Rave 450 build thread.

[Mr Moff]

Looks like it's time for another build thread.In my never ending quest to find the best 450,this has sat in it's box since christmas waiting for the choice of electronics to arrive.

I prepared the carbon last night to get it out of the way with the trusty Sally Hansen hard as nails for the edges.





First impressions when opening the box are just Wow.The instructions are in full colour and the quality of the paper is like good photo quality paper.Great start.



The setup is as follows,
Scorpion 2221/10 motor
Kontronik Koby 40 ESC
Spartan Quark gyro
Futaba brushless 257 tail servo
I'm breaking my normal habit for lipos with the Hyperion G3's.
I've wanted to try 4 cell in a 450 for a while so it's having the 4s 2200 35C packs.I'm hoping for a cool runner with lots of power.
Radix 350 blades.
The only upgrade I'm using is the carbon frame stiffener set.Thats it,can't find anything else to upgrade.

All the parts bags have sealed off sections to separate all the parts.Very impressive.




The frames went together very smoothly and the parts fit and finish is excellent so far.
Here's a new way to build up the head.
First you fit the main gear and main shaft with collar.
Then you assemble the swash paying carefull attention to the main swash bearing.Instead of the bearing being glued or pressed in you have to use 3 small set screws.You screw them through the swash gently untill you feel it touch the outside of the bearing,then leave the threadlock to do it's thing.

Then you drop the swash onto the main shaft and proceed to build the washout,and install that on the main shaft.
Then it's time for the grips and feathering shaft,Mmmmm.The head looks very nice,a perfect mix of satin black with pollished bits.Nice.
And finally the flybar cage is assembled and installed.
The only thing I'm not sure about is on the ammendment page that's seperate from the book it tells you to use ca glue on the head dampers to make them last longer.I don't really like the idea of that because I want the feathering shaft to be able to teeter in the head.
With mega stiff dampening you can end up with a bobbing head.
I've just used grease on the inside and outside of the dampers,we'll see what happens.



Thats as far as I've got so far.Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the tail built and fitted and start on the electronics placement.
Fingers crossed for a maiden indoor on saturday.

Danny.

[Mark Barnes]

nice work Danny,

I had the scorpion in my 450 its a reet power house

M

[Mr Moff]

Thanks Mark,the Scorpion looks good as well,so I have high hopes for this one now.

Danny.

[Stubbsy]

Sally Hanson tough nails - Come on Danny admit it - Its really part of your friday night dressing up kit!

[Mr Moff]

Now I think about it,a person could use a nail file to file the edges.
Stubbsy where did you get the spinning woman thingy?

Danny.

[Mr Moff]

Just a quick note that I forgot last night.
I've read a few times about people that say the swash screws wouldn't tighten down onto the balls,as in the holes weren't tapped deep enough.This is what I found.

When you get to bag 2 which is step 2 in the manual,You have some countersunk 2x7 screws to attach the balls to the swash.
Also in the same bag there's some 2x8 screws for the following step.If you accidentally install the 2x8's they bottom out and leave the balls loose.Ask me how I noticed this.
If you put the 2 screws side by side at a glance they do look the same,so it's an easy mistake to make.

Something else worth mentioning is that this is a real builders model and there's no prebuilt assemblies,which I like.
All the ball links need sizing also,which is mentioned in the instructions,and the ball link sizing tool required is a 4.7mm one which is the standard size for most heli's.

Coffee break over.
I'll be back with pics later.

Danny.

[Andy Sayle]

Danny, what does a ball link sizing tool look like? Is it just a spherical reamer type tool?

Andy

[Mr Moff]

Here you go Andy,
It's kind of like a reamer,but the ball end has 2 little slots cut into it.Then there's a little countersunk screw in the end that opens it up to fit bigger links.
You just pop it into the link and give it a few turns and it shaves off a tiny amount from the middle of the link.
The one on the left is the 4.7mm one for most standard links and the one on the right is a 3.5mm version for the 250 ect.
They cost between £2.99 and £4.99.



Actually there is a nice one just out this week made by Synergy called the Boto.
It is a posh handle that houses 3 different size ends.
http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/store/synergy_boto_sizing_tool-p-13291.html
Posh.

Danny.

[Mr Moff]

Just finished for today and managed to get quite far.The tail is now assembled and attached.

This is the best tail I've seen so far and is simply sooo smooth.
There's no special trick to building any of it.It just falls together exactly as per the instructions.






