Neve's 70% Blunt nise Versa Wing build

[nevenelestate]

Sorry that most of the pictures in this thread are gone. I had been storing them on photoBucket but then they locked everything out. If you have questions post and I will try to find pictures in my archives or answer as best I can.

Neve's 70% Blunt nose Versa Wing build

I had a ton of fun with the blunt nose Versa wing I built so I decided to try to make a smaller, easier to transport version. After reading up on here a bit, and trying a 50% that didn't work well, I decided to go for 70%.

I scaled the plans the easiest way I know how, selected the scaled down option when printing in Adobe.

I built up the wings using HobbyKing 5g servos and also installed some LEDs on the trailing edge of the spar. I got the LEDs from RadioShack for $15 for 1meter strip. Once I got the wings done I went to the blunt nose conversion. I pulled up the plans and did the same printing method, only to find later that since they are not the big plans but tiled format instead, they do not scale the same. I ended up having to cut a little bit of the trailing edge (top and bottom) foam off, no biggie.

I used the EMax 1806 motor and 12A ESC, same as the Mini Guinea (stolen from my MG actually) and a Spektrum parkflier 6channel receiver.

It came out to about 33inches in wingspan.

Here is a shot of the lights, sorry it's a little blurry.

Maiden went very well, she flies just like the big Versa, great!

I taped an 808 #16 to the top and got some decent video, again a little blurry

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From my flying/crashing experience I suggest (key word is suggest, I have not properly calculated these, just trial and error) this equipment.
Battery: 3S 1300mAh
ESC: 18A/3ABEC
Motor: EMax MT1806
Prop: 5x3-5x4.5 (5in props are safer bet for ESC/motor)
Receiver: 4ch minimum park flier Rec
Servos: 9g metal geared (5g will work if flying slowly/conservative)

I prefer to fly more aggressive and found that the 5g servos get overloaded, and potentially overdrew the 12A/1ABEC ESC I ran on first build.

Some quick links for this thread:
Modified firewall for better cooling in post #7
Crash video in post #13
Rounded and extended wing tips, no vertical fins: post #22
Added small vertical fins in Post #26
Daniel83's battery hatch closing technique, and video in post #29

 

[nevenelestate]

After the maiden, flying in all white, I decided to add some color.

This made it much easier to tell orientation, especially as the sun is setting and the sky gets dimmer.

Hope to get some more videos and photos this weekend.

 

[aj308win]

Looks pretty stable, from what I saw on the video. What do you use for a battery?

 

[Winglet]

Nice work! I'm a big fan of all of the Versa Wing series. They just fly so well. Your 70% blunt nose looks about perfect. Also looks like you have a perfect place to fly.

 

[nevenelestate]

AJ,
I have been flying it with a 1300mAh 3s battery and it's a screamer. I would like to try 2s for milder flights also, mostly because the motor gets REAL hot after about 2 mins of high throttle flying. I can get 7+ mins on that battery, but the motor might melt the glue that is holding the firewall on.

Winglet,
I have flown my UMX Icon A5 there on the water, as well as my big Versa and Mini Guineas. More videos on my YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ4AX47_oNCbypd0P5KZiOg

 

[nevenelestate]

Some videos from this past weekend, I was flying at Virginia International Raceway after all of our motorcycle racing was finished for the day. I also flew Friday night, a little after sun down, so I could still see the grass easily but it was more towards the dark side, man do the lights shine bright! it was a blast to fly around at night.

This one was when my buddy was riding around in the field on a little dirt bike.

I was having severe issues with the motor over heating, the 6*4.5 prop on 3S is pushing the 1806 motor to, or beyond, its limits. I am going to do the next flying with it using a 5*3 and keep an eye on the motor temp. I did do a few flights this past weekend with the 5*3 and it works, it's just not as crazy fun

Here is one last video, I flipped the rates to 80% for this one and was just doing lots of full deflection manuevers to see how the flying wing would react, it is a lot of fun. Just requires some confidence in your ability to flip back to lower rates and recover, or lack of care about trashing the airframe.

 

[nevenelestate]

In an attempt to reduce the motor heating issue my friend and I talked about making the firewall out of aluminium to help dissipate the heat. We discussed making the actual firewall out of metal but then using birch ply to make the base and side walls to isolate the heat from actual wing. After some quick sketches and brainstorming we cam up with this.

This is before I filed down the edges, was just a mounting hole fit check.

The old DTFB firewall with motor was 24g, the new one is 30g, so there was definitely a little extra weight to this approach.

And here it is installed on the Mini Versa.

I plan to run some tests with the 5*3 prop, but will do some flights with the 6*4.5 also to see how hot that gets. I also want to get a vertical take off (VTO) on film. I have done a few, but it requires the bigger prop. Its a cool slow lift off, then leans over and flies off...hopefully video coming soon.

