Bill Higgins' 2.3m Extra 330 Build Thread - Page 2
Well tonight's (20/11/04) progress seems slow from looking at the pictures, but was really big in the overall scheme of things. After looking over a bunch of the photos that I have from other peoples 2.3's I noticed that I had my engine mounted a little high up on the motor dome. This in turn was the issue that was causing my tuned pipe to rub up against the wing tube closer that anyone else's. After plugging and re-drilling the holes, the engine thrust line looks much better, and my clearance between the tuned pipe and the wing tube has all been resolved. I also got my ignition module, battery & regulator, and my throttle servo and linkage mounted and in place. (whew !!) Current weight is just a tad under 17lbs, and all I have to add are the wing servos and linkages, receiver & battery, rudder servo and switches, and fuel system. I should come in right around 19lbs without too much of a problem. Initial CG check tonight (before adding the throttle servo, showed me to be right at 110mm back from the leading edge at the tip. Anyway, here are some pics of tonight's work...
Here are the throttle servo mounting pictures, and a pic of her all put together
So I took it kind of easy today, and just laid out the foundation for my fuel tank mount and the Rudder servo mount. Since I have to wait for the BVM Heat Shield stuff to come in so I can protect the bottom of the wing tube, I cant really glue anything into place yet. Plus I'm waiting on an aluminium servo wheel to replace the nylon wheel that is currently in my Rudder Arm.
Well, not much to report on tonight in the way of progress. My Liquid Ceramic Heat Shield from BVM Jets arrived today, so I spent most of the evening coating the bottom of the wing tube, and a couple of other areas that I thought might be suspect to heat from the pipe. In-between coats I started working on the aileron mounts for the wings. No need for pictures tonight, but hopefully tomorrow night, I'll be able to get the pipe mounted, along with the the tank, and rudder servo mount setup. I'll shoot more photo's then.
Tonight I started mounting things
for good !!!
After my BVM Heat
shield dried, I mounted the Pipe and the Tank and Rudder Tray's. As you can see
from some of the pics, now that I have moved the thrust line to where it's
suppoed to be, I no longer have much of a problem with the pipe clearing the
wing tube. This in conjunction with the Heat shield, should give me a little
more assurance that I don't fry my carbon fibre wing tube !!!
I also built a
little carbon box around the bottom of the rudder servo and coated it with heat
shield as well. This should keep it good and protected !!
I started tonight off by checking
over my thrust lines (1 degree of up thrust and 2.5 degrees right thrust). Then
I started the task of adding some vent holes to the bottom of the fuse beneath
the tuned pipe. The design was drawn up in CAD after I took some measurements
from the bottom of the fuse. Once it was printed out to scale, I simply overlaid
the stencil over the area that I wanted to vent, and used a sharpie marker to
draw where the vent holes would be placed. Then I just used an Exacto knife to
cut out the marks on the fuse. Also, my Uni-Hub's arrived today from Airwild
hobbies and, fortunately, they fit the version of the 8611 spline that I have !!
After
a small break I got back to work tonight on the Extra. I rigged and setup the
Pull Pull system and have test fit everything. (You'll see and 8411 in the
picture for a rudder servo, but it will actually be an 8611)
I didn't use the stock setup that CA gives you, because of my use of the
Surelink Bell crank/Servo Arm. I went with the Nelson braided brass cable setup
and retainers (same as I use on my Carden Extras) because they integrate well
with the Rocket City stuff on the Servo side, as well as with the Dubro Clevis
that I used on the Rudder side. The Nelson retainers go into a 4/40 bolt and the
Clevises that come with the CA are metric, and would strip right out. I just
swapped out for some Dubro Heavy Duty 4/40 Brass Clevises and was done with it.
Tonight I worked on Installing the
Tank and plumbing, and some of the electronics.
For the tank, I went with the Dubro 24oz tank, and a 3 line plumbing system. A
lot of folks go with 2 lines and a "T", but I prefer 3 separate lines. 1st line
goes directly from the clunk to the carb on the engine. The 2nd line feeds to
the very front bottom of the tank, and is used as a "Fill/Drain" line, and the
3rd line is my "overflow/vent" line that goes from the very top of the tank, to
an overflow outlet on the bottom of the aircraft.
