Raptor X50 build thread

[frypan]

I just built an n5c,
Man I am seriously thinking of building an x50 very sweet looking

[dards]

Hi ... I just came across these build threads on X50 .. hope you will find them useful!

[KouDy]

Thanks for the link. Registration is needed to view pictures tho (maybe later).
There is build thread here as well. He has posted some nice photos there.

To more news. I have Hyperion 2080mAh LiFe ordered.
Possible bad news from Singapore for me tho. I sent my 10C for servicing (potentio meters problem). Called them today to find out the status and the girl there told me it's with their technician now and he will get back to her when he has some estimate. Worst case scenario here is that they will not be able to repair it in Singapore (service center for Malaysia) and they will have to send it Japan to Futaba directly. It would take "month+" to get it back... So i really hope they can fix it, otherwise i will be grounded for a long time with X50 waiting to be assembled...

[KouDy]

So i began my assembly. I was looking for bag A for a while. I had it in the square smallest box in the kit. Same where foam blade holder and engine are.

Bag A photos are here :



Pretty straight forward assembly. Note that mixing levers have stand offs. Those go towards the main rotor hub. Also from the side they are more flat. You can check this by putting it on the side on the table and create small seesaw from it. It will teeter more on one side than on the other. The more flat side goes up when heli is built. You shouldn't be able to change it if everything is correct but better to mention this anyway.

[KouDy]

Working through bag B. Bag B is quite big bag in the longest box where tail boom and blades are.

So some photos about progress :



My flybar is not precisely centered. There are nothes on the fly where you should put your grub nuts going from flybar control arms to lock them onto flybar. These nothes have some width so you can move flybar inside whole assembly (one arm - hub - second arm) a little. Most important is that hub must be secured by arms so it cannot move within them. Now i was not able to achieve lengths mentioned in manual. They say 139.5mm from end of arm to the end of flybar (without paddles). I have longer flybar so i moved within notches to the longer side to make side as equal as it was possible. Still with one side longer i the proceeded to install paddles. There are small holes in paddles where you can see when your flybar is screwed enough in. It turned out to me that value from manual (110mm from end of arm to the beginning of the paddle) was basically spot on just when flybar touched plastic on the other side of the hole. Shown on picture here :

Now since i had one side of flybar longer, i have put 2 rotations off on the shorter paddle (moving it furhter away from center). I am not sure if it was enough. I will see better when links are on and it's all self supporting.

Note that flybar arms have flat side which goes down on the heli when assembled. Grub is coming into the arm from top of the heli.

[KouDy]

Continuing in bag B... Blade grips are in place. There are a lot of washers. Careful with very thin one. It should go between thrust bearing and bearing in the grip from blade side on the feathering shaft. Thrust bearings come without outer package. I am not sure if this is normal for other kits (like t-rex or other TT). I think they are covered on mini Titan... Either way, thrust bearings are those on the small piece of paper by see through foil (nearly invisble actually, i thought they are glued there ). So careful with them they won't hold together when you cut the foil.
Photo of assembled head. Note that grips can turn over the head button so you shouldn't be able to put them the other way around (just rotate them and solved...)

[KouDy]

Can someone please take photo of Washout Linkage when you have it assembled? From manual i do think it cannot be assembled.
Take a look a these 2 photos. There is inclined section with very small triangular depression.

The other side has big triangular (almost) depression only.


Now which side goes where?
In the manual on the page 10 it's clearly showing that small triangle depression and inclined section should face towards the washout. Big triangle depression should face away from washout. Did anyone actually manage to put it together like this? Because no matter how i turn any part i am getting nowhere. I have it exact opposite than manual shows.

[Bob O]

Hmmm.........I'll go take a look at the parts in my kit. Although I'm not building the flybar head.

With the Furion 450 I had, the radius arms were not identical, meaning that when one had to be rotated 180* to fit the washout arm, the ball link was backwards. There was no way around that either, so one link had to be put on small hole first.

The arms in my X50 FBL conversion did not have this problem as far as I can remember, which isn't that far nowadays! I'll go have a look.

I'll go take a look and grab a pic shortly.

[rcflier1]

on mine, the small triangle is facing out.i have the head on a se v-2 and it works well.

[KouDy]

How do you snap them on with small triangle facing out? I when small triangle faces main shaft i can snap it on the ball but facing out it's nearly impossible...

[KouDy]

Originally Posted by Bob O

Hmmm.........I'll go take a look at the parts in my kit. Although I'm not building the flybar head.

With the Velocity I had, the radius arms were identical, meaning that when one had to be rotated 180* to fit the washout arm, the ball link was backwards. There was no way around that either, so one link had to be put on small hole first.

The arms in my X50 FBL conversion did not have this problem as far as I can remember, which isn't that far nowadays! I'll go have a look.

I'll go take a look and grab a pic shortly.

I would have to put them both the small hole first. It's weird really so that's why the question... i guess i can force them on if i have to...

[Bob O]

Originally Posted by KouDy

I would have to put them both the small hole first. It's weird really so that's why the question... i guess i can force them on if i have to...

They will go on small hole first, but it will just be a harder press and snap. They will just be that much harder to pop off, which is a good thing. What you're likely to find is that when you pop them on backwards, they will pop off the ball on the other side. You'll just have to pull them back onto the ball.

