Dixie
Senior Heliman
Location: Somerset, England
| I have nearly finished my nice new Pro 60, all going to plan. The instruction manual is very good, not much description, but lots of photo's, a raw novice may find it a bit daunting but anyone with a few machines under their belt should not find any problems. I have however found a few minor errors in the instructions.
The Wash out unit is supplied complete, leaving only the balls to be fitted, this is shown in step 2 "Build&install Washout unit", the photo directly below this shows a finished unit with balls fitted, but in a differant orintation???? further on in the instructions also show the washout to be this way, yet the wash out base that goes over the mast has the machined collar facing upwards in all diagrams/photos as it can only go this way so as to stop the arms hitting the bottom of the head block. The only way around it is to install the unit as per the first photo and as supplied. This creates a problem, when the long plastic ball links are installed onto the long push rod (likage no I x 80mm long) and then put on the swash plate and fixed to the Hillier arm, the ball link fouls the cap head bolt that connects the mixer arms to the wash out base, this only happens at large cyclic values. The solution is to replace one of the long ball links with a short item, or put longer pivot balls onto the inner swash plate ring. This will have the disadvantage of upsetting the mixing ratio to the Hillier arm.
The other problem found was with linkage K x 15mm long which is the multiplier arm to the Seasaw. The instructions tell you to use a medium length and a short length ball link together to make a push rod 25.25mm long centre to centre, this is impossible if you want the arm to be level at 0 deg. The solution is to use 2 x short ball links with an overall length of 34.2mm end to end not cen to cen. This will now allow the arm to be level at 0 Deg.
One other but minor problem is the Bell Cranks for the CCPM. When these are bolted to the nice Blue Anodised stand-offs and tightened up onto the helicopter the 3mm cap head bolt compresses the flanged bearing and pre loads it making it very stiff and "notchy". The only solution is to use libral amounts of Green Lock-tight and only just pinch up the bolts onto the bell cranks, this should be strong enough to hold all loads from the swash plate and not allow the cranks to wobble about. Not really a major issue.
This is only a list of minor problems and does not detract from the machine, which is probably for the more experienced Helicopter modeller and would be easily resolved by someone with this experience. Add to this the price of the Heli and I still think it is the best value machine out there. :
Dixie |
