Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
05-13-2007, 09:01 AM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
OK Guys,
I did not like the CA hinges so I made the decision to change them with dubro pin hinges.
BIG Mistake.
I pinned all of them in place with tooth pics, epoxied them with 30 minute....
On the third flight which happened to be yesterday, 1/4 throttle straight and level (all flights thus far have been simple circuits for trim, no loops or rolls, nothing) the Elevator came off. Needless to say the plane did not fly much longer. Got to the crash site, total loss. The hinges broke at the pinned line (center) the havles stayed in the Horizontal and the Elevator. So ... those of you using pinned hinges please pay close attention to this setup..... If you are running just four hinges on Elevator I STRONGLY suggest you go another route.
With that said, the plane is great, flys very nice and stable. Not knocking the plane at all, Just do not use 4 pinned dubros on elevator.
I did not like the CA hinges so I made the decision to change them with dubro pin hinges.
BIG Mistake.
I pinned all of them in place with tooth pics, epoxied them with 30 minute....
On the third flight which happened to be yesterday, 1/4 throttle straight and level (all flights thus far have been simple circuits for trim, no loops or rolls, nothing) the Elevator came off. Needless to say the plane did not fly much longer. Got to the crash site, total loss. The hinges broke at the pinned line (center) the havles stayed in the Horizontal and the Elevator. So ... those of you using pinned hinges please pay close attention to this setup..... If you are running just four hinges on Elevator I STRONGLY suggest you go another route.
With that said, the plane is great, flys very nice and stable. Not knocking the plane at all, Just do not use 4 pinned dubros on elevator.
05-13-2007, 02:29 PM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
Brett,
Wow! Very sorry to read the bad news about your plane. That's good of you to report the post-mortem. I've been planning to get a Lift Meister and would probably have duplicated your setup exactly. Thus, you've probably saved at least one more plane with your report.
Some of the 3-D guys in our club (Douglas County AeroModelers--Georgia) use redundant elevator servos in their planes. Would that have been something that you might recommend for this plane? You reckon the elevator is more critical in the Lift Meister than most planes or just under-hinged in this case?
I got to see Steve's plane last week and his is very well built. Didn't notice what his hinge/servo setup was, but will be watching for his reply to your post over in the AP Ultimate plane for Aerial Photography thread.
Best regards (and thanks),
Dave
Wow! Very sorry to read the bad news about your plane. That's good of you to report the post-mortem. I've been planning to get a Lift Meister and would probably have duplicated your setup exactly. Thus, you've probably saved at least one more plane with your report.
Some of the 3-D guys in our club (Douglas County AeroModelers--Georgia) use redundant elevator servos in their planes. Would that have been something that you might recommend for this plane? You reckon the elevator is more critical in the Lift Meister than most planes or just under-hinged in this case?
I got to see Steve's plane last week and his is very well built. Didn't notice what his hinge/servo setup was, but will be watching for his reply to your post over in the AP Ultimate plane for Aerial Photography thread.
Best regards (and thanks),
Dave
05-13-2007, 03:02 PM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
No not a problem with the single servo I don't think.....
I was/ will run the 8645 Digital's 140 + oz in I believe?
Just not enough hinge points.
But again, I was flying 1/4 throttle straight and level, could not have been traveling more than 40 mph or so. Did not hear/see flutter, just suddenly lost elevator, the plane started to dive, then I saw the elevator come off about 50' before impact.
I wish I had gotten some pics of the elevator and stab to show you guys. Sorry!
I suppose I will go with the CA hinges this next time, but maybe 6 or 8? I will pin these as well with tooth pics.
Several people at the field said to use the robart pin hinges, anyone have any experience with these? What type of glue is best? Obviously you can't pin these type of hinges, are they acceptable on a large bird?
Worst part of the whole thing was it cracked the case on my new evolution 35!!
Pipe survived though.
I was/ will run the 8645 Digital's 140 + oz in I believe?
Just not enough hinge points.
But again, I was flying 1/4 throttle straight and level, could not have been traveling more than 40 mph or so. Did not hear/see flutter, just suddenly lost elevator, the plane started to dive, then I saw the elevator come off about 50' before impact.
