Thanks for the positive feedback guys
All the mods are now completed, but of course the weather has been conspiring against me to delay the test flights - it's been successive days of 30+ C with hot dry winds and fire bans up until recently, then it was passing rain & the occasional storm - go figure! However, I seized the day yesterday and had 3 very rewarding flights in the late afternoon after the breeze had dropped....... you little rippa!!
The changes:
I retro-fitted a ZTW 2216 "Black Widow" out-runner with built in ESC (another HK bargain bin purchase
) - driving a 10x4.7 e- prop on a 3s 1350mah pack, it has considerable boogie, significantly more than what the
Deacon has ever flown with previously
Rudder torque rod:
PaulJ wrote: ↑01 Oct 2018, 08:55
If you're thinking of making a new rudder, FWIW, ....... I mounted the servo to drive a torque-rod and use the old s/c type linkage for controlling the rudder. It is very simple to do, "looks the part" from the outside and means that you can remove the tailplane easily without having to disconnect anything.....
Very similar to Paul's suggestion, I replaced the original push rod which was mandated by the OS servo output configuration, with a torque rod driven by a 9g servo. Rather than the yoke style connection to the servo that Paul used, I used a setup I'd used previously with a brass tube mounted inside a rubber tube which is in turn attached to the servo output arm - the torque rod has a wire end bent at 90 degrees that slides into the brass tube, the torque rod's rotational axis aligning with the axis of the servo's output shaft. Since the wire can slide in the brass tube, any small mis-alignments are automatically accommodated. I'm confident I can couple this arrangement to the OS servo output disc, such that I can go back to using the original
OS Minitron radio installation if I wish.
Rudder & Fin:
I stretched the fine vertically about 28mm and increased the rudder size by almost twice. The control horn has been replaced by the "traditional" S/C yoke to complete the illusion of using an escapement.
- original fin & "rudder"
- new bigger fin & rudder
Radio installation:
To eliminate the lead from the nose, I moved all the RC components as far forward as possible. The ZTW motor has a built in ESC, the motor battery now fits immediately behind and under the motor, the Rx is in the front of the "cockpit" and the rudder servo is hard up against the forward fuselage former. Since the ESC doesn't have a BEC, I made a small in-line adapter to supply a UBEC directly from the motor battery. Alternatively, I could have hooked the UBEC to the balance lead.
With the slightly enlarged fin, the nose looked
really short
so it was lengthened about 35mm, which also allowed more room for the motor battery. Fuel soakage was a problem with the engine bearers, so they were shortened back to sound material. A ply plate was then added to replace the removed bearers & join onto the remaining shortened bearers.
- a new nose job....
Like a new (old) actress, it's had both nose & butt work done
Tailplane:
As previously mentioned, I packed the tailplane TE up about 4mm.
Centre of Gravity:
The CofG is now 25mm forward of that shown on the original plan (which was on the rear spar).
I'm pleased to declare (at last) another successful S/C conversion