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You did this to the Blue or Green DF? Im pretty happy with the range on green ,but blue is only good to about 30-40 feet before it gets unstable.Did you leave the wire legs on it and add wire? I would not care to take mine apart so if this is a mod that can be done without dis-assembly,i would like to do it.Thanks for your input and information! 
One improvement for the Dragonfly that is high on my wish list is to increase the range beyond the stated 50 feet. It turns out that the legs of the Dragonfly are the antenna- the wire connecting it to the PCB is soldered on near the center of the legs (visible only after removing the foam shell; or maybe cutting a small opening right where the legs enter the body.
I've tried replacing the legs with a ~20" stretch of wire-wrap wire (Kynar insulated 30 AWG wire), tied to the tail strut with a bit of dental floss so it trails out behind the 'fly. I haven't yet tested the full range, but it is good now to at least 100 feet.
I don't know yet if this is optimal, the receiver circuit may need some tuning by turning the adjustable inductor on the pcb to attain maximum sensitivity without becoming unstable. Photo to come tonight, along with further testing.
cheers- Scott
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May 21, 2007 5:48 PM
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May 21, 2007 6:59 PM
I did it on my Blue, which is pretty much torn apart. And I did take the legs off. It would be worth trying tho, just soldering some additional really light wire onto the legs as close to the center as you can get.
Here's a couple of pictures:
(note: the lower picture shows the larger 170 mAh battery with a connector for easy battery changes. This battery is too large/heavy really, for the current configuration. I haven't been able to keep it in the air long enough to run down the battery! I think this one would need somewhat more wing area to stay airborne. At least now I can easily swap the original battery back in!)
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May 25, 2007 2:30 PM
I finally settled on a decent arrangement of the bigger battery, along with a return to the original wings. For some reason (!) it flies better with the original wings than with my clear ones, everything else being equal. I used some velcro so I can easily adjust the battery position, it is having no trouble climbing now.
cheers- Scott
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May 25, 2007 4:07 PM
All you need to do now is use a more powerful wing flapping motor to put all that new battery power to good use! lol
May 25, 2007 8:12 PM
Hey, i know where you might be able to get a moter for the wings. At radio shack, they sell these motor upgrades that can have speed or tourc. Each motor is about the size of that battary in the picture. If you get one and install it you dragonfly will realy fly and might even get higher in the air. Unfortunately you would have to sacrifice flight time and might have to re-gear the dragonfly. On the positive side, the motors I mentioned go in reverse too so there is no putting it in backwards.
May 25, 2007 8:49 PM
It seems like there is enough space in there to hold a motor of that size. I'd like to see a super powerful wing flapper fly away at high speeds! But in fact, he would not really need to sacrifice any flight time from the stock model. He said he has never seen the end of the battery, so if he got the right motor, he could still fly longer then the stock, but at better speeds. He may even be able to rig the old wing motor to the prop for enhanced turning, but that would throw off the CG and require rebalancing...
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May 25, 2007 9:26 PM
I actually have several dead little R/C cars with removable motors, but I've no idea if they are better than what's in the dragonfly already. When I tried some bigger wings, I noticed it had trouble flapping them very fast, so maybe bigger motor plus bigger wings together would work.
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May 25, 2007 9:39 PM
I'm thinking of changing out the cell in my Dfly, but I was wondering if this would be compatible:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/prod...
I thought the links looked kinda funny, but look at the size+weight!
EDIT: Doesn't this look strangely familiar (you may need to zoom the pic)...
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May 25, 2007 10:04 PM
hm, looks like that could be double the runtime (100 mAh vs 50 mAh for the stock battery) but I'd be a bit concerned that the max discharge rate is only 2C - you might damage the battery by running the dragonfly motor from it. The stock batteries are rated at 10C discharge rate- and since they run out in about 6 minutes, it must be draining the battery at (50 mAh/0.1 h) = 500 mA. That would be a 5C drain on the new battery, I don't know if that would be enough to cause it to overheat or explode. Could be exciting!
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May 25, 2007 11:04 PM
Hey scott... Ask Tilden.. **********WINK!!!!!************* lol ( shhhh )
The Revolution will never end! :P
May 26, 2007 9:44 PM
Besides, you (don't reall) know me. I don't like that kind of excitement. You know, the kind that takes money to replace...
