Marvel Craft A109S on TRex 600

[majuro15]

Yes, four bladed head from RC Aerodyne.

Steve has it almost finished up. A little bit of miscommunication turned into an even better look, I think. I was wanting the doghouse and top of the boom/tail red, but he did black and it looks so freakin cool. Hopefully he can just redo the dog house (easier that way anyway) and it will be about finished!

I'm so pumped the way it turned out. The way he got the stripes dead on makes this whole scheme. Can't wait to get this baby in the air!

[helipainter]

what do you think?

[majuro15]

I think it looks as sharp as anything out there! So glad that black worked out, man that thing looks tight! It's perfect in my eyes. Can't wait to get my hands on it and get it in the air!

I'll be doing the cabin after my Air Force officer school in March. But I will have it in the air before I leave next month!

[Pagan207]

A master piece! Enjoy it!

[Helifan314]

Looking forward to flight pics at some point! I'm curious as to know how you like the four bladed head in regular FFF. I'm getting my Marvelcraft perhaps in late summer.

[Indydrt]

SWEEEET!!!!

[blade77]

Looking really good - lets get her airbourne

[majuro15]

Originally Posted by Helifan314

Looking forward to flight pics at some point! I'm curious as to know how you like the four bladed head in regular FFF. I'm getting my Marvelcraft perhaps in late summer.

The FFF isn't too bad with the four bladed head for me. Not sure if I just got lucky or if the SK720 really helps, but I'll say that it's harder for me to fly my flybar 600 than the four blade set up now!

Thanks, paint turned out good. It's an ordeal to do paint for sure, but it came out great. I want to get the gear finished and painted then instal the mechanics for a couple of test flights before putting the scale details and finishing the front cabin. Hoping to have it done by summer some time. Been busy lately with pilot training preperations for the ANG and finishing our house. Always something!

[majuro15]

Well, life is settling down a bit and I took the sheet of the Grand again. She is back from the painter and is waiting patiently for me to finish her up.

I decided to start back small tonight, fitting the springs on the main gear doors and making my reinforced struts for the main gear. I touched up a couple of places with sand paper to adjust for paint and ensured the nose gear doors are still working smoothly. I also glued the lenses for both beacons and one of the sponsons' nav lights. I am using the E2000 glue and it works great. No affect on the clear plastic and joins the body color with the plastic very nicely. I have one of the landing light lenses ready but still need to paint and prep the area around the light reflectors. The gears are ready for their last touch ups as well.

I ordered and received some doll house carpet with adhesive backing from eBay. This stuff is amazing! Two sheets of grey and black for about $12 from UK to US. It will be a breeze to cut and position the pieces inside the front cabin to create a scale look.

Oh the mechanics side, I got the new main rotor hub from Bell222 (thanks!) but it was no better than my current one. I used the vibe logs from the SK to confirm. I also tried a Copter X main rotor head, and while I really like the dampening on the blade grips (would allow for some coning and more scale like flight), the follower was heavy on one side and caused massive vibes at speed. I could come up with a counter weight, but there were other issues with it fitting in the fuse, so I will most likely part with it. I will say it's a great piece, I just didn't build the fuse around it so it's too late to switch. I'll settle for my 2-4 vibes on the SK.

Planning on trying to chip away a bit now, next will be the gear wells and gear paint then moving inside to create a battery tray and start cleaning up the electrical.

[majuro15]

Here are some pictures from last night. First a detail of the nose gear strut lock I made that limits how far the nose strut extends. Still allows it to caster and compress.




A close up of the main gear struts. This is threaded rod epoxied into brass rod. The test article I build held up well so I'm pretty excited about them. They still need paint.



Fuzzy shot of the nav light lens. Anyone know how to dim the LED's from Dimension Engineering? These are running on channels 6 and 7 which can't be adjusted and are getting so hot that the clear plastic is starting to melt. Rotor wash will help, but I'd like to have these on for static display without melting my lens!



Finally the spring and main gear door attachment. Works like a charm to allow the door to follow the contour of the sponson and still stay tight when closed.



Finished the lighting wiring inside, not beautiful, but organized and tucked in the back out of the way. Also switched the nose gear servo horn around to allow the center pedestal to fit without issues. Will have to reprogram the sequencer next.

[blade77]

Fantastic work there - what servo did you end up using on your front retract - tried the hs65mg but don't think it will be strong enough so am gonna put an a7000 on the front too

[majuro15]

My little 65 worked out great for me, no issues with it. If I didn't have the retract mechanism up there, I would go with another 7000 but no need for me.

[majuro15]

I had two appointments today but decided to devote the rest of the day to the heli with grand plans. (Get it, Grand?) Problem is, plans never go the way they are laid out! It took me all day to do the four main cabin windows.

