Hover_X
06-08-2008, 06:31 PM
Thanks to Jetleaf for sparking this idea. Here is what I have done with my landing gear. I have felt that the gear is a bit too short anyway and have been looking for alternatives. Once I saw what Jetleaf has done with the Beam gear, it got me thinking :thinking hmmm… what could I do with mine?
I wanted to go with something that was readily available to me and since all the LHS in my area carry E-flite this is what I decided to do. It is modified E- flite Blade 400 gear cut down and dyed black.
For reference, the stock Gaui landing gear is 8.8cm wide measured from the outside of the skids and weighs 4.9g. The stock Blade 400 gear is 11.6cm wide and weighs 17.7g.
I cut the landing gear struts in half and took out a total of 1.9cm. I glued the new halves together to with super glue to work with them. I then created 2ea. Doublers out of some .045” sheet styrene (sorry for the mix of standard and metric dimensions) that I had lying around and bonded them with epoxy to the top and bottom of the gear struts straddling the cut line. Then, just outboard of the cut line on each side I drilled 3mm holes through the struts and styrene doublers to create interference fit dowel pins to strengthen the joint. I made the dowel pins from some 3mm O.D. CF tubing that I had lying around and bonded them into place with epoxy.
I cut down the 400 landing skids by cutting 1.5cm from the front and 3cm from the back (3cm is where the holes are). I popped out the skid tips and dyed all 4 of them and the modified struts using black Rit dye.
FYI – epoxy will dye with the Rit dye, but the styrene sheet does not.
The final specifications of this landing gear are:
Length: 13.5cm
Width: 9.7cm
Height (from bottom of frame to ground): 4.5cm
Weight: I forgot to weigh the gear assembly when I was done, bu tteh bits that I cut off weigh just under 3g so I estimate the new gear is about 14.5g.
My gross flying weight is 267g with the 850mAh APlus battery pack.
Thanks again Jetleaf for sparking this idea (you'll notice I also followed your lead in dying my main gear black as well :noteworthy)
I wanted to go with something that was readily available to me and since all the LHS in my area carry E-flite this is what I decided to do. It is modified E- flite Blade 400 gear cut down and dyed black.
For reference, the stock Gaui landing gear is 8.8cm wide measured from the outside of the skids and weighs 4.9g. The stock Blade 400 gear is 11.6cm wide and weighs 17.7g.
I cut the landing gear struts in half and took out a total of 1.9cm. I glued the new halves together to with super glue to work with them. I then created 2ea. Doublers out of some .045” sheet styrene (sorry for the mix of standard and metric dimensions) that I had lying around and bonded them with epoxy to the top and bottom of the gear struts straddling the cut line. Then, just outboard of the cut line on each side I drilled 3mm holes through the struts and styrene doublers to create interference fit dowel pins to strengthen the joint. I made the dowel pins from some 3mm O.D. CF tubing that I had lying around and bonded them into place with epoxy.
I cut down the 400 landing skids by cutting 1.5cm from the front and 3cm from the back (3cm is where the holes are). I popped out the skid tips and dyed all 4 of them and the modified struts using black Rit dye.
FYI – epoxy will dye with the Rit dye, but the styrene sheet does not.
The final specifications of this landing gear are:
Length: 13.5cm
Width: 9.7cm
Height (from bottom of frame to ground): 4.5cm
Weight: I forgot to weigh the gear assembly when I was done, bu tteh bits that I cut off weigh just under 3g so I estimate the new gear is about 14.5g.
My gross flying weight is 267g with the 850mAh APlus battery pack.
Thanks again Jetleaf for sparking this idea (you'll notice I also followed your lead in dying my main gear black as well :noteworthy)