4 more tips to keep costs down and speed your building.
1. Making control horns from Beechwood Tongue depressors
2. making control horns from an old CD
3 Making linkage stoppers for less than £0.60 each.
4. Making larger wheels with polythene pipe tyre.
Although the tongue depressors are a single layer they appear to be strong enough to withstand the rigours of flying, (up to now anyway). The CD version is stronger but harder to cut out. I generally us a jewellers saw that has a very fine blade. This is a good tool to have for cutting all sorts of material from steel to foam board.
The linkage stoppers work well. The stud diameter is 3 mm so rather than fit into the servo control horn. I fit them at the other end of the control wire in the elevator control horn.
I have also cut off the 3mm stud and replaced with a 2.5 mm bolt soldered to the bottom. This is about the largest you can get through a servo control horn. I fit nylock shake proof nuts to prevent them coming loose and it allows me to leave a little play so the linkage stopper can rotate in the control horn.
The wheels are easy to make in any size and light. the plastic pipe protects the foam boad. If you want a black tyre use some electrical cable glued to the foam wheel.
The modification below allows you to use the linkage stopper without having to drill a larger hole in either control horn. The wire is a large paper clip.
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I have been wanting to get a bunch of linkage stoppers ever since I discovered just what a PITA z-bends are. Unfortunately, no place that I have ever ordered RC stuff from has ever had them in stock, and I'm too cheap to pay for shipping from someone who does.
The only hex standoffs I have are in use, so I thought I would try to brainstorm something using parts I already have. This is what I came up with:
http://imgur.com/a/BMKON
Not flight tested yet, but I just wanted to share. It seems to work well.
That's just two small strips of gift card and #4 x 1" bolt. Needless to say, I need to get some smaller bolts or trim that one down. The only "trick" that you can't really see too well in the pictures is that the main control rod is bent in a "U" shape.
The control horn is one of those toothpick/floss thingies that someone posted a few weeks ago, and the "wing" is just a test of a modified Armin wing design that more closely approximates a Clark Y airfoil.
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The linkage stopper will bolt through the loop giving you a linkage stopper at the servo or the control horn end without needing to drill a larger hole in either control horn. I try to attach a picture to show what I mean tomorrow.
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This is very easy with the linkage stopper in the control horn and almost as easy in the modified stopper I posted at the end. There isn't any difference between what I show and what you can buy (other than price)
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