Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Ray, I am normally a glow engine user and if I was using glow it would be a four stroke for sure. That big two stroke muffler sticking out the side looks nasty! [:'(]

rgm762

My Feedback: (4)

I agree, those big mufflers can ruin the looks, and this plane has either the four stroke sound or quiet electric written all over it, so I am very interested in your electric build

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Ray,

In order to not hijack Tomas' thread anymore, I have moved my buildup of this ARF over to RCU's sister site WattFlyer:

http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/show...646#post662646

nemesis4u

My Feedback: (77)

Tom,,

please continue here... its nice....

I am done....a long tine ago...

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Alright Tomas, thank you.

I started the construction yesterday. Following the manual, the center section of the wing is assembled. All parts are dry fitted first, and trimmed if necessary. I had to trim the ends of the dihedral spars with an Xacto knife to remove the nubs left from incomplete laser cutting. Removing the nubs allows the spars to fully seat inside the pockets in the wing center section. The dowels for the wing mounting get epoxied into the center section and lock the forward spars into place. These had to be fitted slightly, by inserting the spar and then drilling through to align the holes. They were off, but only by a few thousandths of an inch. Once all the pieces were trimmed and fit well, I then applied 30 minute epoxy and glued all the parts into place. TIP: Use 91% rubbing alcohol and a paper towel to wipe off the excess epoxy that squeezes out.

Edit: Using the BETA image uploader, it positions the photos in reverse order. Can this be fixed?

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

I took the wings out of the box and the plastic wrap for the first time. Like the other parts, they were assembled beautifully. The covering is perfectly done, and taught. Standing them up side by side you can see that the graphics are exactly symmetrical.

This point in the construction is where I ran into a bit of a nuisance. One of the wing panels servo wire strings used to pull the extension wire through had come loose at some point and the little wood tab had fallen inside about two ribs deep. Because it had sticky stuff on it, I could not shake it loose and have it fall back through. So I spent about 15-20 minutes trying to fish it out with various tools and finally got it. Anyway, the next step is to tie the strings to the servo extensions and pull them through the wing. I use low tack blue masking tape to hold the extensions in place, and then cut away the string.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

The wings center section comes fully covered. The construction manual does not specifically spell out (in fact it is not even mentioned at all) that you must cut openings in the center section for the servo wires to come through. The manual does show a drawing of the openings and wires being fished through them however. So I placed the wing panel next to the wing center section and marked a spot where the servo wire could come straight into the center section without having to make any twists or bends. Then I cut out some rectangular openings.

The next step is to epoxy the wing panels to the center section. Use plenty of 30 minute epoxy, and wipe off the excess that squeezes out. I used clamps to help keep the trailing edges matched up while I applied pressure to the assembly by hand, forcing the panels together. I just held it this way for about 15 minutes or so until I could see that it would no longer move and the epoxy had tacked up strong enough to allow me to set it aside.

When dry, fish out the servo extension wires through the openings and tape down.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Now it is time to install the servos in the wing panels. VQ has conveniently cut away the covering already and there are servo mounting plates already in position. Piece of cake!

On the market there are some plastic gizmo's designed to lock your servo extension connectors together. You snap the assembled connectors into the gizmo and it prevents the connectors from being pulled apart. They cost about $1 buck each I think. What I have been doing forever, works perfectly to hold the connectors together and I guarantee my connectors will not come apart. And the cost is free. What I do is strip the insulation off copper hook-up wire to get the individual strands out. Then I simply wrap a single strand around the connector two times and twist tie it.

The servos are then dropped into place, and pilot holes are drilled and then the servo mounting screws are inserted.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

I opened the bag of hardware and was impressed with it. The linkage connectors are tiny! And those little knurled, button shaped nuts are just so cute!

VQ includes the aileron linkage, already built with a metal spring clevis screwed and crimped onto a threaded shaft. Also included are the nylon control horns and mounting hardware, etc. As usual, the holes in the horns need to be drilled open slightly. The mounting screws can cut their own threads into the nylon backplate but I prefer to use a 2mm tap and pre-cut my threads first.

A connector is attached to the servo horn. Then a nylon aileron control horn is attached to the clevis and wire linkage and inserted through the servo connector. Keeping everything lined up perfectly perpendicular to the aileron, the control horn is placed on the aileron so that the pivot point is at the leading edge of the aileron. At this point I hold down the horn and drill the pilot holes into the aileron. After this it is an easy affair to attach the nylon backplate on the other side and screw it all together.

Adjust the aileron so that it is centered on the wing and then tighten down the grub screw on the servo horn connector. Using a heavy duty linemans plier, I later cut off the excess linkage wire.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

As I progressed with the build of the wing, I now realized that part of the beautiful covering needed to be cut open to allow the wing hold down bolts. Ugh....

Well, no other choice so I cut it open. What I found was that the hold downs are just balsa blocks. I would have preferred plywood. So I hardened up the blocks with thin CA. But it looked ugly to see just the exposed wood, so I got some red paint and painted it up to disguise the area.

