Get it as close as possible with "mechanical" adjustments. Servo arms, holes in the approriate arms and the like. Only then make the electronic (EPA) adjustments.

You'll be doing this again when setting the control throw amounts.

Bent most of the control rods last night. I got everything in except for the nose wheel, cause I'm too chicken to do it. Everytime I would clamp the control surfaces like RCKen showed me, and mark off where the rod meets the servo horn with a small marker. Then I'd grab right before the mark with a pair of vice grips, and right after it with pliars and bend it down.

Each time I put the rod back in, the control surface was like 10 degrees off from center, even though the bend was perfectly at the place I marked. So I would have to work with the clevises to get the surface perfectly even at 0 trim.

The nose wheel one will be tough because there are no clevises threaded on to it, so the bend has to be perfect. Once I get that in, I simply have to glue in the control tube guide and it's pretty much done.

They recommend attaching the antenna to the top of the vertical stab with a rubber band and a T-pin. Any tricks of the trade regarding that? Do I have to use a pin?

Oh, and I keep reading about how the fuel tank shouldn't be more than like 1/4 inch under the sleeve on the carb, and the fuel shouldn't travel upward. My fuel tank opening is like a full inch maybe 1.5 inches below the engine sleeve, and the tubing HAS to go up and over because there's no other way to get it into the engine where it's supposed to. Problem?

Nose steering - A perfect place to use one of these.
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...4&I=LXE114&P=K
Get to the LHS and buy a package of 4 and install one at the servo in the hole closest to the pivot screw. (most beginners have way too much steering available and overcontrol the plane) Then just slip the wire thru this fitting and trim the excess off about 1 inch past the fitting and tighten down the screw (some say use loc-tite but I never needed to). Also you should have a small flat spot on the nose gear leg for the tiller arm set screw to sit on to prevent the leg from spinning. If not there, use your Dremel and grind one.

A lot of people don't like to use these fittings on primary flight controls but I have no problem with them as long as they are tight and checked periodically. On something like steering, nobody minds.

Yes, you bend your pushrods and make the connections on the servos first. Then you use the clevis to adjust the pushrod as you attach it to the control surface. The is when you clamp down the control surface.

Use an easy connector for the nose wheel pushrod. Put an easy connector on the servo arm for the rudder servo. This way you can make quick adjustments on the nose wheel. See attached picture.

No, you can use whatever you want to attach the antenna. But for beginners I do recommend a T-pin and a rubber band. Let's face it, a trainer is going to get a lot of rough treatment during the training period. So you want to make it so that it can handle a lot of rough treatment. Using a T-pin will make it easy to pull out of the vertical stab in the event something hits the antenna wire. The way that I normally secure the antenna is this. I will exit the antenna wire on the bottom of the fuselage and run to the back of the plane. If this is a tail dragger I will use the tail wheel assembly to anchor the antenna wire, if not I will set a screw in the fuselage to anchor it with. I will use a servo arm that has been cut off as an anchor of the wire itself, run the wire through one hole in the arm and then back out the next hole. I then use a spring from the servo arm anchor to my anchor point on the fuselage. This will hold the antenna wire tight, but the spring give is a little bit of flex in the event anything snags it. I should mention that it's very very important to put another servo arm on the antenna wire where it exits the fuselage, this is done so that there is no pressure or tension pulling directly on the receiver. Without an anchor inside the fuselage the antenna wire will more than likely pull out of the receiver. Look at the second picture I've attached. You can see how I anchor the antenna wire to the tailwheel assembly

Hope this helps

Ken

I think I have some of those in my basement in my RC car bag. I'll have to check. That would certainly be much easier than bending it in such a tight spot and with no room for error. I don't want to have to drive another 25 minutes to the "local" hobby shop and pick up some more control rods.

good picture of the steering rod Ken, exactly what I had in mind.

Thanks for the pics, Ken. That makes it easier to see what you're talking about. It's a trike, so they had me drill a hole in the rear of the canopy and run the antenna wire out through the top to attach to the vertical stab. It also does recommend using servo arms to take the stress off the wire.

Any thoughts on the fuel tank?

EDIT: forget it. Question answered. Thanks again to both of you for your patience through all of my newbie questions.

Jealous of your pics RCKen. That plane looks much cleaner than mine. I have wires running like spaghetti all over the fuse!

Once you get everything working you can take a few minutes and neaten it up a little bit. Function over charm any day.

Yeah, I'm just getting everything working before I worry about making things neat. I hate getting everything perfect and then having to rip everything apart again because you forgot one step.

(Kind of like how I'll have to take the control rods off the servos tonight because I forgot the tube guide!)

Forgot to mention for those following this thread that I made 2 new slots for hinges, and CA'd two more in last night. That's a total of 5 on the wing, which is one extra from the 4 it should have. I'm hoping one hinge overkill will offset the mistake I made in case anything is a bit weaker than it should be.

He keeps saying "wing" but he meant to say "elevator". He's still working on his terminology.

Elevator dam*it! Elevator!

hehe my fingers are typing too fast. I knew what it was called.

It's funny how some of the simplest things can drive us up the wall. We had a guy at our field that couldn't not call them servos to save his life. He kept calling them "servers". arrrgghhhhh It drove me batty every time I heard him say that!!!!!! "I need to get some new servers for my plane"!!!!!!

Ken

I should think that you'd like that. Don't you sell servers Ken? Or maybe he meant "waiters"? [sm=bananahead.gif]

That's part of why it was so frustrating. If you say server to me I want to ask file, web, or email server????

Ken

A fellow computer guy!

I won't hold it against either of you.



MUCH!

Hey, I resemble that remark!!!!!

Ken

[X(] [>:]

Ken

Uh oh, is Bruce a hater of IT? A luddite? One of those guys who uses his CDRom as a coffee cup holder and then asks us why his comp isn't working?

I don't drink coffee. But I do have the little DVD tray extended to hold my Diet Pepsi. Makes a great cup holder.

Gotta go for the weekend now. Ya'll have a good weekend and let us know how Sunday goes.