N5 Maiden :D

[Spanner]

Maidened my N5 today! Was very windy though, so only had 3 tanks through with a very rich OS 55. Everything went fine, no dramas. SL720 needs setting up, but apart from that was very happy.


However, when I get home and have a wipe down,I notice the autohub is locked! and after a quick search on here, it seems its quite a common thing!

There seems to be about 5mm wear from the top brass sleeve, and some marks where the bearing has nipped into the sleeve. Looks like I'm going to have to buy a new sleeve, so not very happy, 3 tanks in and already buying spares, its not even had a bump yet!

The sleeve diameter is 11.98mm.

[Tripler]

Hi
Snap,,, my auto locked today, second flight.
Got home and found I lost a canopy thumb srew,
Rossco and others recommend using loctight in the threads
as for the auto I gave it a sharp tug and it freed off,, humm?
At 11'98 your hub should be ok,, acccording to other threads.
Maddning we have to do mods on a new heli to make it fly well.
How you getting on with your pitch setup? is it ok now,,

[Spanner]

Yes mate, everything is hunky dorey thanks. Just about to order the new Autohub, I need a new sleeve as mine is scored where the bearing rollers have locked onto it, so may aswell put the new hub on and be done with it! I'm on nights all week anyway so can't fly till the weekend. A little ****ed off that I have to buy an upgrade already after 3 tanks of fuel, hovering!

[ROSSCO]

No need to buy new parts just yet, what I would do is take some very fine wet 'n' dry sandpaper and polish the sleev, it sounds as though the diameter is fine so just polish the sleeve to take out the rough spots where the bearing has locked onto it. Just put a spot of oil onto the paper when your doing it and it will polish it out fine.

Next I'd probably clear out the auto hub oneway bearing with WD40, best way I found was to spray in some WD40 and allow it to work into the bearing then blow out with compressed air, either with an air compressor or if you don't have one the canned air type that is used for cleaning computers etc. I use some Air Duster that is used for the gas heating industry and it works a treat! Once you've cleaned out as much of the grease as you can re-lube with Tri-Flow Oil or any Light Oil.

Mine has been faultless since I did this to my Auto-Hub.

Hope this helps, if you need any help just give me a shout!

[Spanner]

We'll see if the dings do polish out, the look and feel relatively deep and its going to take a fair amount of wet'n'dry-ing to get them out! Although I got till 8am to get it sorted! I probably will just order the new hub anyway!

[ROSSCO]

When I checked the sleeve on mine after locking up it was around 12mm in diameter so it took me a few goes with the wet 'n' dry but if it's just the Mark left by the locking of the bearing it shouldn't take much to polish them out.

[Spanner]

The finest wet and dry we had at work was 500, the sleeve fitted nicely in one of our drill chucks. So its now nicely sanded/polished! Not perfect as I can still see some "divots"! But it'll do. No air lines working here at 4am so that'll have to wait till tomorrow.

[ROSSCO]

When i did the work on my sleeve i used a 600 grit Wet 'n' Dry with some oil to remove the bite marks from the bearing and then polished it out with some 1000 grit Wet 'n' Dry, again using oil.

The drill chuck sounds like it did the job nicely, i found the Rubber sanding drum from a Dremel that you use to put into the sanding tubes and screw up to xpand to hold the tube in place worked really well as it kept the sleeve solid with no wobble.

If you can try and remove all the marks as if its still present there is a chance that it will catch and lock-up again.

Also, when you clear out the grease and if your going to use an air-line refit the sleeve into one end of the bearing so that it holds the rollers in place so the pressure of the air line does'nt blow them out.

[MartinH]

I've read about removing the grease from the one way and it can solve the locking up. Why is this guys out of curiosity.

[Planehazza]

Good to hear the maiden went well.

Shame about the iffy part though.

[Spanner]

From doing a bit more googling, it sounds quite common

[Spanner]

Well, cleaned the bearing out, sanded the dings out of the sleeve and all refitted. Had a tank through this morning, (4am ) and everything seems to have worked.

Now that there is no wind, I am so impressed with this model. It is perfectly trimmed out of the box(one click rear cyclic) , and the CSM gyro is immense. It feels so much more solid than my Raptor ever did. Can't wait till this engine is tuned/run in so I can learn to fly her properly.

Fingers crossed the autohub stays as is

[ROSSCO]

Excellent!, Good to hear your liking the N5 and its good news that you got it sorted!, After doing mine it has been faultless ever since.

The machine will get better everytime you fly it!, initially the dampers are quite hard and take a few flights to bed in but once they do it will be silky smooth!

The tail on the N5 is probably one of the best belt drive systems i've flown!, The belt doesn't tend to stretch or shrink like the Bando type belts and also the teeth a very chunky and heavy duty which means I've never had a belt slip once! I'd even say the Belt drive on the N5 performs better than some Torque Tube drive systems I've flown!!

[challis349]

4 am Ian??? You on night shift with nothing better to do in the hangar lol

[Spanner]

I am indeed!! I thought 4am might be a record for late flying!! Its amazing how noisy engines are at that time in the morning!