Beam Avantgarde build thread

[trillian]

I bought the Beam a couple weeks ago and was busy with work and various things so I started the build a little at a time, just doing a bit here and there as time allowed. Along the way I have taken pics of each stage and I will be adding some comments or any details that were not really obvious or explained in the manual.

Overall the build has gone very smooth with just a few points where I was not sure on something and needed to ask some other Avantgarde owners.

First of all the guide that comes with the kit is good in that it is a series of diagrams on large (A3) size sheets so it's easy to see all the detail. But that's pretty much all it is, there are a few reminders of the orientation of certain parts and really most of it is self-explanatory if you have built a few helicopters but I kinda felt I was on my own with this one most of the time.

It does lay out a series of logical stages and everything is bagged accordingly so I did find that as I went along I only had to have a few bags open and everything stayed very well organised.

It comes boxed in a labelled outer box with two boxes inside, one contains the frames, the build manual and the canopy, the other has all the other parts.



Taped to the outside of the box is a replacement one-way hub and main gear set (the new OW hub is bigger and does not fit the previous version main gear).

One of the first things I did, just out of curiousity is weigh it. I put everything in one box and laid the boom across it, so this is the entire airframe.


The first one is the empty box, 189 grams, the 2nd is the entire airframe, this is going to be a very light heli! (the total weight here was 1528grams but I just weighed it after it is all assembled and I'm getting about 1480 so the extra few grams must be all the plastic bags the parts were in)



I'm doing this with each step just as it appears in the manual, first up is the swashplate. It arrived mostly assembled with only the link balls and anti-rotation pin to attach. Next is the rotorhead and once again the hub was already assembled and locktited so only a matter of inserting the dampers (three o-rings in each side) and attaching the swash driver arms to the base of the hub.

One thing I like about the design is that there is a very large area of engagement of the main shaft and the hub. The shaft goes way up into the hub with the upper Jesus bolt at the top and where the swash driver arms double as a clamp, this should be super sturdy.

[trillian]

Next is the main grips. This is where I had to stop and find out a bit more info because the grips were fully assembled already and unlike most grip bearing arrangements I am used to where the thrust bearings are on the inside of the grip, on the Beam grips the thrust bearings are situated between two radial bearings. The thing was, I could not get them apart to grease the thrust bearings. So after speaking to someone else I was told the inner radial bearings are pressed in and that the thrust bearings are already greased from the factory. They certainly were not about to tap out easily and I would rather not have to heat the grip to remove them so for now I have applied a little grease from the inside and I will go on faith that there was also grease applied from the factory. I'll check them for any notchiness after a few flights but for now they feel very smooth.



Nest step is the tail assembly. This was totally intuitive, nothing tricky at all. Everything fits perfectly the finish is excellent. I should point out here, as you can see in the pic of the vertical fin and the other tail side plate, there are metal threaded inserts already fitted from the factory that make for a very clean and simple construction of many of the frame parts. I really like how this is done. In fact, there's almost no plastic at all in this kit it's all machine-thread bolts going into threaded metal inserts or backed up with a locknut, I think the only self-tappers in use are on the tail blade grips.

The tail grips are one piece plastic items and here the process was very easy and the thrust bearings were in a separate bag, un-greased so nothing pre-assembled and so I knew exactly what was what, a little grease was applied to the bearings and the grips were slid onto the hub and bolts locktited and it's ready to go.

The pitch slider and lever all work very smoothly, the fit is pretty much perfect on all these parts, no fiddling was needed at all to produce a very smooth tail mechanism.

[cupracing]

Beam Avantgarde build thread

Looking good Sheryl, quality looks top notch. Can't wait to see it in person :-)

[trillian]

Now onto the main gear / one-way hub and then the main frames. The one-way hub and gears were nothing tricky but I ended up putting the main gear on the wrong way round at first because the manual shows them upside down. Only when I went a few pages further and saw that the tail drive is on top did I realise and had to disassemble it and flip it around, no big deal really but I'm not sure why it was shown upside down.

The frames go together beautifully, everything fits spot-on and some of the ali fittings are really nicely finished. There are some very stylishly designed parts holding the bottom plate and the vertical battery tray onto the frames.

[trillian]

Once the frames were together it all went pretty fast so last night I finished the rest of the airframe. The only thing left now is fitting the motor and electrics.

Below are a few shots of some of the nice little details and things that are well thought-out. The canopy mounts are not connected directly to the main frame halves, they bolt onto sacrificial parts in the event of a crash. There is a very elaborate boom stay brace that comes with it, battery straps and another strap that I think is for the ESC but we'll see what is required when I get to that. Unless I run into a snag with fitting the motor or servos I can say now that is has been a very pleasant build. I am very pleased with the finish of all the parts and the way everything goes together.

I did have to sand one side of the tabs on the tray that sits between the frames (I think it is intended to be a place to mount something and it's just a little carbon plate that fits into slots in the two frame halves). Otherwise nothing needed forcing or modding and everything fits nicely.



One nice feature that is not visible in any of these pics is the way the motor mount and pinion support are mounted. There are two carbon plates that go outside the main frame halves and link the motor mount and pinion support bearing block together so that when you move the motor mount forward or back in its slots to ajust the mesh, the pinion support moves with it so there's no fiddling with the alignment of the two.

[pgkevet]

(You should have sent it back. they've mixed bits from some red kit in there...)

I'm stuck working out how thrust bearings can work if trapped between two radials? Unless theres a goodly gap between the radials?

[trillian]

(You should have sent it back. they've mixed bits from some red kit in there...)

