Great forum thread guys! I know it has tapered off to nothing but for me this is "breaking news"! I received my new Caelus a couple of weeks ago. First I read the RCG forum which was a mistake, one of those threads polluted by a bad apple poster IMHO. Then this thread which is chock full of great information and sharing that most of us enjoy. Lots of good info here.
I have had the initial look over and the finish is very nice, The internal glue joints look very good. Amazing quality. Unfortunately both ailerons are warped, about 2mm at each tip and in such a way that they will combine to roll the aircraft. So if there is any way to safely work that out please let me know as on my own I would be afraid to try it!
I'll be re using the components from a 2m Acuity. A Himax 6330 with Mike's rear mount firewall, Jeti Mezon 90 Lite ESC, Futaba BLS171SV and BLS173SV servos.
I do have a question about powering the system as I have lost faith in the Jeti DSM ESC that was installed in the Acuity. The system used the ESC BEC to power the servos, and that was backed up by a 2s LiPo via the DSM ESC (which has a mag switch). Unfortunately the Acuity augered in after loss of signal on short final. I returned the Powerbox CORE Tx and PB Rx for inspection after the crash and they could find nothing wrong but the flight log showed total power loss, as if the ESC stopped powering the Rx but the DSM did not take over. Until after the crash that is! Now everything works fine again on the bench. But I don't trust it now. Mike at F3A Unlimited had a clever solution to simply plug a backup pack into the Rx after powered up via the ESC and removing it before shut down, light and simple. I also have other battery back up systems I can use with the Jeti ESC. Or I can use a powerbox switch with dual Lipo batteries and not even use the Jeti ESC BEC. With the "one latch" canopy system on the Caelus I don't want to put any holes in the fuselage. Any advice here would be appreciated.
My main takeaways from this thread are as follows:
Reinforce battery tray and gear mount area as necessary, adding as little weight as possible.
Consider mounting rudder servo in tail to make battery placement for CG easier to achieve.
Dial in incidences to start. Expect Tcan to be way off fuselage platform. Wing + .7, Tcan + .3, stab 0 CG aft edge wing tube to 1/2" back from there. It seems everyone has different sweet spot.
Possibly need to work on CF gear legs. On mine there are only two screws each, obviously this could allow rocking of gear fore aft to create wear. What do you think?
And finally those warped ailerons. When trimmed for level flight should I be OK or is that always going to cause problems? I don't have enough experience with pattern flying here.
Although I hope to hear from Caelus owners I gotta love a thread where no one has much to say, because they are all out flying and enjoying their awesome airplane!