Bob,
Same here only in my case my I'm still waiting for the Pletty Advanced 30. One way or another I hope to be finished by mid spring.

Glen

Am I going to have any problems with reception when using a 7-channel FASST receiver?? Any blind spots caused by signal shadowing due to CF? Seems I read about this somewhere... just checking again.

Working on the mid-fuse deck today. I thought I would make it a full 12 inches long (the dimensions of my CF stock) but there's no way it could be finagled into position because of the wing tube. So I kept trimming a bit off my pattern until it fit in without bending. Looks like approximately 9-1/2" with plenty of room behind the wing tube for the rudder servo (but close to the wing tube to achieve CG... hopefully) and room in front for the Rx and battery.

My rudder tray ended up being about 4" right behind the wing tube and it also holds the twin batteries and reg's.

Tim

Some progress today on the rudder servo/mid-fuse deck.

I made a template from a nice plastic sheet (cover from a report folder) and transferred it to the CF with a silver marker, which turns out to be excellent for marking dark-colored items. This silver will write on anything!

It turned out to be a perfect fit. I made a little 4-inch stick to use as a guide and CA'd some small triangle stock to get the height of the tray even on each side of the fuse, then a couple of small sections of 5-minute epoxy to set it in place, followed by the Aeropoxy. This is really going to make the middle of the fuse rigid, and there is going to be virtually no flex in the servo. There are some small 1/8" 5-ply strips on the bottom to give the servo screws something to bite into.

I have a pdf file of the deck if anyone wants it.

Guys, here is the pdf of the deck template.

As usual, make sure to print with page scaling off.

To cross check, the long side measure should be 241mm.

Which batteries and regs are you using? Do most guys run redundant Rx power?

I have the Tech-Aero adjustable reg and will likely use a small 800-mAh 2S LiPo.

The S9154 aileron servos are rated for 4.8v only, although the Futaba website says they can operate safely at 6 volts, but not above that. A freshly charged 5-cell NiCd or NiMH puts out about 7.2 volts, hence the 4.8v recommendation. With the reg set at 5.8v it will be perfect with the LiPo.

Bob,

Tim is running the Tech-Aero setup as well. He is just running the redundant setup. I switched to 2 small packs a couple of years ago after I lost a cell in Li-Ion and barely got back to the field, but still did some damage to the plane. What I've done is go to 2 small LiPo packs, ~400mah each, so that I get built in redundancy. I know Dave Lockhart runs a similar setup.

Bob, I flew the 9154's for a couple of years running them at 6.6V with no problems.

Arch

Arch, how many flight do you get running two 400Mah batteries before you have to charge again?

David,

Flying electric, I am using around 50mah per flight total (25 per pack). That is flying the Masters sequence and then landing. I have flown as much as 8 flights in one day without charging. Even then I still had plenty left in the packs. I just never decided to push it. That was one of the major differences I saw in switching to electric from glow, is just how much you use from your RX pack per flight. Even running the best Hyde mounts and such, it was still never close to what little I use since making the switch,

Arch

Thanks, Arch.

I just ordered the Tech-Aero dual setup and a couple of FP 350mAh 2s 25C. I have the Ernst Charge Plug receptacle for the second battery.

I'm running twin 500's, the most I've pulled out of a battery is about 150ma over a days flying which is 3-4 flights for me. Totally overkill. But I like overkill when on-board batts come in play.

Tim

I too use the dual Aero-Tech setup up. With Ed's help I built the programmer so I can exactly match the two regulators.
I run them so the system uses either 480mah LiPo back and forth. Discharges them both evenly but will run off just
one if a pack drops off. I use less than 50mah/flight total flying the Advanced sequence.
JLK

I've started building up my V2 Sickle too. Could some of you post some detail pictures of a canopy install before I start off trying to figure this out on my own? Did you use th latch included in the kit or is there something better? After losing the canopy with a BVM latch off my Integral in the deep woods last week I'm a little leery of that style latch.
Dave

Good to know this. I also have the programmer... nifty little system.

I also have the Castle Link programmer for the CC HV85. What sorts of settings would be appropriate for the ESC and the moltor timing, etc?

Dave,

I used the latch that came with the kit and the block they sent. I used part of the parts they sent for the canopy. If I were to build another one I'd opt for the setup like the Wind Pro has.