Now it was time to test fit the assembled wing to the fuselage. The dowels did not line up 100%, so I had to trim the openings in the bulkhead just a tad to get them to fit. After that, the wing fit great! And the red paint in the bolt openings does a fair job of camouflage.

rgm762

My Feedback: (4)

beautiful!!, keep going, santa let me order mine last night, got the conformation from Tomas, but can't touch it til x-mas[sm=cry_smile.gif]

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Awesome! I think you will be very pleased when you open the box!

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

After being reassured that the motor mount provided in the kit would be sufficient, I went ahead and started working on that end of the plane. I intended to use standoff's to help reinforce the long screws supporting the electric motor so most of the time today was spent assembling, measuring, disassembling, re-measuring, making standoff's, assembling, etc, etc.

So I have it all finished. It is now disassembled once again so that I can paint the parts. But I have the standoff lengths correct, and the motor position correct to clear the prop in front of the cowl, etc.

The first order of business for an electric motor installation is to place the electric motor mount against the firewall and align the marks, then pencil in the holes and then drill the holes for the mounting screws.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

After getting the holes drilled I installed the screws and nuts and the electric motor firewall, if that is what it's called. Then I used my calipers set to 108mm to set the depth of the firewall as specified in the construction manual. The manual gives a range of 107 - 110 millimeters.

Once I got the motor distance established, I then measured the space between the fuselage firewall and the electric motor firewall so that I could cut some standoff's. I used 1/2" diameter Poplar wood dowel to make the standoff's. I cut them to length (40mm in my case) and then center drilled them. I then countersunk one end so that it would fit over the nuts on the firewall.

I mounted the screws again and the new standoff's and then re-measured everything to be sure I had done it right.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Next I removed the electric motor firewall again, and used the aluminum X-mount from the outrunner motor and aligned it on the marks on the firewall and penciled in the holes. Then I drilled the holes and mounted the motor to the firewall. And then I re-assembled the mount to the airframe. Once again I measured the firewall to prop driver distance and it looked good. I then placed the cowling over it to see if I had done good, or screwed up. It looks good so I am a happy camper so far.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

BTW Ray, if you have RealFlight r/c sim, there is now a PC-6 with the 'Bird' color scheme on the swaps, done as a favor for me by one of the excellent designers. I have made a VQ sized brushless electric version of it and also uploaded it to the Swap pages.

Turbine PC-6 in the Austrian Air Force 'Bird' livery:

http://www.knifeedge.com/forums/down...=file&id=11085

VQ .46 sized brushless variant:

http://www.knifeedge.com/forums/down...=file&id=11087

rgm762

My Feedback: (4)

looking good!, all i have for a sim is fs one solo, how many days til x-mas?[&o]
what are the landing gears and wheels like?

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

The landing gear is a combination of formed steel rod, aluminum tubing, wood dowels, and springs. The wheels are the typical ultra light foam jobs.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Not a whole lot more progress to report. I spent most of today shopping with the wife and running other errands.

Last night I painted the wood firewall and dowels a light gray to match the factory painted engine firewall. Today I installed those parts. I wanted to use a slightly better hardware for this motor mount than what came in the kit so I went looking for something at my local discount hardware store. In metric, they had nothing that came close to the 60mm length. So I bought some 8/32 screws, washers, and nuts. I had to re-drill all holes but it was just a hair larger. I also had to open up the pockets on the dowels where they slip over the nuts.

I installed the screws and nuts and used Loctite on everything. It should be good and secure.

One final thing, does anyone know what this bushing is supposed to be used for?

rgm762

My Feedback: (4)

sorry dude, mine will be here thursday, maybe if i went shopping with my wife, she'll let me put it together FOR x-mas

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

I found out what the bushing is for. It's to prevent the motor from exploding in flight, basically.

They put the wrong bushing in my motor package. I might be able to use it as is. Or I may have to machine it down or find an alternate bushing.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

The VQ kit comes with hardware. Some of it is very nice, some of it not so nice. I already replaced the 60mm screws with 8/32 screws. Now came time to mount the motor itself, using the X-mount, to the firewall. VQ provided some screws, but they would not work very well. Woefully inadequate, actually. Because flat head screws are required and VQ supplied pan head screws, and too small a head anyway. I have some hardware on hand from my car building days, and so I first was going to use some 3mm flathead screws but the screw opening in the X-mount is much larger than the head on the screws I have. I did have some cone shaped washers, which filled the opening of the X-mount nicely. And so I used regular 3mm socket head cap screws. The photos show the comparison of hardware, and the completely inadequate panhead screws.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Once I had the hardware sorted, I mounted the motor to the firewall using Nylok nuts on the screws. And then I double nutted the main motor mount screws.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Now that the electric motor conversion hardware was installed, the top hatch no longer fit down into its spot because the heads of the screws as well as the washers interfered with it. So I made some pencil marks on where to grind and took my trusty Dremel to it and in short order it dropped back down into place.

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

So now it was time to mount the cowling. After eyeballing the screw mounting area, I placed the cowling on the fuselage and using my ultra high end, sophisticated computational method known as TLAR, I made some pencil marks on the cowling and drilled two pilot holes on one side of the cowl.

Switching to TLAR V2.0, I then used its very complex algorithm's to make pencil marks on the opposite side of the cowl for those mounting holes. Then I drilled 'em too.