RC-TEK Sky Shark/Diablo thread

[Scott_RC-TEK]

Where is the Diablo made? Taiwan, China, Korea.....?
Designed in the USA, UK, and Germany - Manufactured and partially assemblied in Taiwan and mainland China - Final assembly, quality assurance, and packaging in the USA.

Regards,
Scott

[strat1960s]

I think it would be neat to tour the plants, see their processes and so forth.

Ted

[HeliSmith]

I recently found a problem on my setup and wanted to give you guys a heads up. The flybar pivot has two bearings pressed in which the mount screws run through. They are secured with Phillips head screws and they have a little brace spacer. This is the pivot assemble for the flybar. (See attached photo)

Tonight on the preflight before I take it to the field tomorrow I noticed the bearing wasn't seated, it was cocked. I disassembled the entire upper head section to get a c-clamp on it. Inspection of the threads showed the first few threads are not stripped but don't look great. I am attempting to solve this problem by cleaning them and applying RED loctite. This will mean I will have to use heat to get them out.

This information is provided so you may be aware of this. This probably happened upon impact. I obviously missed it, it was only very slightly cocked. I am not telling you to use red loctite by the way.

[HeliSmith]

So are you guys flying your helis? Mine flies great! Too bad it's raining this weekend.

[chinookmark]

No ... :( Between wind, weather, hectic work schedule, and my son, I haven't had the time to fly.

[hobbystuff]

Got my SkyShark all assembled and ready for maiden, troubleshooting some vibration in the tail. When spooling it up, there is a point on the throttle that the horizontal tail starts to vibrate (actually it buzzes). If you pass through this throttle setting, however, it goes away.

I have been through everything and tested it with components removed, there just seems to be some kind of natural frequency in the components that matches the horizontal tail. You can see when it happens because the whole helicopter vibrates (buzzes) on its skids, then it disappears as you keep increasing throttle.

I'm out of ideas, almost want to change the natural frequency of the horizontal tail to get it out of that particular frequency range. I am also wondering if the carbon boom may be the problem. All my other helis are aluminum, and don't have this issue.

Well, I will try again tomorrow after work.

[strat1960s]

I've been able to fly a few lipo packs a week. I've been spending most of my time building up my confidence flying in wind on my sim. I do alright in 5 to 10 mph winds. There's a big difference between flying a sim and flying the real thing. If I crash on the sim I push a button and I'm up and flying again. If I crash the real thing, I'm down for a week or more.
I've not been flying as much as I did in the past. Too many things to do and not enough hours in the day to do them.
Such as life.

Hope everyone else is able to get their birds in the air.

Ted

[strat1960s]

Helismith,

I saw your post about the tail housing and the tail control fork. Which ones did you go with and how did they do? Did you need to make any modifications to get them to fit? If you recall, I've been working on a list of replacement parts and parts that can be substituted made by Align and other manufactures. If the parts worked out, I'll add them to the list of what I already have.
Thanks,
Ted

[HeliSmith]

Scott said they won't work as a drop in replacement. The case is a little different. I decided instead to just go ahead and pre-order a few replacement parts.

The problem is matching the quality of the Sky Shark tail. Align doesn't cut it but if I have to I will just move over to the Align grey tail. I really wouldn't mind seeing a plastic version of tne pitch forks sold 3 per bag like main gears.

[strat1960s]

My first priority is to send my business and money to RC-Tek. But if they don't have a part that I need I'd like to be able to order parts from another manufacture to at least get me up and running.
To bad those tail parts didn't work out.
Ted

[HeliSmith]

Yeah that actually would have been neat. Man you caught my post quick too I deleted it within two minutes. :P

[TheBum]

I've been able to fly a few lipo packs a week. I've been spending most of my time building up my confidence flying in wind on my sim. I do alright in 5 to 10 mph winds. There's a big difference between flying a sim and flying the real thing. If I crash on the sim I push a button and I'm up and flying again. If I crash the real thing, I'm down for a week or more.
I've not been flying as much as I did in the past. Too many things to do and not enough hours in the day to do them.
Such as life.

Hope everyone else is able to get their birds in the air.

I know what you mean. The last time I flew my Diablo, the winds weren't too bad when I left my house but by the time I got to the field, they were blowing 15-20 mph. I decided to try it anyway, flew for about two minutes, and then went home. Of course, the scare I had from inadvertently having my gain switch in the Rate mode position didn't help any. The heli almost took my head off before I realized what was wrong, gained altitude, and flipped the switch to HH mode.