May 26, 2007 10:13 PM
Woops! I made a mistake. When I said the size of the battary I didn't look at the picture close enough.The motor would not be quite as long. it would also be fatter. Anyway, that wing motor I see looks as though it is the same size motor used in Zip Zaps Monster Trucks. Those things are so fast they roll when turning. Radio Shack sells motors that are the same size as the one I see in the picture. The ones they sell can have tourc or speed, or even both. The best part is if you use one of those you might not have to do anything other than swap motors. Click here for a link to radio shacks web site that shows a picture of the first motor I mentioned. Unfortunately, I can't find the monster truck ones. I think those were discontinued but I am not sure. oh well, the first one I mentioned will work just fine if you play with it enough. There is just one catch. You see, when i last mentioned it i had the wrong idea in my head. The motor itself doesn't have the speed or tourc. it has both but what shows in performance is determined by which gears you use from the kit it comes in.
May 26, 2007 10:17 PM
One more thought just crossed my mind but, what do you think would happen if you adjusted the wings so when they flap they move a little it more up and down. you know, larger range of movement. that way maybe you would get more power out of each flap it takes.
May 26, 2007 10:29 PM
That would probably improve climb rate and speed, but deplete the battery faster, and possibly even burn/strip out the gears, as they weren't designed to go that far. But thats just theoretical. Or, it could just improve performance. I'm guessing that it would also make turning harder... Just a feeling...
May 26, 2007 11:31 PM
Well, in the one picture there is a little copper colored bar comming out of the gear at the bottom. When that bar turns it basicaly pulls the wings down and pushes them back up. if you lengthen that bar then it pulls and pushes farther. In the end you have not affected the gears at all. All though I do agree aboout the turning. Still, you might be able to reach new hights by widening the range of movement.
August 3, 2007 1:37 PM
As far as improving the range, using correct antena lenghts might be the key, as far as I know to transmit/recieve a full lenght 27MHz signal you need 11 meters (that's around 33ft or 11 yards) I don't think the dragonfly would be even fly with that amount of cable but the point is you can have a 3/4 or 1/2 wave antena (8.25 and 5.5 meters) or go for 1/4 wave only 2.75m and so on and so on. The more acurate your measurments the less tunning you need and better signal you get, you can always buy a bigger antena for the transmiter (maybe you can get one used for RC cars/planes that are usually longer). Don't know the lenghts for 49 Mhz but a Ham Radio site would be a good place to start the search.
As for the motor maybe you could use one from an electric RC Heli's tail, these are usually very small,lightweight and fast.
November 13, 2007 11:49 AM
First Thanks so much for the photo fo the gear box of the DF I was wondering what it looked like and was some what surprized to see the gear train, I had not expected it to have this many gears , what a elegant design as to the rods that work the wings COOL ! anyway its neat to see the workings NOW about Range....... I had about a 2 week learning curve befor I "got it" as to how to fly the DF. During which time I had LOTS of hard landings resulting in breaking off one of the legs. The other leg was bent also , so I figured to balance the weight I would break off the other leg...... BAD IDEA ! I found that I had ZERO RANGE now, maybe 4 feet at most..... GEEZZZ ...... I realised the legs are the recieving antenna. OH great now what can I do to fix this with out breaking up the body. The 2 legs were snap-ped off right at the plastic " holder or frame " each side of this flat plastic is slightly rounded where the wire of the leg goes up and into the body. using an EXCATO knife I cut away a bit of the styro foam to expose a corner of this plastic bracket where the leg enters. as I say, the leg wires were snapped off right flush with this plastic part, no exposed nub to soder a wire to......SO using wire cutting DIKE I snipped off a corner of this plastic and as luck would have it EXPOSED a small end of the leg wire..... enough of it was exposed to now solder a wire for an antenna. I used a single conducter wire about 4 or 5 inches long. I poked it thru the foam body from the rear going under the surface of the body and comming out just where the exposed wire nub was........ A dab of solder ( being carful not to touch the foam body with the iron) i soldered the wire to the nub and bent the wire to conform it to the shape of the rear of the body and making it a bit more streamed lined to cut down any air resistence on the new antenna. IT WORKS JUST FINE! I was not much of a DF flyer befor I did this so I never had the DF flying very far or high so I dont know what the tranmision range was but ITS NOW at least 150 ft. most likly more I regularly take my DF up to surprizingly high altitudes and never lost connection with the DF at least not yet! I have a few photos of my " ANTENNA FIX " but couldnt seem to get it to post here if any one out there in ciber space would like to see this fix email me and I would be happy to email you the photos PDECRI8131@aol.com HAPPY DF FLYING ! Pete
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