tommy_mental
Member
Hello everybody!
First time poster here, long time fan of FliteTest.
First and foremost, I want to thank FliteTest for everything I've learned through their shows about electric flight! You guys are awesome and your really do grow the hobby even out here in far eastern Europe
All that said, here's a summary of my first successful scratch build.
It all started with this:
I printed the plans full scale and taped them down to a piece of Depron (most common locally) and maan I got excited when I saw Josh Bixler's name and FT's loggos on there
I cut the pieces directly with and through the paper on the depron. I didn't want and have to go through the process of cutting the paper out to then transfer that on the board. Worked out fine with the exception I had to sand the fuselage pieces, and that in the end my nose as a bit crooked but it's was fine.
With the depron being 6mm, I had to enlarge the fittings, and chose to do so inward, which gave me less space inside the fuse, so something to keep in mind in such builds. Also I'm not sure if it was that or I miscalculated something else but there was no way to fit a 9x prop on there. I put on a 8x6 slowfly instead. The motor is about 50 gr 1300kv with 30A ESC.
I gotta say I messed a few things up along the way but lessons were learned! So here is what it looked like.
I put a shorter wood spar on the top instead of the glue seem shown on FT's build episode because I didn't want to cut the depron - it's not encased in paper as the dollartree board so not really a good idea to cut it. Yet, it's sort of brittle so it needed some reinforcement. Naturally I thought I was putting the spar on the bottom when it turned out I'm putting it on the top but it was too late
I had some micro 5g servos lying around and used them instead of the 9g recommended. Also had pushrods from my nitro and control horns from it as well. Thought I'd use them. But since they were too short (left overs from a previous build) I had to move the servos somewhere under the fins, so had to do some cutting again.
They seem to work out fine and there's no need of reinforcement board for the pushrod as it's pretty resilient and doesn't bend under load (short+fat).
But I have to say as soon as it't took its scale form it was so awesome So I went and flew it with the 2S 1300mah battery I had lying around and the 8x6 prop.
I used my Airtronics 35Mhz Tx with a Corona Synthesized Rx from HK (cheap, flexible and do a great job!).
So first impression after the flight was, with a 2S battery it needs a lot of throttle and flies somewhat slow. It was also very sluggish. Overall though it was fun to fly and that was a major success. Flew several flights with no crashes or failures.
I thought maybe the servos were weak because it had really bad roll rate so I got the 9g servos, ripped the old ones out carefully and replaced them with the new ones. At first they seem the same but haven't flown yet.
Also got me two 3S 1300mah batteries as I really prefer longer flights. Balance wasn't hard to achieve with the heavier batteries - actually maybe 1/2 inch was about it. The power at full throttle however causes some serious flutter of the flat area behind the prop and under the fins. The vibrations were really strong, so I put another spar on the bottom. It helped but the flutter is still there at full throttle. I guess I'll have to be careful.
Inside the fuse, I put velcro on both "decks" depending on which battery I'm flying. The lighter ones more to the front where I also put foam guides to keep the batter from swinging. That's because I prefer putting them upright, instead of low flat as I'm having trouble getting them out. Also something very important : I undo my batteries from the velcro with a piece of credit card - simply pulling them apart ripped the velcro off the foam every time. So you slide the card between the battery and the fuselage velcros to break them apart without ripping the foam. Tribute to somebody on the net who shared that.
Put tooth pick tips on the canopy just in case, although it doesn't seem necessary at all.
And finally, a few pics after I painted some shapes on it with a 150 ml can of foam safe spray paint.
Some leaks here and there but you get the picture
Aaand on the bottom just the belly plate. Nose and leading edges are covered with kind of a strong packaging tape (with criss-crossing fibers)
So that's my first mega great humble scratch build 100% tribute to FliteTest! Thank you guys! :applause:
First time poster here, long time fan of FliteTest.
First and foremost, I want to thank FliteTest for everything I've learned through their shows about electric flight! You guys are awesome and your really do grow the hobby even out here in far eastern Europe
All that said, here's a summary of my first successful scratch build.
It all started with this:
I printed the plans full scale and taped them down to a piece of Depron (most common locally) and maan I got excited when I saw Josh Bixler's name and FT's loggos on there
I cut the pieces directly with and through the paper on the depron. I didn't want and have to go through the process of cutting the paper out to then transfer that on the board. Worked out fine with the exception I had to sand the fuselage pieces, and that in the end my nose as a bit crooked but it's was fine.
With the depron being 6mm, I had to enlarge the fittings, and chose to do so inward, which gave me less space inside the fuse, so something to keep in mind in such builds. Also I'm not sure if it was that or I miscalculated something else
but there was no way to fit a 9x prop on there. I put on a 8x6 slowfly instead. The motor is about 50 gr 1300kv with 30A ESC. I gotta say I messed a few things up along the way but lessons were learned!
So here is what it looked like.
I put a shorter wood spar on the top instead of the glue seem shown on FT's build episode because I didn't want to cut the depron - it's not encased in paper as the dollartree board so not really a good idea to cut it. Yet, it's sort of brittle so it needed some reinforcement. Naturally I thought I was putting the spar on the bottom when it turned out I'm putting it on the top but it was too late
I had some micro 5g servos lying around and used them instead of the 9g recommended. Also had pushrods from my nitro and control horns from it as well. Thought I'd use them. But since they were too short (left overs from a previous build) I had to move the servos somewhere under the fins, so had to do some cutting again.
They seem to work out fine and there's no need of reinforcement board for the pushrod as it's pretty resilient and doesn't bend under load (short+fat).
But I have to say as soon as it't took its scale form it was so awesome
So I went and flew it with the 2S 1300mah battery I had lying around and the 8x6 prop.
I used my Airtronics 35Mhz Tx with a Corona Synthesized Rx from HK (cheap, flexible and do a great job!).
So first impression after the flight was, with a 2S battery it needs a lot of throttle and flies somewhat slow. It was also very sluggish. Overall though it was fun to fly and that was a major success. Flew several flights with no crashes or failures.
I thought maybe the servos were weak because it had really bad roll rate so I got the 9g servos, ripped the old ones out carefully
and replaced them with the new ones. At first they seem the same but haven't flown yet. Also got me two 3S 1300mah batteries as I really prefer longer flights. Balance wasn't hard to achieve with the heavier batteries - actually maybe 1/2 inch was about it. The power at full throttle however causes some serious flutter of the flat area behind the prop and under the fins. The vibrations were really strong, so I put another spar on the bottom. It helped but the flutter is still there at full throttle. I guess I'll have to be careful.
Inside the fuse, I put velcro on both "decks" depending on which battery I'm flying. The lighter ones more to the front where I also put foam guides to keep the batter from swinging. That's because I prefer putting them upright, instead of low flat as I'm having trouble getting them out. Also something very important
: I undo my batteries from the velcro with a piece of credit card - simply pulling them apart ripped the velcro off the foam every time. So you slide the card between the battery and the fuselage velcros to break them apart without ripping the foam. Tribute to somebody on the net who shared that.Put tooth pick tips on the canopy just in case, although it doesn't seem necessary at all.
And finally, a few pics after I painted some shapes on it with a 150 ml can of foam safe spray paint.
Some leaks here and there but you get the picture
Aaand on the bottom just the belly plate. Nose and leading edges are covered with kind of a strong packaging tape (with criss-crossing fibers)
So that's my first mega great humble scratch build 100% tribute to FliteTest! Thank you guys! :applause:
