AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

[wgt40w]

Thought so - clever idea. Can't wait to see video footage from that camera.

[Zeeflyboy]

you and me both!

So I just came home and finished off my Camera boom. I'm thinking about designing a damped platform at the heli end using the damping bobbins from a QAV500 but I'm not sure whether it'll be better off rigid in the downwash of the rotors... we'll find out I guess.

Anyway, my budget cam is fitted - 808 #16 Keychain wide angle... Okay it's not a GoPro but the image quality is surprisingly good!

[wgt40w]

Will you have to adjust C of G for when this camera boom is / is not fitted  OR is it too light to cause any concern ??

[Zeeflyboy]

with the FBL system I doubt it'll even be noticeable...

Plus as you say it's pretty light and the helicopter weighs around 7Kg so not really going to be relevant I guess... We'll find out!

[Zeeflyboy]

So, At the end of the week I have three standby days followed by 3 days off.... I'm hoping I can get quite a lot done there, especially if they leave me alone for the standbys lol.

So first a little update on the mechanics.

My head has somehow tweaked just slightly out of true from flight. Looking down on the head button screw hole you can see it spins slightly off axis... My first though was that the main shaft had been tweaked but it appears to be true. I must admit I'm scratching my head as to how on earth this is possible but there you go... on top of that my tail was suffering from vibrations and when I disassembled the tail rotor I was less than impressed.

So, I've finally had enough of this crap. I'm giving up the project...

Jokes, I'm spending yet more money.... sigh. This time I'm not messing around however - when you are fed up of crap engineering, who do you turn to for solace? Zee Germans of course!

So, it's SK-Rotorkopf to the rescue.

I'll be using their 4 blade tail (or should i say vierblattheckrotoren) with my existing tail box and shaft







And for head I'm going for a damped 5 blade assembly.... it'll all be anodised black for my order. The damping is interesting as a lot of multiblade heads are rigid - it will be interesting to experiment with various hardness dampers and there is even the option to lock them out with a rigid damper from the DFC heads for example if needed.... This is the basic head but I'm picking up a combo deal with swash and head button etc.

Just in the final stages of communicating exactly what I need but should be sorted out soon.






So, what else have I been up to in the mean time?

First up I painted the tail box black.... I gave it a good scrub with soapy water, rinsed and dried then used an etch primer followed by some satin black. It actually came out a bit too well lol. I'll need to distress it to weather it a touch so it fits in better with the look of the heli.




I also made some panel details for the heli exterior cut from 0.5mm thick fibreglass sheet. These will be given some rivet detail and then glued to the heli fuselage in various spots to give a more realistic panel detail.




And lastly, anyone know what this is for?

[Topgun Scotland]

why all this teasing, how does it look so good, you have a very jealous follower, its a stunning build, loving every bit of it  :overexcited:

[dogzilla]

with the FBL system I doubt it'll even be noticeable...

Plus as you say it's pretty light and the helicopter weighs around 7Kg so not really going to be relevant I guess... We'll find out!

Is that just a secondary camera then? To watch the pilot from the outside?

I assume you will have a gopro somewhere? Or won't you?

[Zeeflyboy]

Topgear - teasing? Me!? Never would I dream of such things.

Dog - It's just a recording camera to get some cool shots of the heli in flight... This is instead of a GoPro as its a much lighter option of course. It would be easy to whip up a GoPro mount though if needed.

[Zeeflyboy]

So in between waiting for some primer to dry I decided my Printer needed an extremely vital mod.... LEDs!!! LEDs make everything better!

These do actually serve a practical purpose - much easier to check bed level and keep an eye on how things are going with this mod. I used some Hobbyking waterproof strip LED's and a L7812 to drop the voltage down from 19.5v to 12v since I couldn't find an easy 12v supply on the board.






Speaking of hobbyking - they really do have some great stuff sometimes - just picked up these crimpers and they are bloody fantastic. I've been looking for a decent set for ages and who would have guessed I finally found a pair at hobbyking! They are just perfect and give a great quality crimp on servo connectors and JST - if you are someone who crimps their own wires I really, really recommend a pair.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=13446

[Topgun Scotland]

you got a spare room for rent in that house of you'res?  think i'll declare myself homeless soon and hope a fellow model'r will pick me up off the street  ;D

[Zeeflyboy]

sorry, need more room for more toys if anything!

So before work this morning I spent a couple of hours trying my hand at some proper rivets and added some panels.... I just did the dog house and tail boom section so far.

I used a piece of paper and marked out 5mm spacing on that - the reason for using paper is that it's way more flexible than any rulers or tapes I have so it's easy to fit it to curves etc. I then used a pen and marked out my rivet pattern, then using a syringe and some glue I laid down each rivet.

The pics are pretty hard to see since the rivets are small and the glue dries clear, so to make things easier to see I am instead going to give you the links to some higher res photos rather than embed them here.

http://i.imgur.com/LP7AAAd.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/eEC0Lf7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XUowMlK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/cYGqwAe.jpg

[Zeeflyboy]

Anyway, the company definitely didn't get the memo... all 3 standbys were called out so I've done next to nothing. I did however paint over the rivets and panels - here's some closer shots. They look better in real life - the photos are a bit tricky!

[skyscraper]

[...]
Speaking of hobbyking - they really do have some great stuff sometimes - just picked up these crimpers and they are bloody fantastic. I've been looking for a decent set for ages and who would have guessed I finally found a pair at hobbyking! They are just perfect and give a great quality crimp on servo connectors and JST - if you are someone who crimps their own wires I really, really recommend a pair.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=13446

I got mine from here.. They work really work well! . Essential if you do any RC stuff!

http://www.modelaccessories.co.uk/crimping-tool.html

regards
Andy

[Zeeflyboy]

Not the same ones but glad they work well for you! I had similar looking ones (but red handles) and they were rubbish - just mashed the connector together rather than neatly turning over the pins.

The HK ones are ratchet type too which is handy.

So details details....

The fuselage really seems to come to life with all these little touches - I'm surprised how much nicer it looks that the bare smooth fuselage did.












Also noticed my tail gears weren't particularly well made... you could see them wobble as you rotate them - bad news for vibes. I noticed that the align 700 gears looked like an exact replacement and thankfully they were. Just needed some slight adjustment to the gears which involved putting them in the pillar drill and a little careful work with a file to make sure they ran smooth with clearance from the housing but other than that a straight swap. These black align gears are hard as nails too which is good - I've seen them cut wood with the tail blades of a 700 running these gears with no damage to the gears! The new one also gets rid of the step down to 5mm at the end which was a weak point so glad to get rid of that - the new tail I'm ordering from SK-Rotorkopf will be 6mm to match.

Old = white, new = black

[FPVSteve]

It's not a toy this, it's a work of art