Freewing A-4 Blue Angels Conversion

[OV10]

Okay Steve, what tutorial did you watch, can you send a link? I'd like to see that one myself.

Grossman56

ME 2

[RCjetdude]

This was the DX18(9) sequencing tutorial I watched.

https://youtu.be/YQphSWqKRtU

Its enough to get you up and running.

[RCjetdude]

Time for my nightly update. I went through the Strobon v2 lights I got from Readymade RC and programmed them. I also un-soldered the LED's from three of them and added short wire extensions to allow mounting the LED's in the thin wing tips of the A-4. I got a set of the T-45 light covers and modified the wingtip covers to fit a recess in the A-4 wings for the LED's. The video explains the programming of the LED's. The wire runs are straight forward. I managed to get the wing tip lights installed. Here is the video

https://youtu.be/CUIGW4jTR1Q

and here are some pictures



Because the LED's appeared to be heatsinked to the boards, I glued a small square of aluminum sheet stock to the back of each LED I mounted remotely with this thermal epoxy.



Fitting the wing tip covers...









I had to heat the lenses a little to soften them up so I could squeeze them to the right dimension to fit.

The rest of the pictures are making the wire channels, fitting the LED's and embedding the circuit boards.











I will be painting the lens covered red and green before installing them.

Next up will be to mount the strobes on the top and bottom...

[purduephigam]

Not sure if it's because I'm new to the hobby and haven't seen stuff like this before, but I want to be like Steve when I grow up.

do you just use blades to channel the wire? Also, how did ypu manage to bore a perfect circle to the depth of the disc (not sure of the term)? Really great job. I'd love to do this to planes without daytime LEDs. Looking forward to seeing the rest.

[RCjetdude]

LOL I just used an Xacto knife to cut around the disc and then cut from an angle to remove as much of the foam as possible. The rest I pulled out with the tip of a pair of needle nose pliers. Under the circuit boards its pretty rough. I then used a few spots of Foam Tac from above to hold the circuit boards in place and then capped it off with a disc of Styrene that I glued in with Foam Tac. I am trying to keep the board clean in the event I have to change it out for any reason in the future.

[Boots Whirlygig]

Great stuff here Steve! Will speaker wire suffice, or do you use servo wire for the extension?

[RCjetdude]

I use servo lead wire. It's what I have.

[OV10]

Great stuff here Steve! Will speaker wire suffice, or do you use servo wire for the extension?

Speaker wire would be an overkill Boots

[RCjetdude]

After seeing my Mig-21 fly a flying buddy called me RCblingDude because of the lights on it. In keeping with that nickname here are the lights on my Blue Angels #6.

https://youtu.be/m5AasfT-ZVs

I will add some pictures tomorrow.

[purduephigam]

Bling bling!
What kind of lens paint did you use?

[RCjetdude]

Model Masters Clear Green and Transparent Red Acrylics painted on with a brush.

[Ron1950]

you should sell tickets and let people come into your shop and watch lol

[RCjetdude]

I think I may have what I can only describe as a lazy gear door servo. One moment it works fine and the next its as though it goes limp. No binding but not strong. Won't even travel all the way. I have never seen that before.

[fhhuber]

I think I may have what I can only describe as a lazy gear door servo. One moment it works fine and the next its as though it goes limp. No binding but not strong. Won't even travel all the way. I have never seen that before.

Typical of a bad wire, plug or solder joint in the + or - lead.
Bad signal wire tends to drive analog servos to an end of travel with intermittent contact. (sometimes stripping gears)
Loss of power leaves the servo acting like the radio is off and you can carefully hand move them to any position (while power isn't getting to it.)

I just dealt with similar on retracts with one side working fine and the other intermittent. Turned out to be over-crimped in the Dynam Y harness and it cut the + lead of one side of the Y. Replaced Y harness and it all works.

Plug that servo direct to a spare RX or a servo tester and 90%+ chance it works fine. (or you find one wire coming apart right at the plug)
Small chance of a bad solder joint where the wire connects too the little circuit board inside the servo.
Also a chance the wire got pinched and cut somewhere along the length.

[RCjetdude]

Typical of a bad wire, plug or solder joint in the + or - lead.
Bad signal wire tends to drive analog servos to an end of travel with intermittent contact. (sometimes stripping gears)
Loss of power leaves the servo acting like the radio is off and you can carefully hand move them to any position (while power isn't getting to it.)

I just dealt with similar on retracts with one side working fine and the other intermittent. Turned out to be over-crimped in the Dynam Y harness and it cut the + lead of one side of the Y. Replaced Y harness and it all works.

Plug that servo direct to a spare RX or a servo tester and 90%+ chance it works fine. (or you find one wire coming apart right at the plug)
Small chance of a bad solder joint where the wire connects too the little circuit board inside the servo.
Also a chance the wire got pinched and cut somewhere along the length.

Thanks for that information. I had thought of that as a possibility and will check out my harness connector before digging a servo out for sure. Hopefully that will be the problem. I will report back. Didn't get much done on it last night.

[RCjetdude]

I have run the door servo off a servo tester and it seems to work fine as you predicted. However, I can't find anything wrong with the harness or connector either.... :Confused: I am going to replace the harness and see what happens.

[RCjetdude]

Update on the gear door servo issue. I am running 9g digital servos and tried connecting them through a series of Y-harnesses. Initially they chattered like crazy but I eventually got them to work. The servo that was acting "lazy" initially worked fine but then started acting up again. I ended up soldering the harnesses together and everything was working fine but now another servo is acting up instead of the original one. While I can hear no binding whatsoever in any of the servos I am now wondering if there is something causing the servos to shut down if overloaded. This is the strangest thing I have dealt with and I don't feel comfortable moving forward until the doors are reliable. They work fine closing but one forward door occasionally binds opening after sitting shut for awhile.

[RCjetdude]

Here is a video of the finished lights

https://youtu.be/NbmOSVGbFo4

and a picture of the top beacon. The lenses for the beacons are off of the FL P-38.



And here is a video of the fan operation. It is super smooth and sounds great! A big thank you to Gary at Efflux RC for contacting me to check it out one more time after he discovered a run out issue on another fan. He ended up replacing the fan blade and I am very happy with it now. Thanks Gary for the excellent customer service! The fan is pulling about 105-108 amps and is almost 1:1 PTW but should provide some really good performance. AUW at this point is 7lbs. 5.5ozs.

https://youtu.be/kJCpwHI7Lrk

[AceMigKiller]

Yep, Gary is awesome.
Also, this is going to be one of the coolest A-4's out there. Wish I had the time and drive you mod mine just like it!

[RCjetdude]

Thanks Vic. I love the A-4. Gotta have a military version and a Blue....I am trying to keep it from being too complicated but man am I ready to get some paint on it.