From: "raincityflyer" <lewis08@...>
Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: Durability and lightness
Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: Durability and lightness
I'm from the Little Nipper School of Lightness and we learned to use a 1/16 OD aluminum tube bent to a 90 at the control horns and servos.
To get the lengths correct, you cut the rod a little short, slide the bent ends over the rod ends and center your surfaces. Turn your radio on, set the center on your trim and wick a drop of thin CA in each rod end. It sets quickly and you're good to go. I'll try to post some photos for those not familiar with the process.
That said, I'd never use this set up in a 1.5M DLG as the energy is much higher. We're talking a 4 oz plane here, so there's much less mass coming to bear in a crash or botched landing.
Cheers!
Chris in Seattle
--- In BugHLG@yahoogroups.com, "kb11troy" <kb10troy@...> wrote:
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> --- In BugHLG@yahoogroups.com, "raincityflyer" <lewis08@> wrote:
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> > Durability is an interesting tradeoff. I once complained to the designer of the Little Nipper/Seeker/Swyft about things being fragile and not surviving my "landings".
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> > His response has served me well. Everything needs to be strong enough without being too heavy. And besides, eventually you stop crashing. My goal is 100% hand catch and that takes a lot of wear and tear off the airframe. I'll come back early rather than stay our there too long. Less walking that way too!
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> > FWIW - I've never broken a CF push rod in a crash. I've found that their flexibility has even saved a rudder or two when I've missed a pop-up hand catch and dropped the poor thing on its tail.
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> > There are lots of options and everyone has their own experience with them.
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> > Alan - I'll try to make some progress this weekend on the tail group and post some photos for you.
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> > Chris in Seattle
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> Quite right of course- my experience with it is anecdotal. The DLG guys in another forum I read (RCG Handlaunch)say that carbon push rods are the lightest pushrod alternative, but that they don't survive crashes nearly as well as wire pushrods.
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> I will say this in favor of wire pushrods- they don't require any fancy measures to terminate. Z-bend on the end at the servo and a simple L-bend with a piece of servo wire insulation as a keeper at the control horn end. :)
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> Rick
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