FishbonesAir
Active member
Okay, so I've despised, hated, wanted to melt with a torch never really liked the castoring nosewheel on the FT Mini Guinea. I came up with a steerable nosewheel on my first MG, using the supplied 1.5mm wire, but found that, shall we say, inadequate for my beginner landings? The spring was an attempt to add some shock absorption. Not entirely successful. Most landings required that the nose gear be straightened to some degree. Hard landings more so of course 
. The rear gear was actually very successful, using a thin bamboo BBQ skewer as an axle for FT 2" "small" wheels. They look pretty huge on the Mini in my opinion, but I digress. The bamboo axle is very light, and has held up to the worst I can throw at it, so I do recommend it, since it weighs roughly 1/5th what 3mm music wire does, coming in at a hefty 1g/inch. This original setup coupled the nose servo to the tail so that steering was easy. But I had to trim it constantly due to the bending issues.
So, I've been working on this Mk III design, to 3D print. The red plate will be glued to the bottom of the airplane. The nose will have to be modified to accomadate this of course. The post will come up through the foam board. The servo box, shown in blue, bolts in place, and is sized for a 5 gram servo. I sized it around the same little blue servo shown in the picture above, which is a hair bigger than FT 5g servos. I haven't gotten this printed as of this writing, but I'm guessing that a FT 5g servo will fit the box okay too. I haven't calculated if this will fit neatly under the battery box, or if I'll have to raise that slightly to account for the height of the servo with its arm, and then the wire from the gear coming in on top of that.
The plan is to use .078 music wire (2mm) for the gear this time, and to put some spring winds into it under the red plate.
This idea builds on one that I saw originally somewhere else. Might have been YouTube? Kudos to the original builder, whomever he may be.
. The rear gear was actually very successful, using a thin bamboo BBQ skewer as an axle for FT 2" "small" wheels. They look pretty huge on the Mini in my opinion, but I digress. The bamboo axle is very light, and has held up to the worst I can throw at it, so I do recommend it, since it weighs roughly 1/5th what 3mm music wire does, coming in at a hefty 1g/inch. This original setup coupled the nose servo to the tail so that steering was easy. But I had to trim it constantly due to the bending issues. 
So, I've been working on this Mk III design, to 3D print. The red plate will be glued to the bottom of the airplane. The nose will have to be modified to accomadate this of course. The post will come up through the foam board. The servo box, shown in blue, bolts in place, and is sized for a 5 gram servo. I sized it around the same little blue servo shown in the picture above, which is a hair bigger than FT 5g servos. I haven't gotten this printed as of this writing, but I'm guessing that a FT 5g servo will fit the box okay too. I haven't calculated if this will fit neatly under the battery box, or if I'll have to raise that slightly to account for the height of the servo with its arm, and then the wire from the gear coming in on top of that.
The plan is to use .078 music wire (2mm) for the gear this time, and to put some spring winds into it under the red plate.
This idea builds on one that I saw originally somewhere else. Might have been YouTube?
Kudos to the original builder, whomever he may be.