I wish I had gotten some pics of the elevator and stab to show you guys. Sorry!
I suppose I will go with the CA hinges this next time, but maybe 6 or 8? I will pin these as well with tooth pics.
Several people at the field said to use the robart pin hinges, anyone have any experience with these? What type of glue is best? Obviously you can't pin these type of hinges, are they acceptable on a large bird?
Worst part of the whole thing was it cracked the case on my new evolution 35!!
Pipe survived though.
05-13-2007, 06:41 PM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
Very sorry about your loss. A dead rx battery almost got mine - after an hour of ground running I decided to take it up, and on taxi out to the runway the surfaces started getting really slow, by the time I cut the motor the batt was completely gone. Evidentally the hour of running the motor on the ground must have been torquing my tailwheel, because my batt would have lasted four times that long in the air.
I used Robarts super pin hinges in combination with CA hinges on mine, but I only have three short trimming flights on it, so I cannot attest to their reliability. However, they are very robust in design. I use 30min epoxy to prime the holes, and a light coat on the pins - you have to be very careful to keep the epoxy from pushing out and getting into the hinge. This is where 5 min epoxy will burn ya. And, you have to overbore the first 2mm or so of each pilot hole, so that the hinge will tuck in and allow the surfaces to mate flush.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXET57&P=ML
Glad to hear you are rebuilding. I am frustrated with my fuji BT32-EI, but am hanging in there with it until an old guru at the club can look at it. I think my soft mounts are keeping it from idling steady (very long story short), among other things. I priced an electric conversion for the LiftMeister at about $600 for off-brand. But it would swing an 18x10 at about 6500rpm for 30 minutes plus, at an AUW lighter than my wet gasser weight. Not as strong as the Fuji, but no noise, oil, etc.
Dave
I used Robarts super pin hinges in combination with CA hinges on mine, but I only have three short trimming flights on it, so I cannot attest to their reliability. However, they are very robust in design. I use 30min epoxy to prime the holes, and a light coat on the pins - you have to be very careful to keep the epoxy from pushing out and getting into the hinge. This is where 5 min epoxy will burn ya. And, you have to overbore the first 2mm or so of each pilot hole, so that the hinge will tuck in and allow the surfaces to mate flush.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXET57&P=ML
Glad to hear you are rebuilding. I am frustrated with my fuji BT32-EI, but am hanging in there with it until an old guru at the club can look at it. I think my soft mounts are keeping it from idling steady (very long story short), among other things. I priced an electric conversion for the LiftMeister at about $600 for off-brand. But it would swing an 18x10 at about 6500rpm for 30 minutes plus, at an AUW lighter than my wet gasser weight. Not as strong as the Fuji, but no noise, oil, etc.
Dave
05-21-2007, 05:03 PM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
Hey Guys,
Just got off the phone with Neil at Cedar Hobbies,
Nice guy, he felt bad about the mishap with my Lift Meister, knowing good and well what the problem was.
I just ordered another with a discount from them!
Great customer service and obviously he truly cares about his airplanes and his customers.
Great Job Neil!!
I will be buying other arfs in the future from them just from this good gesture!
Just got off the phone with Neil at Cedar Hobbies,
Nice guy, he felt bad about the mishap with my Lift Meister, knowing good and well what the problem was.
I just ordered another with a discount from them!
Great customer service and obviously he truly cares about his airplanes and his customers.
Great Job Neil!!
I will be buying other arfs in the future from them just from this good gesture!
05-21-2007, 08:01 PM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
Great news!
When I was just "looking" at the LiftMeister, I left a voicemail and Neil called me back that day and talked (on his dime) for almost a half an hour. Impressive person-to-person contact in such a "click here to buy" type of environment.
Dave
When I was just "looking" at the LiftMeister, I left a voicemail and Neil called me back that day and talked (on his dime) for almost a half an hour. Impressive person-to-person contact in such a "click here to buy" type of environment.
Dave
06-03-2007, 12:10 AM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
I am in the process of converting my Liftmeister from gas to electric, just to let everyone know. It'll be interesting to see how it climbs compared to the gas versions. Does anyone have any zlogged climb rates?
