- This topic has 10 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated January 13, 2022 at 11:23 am by
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As the weather this week was not looking great for flying I decided to have a week off & catch up with some numerous little RC maintenance jobs.
1) First off the rank was to replace a blown clutch in the 1/5th scale RC Dune Buggy ready for when we head off on our Annual Henty River camping trip in a couple of weeks.
Some may remember that during last years trip I blew the clutch on the first day and for the rest of the trip it was jack up the rear wheels & start with the drive engaged, add a lot of revs then drop off the jack. It worked but not ideal. Anyway the new clutch is now installed & after a couple of runs around the cul-de-sac, terrorising & deafening the neighbours, it all seems to now work fine.
2) Second job was to repair the “Sky Shadow” after its demise last Sunday in the “Frog Pond” at the flying field.
After all the mud & debris was removed it was fairly simple to glue the wing back together but for some (unknown then) reason the electronics refused to work at all. Turned out the F411-WSE flight controller had lost all its programming. I suspect the programming button on the FC was activated by the heavy battery lead pressing on the push button. This would also explain why in the middle of a perfect flight it decided to nose dive into the remnants of the pond.
Anyway its now repaired & re programmed and the battery lead relocated, ready to take flight again. I also took the opportunity to replace one of the elevon servos that had been becoming increasingly glitchy over the past few flights.
3) Third on the list was to modify the undercarriage on the “Slow Poke”. To this end I silver soldered flat washers to the undercarriage wires to prevent the wheels riding up on the wires & jamming the wheels, which in turn flips the plane on its nose. Will hopefully be OK now.
4) The next job is to sort out a problem with the elevator on the new Bixler 2 Sport. The elevator behaves like it’s haunted & I’m not sure if it’s the servo or the Hobby Eagle A3-V2 stabiliser that’s at fault. As the A3-V2 stabilisers are usually bullet proof I suspect it will be the servo so that will get tested first. Just a bugger to remove & replace it.
5) The final maintenance job for this week will be to modify (yet again) the “Dolly Trolley” that is used to launch the 3 Metre FMS Fox glider.
I have now twice knocked the tail off the glider when launching by using far too much elevator which causes the tail wing to catch on the Main Wing catch posts.
Hopefully I can come up with a way of folding down the catch posts as soon as the main wing lifts off, then there will be nothing for the tail to catch on. So long as I remember to use very little up elevator it is fine but even so it would still be nice to fix the problem so it cant happen.
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Wow! It must be great to have so much time to do all that work Mike! 🙂
Might I suggest a diferent idea regarding the Dolly Trolley?
I was thinking, rather than folding down the catch posts, what about some sort of spring loaded ramp that leads up the to the top of the posts?
That way, when the plane lifts off the trolley, the ramps pop up to make a smoother incline to the top of the posts. If the elevator was to make contact with it, it would “ramp up” rather than hit the vertical posts and break. I’m sure there would be enough weight in the plane to hold the ramps down prior to lift off. A latching mechanism could also be employed to prevent the ramps from being pushed down.What do you think?
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Ive been retiling and grouting the spare shower the last 2 days. Does that count as maintenance? I think not when its under wife’s orders.
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FOR me its been the shack now finished (I hope ) for final inspection and informed that my neighbours girl friend has the bug so will he I recon his test is tomorrow AN the conversation was held over a distance of more than 30 ft with the wind blowing but still I will be monitoring myself anyway……………… as you would
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