As an option to pressing them on backwards, you can pull the ball from the inner swash ring and then install the radius arm onto the ball properly. Then install the ball back onto the swash ring. It's still on backwards, but you will have installed it onto the ball without forcing it from the wrong side.

I'm going to take some pics now. BRB.

[Bob O]

Originally Posted by KouDy

How do you snap them on with small triangle facing out? I when small triangle faces main shaft i can snap it on the ball but facing out it's nearly impossible...

Here are some pics I just took.

The first one shows both the stock arms on the small triangle side, which is the side that should face the ball when snapping it on. The second pic shows both the stock arms but one with the large triangle side. The third pics show the arms on my FBL head.








So it appears that if using the FB head, being that the radius arms are mounted in the opposite direction from the FBL head, the arms have to be snapped on with the small side of the hole first. I might have to correct my previous post, it was my Furion 450 that had one radius arm backwards, not the Velocity.

[KouDy]

It seems i have to put them on the other way around. There is simply no way i could do it like you have it Bob.
I will remove the balls from swashplate (to check thread lock anyway) so that is probably the best way...
Going to continue tomorrow. with more pictures, it's getting late now.

[Bob O]

If I was in your position, I'd remove the balls and install the arms from the rear and put the balls back on.

When I ran into this problem last year with the 450, I finally got tired of pulling the balls when I had to remove the head, so I just snapped them link on and off and didn't worry about it. It's a little tougher with the larger arms/ links of the .50, but it's doable. If you are going to snap it on and off the wrong way, make sure you don't do it too many times or too often, as it "could" possibly wear out the small diameter opening of the link. Possibly.

[KouDy]

So head assembly completed.
I removed 2 balls from inner swashplate to put on washout linkage (page 10, part 7) on the right way and put it back with threadlock. Word of notice here. None (!!!) of the balls on my swashplate was threadlocked. I unscrewed all of them and applied threadlock. IIRC on my MT it was whole different story.
More findings i have is that i find balls for links in various sizes. I spent yesterday evening with the link tool to make links bigger so it's smooth movement. I have no idea if i managed to achieve this 100% due to variations in the ball sizes (in my opinion at least).

[KouDy]

Moving on to bag C, tail boom bracket. Pretty straight forward bag, with not too many parts. Hardest part was to screw in fixed screw (page 12, part 13) into the tail gear-A (part 10). It's a grub with pin on it, pin goes all the way through the tail gear and tail drive shaft. Bearing blocks 9 have a stand off, stand offs have to face each other (go towards the tail gear) otherwise you won't fit it into brackets. I have first placed in vertical shaft (into one of the brackets and then inserted in the horizontal (where torque tube later will be i think), cover with other side, slide in 4 frame spacers and secure with 4 socket screws and nuts but do not tighten this up yet, later, tail boom has to go in.

[KouDy]

Bags D and E. Bag D are only side frames and E has a lot of stuff inside. I didn't take photos about putting rubbers onto frames, there is nothing much to explain there... They do have switch mounted on drawings. Ofc this is not part of the kit, i am using heavy duty Hitec switch, hopefully it will be enough. They have it shown on right side of the frame (that is where larger bearing goes).

Clutch bell assembly, i had a little trouble of understanding the picture in what should be positioned where so here is my explanation for anyone who may find it useful.

Take shaft (10) and snap on e-clip (12) into the little slot they have there. Slide on thrust washer (11) on the longer part of the shaft (divided by e-clip).

Put on clutch bell (9) on (again longer side)

Apply threadlock on the threads of pinion (8) and screw it into clutch bell

Slide on the bearings. There are 4 in the bag. The biggest one is not for this part of assembly. 2 same sized ones (7) go first and they are to be slided on the pinion. Smallest one (6) goes last on the shaft. Place them all together into one side of the bearing block (3)

Cover with the other half. Put on the starter coupling (1) and secure it with threadlocked set screws (5). There are 2 notches on the shaft so make sure you have the coupling turned correctly.

(on this photo, set screws are not yet in)
Finally slide in 4 frame spacers (4) and you are done.

[KouDy]

Going on page 14 with bags D and E.
We have to mount tail boom bracket, fan casing, lower bracket for main shaft and clutch bell assembly to the left side of the frame (that is the one with smaller bearing installed or without switch).
I first installed mounting block (19) with 2 screws (threadlock) in the back of the frame. 2 frame spacers (4) which will go into the lower bracket for main shaft are "nuts" here. Screws go first through the mounting block, then frame and screw into spacers.

Then adding one more screw through the mounting block to put on the fan casing (15). There is one spacer in the fan casing. It took quite a force for me to get it in so beware here.

Next is the tail boom bracket. You already have 4 spacers inside. You have to put it in so they match the 4 holes on frame (up side down you will not be able to screw those 4 screws). It's metal to metal to threadlock goes in first (i apply to the holes rather than to the screws). Each screw has one washer (16) on the outside of the frame They go wider side towards the frame.
Same stuff applies for clutch bell assembly.

Last i put in 3 self tapping screws (18). 2 go to the fan casing and third goes to tail boom bracket on the most upper right corner hole.

[Bob O]

I had to resize all the ball links. The only links that didn't need resizing in my kit were the radius arms and the elevator A-arm.