Is this a "Must Have" tool?

At the current time, the flight controllers are not 'plug and play.'  This means that for at least the next few years you'll need to be good at soldering.  If you're 15 years old, you probably have fine eyesight.  If you don't, all you need to do is pick up a pair of high powered reading glasses and you should be set.   However, if you're over 40 years old your eyesight starts to get worse.  And the magnifying power you'll need just can't be found in anything but more drastic measures such as



Or



I've tried both.  The powered light ring works okay, but sooner or later you get your forehead on the glass and sweat gets on the lens.    The lighted glasses work much better, they have better magnification.  But it requires you to bend over and get your eyes close to your work for long periods of time which may not feel good.   The goal is to have your hands at hand level on a desk while sitting upright.   Here's something that may work.




It's an LCD display microscope.   It's really too low powered to be considered a microscope but for soldering work, it's more than perfect.  Ring lights around the lens illuminate the work area A small LCD screen for you to see your work in real time.  A MicroSD card on the side allows you to also record video and take still images.  I can see the need for still images more than video.

Thanks to the Chinese, these scopes are affordable. What used to be hundreds of dollars is now found easily for under $100 and often in the $50  or less.   Thus, it's no longer a toy for professional or rich kids.


This is a highly rated tool by those who have bought them on websites like Banggood. Though I have bought one and I am anxiously waiting for it to arrive in the mail I can pretty much tell you how it works.  It works much like the old black and white enlargers some of us old people remember from the days of film.  There is a knob on the back that is used for moving the microscope closer to or further away from the work area.   This changes the field of view.  With this you can look at the something thats 150mm wide or you can zoom into around 10mm.   For example, you can look at a an entire flight controller board.  Then you can bring it closer to the point where you're looking at one or a few pins.  When you get closer in the depth of field, or the area that is in focus gets greatly reduced. You may find that the area you solder is in focus but the board is out of focus below.

About the only negative I've heard about this is that cheaper plastic base models are flimsy and it's difficult to hold the unit still and push a button to get a good, sharp picture if you're taking stills. It's surprising they haven't thought of a USB remote.  But a piece of advice should you need to do a lot of this would be to shine a more powerful light onto your work areas before taking the picture. That should help with the issues of motion blur, especially if your not using it for high magnification.

There are quite a few different models out there.  Check around and see which one works best for you. I ordered mine from Banggood.  It's an upgraded version of an existing model that had a plastic base. This model comes with a metal base.  Click here if you would like to see it.

I will admit that I had "Solderphobia" or the fear of soldering when I first started with the RC hobby.   It wasn't until the power died and I watched a plane fall from the sky that I started taking solder and crimp connections a bit more seriously  But, then again, this was all 12-16 AWG fun.  Now, I'm in 22 AWG hell.  To me, the RC hobby is a continues series of hoops to jump through.  Flight controllers are their own small hoops.  But, this is where I want to go.  So, any tool that I can find that will help make my life a bit easier when chasing down this dream that is priced reasonably and is usefull I will buy.

Is our RC flying hobby going away?

This is the fourth time I’ve written this blog article, and to be honest I have never struggled so much with a subject that I have with this one. I have completely changed my mind about what is going on and what the future has in store for us. Trust me, I know and understand your concerns. I know we are afraid of a day where our civil liberties will be reduced to the point where government regulations will require us to go far away from the cities to fly in some government approved RC flying areas that are desolate and unpopulated. But, I don’t see that day happening. I do see us losing more and more ground over time, which is concerning.

Rule 336 and US Laws

There’s been some interesting commentary about American drone laws from people from other countries. American laws have international ramifications as other countries look to the United States for policy. The current negotiations with Congress and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to regulate drones has been described in soap opera terms. So, what I’ll tell you isn’t gospel, I’m just an American who has experience with our laws, our legal system, and our various forms of government. The main thing I want to say is that this will play out for the next decade.



Section 336 concerns our rights to fly our drones and RC Planes ( known as Unmanned Aircraft Systems UAS). The FAA tried to step in and regulate the zero to 400-foot airspace. For a while, we had to register with the FAA and get a special license number that we had to put on all our aircraft that weighed more than 8 ounces. Then a hobbyist sued the FAA stating that they didn’t have the right to regulate that airspace. The FAA lost and the licensing went away. One of the main issues was that anything over 8 ounces needed to have the FAA number on the plane or drone. That’s just a little intense. A lot of us were hoping for something under 2 pounds and 4 feet shouldn’t need regulation. And the lobbyists for the Aeronautical Modeling Association (AMA) have been pushing for more lenient rules, or none at all from the FAA.

Nothing is written in stone

Whatever the FAA agrees to do today may change dramatically in a few years. The FAA has been known to be a fairly flaky government entity, and not always well run. Thus, whatever deal we strike with them won’t be written in stone. What I’ve read into the FAA’s statements thus far aimed toward us is “Don’t be stupid, and stay out of our airspace.” The FAA will want to do something to regulate us, but you can count on it to be as little as possible because they don’t have the resources or interest in micromanaging hobbyists’ UAS. To the FAA, we’re just an annoyance.
This next part is what I think a lot of people are missing. The FAA can help craft some Federal laws for UAS. The ones I can tell you right off the bat they will institute are to not fly over 400 feet, to have radio beacons that display our FAA numbers, and not to fly over highways, crowds of people or power lines. On a local level (state, county, city) we cannot override the Federal laws, BUT THEY CAN ADD TO THEM. Any state, county or city agency can say for example that we cannot fly at night. They can write city ordinance restricting UAS flights over parks and government buildings. I live in Southern California and I’ve seen some beach cities starting to spell out more regulations on UAS. Over time the list of dos and don’ts gets longer.

