Rave 450

[Raptormad2]

tried the rave out today well really pleased, up into the hover and just sat there hands off head speed and expo needs a bit of tweeking seems a very lively heli as its so light, going to put the 350 blades back on that I got with it , other than that I am glad that I didn't sell it and well worth converting to fbl.

[PeteStewardson]

Good stuff. Glad you're enjoying it

[PeteStewardson]

How are you getting on with this one still?

[Raptormad2]

Hi the fbl conversion has sorted it out not a bad little heli, fitted 360 blades havnt flown much lately due
To weather, this heli is a bit of a handful in the wind I think it's due to being fairly light but otherwise good.

[PeteStewardson]

Good to hear. I just picked up an airframe form ebay but it's FB so will have to track down some FBL parts to convert it over.

[Raptormad2]

That's good ,couldn't find a rave 450 fbl head anywhere as you know spares for this model are few and far between
So I put a tarot head on it , set up really well , will be interesting to see how you get on,

[PeteStewardson]

Will see what its like once it turns up. I've still got a few spares and some new blades. Wont build it up for ages, will look for bargain electrics coming up

[PeteStewardson]

OK so it turned up. Mechanically it's not in great shape, the tail slider is mega tight and it looks like there's a few gritty bearings. I've got a full bearing kit at home so I can just use those in the rebuild. One bonus is it has the frame stiffener set on it, just need to track down a FBL head kit now

[Raptormad2]

I could find a rave fbl head anywhere that's why I put the tarot head on not bad head for the money about £15
from hong kong bit of a wait but not that long , what motor are you going for mine had the scorpion 10 on it
To run on 4s but I now run on 3s still has plenty of power.

[PeteStewardson]

Not decided on motor yet. I run 6s on my Chase 360 so might look at putting a 2000v motor in it and run the same packs on both helis. I used to run 4s on my TT360 and got great flight times.

[PeteStewardson]

OK well I've started the strip down and it looks like I'll need to look out for another one and use a few of the bits off this one for parts

The boom has been fitted backwards for a start and because nothing fit right it seems as if the tail gearbox has been glued on or something, oh and sheared off screws all over, TT bearing not glued in place. Complete balls up of a build that will need a fair few parts to get back in the air. Oh well, should have known better.

[trillian]

Looking at the Rave rotorhead it looks to me like the FB head could be converted by just removing the flybar stuff and mixer arms and replacing the washout with a swash driver. That's basically what I did on the big Rave, I just bought the FBL headblock and links.

[PeteStewardson]

I'm not sure whether the geometry would be too far out doing that. The FBL grips have longer arms on them. Will have a look though, worth at least investigating

[trillian]

I'm not sure whether the geometry would be too far out doing that. The FBL grips have longer arms on them. Will have a look though, worth at least investigating

I just had a look at more pics showing the swash and servos. The inner swash has the links quite far outward to get good throws for the flybarred head but it looks like two things are probably possible: 1. Moving the links inward just a bit on the servo arms or 2. using a different swash with a smaller inner swash diameter so you have some reduction there.

[PeteStewardson]

I just had a look at more pics showing the swash and servos. The inner swash has the links quite far outward to get good throws for the flybarred head but it looks like two things are probably possible: 1. Moving the links inward just a bit on the servo arms or 2. using a different swash with a smaller inner swash diameter so you have some reduction there.

Actually when using vbar most people I saw running the Rave swapped the inner swash balls for shorter ones to get the geometry needed. So maybe with the FB grips and the standard longer balls on the swash might be achieving the same thing. I think I need to do some measuring.