Al's TDR Project

[CyprusFlyer]

Well its a start, a box arrived this am with some major components, about 40% of the cost I believe, gone for the standard recommendations
TDR Bits.JPG

Surprised at the size of the ESC, very diminutive for its capabilty.
With the cost of the Heli Jive 120 and Pyro 700, a bit tight not to include bullet connectors!
Like the J Cooler, not sure if I will need the fan, heatsink is much bigger than supplied.
I may cut out a new carbon bottom mount to replace that supplied with the cooler, extend it in front of the capacitors for full armour plating! I also need to install the EMCOTEC SPS, not sure how yet, will have to wait for the kit but will try and incorporate into the extended plate idea.

Nice cable on the BLS251 servo, will need to chop and re-terminate which is a shame, understand its difficult to attack from the internal end of the cable.

Blades are 710 Radix FAI, will give these a try, not heavy 3D sort of guy just yet, the did come out at 220g on the scales, a bit heavier than recommended, very stable though I have read.

The Tail blades at 105mm look tiny, thought I had it wrong but double checked

A start, commited now, batteries on the way from Hobbyking, trying Nanotech 4500 x 2 6S, figures compute for discharge C /motor watts normal peak and plenty to spare. Thats stage 1.
Stage 2 the most difficult, wait for my name to get on top of the list lol, about another 6-8 weeks.
Stage 3, drool over the bags of bits and build, patience

[mkovalcson]

Yes, don't bother opening the 251 from the servo side. It is basically sealed with a small O-ring that is a lot of fun to get back on and the wiring is completely covered in a rubbery sealant.

[CyprusFlyer]

Originally Posted by mkovalcson

Yes, don't bother opening the 251 from the servo side. It is basically sealed with a small O-ring that is a lot of fun to get back on and the wiring is completely covered in a rubbery sealant.

Cheers for that knew I read it somewhere, BTW have you played with the Hansen servo crimping set? Shortened all my cables on a Mini Titan, very satisfied with the results.

[zmooth]

Nice setup mate, all the best !
Love how you arranged everything in the photo, almost ready to fly

cr-modeltechnik makes an extended ESC plate in case you're interested

[Chris_M]

I have made some extra extended trays myself...along with CF tray to go under/over the battery tray where you can attach buffer pack if anyone is interested. Can make them to any size you need.

[jointer]

I think this is too long, almost twice lenght of the original.

[CyprusFlyer]

LOL ARTF, just like the model shops advertise.
Thanks for the CF pointer, I see the idea will work, hopefully have enough room above batteries to mount the SPS switch, but underneath the new plate.
Chris why dont you move the ESC back a bit, or am I paranoid with worrying about those capacitors in a crash?
I have an A5 sheet in the post so will probably make one, also need to manufacture something for the SPS magnet thing at the arse end, seen a few on the site, will try and deduce something.
All servos tested serviceable in a receiver, had a panic when the Tail servo didnt work!
Though aha, different pulse width, plugged my Trex550 with VBAR into a PC and temporaraly configured to 251 servo, phew, no problem, all good.

[Chris_M]

I guess I could move the esc back a little but at the end of the day if it goes in nose first that hard I think the force of the wires being pressed in would damage the caps anyway. Also the pointed nose of the canopy is a strong point that would hopefully absorb most of the impact as long as its not going into a hard surface like concrete.

[CyprusFlyer]

Originally Posted by Chris_M

I guess I could move the esc back a little but at the end of the day if it goes in nose first that hard I think the force of the wires being pressed in would damage the caps anyway. Also the pointed nose of the canopy is a strong point that would hopefully absorb most of the impact as long as its not going into a hard surface like concrete.

Your right, I just wince at the price of a replacement, what am I talking about, no where near starting the build yet, think positive.
Also have a custom canopy in the offing, great work by this guy in UK http://www.cano-fx.co.uk/ He is painting a TDR and a Trex 550 Canopy with a common theme (for Sunday best).

[mkovalcson]

Originally Posted by CyprusFlyer

Cheers for that knew I read it somewhere, BTW have you played with the Hansen servo crimping set? Shortened all my cables on a Mini Titan, very satisfied with the results.

My crimping set hasn't arrived yet.

[shaman3]

Unfortunately, I once had a crash with my TDR where it banged in the field front first but hanging slightly to the right (not completely upright).
Result was (amongst others) broken right landing gear, broken right lower frame, broken canopy and - you guess it - broken capacitors on the Jive.
The Red power wire coming out of the Jive was pressed against the capacitors with such a force, that they got heavily deformed (although did not burst).
I did not trust them anymore, so I had to replace it
Now I have mounted the Jive reversed, which is a good option if your're using the SPS BTW (that way the SPS can sit directly below the Jive).
Additionally, I created a small "crash box" around the capacitors: small carbon plates glued around top/bottom/left/right of the capacitors and "filled" with epoxy glue.
So in the next crash event they should either survive w/o damage at all (I hope), or completely ripped off....
Daniel

[ZuvieleTeile]

@ Cyprusflyer

The SPS fits perfectely underneath the elongated plate.

[Chris_M]

Originally Posted by CyprusFlyer

Your right, I just wince at the price of a replacement, what am I talking about, no where near starting the build yet, think positive.
Also have a custom canopy in the offing, great work by this guy in UK http://www.cano-fx.co.uk/ He is painting a TDR and a Trex 550 Canopy with a common theme (for Sunday best).

