custom Ion Single Stage motor mount install thread

[Darren S]

ok here we go,

after breaking the Mini Air motor adapter for the Actro 32-3, several times, i decided enough is enough and began looking at alternatives. i stumbled upon a local machinist in Calgary, Canada who not only hooked me up with a motor mount, but gave me lots of information on why the original piece kept breaking. we spent hours together and i was so excited about the final result that i had to share it with other Ion-X fans who have had the same problem.

The piece (MA 124-110) would break after about 100-150 flights and usually under a high G manouever like a tic-toc. luckily i have been able to land safely but it surely makes the adrenaline pump.

the problems with the MA part were as follows:

1. the CF plate that the motor mounts to is way too flexible. under torque the motor moves too much
2. the shaft has a flat spot ground into it for the setscrew to hold and this weakens the shaft significantly
3. the set screws that tighten onto the shaft are at 90 degrees not 180 degrees and this puts uneven pressure on the shaft forcing it out off alignment

these factors plus many 3D flights cause the piece to fail at the same point time and time again

here are some pictures.

#1 original MA 124-110 part
#2 several broken and worn out 124-110 parts
#3 actro motor and custom machined motor mount that will be installed

[Darren S]

#1 weight of original parts
#2 weight of custom parts that will be installed. 18-20 grams increase in weight. alot of frame stiffness added (a side benefit)
#3 start by tearing down the heli to this stage.
#4 side frames with main gear re-installed

[Darren S]

#1 remove upper bellcrank and install upper bearing block. this is the same upper bearing block as comes with the 124-110 kit. just remove the upper bearing as it is not needed

#2 actro motor with motor mount and screws. the screws again are ones used from the original kit

#3 actro motor with mount attatched

#4 carefully separate the pinion gear from the setscrew base that came with the original kit. this is very easy. grip the pinion gear carefully in a vice. grip setscrew base with pliers and remove.

#5 pinion gear separate from setscrew base

[Darren S]

#1 pinion gear and custom pinion gear adapter and locktite (obviously:)

#2 motor and new pinion gear ready for install

#3 pieces installed, ready to put in frame

#4 aluminum bracket fitted into side frames

#5 motor installed in new aluminum bracket. fit pinion gear into upper bearing block

#6 battery tray mount, spacer and screw. this spacer come with the original kit

#7 assembly attatched.

[Darren S]

#1 side frames with all battery tray mounts in place

#2 side frames with battery trays in place

#3 battery trays joined at the front. you have to bend the battery trays together slightly to get them to join but no biggie

[Darren S]

#1 motor soldered, trays in place, pretty much all done. NOTE: you will have to resolder the motor wires as the motor now spins in the opposite direction.(unless you are smart like Tom C and attatched your motor to the esc with bullet connectors :)

#2 all ready to fly !!!


i have flow the Ion several times since the conversion. it's winter up here in Canada so flying time is limited. how does it fly...... well.... the same :) this conversion isn't going to make you a Curtis or an Alan but it is sure to be a whole lot more reliable than the old setup. i fly alot and when MA stopped making the 124-110 part i was desperate to keep my original setup without having to go to the X2 upgrade and new 6S packs. the X2 upgrade is decent, from what i read, but reports are that the model is a bit nose heavy and in order to overcome the added friction in the belt drive etc.... 12 S is a must. but you have to use smaller packs so flight times are less.

i still fly my old faithful TP 8000 prolites and love them. after 8.5 minutes my timer goes off and i usually put back in about 5700 to 6000 mah. i'm no Curtis or Alan but i certainly don't baby my Ion. it has served me well for 4 years and hopefully i can get a few more good years out of it. that is until MA stops selling parts for it :)

so as noted earlier, i was excited about this conversion kit and you can get one made if you like. the machinist i referred to earlier has kept all his CAD drawings and can easily ship out a kit if you like.

for $220 + shipping he will make you a kit. i think this was fair. i paid ALOT more than this for all his design and fabrication work. i am not in business with him at all, i have no financial arrangement with him what so ever. i'm just a Helifreak, more specifically an Ion Helifreak, and i thought that this idea was too good not to share.

if you would like to contact him. email : info@custom-machinery.ca his name is Francisc.


happy flying :) feel free to email me if you have any questions

darren

[OICU812]

Nice work there Darren. :smokin:

[WillJames]

Looks good!! Those SS Ion's are gerat flying machines.

[TomC]

Darren,

Looks great Mate. I 'really' love that robust motor mount. Looks great, should strengthen/stiffen the frames and stabilize the motor. It puts the motor higher and hence CG up a bit, and it should be a heck of a good heatsink too.

One problem I'd have with this conversion is that my Actro 32-3 has a 5mm shaft so I'd have to slip a 5-6mm adapter sleeve on. No big deal I'd guess.

I think it would be better to attach the motor mount to the frame with 3mm bolts/washer/locknuts than use the small/short 2mm battery posts/bolts. You would just need to drill out this hole a little larger through the frame/channel to do this. You could then just drill a couple of small holes to the rear of each of the existing 2 battery post frame and plate holes and mount the battery plate as per normal. That robust motor mount of yours should really add a lot of frame strength and stiffness. I'd probably scrap the bottom thin CF plate between the landing gear because of this.

