My winter project stretched into July but tonight I finally got to wring out my latest heli design for the first time:

I wanted to go with an electric design that outperform my expectations for a glow ship. Most hot Ion setups or large electric conversions I've seen online are using Actro 32-3 motors, 700+ blades, and 10S4P or larger packs. My idea was to build a slightly smaller machine more close to that of what has been a traditional 60-size ship. Here are my specs:

Actro 32-4 motor
Fan-cooled Jeti Advance Plus 77 Opto Speed Control
Thunder Power Pro-Lite 10S3P
11-tooth pinion, 95-tooth main gear (8.636:1)
1537 to 2018 calculated rotor speed (32-42 volts)
660 Rotortech Carbon Blades
95mm tail blades on a 31" tail boom
Frame made from 2mm carbon and powder-coated 6061 aluminum
Miniature Aircraft rotor head, hub, gears, and tail
Futaba S9151 servos on a direct, equal-linkage eCCPM system
GY601/S9251
1700 Nicad RX battery/ no BEC
Raptor 90 Canopy and decals cut on my CNC machine
Flying Weight is 10 lbs, 6 ounces

I am a sport pilot who's prior ship was a custom design with a YS91 that evolved from a 99SE X-Cell. I can only compare against what I have flown before, but THIS THING BLOWS THE DOORS OFF ANY MACHINE I HAVE EVER FLOWN!!!! First hovering flights were 15 minutes with 20% left on the stated battery capacity. Pushing it hard tonight was like flying a missle and I easily got 2 six minute flights out of each battery pack. The motor never got above 150 degrees (F) and the speed control never crested 110.

Only 4 drawbacks to this machine so far:
1) Cost- The initial cost of big electrics is still more than glow.
2) Balance- I had to mount the RX battery pack in the nose of the canopy to get it perfect.
3) It still gets Dirty- No oil or nitro to attack my finish, but I still had to scrub off dead bugs and grass on the tail blades.
4) I'm not a recognized pilot- no one would give a crap if I tried to sell this as a coversion kit.

More pics in My Gallery. Thanks to those on RunRyder who answered my questions and provided info about their own projects!

-Steven Balder

Nice job. The time and attention to details is very evident in your work. Sounds like your haveing alot of fun,,,,as it should be!!!

QUICK! ,,,can someone turn the gravity off for just a second,,,,

I sure don't have the expertise that others can draw upon...however that ship is NICE...it's clean and functionally neat !! Congrats !! lots of time and effort very well spent in my opinion...thanks for sharing the info..
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Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.... Dennis

Very Very Nice! Whens the inflight pics? (and why you pic a rappy canopy? I like rappys and all but MAN there are some seriously mo' better canopys designs out there! )

"What the HELL was that?" Mayor of Hiroshima 6 Aug 1945.

Holy crap!!!

That is spec-frickin-tacular!! I don't care what anybody says. The more people like you that have the cojones to scratch build a bird, the faster and better our hobby will progress. I can't wait to see what you come up with this winter!(lol)

Now then, lets see a video...

Lou

"Never tell me the odds." -Han Solo

I just checked your gallery, may I call you... Master?

Lou

"Never tell me the odds." -Han Solo

that is something you dont' see everyday.

I am sure a lot of people would be interested in a kit.

It'd be a nice ship to have for sure.

THX1138

i'm with you all the way..sbalder is the master!!! AMAZING!!!!

Deadstick: Two of these can be found on a transmitter that has been inproperly charged.

just for the record....I'm not the narrowed minded RR guy, nothing negative here....awesome work!

"What the HELL was that?" Mayor of Hiroshima 6 Aug 1945.

Nice

Looks like you retrofitted a small machine to cnc then went on to design and machine a new heli design.

All lot of people think they could do this ....
All lot of people think this is a really cool thing to do ....

Very Very few would make it all the way to completion like you did with a nice result.

Anyone who says it's a small world never tried to walk to Zimbabwe.
Jerry

That is amazing!!!!
Nice workshop too...

Nice job, what software are you using on your retrofit mill?
Russ

Incredible !!!

I think I have the perfect name for sbalder. Let's just call him Mr. Incredible. This machine and the others in his gallery are absolutely amazing. I wish I had the talent, time, and equipment to pull off something like this.

Congrats on your custom machines and I would love to see your next project. Keep them coming.

Gary
FBL 700N
Outrage Velocity 50
Rotor Rage Fuel
SwitchGlo
Hot Girlz in da gallery

Lovely looking machine.
How well does it roll in its current form ?
Just wondering if you can't do something about the motor position; perhaps horizontal mount with bevel gears or move the servos and flip it over. That would allow you to lift the battery and raise the CG and possibly place a bearing right at the bottom of the main shaft.
What tail drive system are you using ?

