FlyingWings Venturi FPV Evo

[Sheldon Holy]

Are standard servos acceptable for this? I've got some Futaba S9001s unused as I'm overhauling my Raven 50 heli and installing new digital servos, but the 9001s are really nice and reliable so I'd rather use them than some micro servos.

[Brucey]

Yeah, use them, not micros

[Sheldon Holy]

I received my kit today. I'll get some piccies up tomorrow.

I've assembled the fuselage and I have some feedback already. The laser cutting is pretty poor, and caused some delamination of the edges of the ply in some areas when I pushed them out. Some of the parts had to be cut out with a knife. I don't know much about laser cutting but given how charred the edges of the ply is, maybe the laser isn't quite powerful enough?

Anyway, I've built guillows kits before so having something laser cut at all is always a luxury and it was no problem. The parts fitted together well. I tacked them together with thin CA but I applied PVA to all the joints with a brush - two coats on both sides of each joint. One thing I've learned from building normal balsa/ply LOS models is that thin CA works well but should be avoided. PVA dries pretty quickly and doesn't stick everything and anything together before you know what's happening. It also doesn't ruin clothes. Structurally I much prefer it too, it's far more flexible than CA (which isn't at all) and the joints seem to last much longer. It can also be sanded easily.

Anyway, the two pieces supplied that go on the forward fuselage for alignment of the wings appear to have a problem. With the wing held on the fuselage so the spar hole lines up, the piece of wood will not fit flush with the front of the fuselage when placed on the LE of the wing. It's about half an inch forward. Not a problem but does this mean my wings are cut too big or something? I can just cut down the excess on the wood pieces, but I'd like to know why the massive misalignment is there.

[iPeel]

I don't know the power of the laser exactly but it's a massive carbon dioxide laser. There's two thicknesses of wood and I think the thicker of the two is on the limit of what you can laser without starting a fire. I agree on the PVA vs CA, you need something that sets but gives a little flex to work with the wood rather than be completely brittle. PVA is about the best glue to work with, and POR on the wing join. All these kits need a good clean up after you separate the pieces, otherwise you get black fingerprints everywhere! Just in case you hadn't spotted, there a small piece that pops out of the middle of one of the box section pieces which looks like it's to be thrown away, but it's actually the tab that the hatch closes against.

The cheeks are guides which meet the leading edge of the wing and aide in aligning the wing leading edges on both sides of the box, you only need to ensure they fit flush to the leading edge of the wing and the bottom of the cheek meets the bottom of the fuselage box and you should expect them to come forward of the box section a little, then trim any remainder away afterwards. This is why the glueing of the cheeks to the box is something done only when you go to attach the wings so everything is flush.

Mine were out by about 5mm I recall.



Neil.

[Sheldon Holy]

Thanks for the info. The box did go together nicely. I'm gonna get the last bits today so hopefully if no one interrupts me over the weekend then I should have it flying sometime next week. A benefit to working at a model shop is that I get all my modelling stuff at cost (including gopros!).

Gotta get the batteries too now. I've learned not to think about how much all the bits for a model cost lol, just get on with buying stuff until it's flying.

[dp106]

Ipeel the tab you mention for the hatch to rest on looks like it should go in a slot at the front of the box. However there's no slot on mine?!

[Sheldon Holy]

Yes, I kept all the pieces. I tend to keep the ply frames so I can chop them up for odd jobs, too. And as with dp106, there is no slot on mine either. But that's not a problem as I plan on using a different attachment method for the front of the hatch (rod fixed into the front of the hatch that goes into a hole on the bulkhead).

[iPeel]

I believe there's only a tab at the back now as the one at the front is redundant now everyone makes a hinge.

[dp106]

Ok cool, thanks

[Sheldon Holy]

Made some progress today.

The fuselage is all glued together - just need to fill the gaps on the outside where the parts slot together (I'm pedantic in case you haven't noticed :) ) and sort the foam parts before paint.

Also made progress on the wings. For the servo mounting, I decided to use some of those plastic mounting plates. A bit pointless but they weigh barely anything and it looks a lot neater. The main reason is that it's all easily removable - most of my previous builds were done in a way that to get any gear out for whatever reason, I'd basically have to hack the whole thing apart. So this build will partially focus on all the gear being easily removable. I've cut the holes for the UHF Rx and the VTx also.

Here are some piccies









Here's some detail on the wing fillet thingy:



Oh and a tip in case it helps anyone. I've been marking out the holes with a fine permanent marker which is great but it leaves black lines everywhere - not ideal as I'm not painting the whole thing. It comes off easily with isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush though, if that helps anyone.

[Brucey]

Looking good.
I put masking tape down then draw on that.

[Sheldon Holy]

Day off today, so some more progress made.

Last night I made the cables to go in the wings and installed them in the slots. I then cut some strips from the spare foam and used them to fill the slots.

[Sheldon Holy]

Some more progress today.

The colour scheme I'm going for is the one on my old Storm wing. http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,2272

I first filled in the gaps on the side of the fuselage (where the formers lock into), and fitted the cheek pieces with the wings dry fitted so that they're placed correctly. I then cut off the excess and sanded it flush.

I've started on the electronics also. I made a simple regulator on a heatsink, two regs actually, just LM317s. One has a 5V output and the other has a 11.5V output. 11.5V was chosen to give a little more headroom on the dropout voltage (though this is unlikely to be an issue), and also it's the closest voltage to 12V available with E12 resistors on the voltage setting. The only thing that actually needs 12V is the camera, but that's happy down to about 8V so no problems there. The other item that uses 12V is the VTx but that regulates it down to 5V on the board anyway. I cut a hole in the bottom of the foam fuselage floor and mounted the regs in there so that they get good airflow.

I've also laminated the fuselage floor and the hatch, it was super easy compared to usual balsa model covering. 120 C on my iron seems to work nicely. I also reinforced the velcro slots with some ply strips, they seem substantial enough but with a bit of wear and tear they might snap, so it's worth doing.











The fuselage floor protrudes from the front a bit. It's just poorly cut. I would expect a little more care from Flyingwings, but for 70 quid I can't complain. It's not a problem at all anyway, but something worth pointing out.



Note, wings are just dry fitted. Next job will be to do the cutouts for the prop, then paint the wings, laminate them and install them.

[Sheldon Holy]

Got the wings painted. After doing some test pieces, I couldn't get any tape to mask off the EPP well. Not only does few types of tape stick well to EPP, but even when it does it doesn't seal it off very well.

The solution I found was to iron on thin strips of laminate for the masking. This worked perfectly and I just peeled them off when done.

I've got to wait a day or two for the paint to set fully before laminating the wings, but here it is dry fitted together.

[Brucey]

Looks smart. Nice idea with the laminate to mask off when painting.