125ish% FT Commuter build thread

[BoredGuy]

@Mid7night
I guess so, but the “fit” part seems a tad hard. My fuse is 120% and I’m having a hard time getting the 2200 mah to fit in.
On another note, I got the rudder and elevator pushrods finished. The center sections are carbon fiber rods, with normal metal pushrods at the end. The joints are CA glue with heat shrink tubing around them. Made progress on the fuselage too. I’m one slow builder.

 

[BoredGuy]

Fuse finally looks like a real plane, yay! Some pics:

Some isssues, though: as you can see, the joints on the nose are kinda unneat. The tape hides it a bit, but it still looks pretty bad IMO. I think I’ll cover the nose, tips of the wings, and the rudder with packing tape for a paint job, to help orientation, and to cover the joints a bit better. Another thing: the original power pod was 3mm off in each direction because I forgot to account for the reduced thickness of the power pod support, so I had to design a new one:

It turned out fine, but I’m still using only two dowels to secure it against the plane. Should that be enough, or should I add a third one?

 

[Mid7night]

That looks great! Yeah I'd probably add a third dowel. I think I used three on my original monster Cessna.

 

[BoredGuy]

The fuselage is finally done, along with the tail too. The rudder has a dowel hotglued to the lower side to counteract flex, and there is a cf tube going through the horizontal stabiliser. Servos are in too, but the rudder and elevator channels need to be reversed. Build is going really well.

 

[BoredGuy]

I didn’t have a servo Y plug, so I made one out of some jumper cables I had lying around. The joints are covered with heat shrink, and there is electrical tape around wires in the same section to keep it neat. Let’s hope it doesn’t fail in mid-flight or even on the ground-the solder joints are seriously iffy, even though it worked right now when I tested it.
On another note, only 3 of the 5 mg90 servos I’m ordered are working. Is this normal?

 

[Matthewdupreez]

I didn’t have a servo Y plug, so I made one out of some jumper cables I had lying around. The joints are covered with heat shrink, and there is electrical tape around wires in the same section to keep it neat. Let’s hope it doesn’t fail in mid-flight or even on the ground-the solder joints are seriously iffy, even though it worked right now when I tested it.
On another note, only 3 of the 5 mg90 servos I’m ordered are working. Is this normal?

no it's not normal i say send them back and get a replacement or refund

 

[Matthewdupreez]

I didn’t have a servo Y plug, so I made one out of some jumper cables I had lying around. The joints are covered with heat shrink, and there is electrical tape around wires in the same section to keep it neat. Let’s hope it doesn’t fail in mid-flight or even on the ground-the solder joints are seriously iffy, even though it worked right now when I tested it.
On another note, only 3 of the 5 mg90 servos I’m ordered are working. Is this normal?

yea those wires in those cables are super thin....

 

[Matthewdupreez]

Fuse finally looks like a real plane, yay! Some pics:
View attachment 183828 View attachment 183829 View attachment 183830 Some isssues, though: as you can see, the joints on the nose are kinda unneat. The tape hides it a bit, but it still looks pretty bad IMO. I think I’ll cover the nose, tips of the wings, and the rudder with packing tape for a paint job, to help orientation, and to cover the joints a bit better. Another thing: the original power pod was 3mm off in each direction because I forgot to account for the reduced thickness of the power pod support, so I had to design a new one:
View attachment 183831 It turned out fine, but I’m still using only two dowels to secure it against the plane. Should that be enough, or should I add a third one?

get a piece of sand paper and sand those edges and joins nice and smooth it looks really good that way

 

[BoredGuy]

get a piece of sand paper and sand those edges and joins nice and smooth it looks really good that way

This is coroplast, I don't think it sands the way foamboard does.

 

[BoredGuy]

On another note, the fuselage weighs 100-110g with 2 servos in it and the full tail structure, 300g with battery. Is this heavy or light, and does it seem reasonable?

 

[Matthewdupreez]

On another note, the fuselage weighs 100-110g with 2 servos in it and the full tail structure, 300g with battery. Is this heavy or light, and does it seem reasonable?

including the wing?

 

[BoredGuy]

including the wing?

Just the fuselage only, no wing attached

 

[BoredGuy]

Haven’t had much time to build last week, but here’s a progress update:
The landing gear is done, and I covered the bare wires (from a laundry hanger-the laundromat guy did a double take when I walked into the shop and asked him for only one wire hanger) with coroplast to give it a slightly scale look.
The wing is also done, the box spars went inside great, although I think the airfoil is more cambered than in the standard ft build. Well, that should give more lift and lower top speed, hopefully ideal for this trainer-type plane. Had to reverse one servo, so I had to resolder 4 rather small wires, but it worked.
On another note, the pic isn’t included here, but the wing looks pretty big relative to the body. Hopefully it’ll glide well.
The wing will be removable, the mechanism is kinda based off of the one in the big Commuter mid7night built. I’ll try to post more photos of that for future reference.

 

[Battery800]

What size wheels are those?

 

[BoredGuy]

What size wheels are those?

They’re about 4cm in diameter, just a tiny bit more than 1.5 inches

 

[Battery800]

Ok. I’m using 2 inch wheels partly because I don’t want to nose over and partly because I didn’t know truly how big 2 in wheels are!

 

[BoredGuy]

Ok. I’m using 2 inch wheels partly because I don’t want to nose over and partly because I didn’t know truly how big 2 in wheels are!

On the normal size plane, I think it would give a nice bush plane look.

 

[Matthewdupreez]

Ok. I’m using 2 inch wheels partly because I don’t want to nose over and partly because I didn’t know truly how big 2 in wheels are!

cut out a 2inch wheel from foam and see what ya think

 

[Battery800]

This is my plane

 

[BoredGuy]

This is my plane

Looks great!