Rolling Gear and Nacelles Back In Business

I finished up the nacelles, and they look so much better further forward. As I described, I lengthened the wheelbase.

 

Initial installation

 

Current Installation

 

 

 

Sweet!

 

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EXI 450 FBL Repaired

Yesterday I had some issues with the EXI 450 FBL that resulted in a fractured swash follower arm and a displaced aileron ball link.

 

Today I replaced both swash arms (they have to be the same size and aren't exactly standard, so to keep them the same I had to salvage two spares and replace them). I fixed the displaced ball link, and removed the blades. I test spun the system and found that the main shaft was bent. I replaced it. I also checked the feathering shaft, since a bent main often means a bent feathering shaft, but it was fine. So I cleaned up the bearings and re-greased them, put everything back together. New balanced blades put on, re-zeroed the pitch (whenever I do anything to the rotor head I always recheck the swash. I find that when I make sure both blades are zero at zero pitch I never have to fuss with the blades being off in tracking). Set her up for test spin, everything sweet, tracking fine, balanced and vibration free.

 

I still don't know for sure if the follower arm failed first or I crashed it through pilot error (I am still a beginner heli pilot, after all), but things were going just fine until they weren't.

 

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At least I flew something...

30 degrees today, but a light breeze and crystal clear skies. There was no way I wasn't going to fly something. I was a little worried about plastic brittleness in the cold, as I had seen others run into these problems. I was right to be worried, but at least it didn't hurt much.

 

Wingmasters has changed their keys at the first of the year, but since I am only going to be here for a couple of months I didn't want to go to the trouble to get a key or pay for a year. I had found a place to fly behind Kettering Junior High School in Kettering, Ohio. School is out this being a Saturday, so I knew it would be safe. As I drove up, I saw A guy named Joe who was flying a couple of micro foamies (and doing a pretty good job too!).

 

I took the EXI450 FBL up first. hovered her for a few seconds, and the tail kicked over a couple of times uncommanded, but she settled down and I walked and hovered out to the field from the parking lot and took her around for a few circuits and figure eights. I began a turn in and she suddenly stopped flying and dropped as I hit Hold. inspection revealed one of the swash follower arms snapped off at its weak point where it Y's onto the swash arm of the FBL head. The aileron ball link on the servo also popped off. One blade delaminated when it hit the ground. I haven't checked the servos yet, tomorrow's project.

 

 

The upper line points to the swash arm, and the lower one to the ball link.

 

 

 

 

Video of the flight. Sorry the heli is so far away...

 

 

I put her away and brought out the HK500cmt. This would be her first flight since I put the rolling gear on, and I was curious how that would go. On setting her up I found that despite having rebound her when I reset up the servos and the BeastX when I updated the Airware on my DX8 (in the update you have to rebind and reset all the servos...). So I rebound her, and then had to reset the throttle limits. Spun her up, and she spun herself down. No power... These are all fresh batteries. When I got home I found the cells were all down to 3.84v. Put a fresh set on and she powered up fine. The BeastX was doing some odd things, but they seemed manageable. On flipping into flight mode from normal she pulled hard right and I had to put in and hold a bit of left aileron. When I brought her down, set her down and flipped out of flight mode, she pushed over to the right and then left, a blade struck, and the tail blades touched. The plastic tail blades snapped off clean at the hubs... cold had made them brittle so instead of chipping they snapped clean off.

 

 

 

 

One of the things I noticed was that the gear were leveraging and twisting against the frame, and it had come loose, making the frame dip down in front. I decided to remove the gear, and thought about putting the skids back on, but opted instead to rotate them forward increasing the wheelbase, and set them up with another wood block this time attaching the gear so that the attachment point is behind the nylon gear, and a second wood bar is in front absorbing the forward leverage forces. I attached a wire tie to this to further stabilize it. I had replaced the base of the frame since the previously repaired landing gear supports had worn and broken and were not repairable. This time I bolted the gear to the frame instead of using wood servo screws I had used previously. This is solid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to rework the nacelles, and this work isn't done. I have to refinish them having refit them to the now forward sweeping struts. I hope this works out as I rather like them.

 

Joe, if you read this, it was a pleasure to meet you and I should have given you my email address. Hope you grow into the hobby!

 

Addendum 2/23/13: I read up, and the BeastX, and likely any MEMS based gyro, can operate at cold temps. The key is giving it plenty of time to acclimate. I took the HK500cmt out this afternoon and I think did not give it enough time. It turned on lift off, the tail jerked a couple time, then turn in a slow roll and pirouette out of control. Hit hold, only lost the main blades. Stupid is as stupid does. Tomorrow I may try again, but allow it to sit for half an hour.

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DX8 won't bind...hope its the antenna.

Decided to brave the 27 degree weather and light winds and put the EXI450 FBL up. Ended up freezing while trying to figure out why it would bind, drop bind, but not set off the drop blink on the reciever.

 

 

I wrapped up and went home and trouble shot the bind issue. I found my radio would not bind, with any of my helis. It bound with my Sim Stick on my Phoenix sim however, before the antenna broke again. In Bind mode it would hang for several seconds in BIND, then TRANSMITTING, which it has nev done... and then reboot into the model. Meanwhile the reciever would keep on blinking.

