At the EDGE of the world, we meet.

[kilroy07]

This is my ft 540 edge and I'm totally in love with it. It's not finished I still have to put servos in for the ailerons and make some cosmetic adjustments. For some odd reason I want to put a fpv system in it. View attachment 137621 View attachment 137622 View attachment 137623
View attachment 137621 View attachment 137622 View attachment 137623 View attachment 137624

That looks like a solid build, great job! 👍👍

I might suggest you put a stripe or two on one wing for orientation, black planes especially seem to go featureless in the air. 😉

 

[kilroy07]

Trying to solve the power issue, I ordered a Turnigy Plush 30amp esc. It came in and I put it in the air today. No change at all. The poor Edge just barely stayed airborne.

I came in for a soft landing and the entire motor mount came out. End of experimentation on the Edge for the day. I've now got to cut the cowling off and re-glue the mount.

Meantime, this is the first esc I've had that had actual instructions. I can change the timing! It defaults at low timing. Low is slow. High is fast. My motor already comes in hot after a flight. If I try fast timing am I looking at possibly frying something?

A new esc “shouldn’t “ have any real effect on power. It’s more about the size, speed of the motor (Kv) and prop size. Upping the props pitch or size might necessitate a higher capacity esc, but just slapping a bigger esc, you shouldn’t see any difference.
The motor is still going to pull the same amps as before.

I had a sunny sky 2216 and thought mine was pretty underpowered too. I had to maintain around 75-80% throttle the whole time. (I do think some of that was due to the motor shaft rubbing.)

I’m flying home tonight. I have the Edge to paint and re-maiden with the larger prop/motor and Casper. I’ll let you know the new motor/prop specs tonight.

 

[Tdugar]

Didn’t link the pictures .

My bad my phone was not cooperating with me at all.

 

[Tdugar]

That looks like a solid build, great job! 👍👍

I might suggest you put a stripe or two on one wing for orientation, black planes especially seem to go featureless in the air. 😉

Yes I'm gonna put thick white strips on the bottom of the wings

 

[basslord1124]

2nd Edge build video in the works on my youtube channel...should have it uploaded sometime today or tomorrow at the latest. Still in the early stages on the build...I'm hoping for my 3rd video it'll look more like a plane lol.

Most of the build has been going ok, the only issue piece so far has been the top turtle deck. After my first try at the turtle deck with some extra stiff foamboard, my 2nd try with it (with a different sheet of foamboard) curved a lot better. I glued it down with Titebond and used a small strip of Scotch tape to hold the seams down while it dried. When I took the Scotch tape off it took some paper with it...doh!! I didn't think it was on that strong! So I'm going to sand that area a little bit maybe add a little bit of hot glue if needed in some of the exposed crack now and finish it off with packing tape instead. I'm kinda surprised packing tape wasn't used to hold on the turtle deck...I know in previous FT designs they used tape on the turtle deck.

 

[kilroy07]

2nd Edge build video in the works on my youtube channel...should have it uploaded sometime today or tomorrow at the latest. Still in the early stages on the build...I'm hoping for my 3rd video it'll look more like a plane lol.

Most of the build has been going ok, the only issue piece so far has been the top turtle deck. After my first try at the turtle deck with some extra stiff foamboard, my 2nd try with it (with a different sheet of foamboard) curved a lot better. I glued it down with Titebond and used a small strip of Scotch tape to hold the seams down while it dried. When I took the Scotch tape off it took some paper with it...doh!! I didn't think it was on that strong! So I'm going to sand that area a little bit maybe add a little bit of hot glue if needed in some of the exposed crack now and finish it off with packing tape instead. I'm kinda surprised packing tape wasn't used to hold on the turtle deck...I know in previous FT designs they used tape on the turtle deck.

I used blue (painters) tape and gorilla glue for my fuselage. Mostly hot glue on the wings.
Even with blue tape you have to peel towards the edge (not from it). I really do like the nice edges it gives on long seams like the turtledeck though.
It seems like 3/4 of the build is the fuselage, the wings are done in a snap. 😂

 

[basslord1124]

Yeah I kinda forgot about painters tape, I'll have to see if we have some.

New video on build progress. Little longer than first. I do show a unique approach to locating where to install the foam insert landing gear in case one accidentally glues the bottom on without marking/cutting. I dont know how well the same technique would work on the brown waterproof foamboard though.

 

[Tdugar]

I used blue (painters) tape and gorilla glue for my fuselage. Mostly hot glue on the wings.
Even with blue tape you have to peel towards the edge (not from it). I really do like the nice edges it gives on long seams like the turtledeck though.
It seems like 3/4 of the build is the fuselage, the wings are done in a snap. 😂

That is so true when I built my 540 I'm like this fuselage is incredible and the wings had me thinking that's it lol

 

[buzzbomb]

I’ll let you know the new motor/prop specs tonight.

What did you finally end up going with?

 

[Berekiah]

Here is my after paint Maiden. The flight went well though it was hard for my son to follow. We'll keep practicing. It did fly a couple of more times that day so the unfortunate landing didn't do any lasting damage.

 

[Berekiah]

I also caught some other flight at the Club this weekend. Sadly the wind picked up and some of our other pilots were not in the air at the time I was able to record. When I get something more interesting I'll pass it along.

