Tech Trends

I like remote controlled planes and cars. I especially like the micro gadgets. The tinier the more intriguing. My wife gave me a Mini Helicopter for Christmas. She picked the HX-281 by Hauxang Toys. It’s fun to fly around in the living room or at the office (where the ceilings are much higher). The infrared controller is also the charging unit and requires 6 AA batteries. The batteries are used to charge the helicopter’s onboard rechargable battery and to transmit control signals via IR during helicopter flight. It takes about 15 minutes to charge the helicopter for about 5 minutes of flying. It’s very fun… but sadly short lived. After burning a set of batteries with a very limited number of charges I began to explore what it would take to ditch the battery requirement.

A se Google searches took me into some battery spec sheets, robotics parts suppliers and electronics how-to’s. Makes me crave a trip to Radio Shack. But that’s the geek in me talking. (It’s fitting that my helicopter came from Think Geek.)

Opening the controller showed slots for 6AA batteries in series rather than parallel. When in series the battery individual voltage as added together to determine total voltage supplied by the battery pack. 6 AA’s at 1.5 Volts each comes to 9V DC. I hit a local electronics store and paid $5 for an adapter to convert 120V AC to 9V DC with a 1 Amp (1000mA) allowance.

‘mA’ stands for milliamp. The way it was explained to me is that if the charger would only use what it needed but if there wasn’t enough mA available for function, it would run hot or not work at all. So it is my hope that the higher 1000mA choice, rather than th 300mA or 500mA, will help it work better and improve on what the batteries could provide. I just hope it doesn’t burn something up. I’ll get back with you on that.

Cutting off the adapter tip left the two wires for splicing into the controller housing. My drill was not handy so I heated my small screwdriver on the stove enough to punch a hole in the housing for the new wire. I then inserted the wire, tight a knot to avoid a force pulling it out, and spliced the wires from the adapter to the correct wires leading out of the battery compartment. A quick switch on and off confirmed correct wiring was correct and I reassembled the housing.

I was in a hurry to get on with this and my electrical box was at the office so I used duct tape to connect the wire splice inside the controller. Duct tape doesn’t present a danger does it?

I couldn’t be happier with the results. Charge time is about 2-3 minutes now, for about 7-10 minutes of power for the helicopter. A huge improvement. I didn’t expect that difference in performance. I just wanted to avoid having to buy batteries. I don’t understand the life cycle of rechargeable batteries enough to make a prediction on whether this will help or hurt the lifespan and mAh storage capacity and retention ability of the helicopter internal battery. We’ll see.

As you can (sort of) see in my low-light phone pic to the left, while trying to find the best power balance and maneuverability I removed the cab shell that is shown in the above illustration and replaced it with a face clipping from a rubber alien finger puppet from an eclectic shop in Chicago. The new face is lighter to allow more mobility, but is still heavy enough to provide the balance necessary to allow a good flight pattern, not to mention rockin-awesome.

I hope to get a lot more fun from this cool toy.

I have a mini remote controlled car that I think I’m going to do this same thing to. If you are trying to make any of these adjustments yourself and feel that my brief descriptions could use more detail, post questions to the comments and I’ll help how I can.