My Sexy 600

[rdlohr]

After months of abuse by a few of you, I've finally finished my 600.

The build went great and I was very impressed by the quality of this bird and how easy it was to build. It was so refreshing to be able to use normal size screw drivers and not have to do contortions while trying to put in tiny screws. The finless vids were outstanding as usual and saved me many screwups I'm sure.

The component placement and wiring was the hardest part as usual. After building the 450 and flying/crashing it for a year, I had a few rules I was trying to balance while laying this thing out:

1) Isolate high current noisy components (Main Battery, ESC, and motor) from from low current parts (Receiver Battery, gyro, gyro controller, BEC, and receiver)

2) Protect all components from crash damage

3) Make heli parts I replace regularly easy to replace (Bottom Plate, Tail boom, belt, tail pulleys, etc)

4) Keep wiring runs short

5) Protect all wiring


Here's what I came up with:





I avoided running any wiring through the boom block area so it could be easily removed. The battery comes off, and the gyro can be unplugged allowing the whole tail assembly to come off.

The gyro controller, receiver, and BEC were combined into one Electronics Module. Its completely protected inside the rear of the machine and easily removable as an entire unit. This allowed me to minimize the wire runs between these three components. I verified the BEC was not noisy before locating it with the other two. The gyro controller and BEC switch are easily accessible.

The ESC was placed inside the front to protect it and minimize high current wiring. I'll keep watch on that area for heat since both the motor and ESC are heat generators.

I initially wanted to run the servo and ESC wiring inside but opted to run them outside to keep my rule-set top priority. It also keeps them accessible. The ESC control line is isolated to one side away from all the servo runs. Each servo wire was run in its own sleeve to allow easy replacement if a servo dies. All runs were shortened as appropriate. I left some slack in the wiring in back to allow me to wire the Electronics module while shifted out the back.

Finally, a special mount was built for the deans antennae that took up the the excess wire, and provided a ground plane between the Deans mount and the Electronics Module to isolate the antennae from other electronics.

All in all, it turned out pretty sweet. Hope you like it!

Rick

Right Side


Under Side


Electronics Module


Electronics Module Wiring


Deans Mount




Video of the maiden flight (Thanks CopterKlutz for filming)
Don't expect much. I just hovered her a bit to break her in. She did put a pretty big grin on my face though! It was frigid out there!
http://media.putfile.com/Rick600maiden














2.4 GHz Update 12/27/2010:
After forgetting to put up my 72 MHz antennae last time I flew, I figure it was time to bring my 600 up to date with a 2.4 GHz system.
















Rick

[rdespins]

Congrats, welcome to the club.

Nice and clean.

Ron

[aaxiss]

Grats on the Maiden flight Rick..... I finally flew mine yesterday for the first time also. your wiring and electronics placement look great also. I have a little tiny rats nest of wires inside mine but nothing that Bob would blink more than once at :mrgreen:

I really like your antenna wire gizmo, is that copper to shield it from the electronics?


anywho GJ and looks really nice

[rdlohr]

Thanks much! Its called mirror gold and, yes it is for isolation. It's probably over kill but it was just as easy to put in as regular plastic. I grounded it to the negative on the receiver battery.


aaxiss: Congrats on your maiden too!

Rick

[cbdane]

Cool! Interesting that your silver frame has two battery strap slots. I figured that the silver frames were new enough to only have one slot like mine did.

Great job! I had a great afternoon flying my new 600 this afternoon. The rain in NorCal broke, the sun came out, and I had a blast in 18-20mph winds (I'm a geek; I carry a meter).

Welcome to the 600 club!

[Finless]

Nice Rick.... ABOUT DARN TIME

The 600 is a lot more stable to fly isnt it?

Bob

[OICU812]

Nice Rick, interesting placement of the esc, are you concerned about airflow around it and how that will affect it at all?

[bbdln123]

Nice wiring job very clean and I like the winter camo.

[kgfly]

Super neat job Rick

Looking at the photos of how the battery sits one idea came to mind. Do you think
a wedge of polystyrene under the battery would help support it and absorb some impact in skids-down crash/auto/hard landing ? It just looks like all $400 of battery pack is resting on the ends of just one or two poor cells.

Not a criticism of your setup, it's just that your photos were so clear that I saw something I had not seen before.

Happy flying.

[BarnOwl]

Another excellent and clean job, Rick! How do you like the bird in the air?

[rdlohr]

Nice Rick, interesting placement of the esc, are you concerned about airflow around it and how that will affect it at all?

Yes, I plan to monitor that. By the way, my Deans mount is a direct descendant from your patented bobbin Shawn!

a wedge of polystyrene under the battery would help support it and absorb some impact in skids-down crash/auto/hard landing

Interesting idea and easy to implement. Anyone else think we should be doing this?

Nice Rick.... ABOUT DARN TIME

Better than an EEEK, but not quite what I expected. What don't you like?


Overall. Thanks for the compliments all. I racked my brain on this one. Its always funny how it looks so simple when you are done, but I agonized over it for months to get to that.

How do you like the bird in the air?

It was a bit windy here too and the 600 was hardly affected. Its very stable compared to the 450. I didn't move it around enough to tell anything else at this point.

I did notice the tail seemed a bit slow. I have it set up so full deflection on the tail is proportional to full deflection on the control. I'm not sure I was as careful when I set up my 450, so it may just be that my thumbs aren't used to the right setup.

Overall I love it. Glad I listened to all you guys and bought this rather than a smaller bird!

Rick

[rdlohr]

The rain in NorCal broke, the sun came out, and I had a blast in 18-20mph winds (I'm a geek; I carry a meter).

I want one!

Rick

[BoneDoc]

HL has one for around 30 dollars I think

[MicroMan]

Nice 600 Rick, she looks just as clean as your 450 does.

[rdlohr]

HL has one for around 30 dollars I think

Thanks, Goes on my wish list...

Nice 600 Rick, she looks just as clean as your 450 does.

Thanks. this one took a bit more thought, but I'm happy with where it ended up!

Rick

[BoneDoc]

http://hobby-lobby.com/gadgets.htm

Whoops, 80 dollars .

[rdlohr]

Whoops, 80 dollars .

Ouch! I may have to wish a bit harder... It is quite the nice device though!

Rick

[Copterklutz]

Quote:

Nice 600 Rick, she looks just as clean as your 450 does.


Thanks. this one took a bit more thought, but I'm happy with where it ended up!

Yeh but I got clapping hands icon from Finless !! Snicker, snicker.....

[cbdane]

Originally Posted by rdlohr

Ouch! I may have to wish a bit harder... It is quite the nice device though!

Rick

Yep, that's the one but I got mine for $49 at the Giant Scale Fly-in at Castle Air Force Base a few years ago.

[rdlohr]

Yeh but I got clapping hands icon from Finless !! Snicker, snicker.....

Sure, rub it in ...