[hobbystuff]

Well, I finally got the tail vibration in my SkyShark down to an acceptable level, but not gone completely. It still vibrates slightly at about %65 throttle, then goes away as throttle is increased.

Was flying it today, and it is a bit of a beast compared to my other helicopters, lots of power and headspeed!

The only issue I ran into was that the canopy popped off in hover, scared the pants off me. On closer examination, I can see why that happened. With HS-65MG servos on the swash, the upper/outer corner of the servo cases actually touch the canopy, causing it to push out the sides. This results in the grommets eventually popping off and bye-bye canopy. Had it happen while running the helicopter up at zero pitch as well, just eventually popped off.

Anyone had this trouble with the HS-65MG servos installed? I may have to cut some small clearance holes in the canopy (ack!!) to get it to stay on.

[HeliSmith]

My Trex used to vibrate at low throttle when I had the tail blades too tight. Check that.... I run the RC-TEK digital metal gear servos and havne't had a problem even with my flight canopy which doesn't have gromets just smaller holes. Did you trim your horns down? Not funny man you do realize what happens if that canopy hits the blades yeah?

I do run my 450 helis in 15 to 20 mph winds. The higher the wind you may have to point the nose into the wind with a little forward speed and cut the throttle at about 2 or 3 feet to land safely. Don't frag your headspeed but that's difficult at the height especially into the wind.

[hobbystuff]

My Trex used to vibrate at low throttle when I had the tail blades too tight. Check that.... I run the RC-TEK digital metal gear servos and havne't had a problem even with my flight canopy which doesn't have gromets just smaller holes. Did you trim your horns down? Not funny man you do realize what happens if that canopy hits the blades yeah?



My tail blades are pretty loose, the vibration occurs on spool up just about %45 throttle or so.

I did trim the servo horns down, they do not hit the canopy, but the backside of the servo case does.


Yah, I've seen the canopy through the rotors thing...nothing nice about that at all!

[HeliSmith]

I am not sure mine doesn't vibrate at 45% throttle since my pitch curve is 0, 40, 100, 100, 100 and 100 flat in idle up...:wow2:

[strat1960s]

You may have a slightly bent tail shaft. You could put a dot of white-out on the end of the shaft on the tail blade side. When you get to that particular rpm whatch the dot to see if it oscillates. That would indicate a bent shaft or worn bearings. (just my 2 cents)

Hope you figure it out soon.

Ted

[atomicplatypus]

I’m thinking of grabbing a Diablo this summer but I’m curious if you Diablo owners have removed your idler pulley? My TREX 450 runs much better without it -- is the same true for the Diablo? It looks like the Diablo’s pulley has a lip to keep the belt in place – does the lip help?

[HeliSmith]

I removed it day one from the experience with my Trex. No adverse effect and thus one less item of drag. Belt is holding out well too even though I planted the tail nicely. S shaped the tail shaft I did.

[hobbystuff]

I am running without the idler pulley in my SkyShark as well, no problems so far but then I only have 6 flights on it.

[TheBum]

Same here: no problems. I took it off my Diablo before I even maidened.

[strat1960s]

If I recall, Finless Bob has a video on setting up the tail/housing and he explains the benefits of removing the idler pulley.

Ted

[HeliSmith]

Tomorrow looks good for flying here. Sunday is a no go so I plan to make a day of it tomorrow. Sky Shark is flying great I have the Trex ready too. Haven't flown since last Sunday I am going to have to start flying during lunch until summer.

I hope you guys are hookin it up tomorrow!

[strat1960s]

I'll be out there tomorrow morning and probably Sunday morning as well. I have a ton of studying to knock out this weekend. I just spent the last 5 hours typing up notes. I have one more set of notes that I'll knock out tomorrow and then Sunday I need to study for a test.
I do think I may bring my heli to school during lunch and fly in the parking lot if the wind isn't too strong.
To everyone that's not power craming for school, I do hope you get out and fly a little this weekend. (even if you are cramming for a test, take a break and fly a little):thumbup:

Take care and have a great weekend everyone!

Ted

[hobbystuff]

Ok, finally got my SkyShark all together and flying, fixed the canopy popping off problem. Had to cut two small "clearance" holes in the canopy to allow it to clear the HS65 servos.

If I had been creative I would have continued to cut "shark gills" along there, but alas I don't have the drive to do it.

It flies well, took a bit to get setup nicely but now I am loving it. Here are some pictures.....