I understand your concern about having pinion setscrews at right angles. I do not think that a bit of a flat takes away too much strength, but it probably does a bit. Personally I really only ever fully tighten (and locktite) the setscrew that goes against the flat. The other one, at right angles, I just put a very small dab of locktite and snug it up gently (so I do not lose it). I really only consider this setscrew as an extra one that I might someday need to use if I strip the main (against the flat) one.

My main concern is that your 6mm motor shaft only goes to ~ the bottom of the 10t pinion. This fairly thin-walled 10t pinion w/6mm hole is potentially going to be a weak link imop. It's supported by one top bearing but I don't think that this is going to help much in the long run since it is only supported by the thin top lip of the pinion. I think it would have been a lot better if the Actro 6mm shaft itself was longer so that it could pass through the pinion and exit out the top bearing like on the original 124-110 does.

Think I'll wait and see how you make out a bit longer and in the meantime I'll try to source some longer 6mm Actro shafts and see if I'm going to be able modify my 5mm motor to use them. I think I just need to change out the front 5mm bearing to 6mm ones, but I'm not sure if it's that easy to do or not. My current 124-110 shaft still seems pretty good after over 100 flights and I do have a spare 124-110 assembly (I bought the last one that Rick's had in stock!) so I should be good for a while anyway. Just have to hope if it fails it does it at auto height!

Thanks for sharing all this Darren. I hope you don't mind me sharing my comments/ideas as well.

Best cheers,

Tom C

[Darren S]

hi tom,

very good suggestion. i didn't think about the 10t pinion being thin and lacking some support because there is no shaft inside to "beef" it up. there were so many ideas flying around at the design time i missed that one :(

yea, give me some time to product test. the real test comes if i can hit the 150-200 flight mark and everything is still intact. i'll for sure report back when i get a chance. as for now. there ain't nobody flying up here.

-14 degrees C and wind chill of -25 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i don't think the lipos like that :) not to mention my fingers.

darren

[TomC]

Darren,

Sorry to be a bit negative about your Ion-x mod Mate. It just was not quite what I was expecting. I really like the robust motor mount but I do not like the hollow 10t pinion. The few times I have used short motor shafts that did not go to the top of pinions, the pinions have always broken/failed around this 'hollow' area.

I've tried to source some longer 6mm hardened motor shafts but I cannot seem to get any down-under. I can get stainless steel shafts, but I would need to heat-treat (harden) them myself and I'm not too confident that I could do this correctly and keep them true as well. I have tried using an 'un-hardened' 6mm stainless steel shaft on another motor (Eflite 60) on an E-plane but this failed after a few flights.

My 124-110 extension shaft seems to be hanging in there ok for now and at least I do have a spare one, just in case. One of my Ion-x flying Mate's 124-110 shaft failed, but I believe that this was mainly due to a crash. It broke/failed along the 4mm setscrew joint.

I think (but do not really know) that some of your problems might be indirectly caused by your CC HV esc. I've used these escs in the past and found them to be pretty hard on gears and mechanics. They produce a lot of power but it seems that the power delivery is a bit hard and jerky imop. Except for a bit jerky spool-up, my Hacker 77-heli esc with 100% flatline idle-up throttle seems better. I've recently installed a PowerJazz esc gov'd to 1850 hs and, together with a silky-smooth spool-up, it's even better!

Hate to rub it in but we are having excellent spring weather down-under. Blue skies and 25 deg C!

Cheers,
Tom C

[Darren S]

yea, our winter is your summer. thanks for rubbing it in !!! :) lots of snow outside as i write :( i also have an extra 124-110 extension piece incase i want to go back to the original setup but like i said earlier, i need to fly this setup a whole lot more and see how it holds up. i'll report back.

the HV 85 use to have a terrible startup. i use to have to prespin the blades with my hand before i advanced the throttle. this lead to a few comments at the flying field. it looked like i was winding up the blades like you would a rubber powered model. one guy said, "hey i thought that thing was electric not elastic powered :)"

anyways. CC came out with some new software and with the castle link there were quite a few startup settings and now it is smooth. it takes about 20 seconds to fully spool up as opposed to about 10 seconds, but now i don't have to prespin anything.

as for how the power delivery is up high, i have a flat "throttle curve" set to 95%. maybe the power delivery isn't smooth up high but i don't know how to check this.

as soon as it warms up a bit i will get out flying and start logging some flight times.

thanks for your interest.

happy flying.

darren

[TomC]

Darren,

Sounds like your CC85 setup should be fine. I found mine worked best in non-gov mode with flatline Idle-up throttle curves, like it sounds like you are using. Also, I found using a low motor timing setting helped 'soften' the power delivery of the esc quite a bit, whle still giving good top-end power.

I agree with your earlier comments about the instability of the current bottom plate motor mount. Another idea might be to simply use that new, robust motor mount in place of the current thin CF botton plate and then just use the current 124-110 shaft extension. In fact you could easily mount the motor a few mm's higher up than it now is which should help reduce any shaft extension wobble. Should be pretty simple; drill a couple of holes through the frame/channel, bolt everything on, and go. I'd probably just leave the bottom CF plate on (without the CF motor mount plate and spacers) and use it to help line up the metal motor plate prior to drilling the frame/channel mounting holes.

If I could get one of those robust motor mounts from your machinist at a reasonable price, I'd be prepared to give it a go!

Cheers,
Tom C