Any one know what canopy will fit the Excelleron?

John

If Ultra RC has anymore Icepoint caopies they fit nicely.
Eddie

Eddie,

Thanks. I'll try them.

John

John
I took a look after I posted my message and they stated it as out of stock BUt you might give them a call and ask anyway.
If you don't locate one let me know I had purchased one & I think I still have it NIB, if i can find it
Man I need to start using a spell checker - sorry for the typos[:@]
Eddie

With all the rain this year in Texas, the thick/tall grass is turning my Excelleron into a lawn mower! I'd like to replace the stock gear with the Icepoint LG but Ulta-RC seems to be out of stock. When I checked a few months back, they were out of stock then, making me wonder if they carry this any more. Does anyone know where I can get that LG? I also see that I others used the Bolly gear, but I'd prefer to have non-slanting LG so I can keep the wheel placement the same without having to rebuild the LG mount.

Thanks,

Alan

Alan,

A few months ago I was in a landing gear search myself and came across Chief Aircraft's Website. Loads to choose from and most have pics. and dimensions.

Here is a kink that will take you to it.

[link]http://www.chiefaircraft.com/rcmsec/Models/Accessories/AirframeAccessories/LandingGear/Graphtech.html[/link]

Greg

Alan
I will look - I think I purchased a set of the Icepoint gear but ended up using Bolly as I wanted to move my wheel location back some. IF I have a set I'll make you a good deal on them
If I don't have the Icepoint gear be assured you could use either as I had my gear mounted just in front of the former that the wing plugs into and had no difficulties with the wheel location of the Bolly gear. I think the stock Excelleron has the wheels too far forward IMHO. remember I was replacing the retract version and I tried to match the wheel location of them.
Eddie

Greg and Eddie,

Thanks for the leads! The Chief Aircraft website lead me to www.Graphtechrc.com that had a greater selection. I bought these which seem to be very close in dimensions with the Icepoint gear:

#1203 Hangar 9 Funtana X100 Main Gear Version 4D

5-5/8" / 7-1/2" Total Height / 17-3/4" Spread / 1.5 to 1" / 4.8oz

Interestingly enough, Graphtechrc is located less than 10 miles from my home in NW Houston! Small world... The good news is that I'll have them before this next weekend!

Alan

Please report back on the fitting of these to your plane. I need to change mine out to.

thanks

Mike R

Mike,

Will do. I hope to get them by Friday and try them out Saturday.

Alan

Here are the pictures of the www.GraphTechRC.com carbon gear on my Excelleron 90. This is #1203 for the Hangar 9 Funtana X100. I dry fitted them and took some pictures for you. The wheels are simply propped up and the chin cowl taped on, but you can get an idea of how they look, knowing that it'll rise an inch once I install the wheels. With a 15" prop, the clearance when parallel is 3-7/8" which is about the average height of the grass during the Houston summers. That should reduce my clean-up time by about 10 minutes, allowing me to get another flight in before going to work. That translates into 25% more practice time (5 flights instead of 4)!

I like the fact that it has more clearance than the bolly gear, but it is much wider than the fuse than I anticipated, exaggerated by the gentle bend vs the sharp bend in the stock gear. I'm not sure if I like them being so wide.

What do you think? Should I a) keep them or b) return them and find gear that's narrower?

Alan

I have read on many other forus that folks are cutting the gear doen the middle to accomadate the width, that might be your option here.

Looking at your photo's, no doubt it will be stable and other than the looks, they look good.
The shot from the front is the one I think looks a little strange, from the side they look OK.
that's MHO.

Probably like you I would have reservations about cutting them. then again that may be the way to go.

How is the spread on these compared to the old ones? considerably wider? Just a little?

How much would you need to cut, if you do want to make them look like they were made for it?

thanks

Mike R

Those look like the gear I had on mine and I did cut the center out to accomodate the fuse width with no ill effects.

From a physics standpoint, does cutting the gear in the middle reduce their strength?

For a hard landing only on one side...
- It seems that it would be more likely to pull out a cut gear.
- If only one side were to break away, then you may end up with wing damage on that same side.
- If we had a solid gear and a one sided hard landing, it would take twice the force to rip it out and if it did, at least the plane would drop equally on both sides.

For a hard landing on both wheels...
- It seems that it probably wouldn't make a difference if cut or solid because you'd have half the force for half the screws.

Having said all this, I guess I could epoxy the two sides together after cutting and have some of that combined strength back. Not as strong as solid CF, but decent.

What do you think?

If you have not reinforced your gear plate on the fuse the above argument is moot.

Like I said, I cut mine and flew off grass with no ill effects, but I also reinforced my gear plate so I wouldn't have to worry about the gear pulling out.

