Trex 700 AP ship

[d-bledsoe]

Greetings all. After a few weeks of development i thought i'd share my latest creation. I do a lot of AP on my trex 600 and while it never let me down i always felt i was right at the max that the heli could handle. Thats when i started developement of the trex 700.

The first phase of the design was my new side frames which i posted earlier. the new frames allowed me to mount the motor above the main gear allowing more battery space. The next phase of my desgin was to stretch the boom and run 700 mains.

Currently the power system im using is actually the stock align motor and flight power evo 3700 mah, and align 4200 mah 6s packs. She hovers at 33amps and i had a 6 minutes hover/ easy flight on the evo, and 5 on the align.

I am debating on weather i want to stick with this motor and run 2 packs in parrell, or get the new Z-Power Z50A-800 Outrunner and run 2 packs in series for a 12s 3700 mah or 12s 4200 mah. Right now im leaning towards the getting a new motor. while this setup proved to me it can be done i think im still pushing the limits of my packs and the algin motor. Maybe others can chime in here. if i go 12s i will be drawing less amps for the same amount of work which resualts in longer flight times and less straigned packs. if i stick with the stock motor and run 2 packs in parrell that will get me longer flight times as well but the packs would be working much harder.

Below is the resualt of 3 weeks worth of work, trial and error, and many late nights. I have attached images and a link to the flight hover. the trex as you can see is sitting next to a joker 2(90 size heli)

http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplanes/trex700/picture003.jpg
http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplanes/trex700/picture007.jpg
http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplanes/trex700/picture008.jpg

[Tonystott]

Way to go! That looks like a great AP platform!

[AZ ChopperCam]

what's your all up weight RTF with camera gear, downlink, etc?

[d-bledsoe]

Thanks guys. heres the first hover on the new bird: http://www.derekbledsoe.net/airplanes/trex700/trex700.mov

N74DV: Im not sure what my AUW is i never wieghted it. On my old setup (stock 600) with a front mount holding a sony r1 i would guess it was around 10lbs. i opted for front mount to save the extra wieght from an underslung mount.

with the new setup i really didn't add much extra wieght. maybe 6 ounces tops for the conversion to 700's.

I have to say she is rock solid. almost as smooth and silky as the joker 2 she's sitting next too.

Im also still on the fence about what im goint to do for power. Currently she is running the stock algin motor, a cc110HV esc and either a 6s1p flight power 3700 or an algin 6s2p 4400 pack. Now the question is do i just double up 2 packs in parrell and keep the same motor, or do i double up packs in series with a new motor.

the later would put less stress on the packs. currently i can fly til she wont hold a hover right at 7 minutes, so i dial back to 5:30minutes. on 2 packs in parrell i could go for atleast 10 minutes. I would assume if i went to a different motor and 12s with 4400 mah packs i could achieve about the same time. maybe longer because the packs are working less?

please any input would be great on this

-derek

[bullaculla]

Any updates on your stretched trex? I'm really interested in stretching mine once I get my mount. I have a few evo4900 packs I plan on running 2 in parallel. Hopefull i can get longer flight times. Where can I get a boom that will work with the torque tube upgrade?

[d-bledsoe]

Well after the 8th flight on my stretched 700 i smoked the z50a600 motor on spool up. Gray at tppacks was great and got me a new one ASAP. Since then i have have been working on testing new camera mounts trying to get the vibs all out of the system for video work and trying to get a few other buisness related things done.

I am flying the 700 on 12s 3700 evos and not loaded up(with cam gear) i get 17 minutes of hovering and FF. With the cam gear i have my timer set to 14 minutes.

Im not sure how many cells you have but since you have a 600 i assume they are 6s. if that is the case i can not recommend running the heli stretched on 6s even in a 2p config. i tried that for 1 flight it worked, but it would not hold up with the camera and mount strapped on. i woud do what i did and run them in series for 12s. with the 4900's you should beable to see 17-18minute flight times of easy hovering.

The boom is a modified raptor 90 boom. modified because the rap 90 boom's diameter is larger then the align boom. How i modded it was i took an align boom, cut it in half and shimmed and epoxied it into the rap 90 boom, this way all the align bits still aline.

I have been using a belt i ordered off of mcmaster.com. to use this belt i had to mod the gears the belt rids on a bit(widen them) My next upgrade is the torque tube. That route will be much easier to produce and i feel i will have a greater sence of security because i can buy a real long carbon rod and cut it to size, with no modding of any gears or pullies.

So far my modds are holding up really well and i have not noticed any stresses or weakening of any joints or mechs.

i will take some pics tonight showing my new camera setup.

-Derek

[bullaculla]

Yeah, i'm still trying to decide what kind of motor i'll need. but like you said, since i have the 6s packs, i might as well go 12s. What kind of HS would i need with the 700 blades?

[d-bledsoe]

Well its been a while since i have posted an update and i figured today would be a good time.

A lot has changed since my last post with my trex700. I now have quite a few flights on the setup and everything is still holding together just fine.

Last week i purchased the align torque tub upgrade kit because i was always a little worried about the belt holding up with the pinion mods i did. Anyways I figured it was time to install the upgrade. I was expecting it to take a day or two and a few hacks to get to right length TT.

When i opend the TT i noticed that it looked similar to my Raptor 90's TT. I got to thinking and decided to dig out my old raptor 60 TT to compaire. Well i be darn'd the torque tubs were nearly identical in every way except for the length. So all i had to do to install the upgrade was messure the correct length for the raptor 60 boom and cut it to fit.

It took litterally all of 40 minutes to do.

My current setup is as follows
Trex600 modified to fit mah 710 mains
Align TT upgrade modified to fit in a cut down raptor 60 boom.
zpower50a-600 motor
12s flight power 3700 mah packs
Spartan AP2000i

I now just got back from my first flight with not only the TT upgrade but also i have installed a AP2000i and everything worked flawlessly.

Here are some pics
http://derekbledsoe.net/airplanes/trex700/SD530035.jpg
http://derekbledsoe.net/airplanes/trex700/SD530036.jpg
http://derekbledsoe.net/airplanes/trex700/SD530037.jpg

I will get some video this weekend
-Derek

[MarkWebber]

Sweet :D

[d-bledsoe]

Thanks.
Aside from the new Ap2000i being a huge pain in the ass to setup with my backup radio 7chp, the process was easy and flys real nice

-Derek