AH-6Z Littlebird Night-Ops build project

[Zeeflyboy]

so the postman has come bearing gifts...

First up here is the boom block I'll be using. This is quite a bit stiffer than the stock plastic unit and also by slotting the holes by the forward TT umbrella gear mount it allows me to fine tune the mesh which I've now done... the only catch is it was originally designed for the 600 Pro frame width so I need some 8mm m3 standoffs to replace the grub screws (you can see the nylon standoffs at the front that I just cut to test). Happily I ordered those yesterday so hopefully they'll arrive this week as they are the last piece of the puzzle in order to get the mechanics fully functional.











I added a second torque tube bearing too so there are now two hidden in the boom for a smoother running TT... A trick I learned on the 600 Pro when playing with the Skookum vibration analyser.

I also got my Lynx turnbuckles fitted so now you can see the whole swash arrangement... I'm pretty happy with my measurements as everything came out nice and square. Hopefully it's clear now how the elevator arm arrangement works, but it's quite hard to get a decent photo of lol.








Anyway, just those 8mm PCB standoffs to arrive, a few little bits and bobs to sort out and then the Naza setup to do... after that there's not much stopping the first test flights of the mechanics.

[wgt40w]

Getting even more exciting !

[Zeeflyboy]

Wgt - yeah, although this has made me realise how much more I still have to do to finish the while thing lol... This project is far bigger than I had previously anticipated!

Andy - yeah, it'll be pretty nerve wracking lol. That's one reason why I'm doing some test flights of the mechanics first before putting it in the fuselage, at least the mechanics are easy to repair/replace if it all goes wrong.

[Zeeflyboy]

Just thought I'd post a little pic of how I set my tracking pre-flight... I level the swash at middle (zero pitch) and put a screwdriver through the blade grip holes.

You can then eyeball it until the screwdriver is in line with the main shaft, then rotate the next grip into position and wash/rinse/repeat. I've used this method on all my helis for the last few years and have never had to adjust tracking afterwards so it seems to work well for me - hopefully it will here because tracking a 5 blade head will be a pain in the butt otherwise!

Unfortunately this did actually highlight some machining variances in the head - there is a good few mm difference between the longest pushrod and the shortest. After a good half an hour of carefully adjusting the links I've got all blade grips aligned but I'll have to be careful to keep them paired up to their specific grips when I disassemble the head. We'll see how it goes, it's all tracked now and spinning smoothly.. hopefully the head performs well but I'm a little miffed at the variance.

[hase2]

looks sweet. you could just mark the grips with a bit of paint to make sure everyone goes where it belongs.

[g.collins]

I don't now how has the most, but You must have the most expensive toys on this form for sure.
Loving the tek bud, looks sweet.   :respekt:
:) G

[Zeeflyboy]

Hase - yeah I will do but if I'm painting the whole thing black then I'll paint right over my marks lol.

Need to be careful when I paint it or rise I'll spend ages on the tracking again.

G - says the man with a £10,000 CNC machine!!!

[g.collins]

Lol, I suppose the CNC is a toy, but I did build it for work  :laugh: honest.
:) G

[wgt40w]

Time passes - have you maiden-hovered the mechanics yet ??

[Zeeflyboy]

Time does indeed pass... very quickly lol.

Between working like a beast of burden and travelling back to the UK I haven't even had time to tidy up my mess let alone create more lol.

However, I've got some days off coming up now and apart from popping to the Geneva motor show I have no plans! I expect to get some progress done at last over the next few days.

[wgt40w]

As ever, looking forward to the next instalment.

[Zeeflyboy]

So guys I'm sorry about the lack of updates but between working in a manner not dissimilar to a beast of burden, and travelling back and forth to the UK to remind my girlfriend what I look like, I've just about had time for a little bit of sleep. To add to my problems, my CNC router exploded when I switched it on last week and that really made life a bit difficult since I didn't have time to get a new router before leaving again.

The happy news is that I now have 3 days off with no plans other than popping along to the geneva motor show, so I hope to make some good progress again.

So to kick off, before my router exploded I managed to get these parts cut out....





And I had intended to make the mounting blocks on the CNC but alas the bastard thing exploding means I had to make them by hand. Cutting straight, filing to length, drilling, tapping and then finding out you didn't quite get the holes aligned so you have to start again is tedious! Here you can see two mounted... I haven't found the motivation to make the last one yet but it's not really required since the bottom plate won't be load bearing until the fuselage is fitted.


The PCB mounts arrived so I can finally fit the tail boom mount... as always I don't make life easy for myself. I overtightened one meaning it sheared off and left the thread stuck in the boom block... couldn't get it out for love nor money so ended up drilling it out and re-tapping... again, tedious! Job done at last though and it fits perfectly, much  less flex than the standard plastic boom block. Oh and I don't know if I mentioned it but Naza-H doesn't support PPM, it was an error in their release notes which should now have been fixed after I called them a bunch of horrible names. So I'm now feeding a ppm decoder which feeds the naza the pwm channels it wants to see, you can see it just temporarily hooked up here.






and lastly I took a leaf out of sentry's book and bought some copper tape. Since the scale fuselage prohibits me from placing items as far apart as I might like I have decided to just shield as best I can. The DJI BEC has a nice metal case but the gryphon is mostly plastic with a small metal heatshield on top... to try and keep a lid of EMF problems I've wrapped the whole thing in copper tape - front, back, sides, top and bottom... that along with the toroid should hopefully make it as quiet as a mouse, which is pretty quiet.




So that's if for now, hopefully have some more to show you soon. In the mean time here's a little reminder of what we are shooting for lol

The Chase

[wgt40w]

I take it the CNC was still under guarantee!

What caused it to blow - a major short - incorrect voltage ??

[Zeeflyboy]

Just the router (proxxon IBS/E) that exploded... Machine itself is fine.

No idea, switched it off after cutting one part, went to switch it on again for the next and there was a flash and a bang from inside the motor cage area.

I'm thinking about building a slightly larger machine which can take a bigger spindle.

[g.collins]

I take it the CNC was still under guarantee!

What caused it to blow - a major short - incorrect voltage ??

what do you think I am, A shop!  :laugh:
:) G