 

[mayan]

@Berekiah thank you so much for the amazing video of you flying and also for the 3D flying the two were absolutely awesome. Do pass more videos of both when you get some.

 

[kilroy07]

Here is my after paint Maiden. The flight went well though it was hard for my son to follow. We'll keep practicing. It did fly a couple of more times that day so the unfortunate landing didn't do any lasting damage.

The perfect motivation I need to finish painting mine!

I do think you/we need to keep some speed on landings, I think that's why I stalled/face-planted mine too.

 

[Berekiah]

The perfect motivation I need to finish painting mine!

I do think you/we need to keep some speed on landings, I think that's why I stalled/face-planted mine too.

Yes I believe you are right. Right after that landing a 3d pilot came up and said that I needed to power up a bit and roll through the landing. The rest of my landings went much better especially with less wind

 

[basslord1124]

Looking good @Berekiah . Hope you didn't get much damage from that face plant.

Slow with progress here BUT progress is being made. I did manage to get most of the top hatch pieces cut out and ready to be glued and put in place. Also cut out the front cowl...it was a fun little piece to cut:

Almost ready to start forming it to shape. I've been soldering my electronics today. Got the ESC and BEC soldered together...

I ran out of my one size of shrink wrap tubing so I'll need to grab that before I can finish up soldering the motor connectors. Do you guys use bullet connectors or do you directly solder your ESC motor leads to your motor? There for a while I was doing bullet connectors, but I have started to get away from that and doing direct solder connections. I thought of doing a direct solder for the Edge. The only issue for direct solder is if the motor runs in reverse I have to undo part of it.

I figure to sort of follow along on the video and do the motor/cowl first before doing the top hatch...so I can make sure things line up ok. I had also got one wing half cut out as well as the spar. About to cut the other wing half out as well. I think I am going to add a paint stick between the 2 wing halves to give it some strength. I was very surprised that wasn't included for the Edge.

 

[kilroy07]

Looking good @Berekiah . Hope you didn't get much damage from that face plant.

Slow with progress here BUT progress is being made. I did manage to get most of the top hatch pieces cut out and ready to be glued and put in place. Also cut out the front cowl...it was a fun little piece to cut:

View attachment 138283

Almost ready to start forming it to shape. I've been soldering my electronics today. Got the ESC and BEC soldered together...

View attachment 138284

I ran out of my one size of shrink wrap tubing so I'll need to grab that before I can finish up soldering the motor connectors. Do you guys use bullet connectors or do you directly solder your ESC motor leads to your motor? There for a while I was doing bullet connectors, but I have started to get away from that and doing direct solder connections. I thought of doing a direct solder for the Edge. The only issue for direct solder is if the motor runs in reverse I have to undo part of it.

I figure to sort of follow along on the video and do the motor/cowl first before doing the top hatch...so I can make sure things line up ok. I had also got one wing half cut out as well as the spar. About to cut the other wing half out as well. I think I am going to add a paint stick between the 2 wing halves to give it some strength. I was very surprised that wasn't included for the Edge.

Ive started using mt60 on my ESCs and bullet on the motors. That way it keeps the wires nice and tight while allowing quick motor/direction changes.

 

[basslord1124]

I have never heard of mt60s...those look neat!

 

[kilroy07]

What did you finally end up going with?

Finally got back to this;
It's a Turnigy 2836 1100kv. I'll run it on 4S and might (probably will) run a tri-blade prop & spinner.


Got step 1 (there's going to be a couple... ) finished today... I'll let this cure for at least a day as I have quite a bit of masking to do...

Got the inspiration from doing research on the Spitfire... they painted the early ones like this on the bottom! (Crazy Brits!)
If I can't tell which side is which... probably no hope for me!

 

[buzzbomb]

Finally got back to this;
It's a Turnigy 2836 1100kv. I'll run it on 4S and might (probably will) run a tri-blade prop & spinner.
View attachment 138316

Got step 1 (there's going to be a couple... ) finished today... I'll let this cure for at least a day as I have quite a bit of masking to do...
View attachment 138317
Got the inspiration from doing research on the Spitfire... they painted the early ones like this on the bottom! (Crazy Brits!)
If I can't tell which side is which... probably no hope for me!

Thanks for the motor info. I actually have one of those, though it's performance is questionable. I broke a wire insulator with a mounting screw and siliconed it. Might be time to give it a whirl!

I got a Turnigy esc programming board in today. I'm going to try setting the timing to medium and see how that does.

The paint job is looking awesome! It's looks a Batman villain's plane! You ought to name it "Two Face!"

 

[mayan]

@basslord1124 I use T Plug connectors and banna connectors seems the easiest way for me.
@kilroy07 that looks amazing can't wait to see the finished version.
@buzzbomb can't wait to see what you can do with a different motor, and not under powered.

I need to finish linking the control surfaces on mine so I can take her out for a first maiden, I think I'll do it this afternoon. I really want to take her and the Corsair out for a first maiden but really want to have someone film it all. When I try to film myself the quality of the video is crap and most of the time my plane isn't even on frame.

Hoping to get someone to come with me soon, need to convince the wife to come after all she learned how to make the best videos .