Minicopter DIABOLO build thread

[Rctintin]

Very nice job with the thread Rctintin. It's nice to see it being built again with fresh pics. I see it come with a snazy new box, not the brown cardboard one we used to get.
I was wondering about the amount of anodising removed from the tail boom, it was not clear from the pic if you removed enough of it to come in contact with the boom holding clamp and if you removed some from the tail end?
Did you mount the servos with the rubber grommets or did you get hold of some large enough eyelets? I hard mounted mine and it works fine.
You can use velcro to mount the packs. I have applied velcro to the entire surface of one side of the battery plate and velcro on the batteries. They attach to the plate and go in with little trouble. The hold in place with the O rings.

Ah the ubiquitous Trex towel as used in mine too.

Hey mate, great to see you on here! I read your build thread before this kit arrived.

Yes I did remove some anodise from the boom both ends. I will of corse check it with a continuity test to be sure it has good potential.

Re the servos, these came with 3mm eyelets. I am not happy though with the way the bolts squash up the grommets, so I will use Carbon plates over the grommets.

This kit came with one battery tray, so it will be easy to put Velcro onto it to hold the lipos in place to slide them in.

Yep, the good old Align towel!! I will contact Jan Henseleit to see if he makes one, or I would be very happy with a Futaba one!!

[Rctintin]

First of all a great build thread Rob, excellent well done.

Good points. = Very impressed with some of the finer details they have designed, belt tensioner, drive chain, tail box.

Bad Points = Not impressed by having to dremel frame parts on a new kit, and these were not minor changes you did by the pictures but rather big ones looking at it. Also having to heat head parts up in the oven, not something I'm used to when building kits.?

Quite frankly though I do like the kit and IMO Ross did the right thing letting you build it, I would have been disappointed having to make those changes in the build.

Ross will receive a 100% really nice helicopter.

Hi Tim, thanks for your kind words mate, most appreciated.

Re the mods to the frame, it was designed, like the TDR, around Futaba BLS servo's and a Kontronic 120 style controller. The servos as stated are a touch taller, so when I did the 'dry' fit, the top of the servo was touching the frame side, this is why I removed some carbon. Also, this airframe was designed a long time before the Kosmik was available. I am sure that future kits may have slightly modified frame sides to allow for the size of the Kosmik. I removed about 7-8mm of carbon in that front slot so the card could be easily removed. On the other side, it was not necessary to open up the slot, but I just wanted more space around the lead that plugs into the front port.

Heating up something is a good common practice in engineering, unless you have hydrolic presses. It's no different to putting a bearing in the freezer before installing it into a crankcase, or heating up a nitro case to get the bearing to drop out. This way, the blade grip is very tightly held on the radial bearings, unlike Align tail grips where they slop about in there!

[GMAURO]

WOW! Great work Rob, and great writing! Congrats.

[jimheli]

great thread , well done rob lovely quality heli their , enjoy gashead

[Gibbo73]

Amazing thread. As a total noob, the more of these build threads I read the better. That kit looks amazing, and the effort you put into the documenting the build is top notch. Thank you.

[Rctintin]

Hey, thanks! We were all noobs once, and I learnt most of my stuff on these forums and build threads like this. It's a pleasure to give something back to the forums.

[Jamin_00]

So has it flown yet??

[Ross Northcott]

So has it flown yet??

I hoe not as I'm in the Canary Islands lol

[Jamin_00]

Thats no reason why Rob cant fly it, I swear he pm'd me earlier saying he was just going out with it???

[Rctintin]

It flys sweet, but I had a dumb thumbs moment and crashed it!!





I woke up in a cold sweat, and thank god it was just a dream!!

I did however try out the matte black blades on my TDR this afternoon. Very nice, good feel and smooth. At my level of flying though, I could not feel much difference from the excellent Radix 710's, so that means they are good.

[xygax]

I rekon Rob should test fly it after all he built it its the ultimate shakedown test.... You build it you madien it.... Canary islands... waste of a great heli.

Rob... it needs flying

Steve

[Jamin_00]

Have to say I agree with Steve

[Rctintin]

Ross has said I can maiden it. It wont be done yet though, as I dont have a DSMX Tx to set up the V-Bar. Ill pop over to Jamie Coles and borrow one of his. Also, Ross has his EC5's wired non standard, so my packs wont fit it either.

All in good time guys!!

[Rctintin]

The electrics took quite some time to install, because I am totally OCD with my builds!! All the servo leads were cut down to length as I hate bunched up wires! The easiest way to wire this heli is to remove the tail servo because there is a small slot in the flat alloy base plate that the wiring goes through to the V-Bar. All the cyclic servo wires can be installed along with the 2 ESC wires, and finally the tail servo lead. With the Kosmic, you have to retain the 2 toroidal rings, and they look crap, so I used loom tape to cover them up a bit! All the servo wires were wrapped with loom tape as this takes less space up than the usual brade, and it's a very tight space to route the wires out of sight like I did.














The standard carbon sensor plate was to low to mount the V-Bar under, so I machined 3 new ones on my lathe that were 22mm high so I could get the Main body underneath, and then the Silverline sensor goes on top.

[Boggy]

this has been one of the best ever build threads . Great detail and write up Rob.