Originally Posted by
JohnBuckner
Opjose or AMA 74894 I have a question for either of you concerning the HK electrics. OK I actually have a set one set of Chinese electrics, They are a set of tri gear type that came with a largish foamy 262 that I did some horse trading for (do a lot of that). It was something the original purchaser was a bit over there head with. Anyway the retracts work OK and and the airplane is a bit of a kick to fly. Maybe ten different outings now and three flights each time since that's how many of those humungous lipos I have and the gear which seems a bit lite for that rather heavy foamy seem to work fine.
To my question now: almost all those electric retracts come without the gear wires. Now ordinarily that would not be a problem as I bend up my own wire gears all the time even on some of my racers bend up new ones without those kinda pointless coils. So are they strickly just some obscure metric size wire and how would one know what or even if the proper wire was avalible some where or is there a alternate in good old SAE? Problem is I don,t speak metric and its gonna stay that way. So what are you fellows using for avalible wire? I would go ahead and buy a number of those gears to experiment with if I thought I could obtain the wire and wire that had received a reasonable hardening level as least to the level of K&S piano wire?
John
Yup, the HK's are knock offs of the Lado.
They work well for the price, but as you've discovered they DO use metric wire sizes.
Normally I use metric gear wire that either come with the retracts or I've obtained via other means, but every once in a while I do run into the SAE vs Metric issue.
I've used K&S piano wire w/o problems. There is a slight amount of extra spacing when going to a suitable SAE size, but once the screws are installed there is no play.
Also if the SAE size is slightly larger than the metric equivalent hole, a bit of sanding with sandpaper is all it takes to get a fit.
I've never had to cut K&S brass tubing to make an adapting hole spacer, but that is another option.