CurryKitten's Mini Talon build

[mutley2]

You don't have to land hard or fast to break it, the airframe just goes sideward and snaps it off. I think it's too tall and would be far better by halving the skid height. IMo

[Andy Sayle]

I wonder if it partially so big to help protect larger props on landing, and also a bit to provide a bit more side area at the back end to aid yaw stability...

[CurryKitten]

Small update tonight, mainly because even doing small tasks seems to take me ages !

I threadlocked the screws holding the motor in place, and glued in the half of my printed rear skid.  I put the ESC in place to check out how much battery wire I had, and promptly ordered some 14AWG silicon wire as they'll need to be a bit longer to reach the lipo.



I also thought that if the ESC went, it would be really awkward to remove and replace.  So thought I could extend the motor wires easily so that I could easily pull the ESC forward into the hatch area if needed.  Just waiting for someone to shout about why extending motor wires is bad ?

Other than that I did a few bits to the hatch. I fitted the hatch lock and installed the 3d printed bit at the front, with the other piece needing to wait until the fuse halves are glued together.



The front part is slightly less interesting, as I still need to slide in some carbon rods or some sort of skewer that will go into a hole in the front of the fuse.  I also discovered I didn't have any little cocktail sticks for reinforcing these.



I also still need to reinforce the weak part of the hatch with something.

Aside from the 14 AWG wire, I also have a bunch of servo extensions on their way, and a new tube of UHU Por in readiness

[Billy_boy_2010]

I believe lengthening the motor wires is unwise because, unless they are exactly the same length, you can mess with the esc timing.

How close to identical length they have to be, and whether its only very important with a high kv motor, I have no idea.

[Loopdreams]

Pretty sure that's not super critical or anything.  It's lengthening the battery wires that causes more issues.

[English Turbines]

I wont be fitting that rear dagger plate to mine....Its a plane, not a plough.

A liability is what it sounds like....ok if the plane lands nice and straight, a fuz snapper if the plane gets sideways on....I have landed my Depron Drone loads of times without an ESC lock no problems...even with those weak slo fli props not broke one yet.

:vulture:

[dp106]

I can vouch that it is possible to replace the ESC without lengthening the wires. On a couple of my failed launches the nose dive has been severe enough to disconnect the motor from the ESC. More than once I've been sat at the field removing the motor and dangling ESC wires down through the hole to grab with some pliers before reconnecting them.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[CurryKitten]

Well, I must say I'd prefer not to lengthen the motor wires, so I could get the motor out of the mount by unscrewing, pulling and then separating the bullets, but I'd just need to be careful that those m3 nuts didn't fall out of the other side.  I'll get a little bit of glue on them just to make sure they stay captive in their holes.

[English Turbines]

Well, I must say I'd prefer not to lengthen the motor wires, so I could get the motor out of the mount by unscrewing, pulling and then separating the bullets, but I'd just need to be careful that those m3 nuts didn't fall out of the other side.  I'll get a little bit of glue on them just to make sure they stay captive in their holes.

Hi Wayne, why dont you do what I did on my SW.....glue the 3 ESC outlet sockets flush with the fuz exterior...run the motor wires external and that way you can change your motor easily.
  You will need a tapped motor mount though, no locknuts etc...makes it really easy though.

   :vulture:

[FPVSteve]

I wont be fitting that rear dagger plate to mine....Its a plane, not a plough.

A liability is what it sounds like....ok if the plane lands nice and straight, a fuz snapper if the plane gets sideways on....I have landed my Depron Drone loads of times without an ESC lock no problems...even with those weak slo fli props not broke one yet.

:vulture:

It may have a significant effect on yaw stability.

[Loopdreams]

That's why I'm keeping it, although given what's happened to some others I might extend it upwards a bit further into the fus.

[CurryKitten]

I'm really wanting to get my 2 halves together, but I need that 14AWG wire to arrive so my ESC will reach the current sensor, so I'm a bit stuck there.

Instead I decided to layout some of the other wiring and try and decide how it will go.  If you thought it was quite neat up to this point, my wiring is always a right mess... but I shall attempt to be as tidy as possible.  First off I popped the Vector in place to see what sort of space I was playing with.



I've done all the setup via the sticks, but I plugged it into the computer today just in case the app gave me more.  It did in the form of some firmware updates, and let me layout 6 screens.  Which seemed brilliant, until you find out you have an option to turn the OSD display on/off or cycle through them every x seconds.  Why isn't there simply an options to cycle through based on a switch.  It seems completely bizarre, so unable to contain myself I opened up a ticket with Eagletree and asked them why this wasn't already implemented.

With the Vector in place, it meant I knew how long I'd need the tubing from the pitot to the airspeed sensor.  I'd thought about making a mount to put it on the side of the plane, but then decided there was no reason not to put it in the nose (note to self, try not to crash nose-in) so did just that.



... the back-end of the plane meantime looks like this, just as a way of working out where the rx and GPS sensor will go, and what wires need to go where.

[Andy Sayle]

You can cycle through each screen on demand, by cycling the main mode switch once on the Vector ;)  So my main mode switch has Off, 2D and RTH on it.  I just quickly flip from end to end once, and the OSD screen cycles to the next one.  Its on pg 31 of the vector manual. HTH.

Build is looking good too!

Andy

[CurryKitten]

Not on my page 31, but perhaps I had an older version of the manual.  Never mind, as I was hoping someone would say something like "yes you can, just do this".  I'll set up some other screens and test it out.  Cheers :)

You can cycle through each screen on demand, by cycling the main mode switch once on the Vector ;)  So my main mode switch has Off, 2D and RTH on it.  I just quickly flip from end to end once, and the OSD screen cycles to the next one.  Its on pg 31 of the vector manual. HTH.

Build is looking good too!

Andy

[Andy Sayle]

AH, there could be many versions of the manual out there.  I'm looking at v2.9 of the manual, this one:  http://eagletreesystems.com/Manuals/vector.pdf  For software v12.07+ published in August 2016.

I don't think you have to activate this feature, it just does it.  Like cycling the mode switch 2 to 4 times invokes the menu on the OSD, and there are a couple of other things too...

Good luck!