I was wondering if anyone has experienced the retracts failing on the carbon z t-28. I wonder if anyone has found an alternative to the prone to fail ones that E-flite has put on these airplanes? Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this.
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Yes, just a couple of weeks ago in fact. As it turned out, it wasn't the retract but the little wires going into the plug. They are tiny wires with very few strands and one of them was so frayed that it was only making a good connection every few times, after wiggling the wires each time. Upon close inspection, I could see that the insulation had receded from the plug and a bit of bare wire from each of the three wires was showing (~1mm). While checking this out, the one wire had maybe 1 or 2 strands actually intact and those broke as I handled the plug. The other two were also beginning to fray. I cut off about 6" of the end with the plug on it and took the end from an old dead servo and soldered and heat shrunk that onto the wires of the retract. It has worked every time since. I've wrapped some electrical tape around the plug and wires going into them for all the retracts in hopes that they stay intact. Look at yours under a magnifying glass and see what they look like.
Should this not be your problem, take a look at other large electric foamies, particularly from Eflite or FMS to find a replacement retract that has the same mounting hole spacing.
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