RCHeliJim
Key Veteran
Location: Orem, UT USA
| An update, finally.
I have been flying the Evo mechanics a bit, tracked down and fixed some vibe issues (thanks Mike), and plan on giving the mechanics two more weekends of flying before I begin putting them in the fuse. Here are some pics of the mechanics as they sit now:
 
This pic is of my "work stand" for putting in the retract servos, etc. Works quite well 
Here is a pic of the front retract, which is now done
These last pics are showing the front reract setup. It took quite a while to get things right under there. Only use a couple of screws to put the retract unit in at first as you will probably be removing it a few times before you are done. I used the last hole on the Hitec servo arm that came with my HS225 servos. My endpoints in my DX7 are about 138 and 135. In order to get the servo to stop buzzing when in the fully down position, I did two things: First, you can see in one of the pis that I slightly bent the L arm towards the servo a few degrees, just enough to keep it from binding in the control arm slot.
Second, and most important - the geometry on the front retract setup is horrible. To counteract some of that, I screwed the L arm into the retract about 6 whole turns to bring it closer so the control arm isnt going almost parallel to get it to lock (which binds up the servo and causes the buzz). Now, doing this makes it so the retract will not go all the way up, so I opened the retract up and cut off the excess rod that was now sticking out the back of the cam. This allows the retract to operate perfectly again and have a slightly shorter L arm. (unfortunately I did not get a pic of this before putting it in). Now the L arm is better aligned with the control arm in the fully down position and I can get it to fully lock up and down without getting a constant servo buzz. If I were to do it again, I would even take the L arm in 2 more turns to get it a little better oriented, but its working great now, so I will leave it (If I do change it, I will take more pics). I hope to get the two rear setups done tonight now that I have learned a bit with the front one BTW - the JOMAR go slow works great!
  
All in all, I am having a great time so far and find fitting the retracts to be an enjoyable challenge. One more tip learned from these forums: Open all the retracts up and cut off any flashing on the internals. I also added a little silicon grease inside on the cam to help smoothen its movement.
Go Fly, Have Fun!!
-Team Quick UK
-Team RCHeliMag |