The tail setup is very interesting and simple.
Instead of thrust races in the tail grips,they give you 2 ballraces that stack together with a shim in between.
Once tightened there is endfloat that allows the grips to float in and out about half a mm.This is how they designed it.Simple and fool proof.

I found a small error in the ammended sheet that comes seperate from the manual.
When you attach the flybar cage to the seesaw,there is some fore and aft play.They tell you in the manual to build it like this,which I wasn't happy with.
Then while I pondered what to do I had a glance at the ammended sheet where it tells you use a 2mm washer on either side.
That's 4mm of shim,way too much.I found that a single 0.2mm shim on each side was just right.I'm pretty sure they mean 0.2mm and not 2mm.

Other than that the head would look right in H samuels window next to a Rolex.
What a peach.
Hopefully tomorrow it's time for electronics placement.

Danny.

[Mr Moff]

Just finished up for the night.
The motor is in with a 13 tooth pinion and the cyclic servos are also in.
All that's left is the gyro,tail servo,esc and receiver to fit and then it's wiring time.
Looking at it now I think it'll be easy to hide all the wiring at the front in between the frames.

It took a good long while to set the mesh at the front and rear of the torque tube.
You keep the boom off the model while you do this and start with the back gearbox.
It's very important to get it spot on or it will strip it's gears on first spool up.
After the rear is meshed it's time for the front.It's done in much the same way as the back.

Once that's done you then insert the boom assembly in between the frames and tighten everything up.
Now you have the joy of trying to mesh the flat gear at the front of the boom with the autorotation gear.But it's all in a fixed position .

The way I sorted this was to loosen the front boom blocks 4 screws.then on the boom block behind it you leave the 4 screws tight and slacken the clamp bolt and remove the boom supports.
Now you are left with about half a mm of in and out boom movement,so you pull the boom back with moderate force and tighten everything up.Result.

Right I'm off to browse online and I'll put tonights pictures on in the morning.

Danny.

[Mr Moff]

Phew,finally I'm getting somewhere with the wiring.So far it's taken about 12 hours to get the wiring neat and it is hands down the hardest one I've done so far.
If you don't mind having the wires outside of the frame it is pretty easy but I like it hidden.
The worst part was trying to get all the cyclic servo wires past the motor and the main gear/pinion,then still having enough length to reach the reciever.
3 times I've finished it then pulled it all out again.

This is how I did it.



I also used these neat little pieces of heatshrink on the ends of the servo leads.







The tail servo mount was a bit of a challenge as it's designed primarilly for the JR3500G but there is an amendment note for the Futaba mounting.
The thing is though I've installed the tail servo as high as possible up the frame and for the tail linkage to have a straight shot down the boom I need the ball link to be about 12mm out from centre.
Optimum for this size and gyro is around 8mm so there might be a bit too much mechanical gain but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.If need be The servo can always be mounted on the boom and then try a different tail linkage.

Other than that I normally like to mount the ESC under the battery tray out of sight but the Koby is too big for that so I used that space to hide all the wiring.
Here's a couple of pics with the canopy on.




Jobs left to do are,
Finish up the tail servo,
Make up and size the last of the head linkages,
solder up the batteries,
Setup the head,gyro and esc,
Finally double check all the threadlock on everything.

The canopy looks fantastic and is really good quality.As a bonus there's tons of room under it so running up to 6S would be easy.

Danny.

[Rich]

Another fantastic build thread from Mr (Helicopter) Moffat.

Couldn't you use bigger tie wraps though..!!!

[johnoxleydean]

very very Impressive Danny Boy

[Mark Barnes]

Another fantastic build thread from Mr (Helicopter) Moffat.

Couldn't you use bigger tie wraps though..!!!

Agree totaly, very nice build. On the tie wraps Danny, us proper fliers use fuel tube round the tie wrap to stop them chaffing the wire!

M

[Mr Moff]

Thanks very much guys.
I agree about the tie wraps,I just couldn't get the thicker ones through the holes in the frames.
The fuel tube's a good idea Mark,I'll have to use that one.
I tried using heat shrink on the servo wires in the areas that they're close to the edges and between the ties but it made the wires too thick.
Checkout the picture with the cable ties.At the bottom you can just about see the black motor mount and once the motor's in place them wires are about half a mm from the motor.(insert smilley with head banging a wall)
All I could think of was the little ties so I tightened them one click at a time until they just started to hold the wire enough,then snipety snip.

Even the 250 was an easier wiring job.
Rich do you think between you,Mark and Andy could make up some wireless servos?


Danny.