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MTA Hobbies . Model Rectifier Corp . 3D Heli Depot

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Main Discussion > Illustrated step by step instructions to make the circular travel limiter ring
 
 
AugustorrAdvertiser - Location: San Diego, CA -

I've been asked this question many many times by e-mails and at the fun flys. Since I was making one for one of my flying buddies I decided I was going to document the process and post it here so I can direct people to this post when they ask.

If you don't know what this is it's a circular travel limiter installed in the transmitter to prevent the stick going into the corners allowing the swashplate to have the same max cyclic angle all around the travel. It was invented by Curtis Youngblood and he's using a similar custom made one in his 10X radio. You can find more info in this thread.




This is the Raptor 30 part you need. It's the belt pulley that goes underneath the main gear.

Part number AK0032


Here it's shown out of the bag on top of the self-sticking black vinyl that will be later used

to cover it.


A fine Sharpie is used to mark the line so that's easy to see when using the scroll saw.
The outside diameter is determined by the radio's gimbal diameter. In this case this is for a

Futaba 9C and the OD is 47mm which happens to be the same as the bevel corner.



A scroll saw is used to rough-cut the ring from the belt gear.



Here's the ring rough as it comes out of the saw.




320 sanding paper is used to sand the roughness off and 800 sanding paper is used to smooth the edge.


This is after 800 paper.



Notice the other side doesn't have the bevel and can be used to cover it with the vinyl.


An X-Acto blade is used to trim the Vinyl.


After trimmed apply pressure on the edges against the table to make the vinyl edges conform to

the ring's edge.


A thick Sharpie is used to paint the edges black



Leave the bottom and bevel unpainted. It will be covered with doble-sided thin foam tape anyway.


This is the thin black double-sided foam tape I use.


Apply on the ring and trim the excess with an X-Acto blade. Pay attention to the edge of the foam not the white protecting plastic. The foam is the one that needs to be smooth.


Later on I'll post pictures of the installation on the radio.

Augusto.

09-09-2002 Over year old.
 
 
AugustorrAdvertiser - Location: San Diego, CA -

Here is the rest of the pictures:



The double sided tape without the protecting tape.


Futaba 9C Gimbal


Notice the replacement of the lower cone with a 3mm nut.

Additional pictures of the installed ring:








Augusto.
09-09-2002 Over year old.
 
 
JasonF
Senior Heliman
Location: Northern VA

Thanks for the detailed writeup. I think this is a very worthwhile mod, now there is no need to worry about binding links when trying that new twirly swizzlestick freefall you have been practicing on the sim
09-09-2002 Over year old.
 
 
slant911
Veteran
Location: Las Vegas, NV. Hirobo, Magnum Fuels, MAH

I'm pretty sure you answered this before, but, I could not remember the answer:

Do you still get full stick travel in pure elevator or aileron movement?


John B. McNamara
09-10-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
AugustorrAdvertiser - Location: San Diego, CA -
Jason,

Now what the h#$% kind of maneuver is a "twirly swizzlestick freefall"??? hehehe


Slant,

Yes you do.
As a matter of fact you need to make sure you use as many layers or thickness of foam tape as you need so that you get the circle at the exact height where it matches the pure elevator and aileron travel.

The more layers of foam or just the thicker foam you use the closer to the stick tip the circle will be and the more travel-limiting the circle becomes. Finding the right foam thickness wil make the circle match the max travel at both elevator and aileron. The ones at the corners are then automatically matched by the addition of both partial aileron and elevator inputs. After you find that spot any small discrepancies can always be corrected with ATV settings.

See the illustration below (exagerated to make it more clear).[break]




Augusto
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
beast
Veteran
Location: Laurel MD

why the replacement of the lower cone with the 3mm nut?

.Beresford
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Malorie
Elite Veteran
Location: Paw squared, MI

You replace the tapered piece with a nut because the extra diameter causes you to not be able to get full throw at pure ail, or elevator.

I guess I was more creative. I measured and cut one out of G-10 from an old broken frame. They do work great, I'm glad all you guys with to much time are around. Who would invent all this stuff otherwise?

You know the other option would be to put a large diameter round nut on the stick and forget the ring altogether.


