Ritewing Zephyr II Build

[Flyn]

Sweet dude!! Wonna see pics now!!! :)

[g.collins]

Its looking good bud, You actually inspired me to pull my finger out and get on with my one, Im loving your pod on it.
;) G

[Flyn]

Starting to look like we need a ZII only meet this summer lol ;)

[Spookfish]

Starting to look like we need a ZII only meet this summer lol ;)

Yup! We should start an owners club :laugh:

[Spookfish]

I've been slacking with this build thread again :+ But not with the build so best I catch up a bit.

Right... I got the wing all wired up. The goal here was to get everything tucked away out of site. This is done to minimise the risk of accidentally snagging a wire whilst plugging in the batteries and to keep things looking neat and simple.



All the Eagle Tree gear is tucked into the left hand equipment bay. As you can see it's a bit of a squeeze with an ELogger, OSD Pro, Guardian Stabiliser, Altimeter and all the plugs and wiring crammed in. The GPS sensor is located out on the left wing, safely away from the VTx.



The right hand equipment bay houses the UBEC, a TeleFly OSD and a TBS Core. The Telefly OSD takes a spur off the Eagle Tree GPS and demodulates the signal so it can be read by the MyFlyDream tracker on my ground station. It sends its signal down the left hand audio channel.
The TBS Core is a little overkill really, I was going to run a separate video battery but I decided that it would be easier and lighter to fit the Core as I had it kicking about anyway. I wrapped it in copper tape (after heat shrinking it) to shield any noise.



Once all the wiring was complete and tested, I then panelled out the battery bay and rear equipment bay. I installed an extension from the ELogger's USB socket to a female socket in the rear bay. I also installed the battery connections, Battery bay floor with launch hook, battery straps and hatch magnets.



The launch hook is made from a coat hanger hook and held in place with a pair of 10SWG wire landing gear saddle clamps with captive nuts under the floor panel. I heat shrank the part of the hook wire that is clamped to the battery bay floor to minimise the risk of shorting the batteries as it's quite close to the connections.

[keukpa]

what are those bays lined with?

I'm tempted to 3D print some bays :)

[Flyn]

Nice dude!! Very tidy!

[Spookfish]

The next part of the build was to start finishing. The cable runs and GPS were all covered with strips of 6mm depron and the servos were panelled in with 3mm liteply. When I installed the servos I cut them in a little deeper so they could be panelled in. I only did this for a neater finish. I used a light filler and sanded the wing smooth.
I also cut the elevons to shape at this stage.






Elevons were fitted using Duck Heavy Duty Packing Tape, top and bottom, to form a good strong hinge. Most people cover the elevons before fitting, again, I only did mine after for a neat finish.



I hot glued in some plastic cornering (available at B&Q) to the RX and Vtx bays to form panel landings. The panels are made from 1mm ply and held in place by 4 small screws. The landings are notched for the antennas.

[Spookfish]

what are those bays lined with?

I'm tempted to 3D print some bays :)

The bays are lined with 0.8mm ply around the sides and the rear bay floor. The battery bay floor is 2mm ply and has the velcro straps slotted through it.

I went a bit mad with the covering and did all the panels and floors. :P

Nice dude!! Very tidy!

Cheers Mate!

[Spookfish]

Right the next bit was covering the beast. Not my favourite job! Came out OK though I think.

First off I covered all the tricky bits like the elevons (silver solar trim) around the motor mount and along the elevon hinges (I used matt black vinyl here). I then cut out the carbon effect vinyl sheet. After masking off I applied a light coat of 3M 77 spray adhesive to the lower left wing surface and then carefully stuck the carbon vinyl sheet in place and trimmed to fit. I repeated the process for the 3 remaining wing surfaces.

I then decorated with dayglo green and yellow Solar Trim.

After covering I glued the camera box in place with silicone sealant and also the wing tip panels. The wing tip panels are drilled and have 2 plastic M6 wingnuts bonded to the back so the winglets can be screwed in place using nylon wing screws. This allows me to change a winglet if it gets damaged (I used this system on my last Zephyr, only I stupidly used hot glue and one fell off).

The hatch has small lengths of steel pushrod in the flutes of the correx that correspond to the magnets that hold it closed. I covered the hatch with the same matt black vinyl to match the camera box and fitted an scoop (made from a hilighter pen lid) to direct cooling air over the ESC.





Made some decals up from inkjet water slide decal paper.



And lastly... I made a launch ramp!

[Flyn]

Cool bud, REALLY tidy build, loving the attention to detail!

Great launcher too! Could've had mine, think I'm getting the hand throw down now.

[Spookfish]

Cool bud, REALLY tidy build, loving the attention to detail!

Great launcher too! Could've had mine, think I'm getting the hand throw down now.

I'm useless at hand launching! I had a 50% success rate with the Mini-Zed.

[Flyn]

Im using the ritewing method - just works & is so easy & gets away every time.

Can show you next meet.

[Brucey]

Seen this in the flesh, looks stunning!

[g.collins]

That is got to be the tidiest wing I have seen, looks sweet as bud, well don.
:) G