Carbon shafts on retracts (450 Airwolf)

[leonmike]

Guys any of you 450 Airwolf builders encounter before this problem ? The 3 carbon shafts on the 450 Airwolf retracts are really lousy in design. How can you lock screws tightly onto a carbon shaft ? The screws just bit into the carbon material. Firstly it won't be tight lock and secondly when i tried removing the shafts out it got stuck due to the fray carbon fibres caused by the screws.
To set this problem, i decided to replace all 3 shafts with stainless steel ones to be cut out from a T500 flybar. I have checked the shaft diameter, it's exactly 3mm, prefect fit. Will post a pic of it when finished. Hope this settle the crap problem.

[Poolcrack]

The only thing that really works is indeed replace the carbon rods to a metal one.

I had the same problem. The airwolf ive made was to heavy and the wolf was starting to come down by itself on his belly on the ground / table.

If you really want to locking th rods on the retracts with a screw here is the sollution:

Make a little "gab" in the (metal)rod (with a file) so that the screw is pressing the rod tightly that no movement is further possible for the rod.

or drill a little hole in the rod just enough to screw the screw in
Poolcrack

[leonmike]

I have replace the hopeless carbon shafts with 3 nos stainless steel ones. Now the screws are all tight fitted to the cnc retract gear from smartmodel. In fact smartmodel should have included these stainless steel shafts with their cnc retracts as it is more of a necessity. See pics...

[BlackTitanium]

That's a really great idea! :thumbup:

Now that my TREX 500 is flybarless, I now know what to do with that flybar in my parts bin!