 

[nevenelestate]

Flew a little today with 5*3 and 6*4.5 props, much cooler motor!

 

[zombiehunter]

Very nice great job.

 

[aj308win]

Not only does the new mount allow air into the motor's stator, it acts as a heatsink . Very nice!

 

[nevenelestate]

Not only does the new mount allow air into the motor's stator, it acts as a heatsink . Very nice!

The heatsink was the first intention, then I thought to try and cut out the middle to get added air on the motor as well as over the metal surfaces.

 

[PhenomPilot]

I would give Gemfans 5040 and 5045 a try. Should be noticeably faster than the 5030s without as much heat as the 6045s.

 

[nevenelestate]

Lost signal on my third flight of the night, I was rolling over to do a high speed pass and as soon as it rolled it lost signal or the receiver died.

From my HK altimeter, it appears I was at about 230ft and from top to the ground took 5 seconds.

Not much damage really

 

[aj308win]

Do you think that you may have drawn enough current from the BEC with the servos and receiver to have caused a "brownout?"

 

[nevenelestate]

Do you think that you may have drawn enough current from the BEC with the servos and receiver to have caused a "brownout?"

It is very possible that the BEC could have been overloaded, although I haven't had that before with the same setup and pushing harder on the control surfaces than I was at the time of failure.

I did power the plane back up last night and found that the servo is working properly again

I will probably pickup some 9g servos for the rebuild of this aircraft. I kind of rushed through the build of this one to try to see if the 70% design would even work, and now that I know it flies well I will build a new one once I have time.

**Update
Just did some searching and found the specs for the ESC/BEC I'm running. I guess I should state that I don't look into these things ahead of building, I prefer to just wing it (pun intended).



Looks like I only have a 1A BEC.

I plan to rebuild with some 9g/digital/metal geared servos and I will get a 3A BEC, likely step up to an 18A ESC too just to cover the margin when I am flying the 6*4.5 props, which according to EMAX should be right about 12A draw.

 

[dgrigor02]

So after seeing your thread decided to do a Versa ( didn't need blunt nose, no camera ).

This is 60% as that is what I've used thus far for scaling to mini pod sizes. Versa measures 23". Planes less than 30" seems to be the best fit for our neighborhood park. I tend to gravitate to minis or scaled down versions. My 60% spitfire is my favorite so far.


The only improvisation from the plans was the motor mount ( used 5 layers of foam ) and made the fins a little bit larger. First flight one of the fins fell off so ripped the other one off and it flied just fine without fins. However I want to try vertical takeoffs ( not sure if it will ) and so make a little bit bigger so that it stands up easy.


It's plenty fast for our flying skills with the power pack "A" on 3s battery and 5X4 prop. Has LEDs for night flying and looked fantastic in the air at dusk. Mosquito season is in full bloom in MN so didn't stay out too long for maiden.

Everything is tuck inside as much as possible, only the battery was a little too thick and sticks out some. 1000mah lazertoys battery balanced out perfectly with no extra weight.

Next revision I'm going to do the 70% scale like you did so maybe will conceal the battery a little better.

Top:

Bottom:

 

[nevenelestate]

So after seeing your thread decided to do a Versa ( didn't need blunt nose, no camera ).

Nice! I really like having the smaller size for transport ability. I prefer the Blunt nose to give room for the battery inside, something about it hanging off the bottom makes me not feel good.

Did you get it to VTO with the 5x4 prop?

I do plan to try and shrink the blunt section on the next build to bring the wingspan down a little, the battery will determine the width.

 

[dgrigor02]

It was a no go on the vertical take off. Out of about 10 tries this evening only worked twice. Just not quite enough umph.

Plenty fast though for our skills and park size. It glides pretty good when you want it too as well.

 

[nevenelestate]

Plenty fast though for our skills and park size. It glides pretty good when you want it too as well.

I always find the Versa glides too well when you don't want it to, lots of go a rounds for long landing approaches.

 

[nevenelestate]

Since the fall on the last flight I have been thinking about the rebuild a lot. I did throw the 70% back in the air and got some short flights, but the one servo started acting up again, guessing the plastic teeth are shot. So the number one thing I will do on the next build is step up from 5g to 9g servos, I plan to order some metal geared ones at some point but will likely use the 2 I already have for the next "prototype" build. I also noticed the other night that I could fit 2 motors on the 70%.

I decided that with the extra motor it would probably be better to step the size up a little so I measured up an 80% and using an online delta wing calculator I figured out what it might look like. Using 115g for a sheet of DTFB I calculated the wing area and got the estimated fuselage weight (2X wing area plus a few g for glue), then created parts in the web app for all the pieces. The total weight should be around 465g and running 2x MT1806 motors with 5x3 props (approx 380g thrust) I should have about 760g of thrust, so this thing should GOOOOOO.

I also plan to try our rounded end, flat wing tips instead of vertical fins on the next build.