How do you manage your tail glow strings?

[TheBum]

I'm getting ready to set up my Diablo with glow strings and can't decide how to add and remove the tail string between day and night flying. So, I'm wondering what other people do.

[kama1]

i dont do anything special
got the idea from finless at IRCHA.
have my tail glow string secured to both the horizontal and vertical fins.
take out the 4 screws switch from my normal fins to my night fins.
zip tie the string to the boom and im good to go.

[jaywhy]

All the zip-ties to keep the string on my boom stop me from taking it off. So the boom string stays on full time. I really like the extra orange visability on the boom, too.

I'm currently working on my night `canopy`, so I can leave a string permanantly attached to that. But otherwise I'll switch canopies for day/night. I don't find the tiny weight offset makes any difference to me, least not yet.

I don't have the driver installed yet - but I suspect that will stay full-time installed also.

[TheBum]

i dont do anything special
got the idea from finless at IRCHA.
have my tail glow string secured to both the horizontal and vertical fins.
take out the 4 screws switch from my normal fins to my night fins.
zip tie the string to the boom and im good to go.

Can you post any pics? Do you spiral the remainder of the string around the boom? If so, wouldn't repeatedly putting it on and taking it off put a lot of stress on the glow wire?

[kama1]

ill have to put all the stuff on and snap a pic for ya.
prolly in the next day or 2...preety nuts around here lately

i just run the string straight down each side of the boom.
no looping or twisting
with the extra length i bring it down and under the bottom plate.

this is on a T-Rex 450 BTW :)



: EDIT : heres a pic that will give you an idea of what om talkin about :)

[Cromer]

I have an Mrex (that's part Trex part MX400) that I have setup as my night bird full time. I don't like the way the thing flies all that much so I have dedicated it to night flying. I have the Align night blades and two cold light strings on it. The one on the tail boom is tie wrapped to the vertical fin and wraps forward around the tail boom and the landing gear. The other string is tie wrapped to the canopy outline. It is very visible at night and I find it very easy to keep oreintation with it. I too would be concerned about constantly taking the cold string on and off as it does appear to be very brittle to me.

Phil

[flyinfool]

I have a dedicated night ship since with the amount of lighting that I have it would take hours to change over.
There are some in our club that have a dedicated night canopy and a dedicated tail. With a Stinger or a Raptor it is just a couple of minutes to change out the whole tail boom, especially if you have a boom mounted tail servo.

[comeflywithme]

I used an old (battered) canopy and mounted the driver on the inside and feed it off the ballance tap. For the tail, I have the string attached a spare stab fin only and wrap the remainder around the boom -secured by clipping onto the driver. I leave the night blades on the heli over the winter as they perform quiet well anyway.

Changing to night flying takes me about 2mins - Change Canopy, plug in driver, change stab fin (two screws), wrap cold string around boom and turn on night blades - done :-)

[TheBum]

Changing to night flying takes me about 2mins - Change Canopy, plug in driver, change stab fin (two screws), wrap cold string around boom and turn on night blades - done :-)
How long do the cold strings last when you're constantly wrapping and unwrapping them? I would think they'd weaken and break (electrically, at least) too often.

[mudbogger2]

I have a set that is 4 years old. I always remove it after each night flying session. It still performs like new.

[SonicJeff]

I leave the string on the tail all the time. I attached the driver and the front string to the canopy, so I just swap out the canopy and blades between night and day and leave the tail alone. Seems to work well for me and as someone already mentioned the extra visibility from the string is nice.

[comeflywithme]

How long do the cold strings last when you're constantly wrapping and unwrapping them? I would think they'd weaken and break (electrically, at least) too often.

What I found is that the wire actuallu retains a lot of its curling (bit like a spring) so I normally wrap it around the boom using its first deformation- if that makes sense. Basically you can wrap the string around the boom without bending it excessively.

No problems so far.