RE: ZIROLI 98
wings (cont)
Flaps (cont)
Control rods:
To strengthen the control rods, some kwik JB weld was put on the rod and then the brass tubing was slid over it after covering the ends with masking tape to keep them clean. The kwick JB has the same tensile strength as the regular except it dries very fast. It's not good around a lot of heat so I use the regular on my mufflers.
servo trays:
I epoxied some spruce 1/4"X1/2" along the top of the wing for the servo tray base.
Then the control horns were epoxied to the flaps sistered between two soft 1/4" thick balsa pieces.
After the epoxy 'cooked', I aligned/clamped the edges of the flaps in the up position, turned on the transmitter/receiver and screwed the trays to the base.
Alignment problems:
The two flaps were not aligning on the down position. It appears that the culprit is the flap control horns as the ball link is not exactly in the same place relative to the hinge pin.
The only solution I came up with (besides leaving it that way) was to separate the outer flaps on another channel and slave it to the flap channel. I chose Aux 4 which is the toggle just above the gear toggle.
For JR 11X:
I had to make adjustments under 'Flap system' as indicated for getting the desired flap deflection that I wanted. I then had to use MIX 1 and slave aux 4 to aux 1 but the key was the offset as this moved the outer flap (slave) the proper distance.
note: I noticed that the offset can be a negative number so I should be able to eliminate servo 'reversers' when I need them. Of course this will 'eat up' a lot of channels so proper alignment is best while I build.
Both flaps now move exactly the same distance. I'm hoping the results are the same when I start on the right side flaps!
I now see that my selection of slave switches was poor as I may accidentally hit the slave switch when I want to put the gear up or down (as the outer flaps can be activated independently). While reading the manual, I noticed that I can either disable the switch or just switch to a toggle on the right top side.
Some 1/16" thick ply was screwed over the servos to secure them to the trays.
The ball linkage was connected to the closest hole to the center and the rest of the arm was cut off: I thought I could leave the excess arm in place but it restricts the ball linkage movement.
Ailerons:
Where the flaps control linkages are internal, the ailerons are external. I used more spruce to build a base for the servo tray so the top of the servo casing is flush with the top of the ribs as this will give me max deflection of the servo arm and also keep the arm as short as possible, ie maintaining max servo torque.