. Also how much flight time do you want? Because that will determine how much battery power you need, which will also affect the size of your frame. How much power do you want delivered to your motors? Because that will size up your electronic speed controllers and that will determine where you locate them on the frame. Do you want FPV? Do you want GPS? Do you want NAV to be able to program? And this is something I think you need to pay attention to early on. How likely are you to break it? Because if you are going to snap this thing, if you know you’re going to snap it get an inexpensive frame before you by the super expensive one. Because these, all of these frames on the table are under $20. You can buy a frame for as low as $12 all the way up to multiple thousands of dollars.

Bryan: If you know yourself as well as we do, just get the cheap one.

Fr. Robert: You won't be so sad.

Bryan: Mondog in the chat room asked if there was any advantage to using a triple blade prop versus a dual propeller?

Fr. Robert: We are going to get to that in two episodes. The next episode we are talking about motors and speed controllers because you do have to size those. But, pick a frame because that is going to determine your motor and speed controller. There are advantages to using three blade props, and disadvantages. I prefer to blades. I don’t like the three blade once. Some people really like them but I am not a big fan. It actually does change the performance. We will talk all about that in an upcoming episode. Now I know this was a lauded information to take in but we are actually going to give you all these notes in our show notes. Where can they find them?

Bryan: twit.tv/kh And not only are our show notes they are bit past episodes are so you are definitely going to want to go there so you can follow along the parts of this project that we are doing. And you can subscribe which would be great too.

Fr. Robert: Subscribe and as long as you are going to subscribe why not jump into our Google plus group. It is a fantastic community. I love pooling questions and projects out of there because there are just really good ideas. Go to gplus.to/kh…

Bryan: We really should do a hang out soon.

Fr. Robert: Let’s do one Friday. Tomorrow. We are going to do a Know How hang out tomorrow straight from the Know Hole. We are going to talk about what you want to see in future episodes of Know How. It is just a great chance to talk to you.

Bryan: I think we figured out how to do a hang out. We’ll talk to PixelCore because I think that is what they do.

 Fr. Robert: Also if you don’t like Google plus you can find us on Twitter. I’m @PadreSJ.

Bryan: And I’m @cranky_hippo. That is where you can find our daily exploits and lots of pictures of corgis from me. What else do you post on there?

Fr. Robert: Mostly food. And Giants.

Bryan: And don’t forget about Alex.

Fr. Robert: Alex is our TD and he’s @anelf3.

Bryan: You never know what that guy is going to be up to.

 Fr. Robert: The last couple of days I saw him tweeting from the airport.

Bryan: He did like a three-day trip to New York and back.

Fr. Robert: Also don’t forget that we do this show live every Thursday at 11:00 AM Pacific time. Just drop into twit.tv and as long as you are watching live where you get to see our pre-show and all the bloopers jump into our chat room at IRC.twit.tv and we will talk to you during the show. We will figure whether or not you are receiving the knowledge pouring into your knowledge hole.

Bryan: Sometime we’ve gone over it in our heads so many times we skip steps.

Fr. Robert: Exactly. But until next time, I’m Father Robert Ballecer.

Bryan: And I’m Byan Burnett.

Fr. Robert: And now that you know how…

Bryan: Go do it!