This is definatley new territory for me as this is my first plane with retractable landing gear. Using the hitec hs 755 (i think?) retract servo i have set it up exactley as the manuel said with no luck. The retracts do not seem to lock into the down postion and i am not sure what to do to fix it. The adjustment scew that the manuel says to use to adjust slop simply moves the gears back. They do seem to lock into the retracted position but down there is maybe 2 inches of play. One of them seems anchored in moderatley but the other one is so loose that there is no chance it would be able to hold without folding back as the plane gained speed. Also, the retracts don't completely retract on the ground. Is this normal? Does it use the air when flying to assist retracting the gear.

I figured it out. When i was setting up the servo the directions say to put the servo in the fully retracted position while setting it up. I didn't realize this but i had the retracts setup so they wouldn't lock. Basically there was to much travel in one direction but not enough in the other.

Problem solved

Edit: I am still curious if the servo should fully retract the wheels on the ground. Mine will go about %75 of the way before they stop. I then have to give the wing a little puch before the come up. I have herd putting lighter wheels on helps.

I have several planes with mechanicals. set one side up at a time. Als the retract servo is not porpotyional . it goes 180 either way and nothing you can do about it. There is some trial and error also. May have to move the connections in or out on the servo arm. I use Kavan Wheels on my planes.

Are those wheels foam? I have herd that some people felt the wheels were a little to heavy. Maybe a seperate RX pack at 6V would do the trick.

I'm using the same servo that you are and I don't have any trouble. Mine will retract all the way. Make sure that the servo moves the wire going to the bellcrank the same distance that it takes to extend and retract the servo. I operate the servo without the wires tightened to see how far the easy connectors travel. Then I mark the wire (masking tapes works good) and operate the gear by hand to see it the travles match up. If not then you have to move the easy connectors or use a different servo arm. You should be able to make it work if you get the travel set right. Good Luck. I also used the stock wheels that came with the kit. Sam

Maybe my travels aren't quite there then. It does lock in full up and down now. It just takes a little tap to get the retracts all the way up.

Remember you are testing this in a static setting - no AIRFLOW!

Getting the wheels up against gravity on the bench is one thing. Getting them down against slipstream is quite another. The heavy stock wheels are actually good for that.

See Hepdog, that is exactley what i was thinking. I am assuming that because this is in a static position with no airflow that the retracts are going to have a hard time getting up. I noticed that when i gave the wing and angle at wich the plane would be gaining altitude (just after takeoff) that the were able to complete there cycle. I see your point in that if there was to light of a area than the wheels would have a hard time getting down. I think i am good at the moment.

the retracts should lock up and down on the bench,if they don't they are not set up right, I ended up using the med.servo arm that comes with futaba servo's because the small circle didn't have enough travel to get pos. lock.
the rotating gear takes some messing with to get right once you have figured it out then there easy to adjust.
before you know it you will have bent a strut, and will have to take em apart to straiten them out, or a ball joint will have blown out and will need replacing,Horizon sent me a new set when mine did.
so far my H-9 gear is holding up fairly well, but its pretty weak in general the struts will bend on just about any hard landing.

Like he said, These should be working right while onthe bench. Also check for bowing on the rod. I use 4-40 rods on mine to prevent this .

I think i am missinturpretating what this problem is. The retracts do lock in the full up and down on position on the bench. The problem is while going up the servo just doesn' have the power to push them all the way up (against gravity) by itself. It goes about 75% of the way before it stops. If i give the wheel a small tap or point the wing up the servo will imidiatley continue is cycle and finish locking in the up position. So it is not that my throughs arn't enough, it is that the servo has a hard time brining the wheels into the fully locked up position without a little help.

If the servo isn't moving all the way and the wheels are havging down your servo will constantly be draining you RX battery. This is a bad thing.

the servo I have used in my 2 H-9 planes has been the, futaba High Torque low profile retract servo, it has 92 in oz of torque at 4.5V I tried to look up the HT 755 and couldnt find it but there was a HT 75 retract servo listed and it was rated the same.
the recomended servo from Horizonhobbies is there JR High torque at, 260 oz in which seems like over kill since my futaba's work great.
if your retract servo is not lifting the retracts then it might be binding which can lead to a serious drain on the battery .
another thing I did was to make sure the push rods were 180o from each other and were cut short enough to clear when rotating H-9 has a diferent photo in there instructions.
the pushrods were offset from each other just slightly which didn't give the ammount of travel needed.
I found when I was setting up the gear that it was unworkable and was binding, after I clipped the ends of the pushrods,just enough to clear each other, there has been few problems.
the gear take some messing with it took a couple of days of fiddling with it to get them working to my satisfaction.

That is it, hs 75. Couldn't remember it off the top of my head . Yes, cutting those wires shorter help alot. The retracts seem to be performing very good now. I think the plane is pretty much ready to fly. Also, i am running a 2500 mah battery just so i don't run into problems if retract servo stalls. Putting hs 475 hb all around except throttle wich will be a s3004
Thanks for the help guys

Cambo,

I had the same problem with my retracts and went to the JR servo that Horizon recommends. Anyone had the ball link on the retracts pop off on landing?

Jeff

mine did pop off a couple of times on my P-40, untill I replaced the ball caps with new ones from horizonhobbies,if you check the H-9 P-40 thread in the last couple of pages there was a link to a stronger ball joint that a poster had sucess with, so far mine are holding up but its been a while since I have flown the P-40 mabe tomorrow if the wind cooperates.