Why not just use the gear designed for the Ultra Stick 1.20? It's width at the fuse is much closer match to the Excelleron than the one designed for the Funtana (I have the GraphTec funtana gear on my funtana).
Check out the dimensions http://www.graphtechrc.com/Secure/images/126.jpg
The width is about 1.5" less at the fuse than the funtana gear and is the same height.

Good point, Jeff. I missed that because they didn't have the dimensions on the main page like the others - only had it in the picture.

Hi all, I am now starting to put this one together. It has the retracts for the wings, I'll build a gear mount and put fuse mounted gear on it. Should I use a swept back type gear? I've seen a lot of mention on the Bolly F3A, is it swept back?

How much of the cowl is cut away? If the cutouts in front and rear are cut out, will that let enough air through? I have a YS110 for it.

I didn't get any instructions with this one. Does anyone have a set they could post, copy, send me?

I'm sure I will have a lot of questions, I'll post them as they come up.
Thanks in advance MikeB

I found the instructions on line for the Excelleron, but it differs from the Explorer slightly. I've gone over the wings and fuse with the iron to get the covering stuck down good. This has a bottom hatch toward the rear of the fuse, any idea what that would be for? I think I will be using Hitec HS645 for everything other than throttle which will get an HS81.
This one came with pull-pull hardware for rudder and a pushrod setup for elevator. No preinstalled cable housings.

I did get a servo tray. The rudder servo will be offset to the side to make room for the elevator servo. Will this offset effect the rudder cable geometry enough to worry about it? Do the rudder cables cross, or are the parralel to each other?
Thanks, MikeB

this is where you can put your batterypack if you a big heavy engine up front.

Bob

WMB:

I'm building my 3rd E90. The HS645's are perfect. No worries with the pull-pull geometries. The tubes inside the fuse handle all the routing. PM me with your email address and I'll send you a pdf copy of the Dean Pappas build article that appeared in Model Aviation in late 2005. Definitely do the upgrades suggested in the article. I also replace the LG plate with hardwood rails on the fuse and 1/4" lite ply. I use the Bolly F3A standard (carbon fiber) landing gear [product BOLFAIS], fiberglass wheel pants [BOLWPG] and quick change axles available from Precision Aero Composites (615) 220-0655 (unfortunately the don't have a website anymore) to get clearance for a 16 x 6 prop. The gear needs to be mounted about 2" forward the original gear to take account of the sweep back without effecting CG.

My 2 other versions both had YS110FZ which was fantastic. I'm putting a Saito 125 in the new one. (Moved the YS110Z to another plane).

Best of luck with the build.

You're going to love this plane!

Wmb
It sounds like you have an Explorer rather than an Excelleron. The Excelleron has tubes installed to run the pull-pull cable thru. The Explorer doesn't.
I flew an Explorer before Sportsman Aviation/Hobby People brought over the Excelleron.
Instead of offsetting my servos I added a rail to raise the rudder servo. This way they were both centered in the fuse.
I originally flew it with the retracts but soon got tired of that and replaced the entire plate forward of the former the wing plugs into and installed Bolly F3A Larg swept gear mounted just in front of that former. Never had a problem with the gear and the plane took a beating thru many flights.
I enjoyed the litle hatch in the back of the plane when installing the pull-pull calbles as this was my first pull-pull install. The cable were contacting a former about 6 inches in front of the hatch and I had to sand a notch for clearence of the cables. The hatch was invaluable for getting to this trouble spot.
The YS 110 is the perfect motor for it Although I have a friend who flew one with a Saito 125 with good success.

Eddie

see e oh- Thanks for the offer, I found that issue. My wife saw me reading it and says- "That's your new airplane your building!" My 3rd arf to assemble, the best of the three to build so far.

Has anyone had any problems with the woodscrews pulling out of the wood on the anti-vibe motor mount?

Thanks for the info. I am adding a front landing gear mount plate at the moment. I have an order in with Tower and can't do too much until it gets here.

I haven't decided on servo mounting yet. I think I'll mount the elevator servo to the underside of the cockpit floor and the rudder servo lower in the fuse. Will use a fiber glass rod and 4-40 rods for elevators and pull pull for rudder.

The fuel tank will be mounted under the front portion of the cockpit floor.

I'm thinking of using tee nuts and machine screws with rubber grommets to hold the cowl on. I have a Sullevin tail wheel mount for the rear.

This plane will be my biggest yet, biggest engine, first YS, first 6 volt system, first 4-40 hardware, first anti vibe mount. Lots of new/diiferent for me.

The start of good flying weather around here usually comes about mid March. I should have it ready by then. The air is usually cool and dense then and makes for good running engines and great flying if the wind isn't too much.

Thanks again, MikeB

Mike,

Reference screws in the motor mounts. That never did seem like a good idea to me. I used bolts and blind nuts from the start. No problems with over 200 flights.

John

Thanks John, I had been thinking of using blind nuts also. Installing the front blind nuts looks like it could be a tight fit. One more thing to get, then I'll find out.
MikeB