My AUW will be about 1lb heavier than my dry gas weight. 10s2p8000, Eflite Power 160, CC HV85, APC-E 17x10 at over 8krpm and 2kilowatts. 30 minutes of practical duration, hopefully. Computes to payload 10lbs easily and still have 800ft/min climb.
Dave
My AUW will be about 1lb heavier than my dry gas weight. 10s2p8000, Eflite Power 160, CC HV85, APC-E 17x10 at over 8krpm and 2kilowatts. 30 minutes of practical duration, hopefully. Computes to payload 10lbs easily and still have 800ft/min climb.
Dave
06-11-2007, 12:29 AM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
I now have six flights on the electric conversion of the LiftMeister. Very happy with it - I need to prop up an inch, as my 17x10 is only pulling 51a and 1750watts (mid pack). My final weight was 22.3lbs. Here is some data from the flight report:
My CoG is a little too far back, but the plane flew really nice and mannerly. Because of the CoG issue that I didn't really notice until the last flight, I was using a little more throttle than I needed to since every time the nose got a little down the plane would stay that way until I hit the elevator (tail heavy). Some flight data:
Flight #1: Performed by a club guru pilot who I was honored to let fly my plane. 11 minutes, half trimming at a strong throttle, and the last half wringing it out, doing things a trainer shouldn't do. Loops and rolls turned into tailslides and hammerheads. It did one thing I can't name/haven't seen before.
I was in heaven. Replaced 2500mah of the 8000.
Flight #2: 19 minutes of mixed climbs, dives, sprints. Replaced 3500mah.
Flight #3: 24 minutes of long climbouts, repeated sprints, loops to inverted, etc. Cells were at 3.7v/cell after flight, replaced 6100mah.
GPS showed sprints in still air (across the wind) at 60mph. Got 90mph pulling out of a dive, running with the wind (5mph). Averaged (more importantly) about 40mph, and this was with substantially more throttle/speed than needed to maintain level flight. I think AP style flying would be around 35mph, with full flaps maybe 30mph.
Zlog data was inconclusive - I have it setup for "turn on at 50ft and off below 20ft," and after several low passes my data was in forty data sets of less than a minute each. There were some climbs mixed in there at 1600'/min, but they were short durations of 10 secs or less, so that means nothing. I did one or two long climbs but couldn't find them in all that separate data.
After flight temps - Lipo, Brrrr cold. Motor, warm.
Really impressed. The motor is *as* quiet, if not moreso, than my Axi's. The LiftMeister would be a perfect platform for a DSLR (I'm an aerial photographer mostly).
Here is a link to the video from today, please excuse the shoddy landing as my rudder was still on low rates and I had too much right trim in my tailwheel linkage (since corrected).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...25591891&hl=en
Dave
My CoG is a little too far back, but the plane flew really nice and mannerly. Because of the CoG issue that I didn't really notice until the last flight, I was using a little more throttle than I needed to since every time the nose got a little down the plane would stay that way until I hit the elevator (tail heavy). Some flight data:
Flight #1: Performed by a club guru pilot who I was honored to let fly my plane. 11 minutes, half trimming at a strong throttle, and the last half wringing it out, doing things a trainer shouldn't do. Loops and rolls turned into tailslides and hammerheads. It did one thing I can't name/haven't seen before.
I was in heaven. Replaced 2500mah of the 8000.
Flight #2: 19 minutes of mixed climbs, dives, sprints. Replaced 3500mah.
Flight #3: 24 minutes of long climbouts, repeated sprints, loops to inverted, etc. Cells were at 3.7v/cell after flight, replaced 6100mah.
GPS showed sprints in still air (across the wind) at 60mph. Got 90mph pulling out of a dive, running with the wind (5mph). Averaged (more importantly) about 40mph, and this was with substantially more throttle/speed than needed to maintain level flight. I think AP style flying would be around 35mph, with full flaps maybe 30mph.
Zlog data was inconclusive - I have it setup for "turn on at 50ft and off below 20ft," and after several low passes my data was in forty data sets of less than a minute each. There were some climbs mixed in there at 1600'/min, but they were short durations of 10 secs or less, so that means nothing. I did one or two long climbs but couldn't find them in all that separate data.
After flight temps - Lipo, Brrrr cold. Motor, warm.