I used window tint film to tint the windows, making it a little harder to see inside the cabin. The windows took quite a while to trim up and it was a bugger fitting them into the rubber channel. Works great though, very happy with the turn out, even after having to redo the tint several times.

[majuro15]

Well not much progress, as hand painting the gear is proving very difficult. Either my white paint is watered down or I need to do primer (the latter, I tried to short cut it). So I'll grab some primer tomorrow and finish touching it up.

I did figure out a solution to the nav lights and heat issue. I doubled up a channel on the controller and now have nav's running off one of the programmable channels where I can reduce it's output. I have it down to 25% and they are holding steady at 82 degrees and are still really bright, bright enough to see great in the day time. So simple fix there.

[majuro15]

Got some interesting stuff done tonight. First my new-to-me SK720 came to replace my current unit that has a bad USB port. I'll send that in to Art and have it repaired and either sell it or save it for the next build. Loaded firmware, settings and installed with no issues. Also got my field LCD to update and work! Bench tested a thousand times and then went outside for a quick hover test in the yard. Success! Rock solid and the usb port works! Ahh, the little things in life....

Since the new unit is installed and tested, I broke the mechanics down and put them in the fuse for a CG check. My dilemma is whether to fly (and there fore build) on 1 pack or 2. The CG with ballast added for the eventual scale cabin was about a half an inch one way or the other. The tail hangs pretty low with just one pack, but it shaves off almost 2 pounds.

Which leads me to the weight. Ouch. 15.8 pounds ready to fly. Woof!! :blink: :huh: I tested a 13 pound AUW pod and boom and it did fine. The first test hop with the fuse before paint was 14 and with a sudden 20 foot sink test she responded and pulled out of it well, so I guess I'll be okay, but it was number shock.

My plan is to build a battery tray (very light one!) for two and then do some test flights with just one pack. Doing the math, one pack will get me about a 5 minute flight using 80% of the lipo. That's a little shorter than I wanted, so there is incentive to use two for both CG and flight time. I just want to make sure she still flies, not sinks!

=====================================
Generated: Thu, 17 May 2012 02:17:43 GMT
=====================================
Motor RPM/V: 1100
Main Gear: 164
Motor Pinion: 10
Gear ratio: 16.4000

Efficiency: 100 %
Motor RPM: 27720
Rotor RPM: 1690

Efficiency: 85 %
Motor RPM: 23562
Rotor RPM: 1437 -------> Running governed 1300 right now with good temps

Battery Pack: Six cell (6S) - 22.2 v
No. of cells: 6
Nominal Cell V: 3.7
Nominal Pack V: 22.2
Actual Pack V: 25.20
mAh capacity: 5000
Amps average: 39.64
Watts average: 998.93
Runtime avg.: 7.57

Rotor size mm: 1300
Tip speed MPH: 218.9
Max FF MPH: 65.7
Tip speed KMH: 352.3
Max FF KMH: 105.7
AUWeight g: 7166
Watts/kg of mass: 139.40
Disk loading kg/m²: 5.40

[Indydrt]

Nice

[Indydrt]

Rc aero dyne has a new or a nice tract kit for 149.00. Looks pretty nice ..kinda like your style. Have you seen it? Or know anything it? Thanks. I try to send link tomorrow
. Gotta go ..

[Indydrt]

Rc aero dyne has a new or a nice tract kit for 149.00. Looks pretty nice ..kinda like your style. Have you seen it? Or know anything it? Thanks. I try to send link tomorrow
. Gotta go ..

[majuro15]

Not sure what you're talking about, but interested in seeing the link. They have some cool stuff on the market for sure.

Picked up two cases tonight at Harbor Freight. Cool store and cool stuff in there! I could spend a lot of money that I don't have....

Finally built the battery box tonight as well. Simple bass wood with 30 min epoxy. This will mount just behind the bulkhead and just in front of the mechanics (with the stock battery lip cut off). I also worked out the wiring scheme and will hopefully get that set this weekend since I know where the lipos will be. Just need to tack on the RX and Acc. lipo boxes to the side and will be all set with power.

Got some more paint for the gears as well. I'll rip out the mechanics and flip it over this weekend to finish up the underside.

[majuro15]

Got some cool stuff today including some build materials for the charging station. Also got a package with some fun in it. My flight crew has arrived, freshly trained and ready to start the paperwork on her new build Grand!



Got the seats cut out and uphostered with the doll house carpet. The stuff is a dream to work with and looks great in my opinion. I also cut the rest of the windows out and did some test fitting with the IP printout that is being made for me.






I also have the last set of lipos for this bird on the way. All said and done, I'll have 6 packs for three flights for the main and two sets of lipos for the RX and accessories. Working on the carrying case for those as well.