I have a custom canopy that insane is doing for me that im pretty excited to see also

[CyprusFlyer]

Thanks very much guys, great group here
Plenty to think about, Do like the ESC other way around idea, didnt think of that, Motor Cables way over length anyway, also capacitor box is a good idea.
Thought I saw the SPS fit somewhere at the front, makes sense for a better cable run with the Jive the other way, got it :-)
Will look out for the heat sink motor mount, are they still available?
Also recieved a cheap Ebay Bluetooth for Vbar, sort of working, need to find a way of talking to it to change its name, either need 2 or perhaps use a JTAG converter used to program sat boxes and stuff. The complexity never ends, its taken me 3 months to catch up after a long (20) year lapse.

[shaman3]

I have installed on a custom plate (about 3cm longer than stock, so smaller than the one offered by CR) the Jive, SPS (below Jive), JLog2 (right side) and IISI TXE (left side).

Jive power wires were cut to very short length (about 4-5cm) and directly soldered to the SPS (with the IISI in-between the red line additionally).

Some of this is visible in the following pic (if look carefully you can even spot part of the carbon box around the Jive capacitors, abut the motor plate):

[CyprusFlyer]

Looks good thanks, I thought of soldering direct to the SPS, would mean cutting off some of the shrink wrap etc, obviously no gotchas in the process, will do the same, confidant with soldering (electronic engr by trade).

[CyprusFlyer]

Plenty of time to tinker and create some special parts I have in mind, this one is the Servo/Power bus, Skookum do one but making my own bespoke.
The idea is to reduce the cable density at the VBAR mini unit, you only really need three cables plus the sats. The main power draw is the servos, the supply for these can be taken away from the VBAR.
For those that dont know, the usual RX Matrix consists of a Negative rail and a Positive rail on the centre pins, the two rails form a power bus on the receiver or FBL unit. The other pins (White or yellow wire) supply the PWM signal to the servos.
So the 3 cables supply signals for:
3 x Swash Servo
1 x Tail Servo
1 x ESC/Throttle
On two of the cables there is a +/- supply, overkill for the VBAR power draw but there for redundancy.

There is spare capacity on my Bus, extra BEC power supply wire from the Jive (Slave), maybe the JCooler Fan and maybe the Spektrum Telemetry unit if I decide to use it

If I wasnt using the HeliJive (master/slave) then soldering decent size cable from a BEC would be simple.

I used a 2 row and single row of 0.1" matrix pins cut for a 9x3 matrix, I ordered the pins with my crimping set from Hansen Hobbies (Gold plated), a piece of Vero board was cut and is perfect at 0.1' pitch.
You have to remove 1 of the tracks because the Signal pins are obviously not common. A hot soldering Iron melts the adhesive and its easily peeled off. I used the double row pins as soldering up the +ve rail secures both.
I removed the black holders, sliced about 1mm off the bottom, then put the pins back in, this enabled me to push the holder up the wire to work on the pins.
Because the pins were slightly shorter due to the Vero board thickness, I carefully soldered them on, I used pliers to form a heat shunt to prevent the insulation melting and to discourage solder wicking up.
The order of assembly took some thought to ensure access to all the pins.
When all was soldered etc, carefully pushed the black holders over the pins, will probably hot glue these, but they do make everything stronger and ensure that the pins cannot short out.
I came across a little TP link adapator, managed to prise it open and rip out the guts, perfect little box for this, everything will plug into the top with the three cables comming out the bottom to the VBAR. I will also put a Blue Tooth adaptor inside, then all I have to do is plug in a small patch cable for field adjustments.

I envisage making a carbon plate to mount this and secure all braided cables around the Tail Servo area. Pictures below.

[CyprusFlyer]

Almost finished the Power Bus, BlueTooth module fits nicely too in the same plastic box, it will always be available but not connected unless required, at $10 each no great shakes.
Also received my first order of Lipos today, 4 x 4.5A 6S 35C Nano's from HobbyKing, came fast this time. The 2nd batch of higher C rate batteries on the way. Spent a couple of hours cutting off crappy connectors and soldering on the EC5's
Get all this nonsense out of the way and enjoy the main build :-)

[mkovalcson]

This does make me think that maybe I need to rig up some protection for those capacitors.

I assume the reason they are hanging out there rather than being protected is that Kontroniks wanted them to be able to cool off a bit.

So any protection would need to be very careful of that.

[CyprusFlyer]

Originally Posted by mkovalcson

This does make me think that maybe I need to rig up some protection for those capacitors.

I assume the reason they are hanging out there rather than being protected is that Kontroniks wanted them to be able to cool off a bit.

So any protection would need to be very careful of that.

Yes dillema, I believe its the most expensive single item on the heli.
That had crossed my mind, plenty mounting the ESC the opposite way, I favour that for a few reasons, Caps are not as suseptable to a nose in crash, better cable run to the motor. In my case I will have more room to manouvre with my SPS switch I plan to install.

Down side is, the caps are closer to the hot motor although I have a heat sink mount on the way should help and the wires cross over the ESC, seen some reports about interference with the ESC electronics if cables routed too close, but looking at the photos doesnt seem to be an issue.

Also de-soldered the output supply wires from the Emcotec SPS, no big dramas, will solder the ESC supply direct once I have the kit and work out the lengths required, dont want yet more connectors to worry about.

I like Mkovalcson's idea of having the short series connection at the connection point, already soldered this onto the SPS input and made a shorting shunt plug to bypass one battery for setting up servos etc.