Life's a journey, NOT a destination.
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
TBoone
Senior Heliman
Location: Arkansas

Measurements

Augusto,

Do you know the outside and insude diameters of the ring? I'm thinking of turning one of these out of a piece of delrin.

Thanks.

Tim
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
davehour
Key Veteran
Location: Guayama, Puerto Rico

Thanks Augusto. Your da man!

Impressive idea. I was always complaining myself everytime I had to limit the ATV's to prevent binding at the corners of the cyclic stick.
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Malorie
Elite Veteran
Location: Paw squared, MI

I'm trying to remember the diameters I used. I think they were 1.918" outside and .918" inside. I'm just working from memory so don't shoot me if it's off. The thing I remember for sure is it is 1/2" from outside to inside.

Incidentally, my boyfreind and I came up with this before I heard of the Raptor gear thing. Funny how some ideas are born the same time in different places.

Malorie

Life's a journey, NOT a destination.
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
ed vega
Key Veteran
Location: nyc, queens

coleopter hi, what you illustrated is a fine add item, for those who need a harness. what I don't see , addressed is how the systems interpret the original rectangular throw base stick with forced circular only movements at less than end point inputs - for futaba it looks less than 100%. then lets look at what curtis does to his modified radios. do you know or have an idea what curtis has incorporated into his radio?, besides adding a ring?. Is adapting a addon ring the whole picture to offset and smooth out the mixing inputs. What is curtis actually doing, or trying to determine? hopefully you'll get some feedback from him with other interesting item improvements . good work
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Augusto
rrAdvertiser
Location: San Diego, CA

Quote 
beast posted:
why the replacement of the lower cone with the 3mm nut?

Like Malorie correctly (as usual) explained it's replacing a tapered cone at the bottom of the stick. You can use the cone if you make the inner hole diameter larger though. The idea here is that the raptor part has a hole already in place and the outside diameter is pretty much the one that comes from cutting along the edge of the bevel so it's pretty easy to make.

Quote 
Malorie posted:
You know the other option would be to put a large diameter round nut on the stick and forget the ring altogether.

Your brain must be overheating after that one. It's so simple and elegant I feel dumb that I didn't think about it myself before. Not only it's easier but if you use some kind of adjustable height you can pretty much decide how much travel you'll use. I'm going to try that one. I can almost see people already telling me that on top of being such a "hot" pilot I'm now becoming "weird" for putting "skirts" on my sticks hehehe.


Quote 
TBoone posted:
Do you know the outside and insude diameters of the ring? I'm thinking of turning one of these out of a piece of delrin.

Outside diameter is 47mm. inside is 25mm. Don't forget that the thickness of the part matters as explained in the last part of the original post.

Quote 
davehour posted:
Impressive idea.

Yup I agree. I don't know if we need to thank Curtis or his dad for it. They are both very creative guys.

Quote 
Malorie posted:
Incidentally, my boyfreind and I came up with this before I heard of the Raptor gear thing. Funny how some ideas are born the same time in different places.

Had you filed a patent disclosure at the time you could have made some money out of it so I guess it's your turn to feel dumb hehehe

Quote 
rap30 posted:
will the 9Z mod also work well (diameter wise) if i cut it next to the bevel on the R30 red gear? you said it fits perfect on a 9C but how about 9Z?


In the 9Z I used a smaller diameter. The diameter I used was 44.5mm. The reason for this is that in the 9Z the stick is not perpendicular like in the 9C.
The 9Z is more "ergonomically" designed. The stick is slanted to the right and the gimbal itself is rotated in an angle that follows more the natural thumb rotation around its joint. As a result this forces you to move the center of the ring to the right and a 47mm disc would not allow you to go right enough to have the stick's resting position coincide with the ring's center.


Quote 
ed vega posted:
what you illustrated is a fine add item, for those who need a harness. what I don't see , addressed is how the systems interpret the original rectangular throw base stick with forced circular only movements at less than end point inputs - for futaba it looks less than 100%


Ed, I honestly don't think Curtis needs a harness. I think he had the right idea and what he's doing with it makes all the sense in the world and this is why:

What we need to remember is that a helicopter doesn't really have an elevator and an aileron it has a swashplate that could care less which way it is pointing to. A helicopter is a machine that can move in ANY direction. The swashplate's full right and left and full fore and aft position are just four positions of the 360 degrees of infinite positions you can have a swashplate at.