Really impressed. The motor is *as* quiet, if not moreso, than my Axi's. The LiftMeister would be a perfect platform for a DSLR (I'm an aerial photographer mostly).
Here is a link to the video from today, please excuse the shoddy landing as my rudder was still on low rates and I had too much right trim in my tailwheel linkage (since corrected).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...25591891&hl=en
Dave
06-11-2007, 04:02 AM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
ORIGINAL: copterviews
No not a problem with the single servo I don't think.....
I was/ will run the 8645 Digital's 140 + oz in I believe?
Just not enough hinge points.
But again, I was flying 1/4 throttle straight and level, could not have been traveling more than 40 mph or so. Did not hear/see flutter, just suddenly lost elevator, the plane started to dive, then I saw the elevator come off about 50' before impact.
I wish I had gotten some pics of the elevator and stab to show you guys. Sorry!
I suppose I will go with the CA hinges this next time, but maybe 6 or 8? I will pin these as well with tooth pics.
Several people at the field said to use the robart pin hinges, anyone have any experience with these? What type of glue is best? Obviously you can't pin these type of hinges, are they acceptable on a large bird?
Worst part of the whole thing was it cracked the case on my new evolution 35!!
Pipe survived though.
No not a problem with the single servo I don't think.....
I was/ will run the 8645 Digital's 140 + oz in I believe?
Just not enough hinge points.
But again, I was flying 1/4 throttle straight and level, could not have been traveling more than 40 mph or so. Did not hear/see flutter, just suddenly lost elevator, the plane started to dive, then I saw the elevator come off about 50' before impact.
I wish I had gotten some pics of the elevator and stab to show you guys. Sorry!
I suppose I will go with the CA hinges this next time, but maybe 6 or 8? I will pin these as well with tooth pics.
Several people at the field said to use the robart pin hinges, anyone have any experience with these? What type of glue is best? Obviously you can't pin these type of hinges, are they acceptable on a large bird?
Worst part of the whole thing was it cracked the case on my new evolution 35!!
Pipe survived though.
----------------
I use CA hinges on smaller models. I am not saying that large CA hinges wouldn't serve well on larger models. I wouldn't know. Just never trusted them on larger models.
I am surprised that the Dubro nylon pinned hinges failed. Nylon becomes brittle over time because it loses its moisture. In the olden days, when most props being used were white nylon, we had to boil them in water periodically to restore the moisture, lest they become brittle and shatter.
To me, the problem with your model seemed to be the lack of hinges, not so much which ones you were using. I would think that three or four hinge points, 3/16" or larger, on a side of the elevator (six to eight total) would do the job - don't you think so too?
Ed Cregger
05-28-2008, 10:38 AM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
I looked for this plane but I dont see where to buy it anywhere 
Is cedar hobbies still around ? ANyone have a link ?
Thanks,
JettPilot
Is cedar hobbies still around ? ANyone have a link ?Thanks,
JettPilot
05-28-2008, 02:08 PM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100" Lift Meister
Hello, JP,
Hey, I called them back in September and they were backordered until December, so I got a Sig Senior Kadet instead.
In December, I called and nobody answered and I found their web site wasn't working. Could the Bermuda triangle extend
that far??
How's your weather these days? It's summer here in Georgia.
Cheers,
Dave
Hey, I called them back in September and they were backordered until December, so I got a Sig Senior Kadet instead.
In December, I called and nobody answered and I found their web site wasn't working. Could the Bermuda triangle extend
that far??
How's your weather these days? It's summer here in Georgia.
Cheers,
Dave
05-25-2013, 03:24 AM
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RE: Cedar Hobbies 100
wing struts ... can anyone give me directions on where to install them on fuse and wings, and ideas on attaching them without using the attachments provided . I don't trust the way they are attached .
05-27-2013, 02:42 AM
#67
Member
RE: Cedar Hobbies 100
I have been flying mine without the wing struts...but i have been using it like a big trainer, with only small loads of candy to drop. So far I feel there is no need for the struts, but if you plan to carry big loads or do aerobatics I suppose the struts are a "must have". Mine is flown with a Saito 150 and sorry I don't have a current weight.
Daryll
Daryll