I'm stuck working out how thrust bearings can work if trapped between two radials? Unless theres a goodly gap between the radials?

I'm a little hazy on that as well. I have seen thrust bearings sandwiched between radial bearings before but the innermost one would not be so tight. I will probably see if I can get any more info on HF. There is very little info out there on this heli and the guy that seemed to be acting as a field rep on here and HF, perhaps unofficially I don't know, has gone AWOL.

I'll find out who FL deal with, there must be a rep or sponsored pilot to ask about stuff.

[trillian]

I now have the motor and servos fitted. The motor was nothing tricky except that with a herringbone gear you have to match the height of the pinion so that the centreline of the herringbone pattern is lined up with the main gear but this was quite easy due to the way the motor mounts into the frame and so just starting at a guess put it pretty close and then a couple more slight movements of the pinion and it was as close as I could get it. Then setting the mesh is very easy with the slotted frame the motor mount sits in allowing the mount to move and the pinion support along with it.

The kit comes with servo wheels but I used some QuickUK ali ones I already had (I'm not even sure exactly what spline size the supplied wheels fit). I discovered the servo cut-outs in the frames will not fit the AceRc 1015s I thought about using without some filing to accomodate the slight curved bit on the ends of the servos and rather than start sanding and filing and masking everything to keep the dust out etc. I decided to use the Futabas which just fit perfectly.

With the threaded inserts embedded into the frames it makes fitting servos super easy as it does not require any nuts or fittings backing the bolts up from behind, it's just 3mm bolts going straight into the frames.

I am slightly concerned about the canopy due to the recesses for the grommets being quite small and it looks like some chafing and chipping is bound to happen over time. It also seems like all the canopy mounts really could be about 4 or 5mm longer, so maybe some spacers are in order so they will meet up more closely without always having to squeeze the canopy inward.

I will mention, the only error I found in my kit is that one 3X36mm bolt for the tail clamp simply wasn't there. There is a 3x30mm bolt that seems to have no purpose so perhaps it was included by mistake, but I had plenty of 3mm bolts the right size lying around so it was no big deal and is probably a one-off with my kit.

There's not much left in terms of actually building now, just fitting the ESC and FBL unit. So I'll add something when it is ready to fly.

[johnsandywhite]

Looking good Sheryl. When is the maiden?

[trillian]

Looking good Sheryl. When is the maiden?

I have put it away for the evening but all that's left is mounting the ESC and the Total-G and then doing the setup. Since I'm using a FBL unit and ESC that I have no experience with it may take me a while getting to grips with them. This will also be the first time I am using a FBL unit that can accept two Spektrum sattelites directly into it, so the wiring will be very easy and tidy and hopefully the setup side won't kill too many brain cells.

[johnsandywhite]

I don't know the Total-G, but the Align 3G, AR7200BX and VBar were fairly straight forwards to do a basic setup in order to get flying.Taking into consideration they were ALL new to me. I am sure you will have no problem and there is always the Forums.

[trillian]

It is almost ready to maiden now. Everything is in place and everything works it's only a matter of setting up the Total-G. if it had been a flybarred heli I would have already done a test hover and be ready to take it to the field

The total ready to fly weight with two Gens Ace 2600mah packs is 3.44kg. The C of G is also perfect with these packs.

Overall it has been a really pleasant build and I have been more than happy with the design and the thought put into lots of little details. All the important stuff has gone really smooth. One minor gripe is that the main grips fit rather tight on all the blades I have tried as yet and the supplied blade bolts are just a tiny bit short for my liking, they just barely get into the nylon locking part of the nuts and ideally I'd feel better with a few mm visible out the other end. They're probably fine but for the moment I am using some other blade bolts that are a bit longer.

Also, with the design of the grips I'd prefer they were a couple mm wider and allowed the use of 1mm washers because they have a curved recessed contour on the inside and I am concerned of the potential to scratch the blades more than usual. We'll see how it goes in time. I looks to me like they are actually intended for blades with a thinner root where washers would be used but I have no idea what 600mm blades would have that kind of root size.

Anyway, here's a few pics. I still need to tidy up the wires.

[wadders248]

Oh that brings back happy memories.

I've also used some longer main blade grip bolts. The Beam ones didn't fail, though like you say, it's nice to see some threads after the nylon. I use Radix blades and really have to sand a large amount off the underneath of the root to get them to fit smoothly. Next time I'm swapping blades, I think I'll get some metal machined of the grips.

Hope you get to maiden it soon!

[trillian]

Oh that brings back happy memories.

I've also used some longer main blade grip bolts. The Beam ones didn't fail, though like you say, it's nice to see some threads after the nylon. I use Radix blades and really have to sand a large amount off the underneath of the root to get them to fit smoothly. Next time I'm swapping blades, I think I'll get some metal machined of the grips.

Hope you get to maiden it soon!

I now have everything installed and the Total-G setup and it's ready for a test hover. For a while I could not get the software to connect via the USB adaptor but finally located the right drivers to get it working. I have not changed anything on the ESC but it seems to be working as-is so I think it's fine for testing and a maiden flight.

Yeah I'm sure the supplied blade bolts are fine it's just me wanting the peace of mind in being able to easily see the bolt is secure.

I think the grips just need to be sanded a bit, probably just half a mm or so. I tried three different pairs of blades and they're all a bit tight in varying amounts.

Anyway, I'll do a quick test in the back garden tomorrow and hopefully it's ready to go for this weekend.

[johnsandywhite]

Good luck with the test.