Tim

Tim, you mean like [link=http://www.sebart.it/img-F3A/Wind%20S-PRO/Wind-S-PRO-details.html]this[/link]?

Looks like it has 2 screws in the side of the fuse and capture tabs in the front.

Seems solid, but it sure would be nice to have a simple spring-loaded latch. Quick and no tools.

A half-hour here and a half-hour there and the work gets done.

Today I had a short time this morning to do something so I started soldering up the 4 wire servo extension for the stab servos. I don't know precisely how long it will be - since it depends upon the receiver location - so I will not solder on the male ends until a little farther along in the assembly. I have a couple of normal 40-inch extensions and I will compare weights when done.

Also put in the rudder control horns with Aeropoxy. I used medium CA on the others because there was a lot of contact area within the control surface slots, but these rudder horns had to be trimmed off since they butted up against each other. I got as much glue in there as I could and I hope they hold. That's a lot of stress for such a small area.

Some guys (and some of you!) have done some pretty trick designs and installations with the battery tray. However, I think I'll keep it simple with just a well-secured plate of some sort and some Velcro straps.

Correct.

I like this system too but where can you buy the parts?

Hi All,

Re the type of latches on the Wind S Pro, I think the common(?) name (at least on the net) is "belly locks"

Some links for reference,

http://www.haoyemodel.com/cbun_mo/20...ln=en&m_id=457

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/41...lly_locks.html

...Have been on a quest myself to find a source for these types of latches. ...So if you do find some then could you please report back. Thanks.

Cheers,
Neil Martin

With regard to canopy latches, I might give the [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8880745/anchors_8880745/mpage_1/key_/anchor/tm.htm#8880745]Magic Box[/link] some consideration.

Got some more stuff done the last couple of days, the motor mounted with a ply plate to spread out the bolt hole stresses, and the battery deck.

Also got the rudder servo set up, using the fishing swivels to keep the pull-pull wires from winding up when turning the adjusters.

I want to have a "No-Tools" canopy removal so I've decided to use the Integral method of holding the front of the canopy (3 peices of wood and a # sheet metal screw), and make a latch for the canopy rear top out of three pieces of CF tubing, a ball point pen spring, and a 4-40 SH screw.

I still didn't start working on the canopy yet, but some good progress was made in other areas.

Made a template for the belly vent, stuck it on with double-sided Scotch tape and went to work with the Dremel.

Got a Futaba aluminum servo arm for the rudder pull-pull because the round wheel was interfering with the linkage hardware. Located and cut the holes for the pull-pull exits in the fuse and got them pretty close. Pull-pull installed.

Holes cut for the aileron and stab servo wires, and the Tech-Aero switch and the charge port for the second RX battery.

PDF for the Sickle vent is attached if someone wants to use it.

I've been steadily keeping up the work and my Sickle might be ready to maiden Saturday, depending upon the weather and any last-minute glitches I might encounter.

For the canopy I decided to simply go with the F3A Unlimited latch and I made some alignment tabs by cutting down the leftover phenolic control horns. The canopy is still not a perfect fit so I plan to put in some CF braces to get it to behave a little better.

The 4-wire, long lead for the stab servos ended up weighing a bit more than the 2 40" extensions, but the slightly heavier silicone coated stuff will have less resistance and should be better in the long run. Installed a few of those blue foam wire keeper thingies down the inside of the fuse to keep the wires from flopping around.

There were no set screws for the stab adjusters in the provided hardware. I made some by cutting the ends off some 4mm bolts and slotting the tops with a Dremel cutting wheel. These worked out fine.

Programming the CC ESC with the Castle Link was a breeze, and setting the fixed endpoints for the motor went very smoothly.

The Tech-Aero dual reg arrived in the mail a couple of days ago. Had to solder on a Futaba-compatible charge lead for the second RX battery and also solder Futaba leads onto the LiPo RX batteries.

The To-Do list is getting very short!

Finishing details

I think I already know the answer, but.... Are you guys sealing the aileron and elevator hinges with clear Ultracote? If so, both sides?

Never used stab adjusters before and I don't have any sophisticated alignment tools, just a couple of Robart incidence gauges. How do I get a good starting point for the stab incidence setting? With the adjusters set so that the aluminum rod is centered in the oval cutouts in the stab root ribs, just eyeballing it, it appears to be tipped down a bit.

What is the general consensus on CG?