Once you realize that's the way a swashplate is supposed to move then you see the error of having corner movements that take the swashplate away from the max angle you decided it will have in ANY direction.

Curtis idea addresses this issue and forces the movement of the swashplate to be at the correct max angle in any direction you move the stick to.

When you move the sticks to a corner in a radio that has this ring installed the resulting angle of the swashplate is the same as in either full left or full forward therefore as far as the part that matter which is the swashplate it IS 100% travel in ALL directions without the unnatural swashplate angle movement resulting from stick cornering.

Not only this solves the problem addressed above but it also more importantly and this addresses the second part of your question it allows you to take the swashplate's ATV to whatever percentage you really wanted to begin with and not be concerned anymore to having to limit it by the binding on the corners. This in turn allows you to use a smaller servo arm which increases the effective torque and the fact that you can use 100% ATV increases the resolution of the servo since you are using the max 1024 positions instead of a subset of that.



Augusto

Avant Aurora Ultimate
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Steve Campbell
Elite Veteran
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Augusto,

Nice work; you put a lot of effort into that.

Question; This is something Curtis came up with? I realize other radios do not have the feature, but cannot this be accomplished by the AFR function on the 9Z?

Steve
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Augusto
rrAdvertiser
Location: San Diego, CA

Steve,

The AFR function will limit the travel to the max angle at the corners but the problem with that is that what you want instead is to have the same max angle at a the same stick deflection from center in all directions.

You are absolutely right by assuming that using the AFR function solves the binding at the corners problem but you have to keep in mind that it does it only at the expense of stick movements not being linear when they approach any of the corner angles.

Augusto.

Avant Aurora Ultimate
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
Steve Campbell
Elite Veteran
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Got it; I figured there was more to it than what I saw at first glance.

Very interesting premise... every time I think I've got a firm grip on these critters, something like this comes along and reminds me otherwise...

Steve
09-10-2002 Over year old.
 
 
eric_b
Key Veteran
Location: Denver, CO, USA

Good Idea!

I thought this was a really good idea. I used the red Raptor belt pulley also, and attached it to the gimbal with 2 screws. I haven't flown with it yet, but I think it will be a big improvement! Here is how mine turned out:





Maybe I should paint it black so I don't have to answer a million "What's the red thing for?" questions.

And yes, I did drill two holes in my radio! I guess I'm committed to the idea now!
09-28-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
Jayman
Senior Heliman
Location: Minneapolis, MN

Travel limiter made simple for 9C/8U/6XA Owners

Simple for some...

I saw my first travel limiter on Scott Cathey's radio in August. I figured I better try one since the idea made sense. I was poking around my shop and found that the servo wheels used on the Fury (largest futaba wheels) can be made into a ring very easily. I also noticed there is a recess on the Futaba 9C, 8U and 6XA radios where a ring can nestle into. It just so happens the outer diameter of the Futaba wheel is very very close to this recess diameter. Just sand the outside of the wheel a little bit and it will press in place. The hole in the center of the wheel can be cut with dremel and the circles molded into the wheel give you an excellent guide. Also the numbers and lines on the servo wheels make it look like its supposed to be there (very trick!). I have been flying with mine only held in by the press fit for almost two months. No need to glue and or screw.

Jayman
09-29-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
Jetchris
Senior Heliman
Location: Rota, Spain

ColeopTer

i always look forward to reading your post's but i wish i had dsl so that i dont have to wait along time to upload. keep'em comming though

WITH OUT TRUX U DON'T IT HAVE NOR THE BATTERIES TO POWER IT
09-29-2002 Over year old.
 
 
jford
Heliman
Location: Superior, WI

Something else I`ve thought would be handy is a slight "bump" on the collective stick at 0 degrees (center stick) to aid in getting the feel for passing into negative pitch.

Anyone done something similar?

Jon
09-29-2002 Over year old.
 
 
eric_b
Key Veteran
Location: Denver, CO, USA

Hey Jon

Some have used a spring centered throttle stick to indicate the zero pitch position. Look at some of the posts in:

http://runryder.com/showtopic.htm?s=&topicid=6267
09-29-2002 Over year old.
HOMEPAGE  
 
 
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Main Discussion > Illustrated step by step instructions to make the circular travel limiter ring
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