Need Help with wiring LX twin 70mm F-22

[BigD2250]

Back when I was (slightly less) naive, I decided it would be a good idea to buy an LX twin 70mm F-22 RTF as my first plane. Well, you can imagine how that went. Luckily, though, the fans, motors, and ESCs were unharmed. I went and bought a trainer and progressed from there. Fast forward a couple of years, I still have the guts from the first F-22 (recently verified they still work), so I recently bought the LX F-22 airframe to try my first build (until now everything has been strictly PNP). The manual that comes with the LX F-22 is useless in terms of wiring - it basically tells me that I need Y harnesses (duh) without providing anymore details.

When I took apart the first LX F-22, I seem to remember that the servos for the left elevator and left thrust vectoring were together on one Y harness, and the right elevator and right thrust vector were on another Y harness, but that seems...not right.

Is there anyone here who can help me with the wiring for this bird? I've watched all the videos I can find, but none go in depth on the wiring, they instead focus on other aspects of the build. If anyone could provide just the roughest of rough sketches of how the wiring setup needs to go, I would be forever grateful.


One other request for advice: Can anyone recommend a good method to drill a level/horizontal hole to install a wing spar? It isn't the drilling part that I'm unsure of, it's finding a way to do it so that the hole remains level/parallel to the ground so the spar isn't crooked. Obviously there is not much room for error when drilling for a wing spar (will be one wing spar that goes through the body of the fuselage and approximately 2/3 of the way into each wing.

I have adequate experience in flying jets, but zero experience in wiring them or installing wing spars on birds that don't have pre-drilled holes (I still have trouble believing that LX thought it would be a good idea to design such a large plane without wing spars).

[xviper]

Take a look at Pete's video and freeze frame it at the appropriate place to see how he's done it:

You'll notice that the thrust nozzles only work UP/DOWN. They do not have any rudder capability, so one less thing to deal with. Pete's got his plane wired with "triple Y's". Each side's aileron, elevator and thrust nozzle are Y'd together and he's got the TX programmed for "elevons". This is quite common when the trailing edge of the main wings is so close to the leading edge of the horizontal tail surfaces. This makes for a very quick responding jet and one of the dual rates should be quite low. A gyro will also help to make is less twitchy and more flyable.
I had the LX YF-23. Even with a gyro, that plane was nearly unflyable. It was hard to balance, twitchy as heck and had control issues. This was a trait of LX and not of the plane itself. For example, Freewing's F-22 is a great flyer. I have a feeling that the LX version will be a handful. As an aside, the stock retracts on the LX is very low quality and it prone to failure and damage. LX planes need a LOT of work to make them adequate planes. I've seen very few that ended up being great planes.
As for drilling a perfect hole, you should try to find a large drill press and make some sort of jig that you can mount each wing perfectly vertical in all directions. That way you can be more certain that the hole in each wing will match the other. I take it that this plane doesn't come with a main wing spar? My YF-22 came with these little "stumps". They seemed adequate but I doubt the wings would stay on long if severe maneuvers were done. I never flew mine enough times to actually try anything to test them.

[BigD2250]

Thanks for the video, I'll definitely check it out after work.

Yeah, the LX F-22 comes with no spar whatsoever. None. We're supposed to rely on glue only to keep them attached. Ha!

[msidler]

BigD I’m just starting a twin F22 build. I built the single 70 F22 and thought it would be good to build a twin.
Have you finished yours yet?
Like the single I already know the tires need to be replaced. Not using the fans and instead will use the Freewing 70mm with the 2300kv outrunner with 80a ESC. I would like to put 2 6s in it if possible. I’m hoping this time I can come up with a way to get the fuselage together without it being one big glue job! That way I can repair the inevitable. Also I’ll put carbon rods in wings again and this time thru fuselage. Also want to try the smoke but it wasn’t included in the kit. :(
I would be interested how your F22 came out. Also “BigD” - are you in Dallas? I down by Waxahachie. Mike