slow stick build thread and mods

[hayofstacks]

Hello everyone.

I have decided to make a build/mods thread for my slow stick. I have had quite a few different setups and motors on my plane. I have had it setup basically stock, ran 400, 450 and now a 480 class motor, batteries from 1300 mah 3 cell all the way up to a 2200. I have had it built with trike gear, braced the wing with dowels, had several different landing gear setups, and currently, a biplane. I have well over 200 flights on my first wing, and many as a bipe. This is just going to be for me to keep track of what worked, and what didn't. Soon I plan to add 4 aleroins, and maybe some video and/or night flying gear.

Results of a loose motor mount on a madien flight. This was a tower pro 2410 motor and a 1800mah battery with a 9 X 6 gws prop.



A couple of motors later, and with some heavy .40 size trike gear added. I also had problems keeping the landing gear together (as you can see by the added wire bracing). Still with a 1800mah battery. I am also using a 3/8" square dowel because my fuse kept splitting where I put the bolt for the motor mount.



After getting bored with that setup, I tried to do a mini ultra slow stick build, which ended in disaster. This is how I found out about the range problems with my dx6I.


I was getting quite a bit of flex out of the 3/8" square dowels. This made the trike gear hard to control, and also kept splitting the fuse on anything other then soft landings. While I was at a local hobby shop, I decided to get a 10mm thick walled carbon fiber fuse, as well as a bipe kit. I had a complete extra kit I bought for parts, so figured why not.



This setup had a flat top wing, stock bottom wing. A power up 450 sport motor(220watts or so), stock tail, but a bit longer fuse. Not wanting to drill holes in my $20 fuse, I added the stock fiberglass tail section and joiner, making this a very large plane. It is very intimidating next to a stock slow stick. I am not very happy with the landing gear, and am working on several idea's to modify or replace it. Although the bipe is a blast, this setup is quite a bit heavier. Takeoffs are quick, in less then a parking space. But all the added drag of the top wing makes it fly almost cartoonishly slow. Any throttle makes it ballon up badly, but this plane was incredibly stable and easy to control. The top speed of 30mph and lousy verticle made this plane not as much fun for "sport" flying. The only way to get it to loop was to spend quite a bit of time getting altitude, and then doing a full throttle dive and pulling up hard. It had enough power to do some high alpha, but would get locked into it under a stall. It was very scarey when the plane just dropped out of the sky backwards.

I decided the plane needed a bit more power. Not happy with anything smaller then a 450 class motor, I upgrded to the power up 480 sport from heads up rc. While I was waiting on parts, I decided it would be nice to add aleroins. I have made both wings flat using dowels. I currently am only usng the stock cut outs in the top wing. This didn't allow much of any roll, and required rudder for anything more then the most lazy of turns. I also upgraded the tail for the one off of the mini ultra slow stick project, to give a bit more throw and stability to the elevator. I just finished installing out custom motor mount for the larger motor. Having a 19 X25mm bolt patter, it was much too large for a regular gws 10mm stick mount.

As it sits right now, my motor is pulling 317watts off of a single 1800 mah battery. I should be able to get it into the 350watt range, but fear my older batteries are finally starting to run flat. The plan now is to run two 1800-2200mah 3 cells in parellel, or posibly buy more 3000mah 3 cells, or possibly even a bigger 4 cell. I also plan on taping the stock aleroins back together, trimming the backs of both wings until they are flat, and adding full strip aleroins to both wings. I may add bracing between the wings, but I plan on running 6 servo's. 4 for aleroins, and 2 for rudder/elevator.

I have been playing around with adding trike gear, and making the bottom of the wings flat. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

[hayofstacks]

Custom motor mount for the larger motor with 19X25mm motor mounting. You can also see my custom battery box. This will hold anything from a 1300-2200mah battery as well as some others, and only takes 1 rubber band and about 5 seconds to swap. No more worring about velcro.


Old 450 motor compared to 480 motor



Showing overall size and length.

[pizzano]

That's interesting......although kinda redundant since there is a dedicated topic page and several off-shoots of tried and true info here at wattflyer....where it might have been better suited.......guess one got bored with the protocal and decided to refresh our memories.....lol

Love them Slow Sticks.

[hayofstacks]

Actually, when I bought my bipe kit, it took me quite some time to find anything on it, other then through radical rc. I had never seen one, online or otherwise before I saw my kit. I was also told by everyone that a 1800-2200mah battery woulld be way too big to fly on. I also haven't seen anything on a trike geared slow stick. I have also never seen anyone run a 450 watt motor either. I have seen quite a few people put aleroins on their stick, but very few actually show what they've done, or report how it fly's after. And going through 200 pages looking for one mod is really, really annoying.

I know that a slow stick isn't earth shattering, and I am just wanting to share things that I know other people haven't done. Such as my battery boxes and motor mount.

[pizzano]

Here's just a few examples of SS mod info (radical and mild) that can be found on the net, with many 400 and 450 size brushless combo's:



If you're looking for landing gear ideas, battery mounts, bi-wing and fuselage mod's:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122951

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=768689

http://forum.flitetest.com/showthrea...-first-trainer

http://www.rcpowers.com/community/th...fications.122/

http://idahorc.com/viewforum.php?f=69

From the list above, as you can see, there isn't much that hasn't been tried. That said, the majority opinion from those who enjoy relaxing, trouble free flight with average equipment, tend to stick with the milder, rudder only versions (and landing gear, brushless mods) since adding ailerons and reducing dihedral really does not improve the performance or flight time other than giving one a 4 channel experience and the confidence knowing that it will be squirelly (due to lack of weight and rigidity) and easy to repair after the inevitable mishaps you'll enjoy trying to fly it like a P-38 Warhawk......lol

Love them Slow Sticks......

[hayofstacks]

Yes, the plane is quite squirrly...

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...tmNfxyWQMnd1JA

Flies just like stock at half the speed...

[hayofstacks]

After adding my bigger motor, motor mount, nose gear and aluminium main gear, plane is turning into a bit of a porker. With two 2200mah in parellel(4400mah), I am sitting near 44oz rtf weight. With only one 2200 its about 39oz with all other parts. I still have to modify the wings to add the strip aleroins and possibly factor in two more servo's if I go with 4 aleroins instead of just the top wing.

My nose gear setup is very heavy, as well as the plywood I added to mount it with. Still have to test it and add some 4" rear wheels instead of the 3" ones I have now. I think a 4" wheel brings me past the point of "lightweight" wheels. I may have a plastic nose gear mount built out of varying thicknesses until I find one that is plenty strong, as well as one to mount the main gear to. Plastic will be much lighter then the screw and plywood mount I think. It will also give me a lot more room for adjustments. I wan't. To run a 11-12" prop for max thrust, and a 10 X 5 to 10 X 7 for easy flying. Might stay with a smaller prop once I lighten her up a bit.

I might leave it as is when I get it flying, then worry about weight and looks once it flies well. Won't be a rocketship, the higher windloading and 55oz of thrust should make it a very capable flyer. I also don't think stability will be a problem at all, with how high of lift the wings are, and the low center of gravity, I doubt I will lose the pendulum effect of the slow stick.