And now, we've got big business in the act.

There is a new organization known as the Commercial Drone Alliance (CDA) that has popped up on the radar. The head of the organization, Lisa Ellman has been described as a supervillain by some. Some worry is that the CDA will regulate our hobby literally off into the cornfield somewhere far from the city. There are things I like about her others I don’t like. She seems to project a sincere desire to help the hobbyist with the UAS regulation. It doesn’t seem like she outwardly hates us. But her credentials include a stint in the Obama administration in drafting policy. Thus, she’s a policy wonk, she is now working in the private sector for a law firm and you can expect she of course wants policy, lots and lots of it. Obama was big on big government with lots of regulations. Thus she feels that more regulations are beneficial to us.



She heads up an organization called the Commercial Drone Alliance (CDA). Some companies that want to cash in on commercial drones have the law firm she works for (Hogan Lovells LLP) represent them. She is more or less a lobbyist for commercial drone applications. One member they don’t have is Amazon.



The major concern is that the CDA will push for regulations on us to push us out of the cities, or make use use such expensive hardware that that it will drive RC pilots from the cities. I’m a bit optimistic about the stance of the CDA. I think that Lisa gets that the teenagers who stay up late nights playing with their drone’s firmware, and soldering their flight controllers are the same people who will be working for CDA partner companies in the future. I really don’t see that drones will only be for commercial applications in the future. They just want to have jurisdiction in zones that they will fly in.

Commercial drone applications are more than Amazon’s Prime Air.

Somehow this is the only thing that comes to mind when we think of commercial drones. Whenever we see a movie, a TV show or the news you’re likely to see drone footage now and then. This is a commercial application. Real Estate agents love drone footage. So do brides who want really cool drone footage of their weddings. The list goes on and on. Thus, when we think of commercial drones we need to think beyond just Amazon.

What is wanted from us.

Sooner or later we’ll be going back to UAS registration with the FAA. Along with that will be a requirement to have a radio beacon to alert commercial drones which are flying in the area. I don’t know if this will ever see the light of day, if so, just go along with it. Most of the planes I fly are smaller than Canadian Geese which makes me wonder? If you’re afraid of running into my UAS, how are you going to avoid the geese and other larger birds?

Commercial drones will help our hobby.

The downside to the CDA and Amazon pushing for more regulations is that we may potentially have to jump through more hoops. Obama, he once said “If you own a business, you didn’t build that, someone had to help you along the way.” So, who helped the Commercial Drone Association? Another way of asking is who put billions of dollars into drones that helped pay for R&D thus far? Oh yeah, that’s us! You, me and millions of other folks. So yes, we deserve respect. Equating us to idiots solely because of a few bad actors is like equating baseball players to villains because a few people use baseball bats to do assaults.





Somehow, everything I’ve seen or read about the Section 336 and future laws is spelled out in terms of doom. Yes, there can be more restrictions in our future. But, is the hobby really going away? I doubt it. Let's look on the upside. With commercial applications comes one thing we can appreciate, more money floating around for R&D! Though we may not get our hands on proprietary drone made by large corporations we will benefit from more money flowing around.
I am hoping for rapid advancements in electronics and motors. And who know, maybe better lightweight materials that inexpensively go beyond foam?

Be an advocate in your city

I do most of my flying in empty parks. It’s amazing how often the parks are empty because kids just don’t play in them like they used to. Instead of worrying about the FAA I worry more about my local city coming up with ordinances. A poorly written ordinance can lose in court. Thus when cities have a problem they really care to get rid of, they tend to spend a lot of money on a well-worded ordinance. There is something in our state called the “League of Cities” which is an annual meeting where cities sometimes share these well-worded ordinances with each other. So, if UASs become a problem in one city it won’t be long before many cities have the same ordinances. This is why I feel that worrying only about what the FAA may do is a waste of time. What may help is if you’re up on the laws you may want to go to your local city manager, code enforcement officers and members of your city council and let them know that you’re into model aviation and leave them your phone number, What I have found is that when a city has a problem they look to mitigate the problem. Once an ordinance is written cities are reluctant to change them, and you may end up needing to go to court. The threat of legal action may get them to budge, but that’s an extreme which is expensive, time-consuming and doesn’t win you friends in city hall. Sometimes just getting known is all you need to do. There will be many changes when it comes to drones over the next ten years, both in laws and technology. It’s good if you’re a resource and an asset to your city.

Final Thoughts

The partisan bickering in Washington has slowed down progress on just about everything. Heavy-handed regulations in conjunction with the repeal of Section 336 has been discussed, and so has pushed the whole matter ofe responsible UAS pilots.