Cool heli. great stuff.

Thanks everyone for the replies and feedback!

Rotorpsycho: The Raptor canopy has to be the best deal in the hobby- less than $25! My hope for next winter is to learn how to do fiberglass designs as I would like to build a canopy and tail fairing that would be really unique. For now, the plastic Rappy bubble looks pretty good (love that carbon-look windshield )

Slyons2: I purchased the fan at a local computer store and drop the voltage with six 1k resistors in parallel. I just had my Voyager-e plummet out of the sky when the control got hot and went into shut down. That won't happen here. I machined the frame braces on my CNC mill from 1/4" x 3" aluminum and then powdercoated them in fluorescent yellow.

THX1138: I don't have access to a camcorder (I try to avoid high-tech gadgets ), but I'll see if I can't work on getting a video together.

Awesomewiz: Software can kill the price of a CNC setup, but I have spent less than $60 in total for what I run my mill with. I design in Turbocad (free, but they talked me into the upgrade to V-10 for $50). The design is then converted to CNC in DeskKam. I verify my design with CNCSimulator (freeware). I bought an old (486) industrial panel pc that I have setup to run TurboCNC (freeware) exclusively. I transfer the files from one machine to another by floppy disk.

Adrian.Law and Guy Martin: I was concerned about the roll rate with the lower CG of the batteries. Both of you have offered good suggestions that I'll have to pencil. In truth, the roll rate is much faster than the previous iteration of this machine- about the same as an EVO 50 I had. I think I'm going to ask a few of the better 3-d pilots at our club to fly it and give me their opinions.

-Steven Balder

functionality with cost savings....a true hot rodder in your own right!
(BTW I'm green with envy at your shop man....mines organized chaos...but dont have the spare funds to spend on things that dont make my cars or heli's go faster.....someday....)

"What the HELL was that?" Mayor of Hiroshima 6 Aug 1945.

Sbalder, I like the nice clean looks of this. I'm wondering whether you have any problem with the gear on the top of the motor meshing with the drive gear. With the motor only held at the bottom by what looks like 4 screws it appears that with flex the motor gear and drive gear could be moving together and apart. As someone else pointed out, perhaps getting the motor inverted and some bracing closer to the pinion gear you'd avoid any potential for this. BUT, GREAT JOB!

Got Money? Send it to me, I'm a Heli Addict.

Steven,
Thanks for your information on your equipment. I've got a Dyna 4400 with a tool changer that the control stinks, I was thinking of switching it over to TurboCNC. I'll have to check those cad packages out, I usually program by hand or use the cad station at work (cause that's what I do all day now.) Did you use a dusk collector? It looks like the parts are carbon fiber which is nasty stuff to inhale. Just lookin out for ya. With your expertise and smarts we don't want you kickin the bucket soon.

Adrian.Law- Thanks again for the input. I had been thinking exclusively about roll rate, and not considered inverted stability. As for cyclic response and crispiness, I had to dial in 20% cyclic exponential where I had none on the prior machine. I think I migh experiment later with a design that would keep the motor and servos in their current positions, but mount the batteries in line with the motor on each side (similar to the Ion). I went with this box configuration because I figured it would take a hell of a crash to trash my batteries!

BC Don- The motor is supported on the bottom by 3 Actro rubber mounts. On top is an Actroshaft adaper (5mm) shimmed to 6 mm with a brass X-cell tail pitch slider. I then slipped an 11-tooth X-Cell pinion over it and cross-drilled and pinned the whole assembly together with a hardened 1/16" pin. This top part is slipped into 2 bearings and inserted into a standard X-cell clutch bearing block, with the top bearing holder machined down.

After seeing a report about the Ion Actro adapter shaft shearing, I wanted to make sure there was good support top and bottom and good alignment. The rubber mounts were used because they will naturally absorb some misalignment, and I wanted the top bearings to lock the 2 gears together at the right spacing. During assembly I bolted the bottom mounts in place and ran the motor at top speed without the mainshaft installed. I carefully adjusted the position of the top bearing until I felt absolutely no vibration, and then I locked the bolts down.

-Steven Balder

Steven,

Looks great! I wish I had the "free" resources to make something like that. I do know people with CNC-this and that, but it still costs me

What the total flight weight as it sits?

It looks like you could shave 2.5"-3" off the height of the frame by running the batteries along-side the motor. Then you could obviously make a bit longer radio tray up front to move the balance forward.

Also, to save some more weight in the future, try some almunium anodizing, the coating is a lot thinner then power coating. Eastwood Co. makes a home anodizing kit.

I'm in the process of hot rodding my Hyper 50 with some Polydynamics Coatings, porting and custom fan shroud Next I just need a turbo and some NOS and it'll be a Rat Fink of a monster

- Dan Goldstein - Team HobbyHut -