Carbon Canopy

[Tumbledown]

I'm thinking of making my own carbon canopy. Has anyone tried this? It would be for my Blade 120 sr to start with.

I'm not sure if I should make it in two parts and cover joints in carbon fibre tape or try to mold 1 complete canopy.



Cheers

[pgkevet]

That caused me to go check current price of carbon cloth .. and looks like they've really come down since I last looked. It'd be an interesting project rather than an obvious waste of cash now that it's cheaper but till a challenge to do neatly without fancy pressure ovens with the awkward curves to handle on the nose. I'd say go for it... carve or mould a plug for a one-piece and see if it looks good enough first...

[Tumbledown]

I have made a plug, I was thinking of making a few shapes out of plastic or heavy cloth to see what would be the most effective shape so there aren't any folds/creases. I may still go down the two part road, just can't decide, thats why I posted. When I do decide I will probably post it up as I do it.

[ragge1]

carbon don't go well with TX-RX signal , wouldn't be nice crashing your heli cos of lost of signal

[Grumpy]

+1 on above comment. Carbon being electrically conductive blocks the radio signal so it's not such a good idea to make a carbon canopy. I guess if you were very careful with antenna placement you could work around it but I'm not sure what the advantage would be over glass, you dont need a lot of strength in a canopy.

[Tumbledown]

It would make a change instead of crashing from pilot error but I will keep that in mind, obviously I wouldn't be making it thick and also it's for my micro's, if they go far enough to lose signal - I can't see them lol. I will carry out extensive testing before unleashing the bird in a public place.

[Tumbledown]

I replied before seeing your post Grumpy, I only thought about carbon as it is light weight, relatively cheap and I saw pre made ones. I take it the pre manufactured ones are ignoring the possible risks. It looks like Fibre glass then unless anyone has any experience using / making carbon fibre

[Grumpy]

I've not seen a genuine carbon canopy, I've seen ones with carbon effect paint schemes but never the real thing. They could work ok but you would have to route the antenna well clear of the canopy. This might be difficult on many micros.

On fixed wing models that have carbon fuselages there are special receivers made with extended antenna that you route outside of the fuselage.

I'm not sure you would save any weight. Weight saving is really only where you can reduce materiel thickness but retain strength compared to glass. A glass canopy is so thin in the first place you couldnt really make it much thinner. Any weight saving would be marginal at best.

[Tumbledown]

Here are some of the things that put the idea in my head:

HobbyKing Daily - Carbon Fiber Helicopter Canopy - YouTube
H0067-S Furious Carbon Fibre Airbrush Canopy

I always thought that carbon fibre is stronger and lighter than Fibre glass. But I have just found this Oribi Manufacturing It confirms to me that fibreglass may be the way forward as it is more flexible and there's no worries about signal loss.

Now does anyone have any experience working with fibre glass lol

[Grumpy]

I'm not sure the Furious canopy is all carbon. When you look closely you see the inner surfaces are white, which makes me think that's it's either all glass with carbon effect paint or just partly carbon. The HK ones are carbon but i'm not sure if you can take HK selling something as a guarantee that it's a good idea, and anyway HK stock them any more, which might speak volumes.

[Tumbledown]

" i'm not sure if you can take HK selling something as a guarantee " lol agreed

[Planehazza]

" i'm not sure if you can take HK selling something as a guarantee " lol agreed

Especially not when it's Adam Sandler's doppelgänger promoting it haha

[Tumbledown]

lol yep