 

I had noticed that the antenna wasn't attached at the knuckle earlier, and had snapped it back on. I wondered if the wire had become disconnected inside the radio (the fact that the wire is so long in the pic above shows it wasn't internally plugged in anymore). In trying to fix it I accidentally cut the wire with a screw as I was thinking it was a bad idea to do what I was doing because it was likely to cut the wire. Crap. Tried soldering it, but the distal end was too close to the plastic antenna (broke toow short on the antenna end), and couldn't get a decent solder. I also wasn't sure how much tolerance the antenna has for being shortened but suspect there isn't much problem with a 2.4ghz quarter length antenna bein a mm short). But there is a problem for it being 1/3 its length. Not doing the math, I really don't know how short it could be, but even when I did find the plug disconnected inside, it still wouldn't bind.

 

 

Getting the back cover off this thing was a PITA. You have to remove the usual screws, then peel off the rubber hand grips, all four if them, to get at the last two screws and release the sides. Not sure how I am going to get it to stick back together.

 

I replugged the antenna wire, not sure when it had come unplugged. Was it the problem I had in the field? I didn't go about this as methodically as I usually do... Was it the software upgrade? I don't recall but I am pretty sure I had to rebind the aircraft with the radio when I upgraded the Airware on the DX8.

 

So I ordered an new antenna from A Main Hobbies. I will replace it, put the radio back together, and hope that's all it takes to get the bind problem solved. I hope that the sign was TRANSMITTING, that the antenna is the problem.

 

Please... let this solve the binding problem. Grounded for now.

 

UPDATE (2/4/13): The antenna came in on Saturday, and I installed it today (thanks A Main Hobbies for shopping so fast!). It was very, very easy to replace. The instructions are available on the interwebs, and a copy comes with the antenna. Took a couple of minutes, a couple of screws and that was it. The grips, which I worried about getting to stay in place as I had to divide the double sided tape holding them in place, went back on without a hitch, and laid down perfectly, no issues. I didn't have to replace the tape. You have to carefully direct the rubber pegs into their holes and the grips return to their stock position with a little coaxing of the edges.

 

Fired up the transmitter and she bound immediately to the reciever! The problems were all related to the antenna. Problem solved!

 

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If they could wag their tails they would...

They want to go out to play. Maybe tomorrow. Daddy needed a nap...

 

 

 

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Nacelles added to Rolling Gear

I described earlier how I went about on a whim adding rolling tripod landing gear to my HK500, which I posted here. I noted I was working on nacelles to put over the head of the gear using wheel pants from my Eflite PulseXT 25e.

 

I finshed them, though one needs another coat of paint. I installed the starboard nacelle and am posting some pics because, honestly, it looks frickin' awesome!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The money shot! Sweet with both nacelles on. I test spun her with the blades slightly off kilter so there would be a start up wobble and she bounced on her struts a bit but was stable. Started her with the blades aligned, sweet balance. This was with 2x 3S 3000 mAh up front.

 

Will work on getting some video!

 

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Tripod Heli Rolling Landing Gear Project

I have always liked the look of trainling link landing gear, and I have wanted to put a set on a heli since I first started modleing. A few months ago I found these trialing link landing gear at Hobby King, at a pretty hard to believe price.

 

 

I had asked on Helifreak if anyone had any ideas on how to put these on a 500 class heli, in this case my HK500, but no one had any ideas. I have been thinking about it for a long time, but the other night came up with this idea.

 

I used the nylon strut from a normal 500 Class heli and cut a slit in the bottom of the strut.

I opened this and pushed the landing gear through it.

 

Here you can see the way I fit the gear strut onto the nylon landing gear.

 

I used wire ties to secure the aluminum strut to the nylon strut.

 

You can see a touch of CA to further secure the gear.

 

I built a wood cross bar to secure the nylon landing gear strut to. I bolted the nylon part to the wood, and used servo screws to attach the wood to the heli frame.

 

I tossed on a couple of wire ties to push some of the landing torque to the frame

rather than just the landing gear screws. (Yes, I see the exposed connectors... will be taping them).

 

I built a wood brace to put some of the rear gear ooad onto the

frame since the gear itself is attached to the reciever tray.

 

Side view. I changed the screw that the gear is mounted to, to a longer

one to allow a larger spacer, extending the length a bit.

 

Here's a view of the change with a larger white spacer.

 

I mounted the rear gear just aft of the servo tray screws to put the loan

on the pivot rather than on the end, decreasing the torque on the tray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The heli's weight sets the gear a bit on the springs, giving it a nice bounce and recoil. I think the tripod's footprint is a bit small, and I may need to move the rear gear further back. If I do I will need to develop a base a bit stronger than the nylon receiver tray.

 

I have a set of wheel pants from an Eflite Pulse XT 25e I am playing with to make nacelles for the gear tops. Could be pretty sweet!

 

Addendum: Added nacelles. Check out the pics here! I went back and moved the nylon strut in front of the wood block, effectively moving the wheelbase another cm forward and long. Not sure it matts, but it makes me feel better. I just couldn't shake the feeling the wheelbase was too short, almost cartoonish. Looks much better. I had to trim the ends of the spar.

 

CHANGES: Moved the front gear further forward.

 

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