Raptor 30 destroyed belt pulley

[Kaymo]

Well I had a little mishap at the field today when the tail belt decided to eat its way through the bottom flange of the left pully. Made a bit of a mess of it with plastic "dust" from the pully all over the heli.
Anyway, I had a quick check on Raptor Technique and it seems this has happened before.

Quote from the "Trouble Shooting" section
"Belt ate the bottom flange of the front left pulley R30/50 ---
When you install the tail boom you need to hold up on the boom and tighten the four bolts up front then the two in the horizontal fin. If you don't then the boom will be at a slight down angle which causes the belt to ride on the bottom flange instead if riding between the flanges."

More or less describes my problem exactly so I'll give it a go.

For those of you who have a Raptor and don't know about the "Raptor Technique" web site, I throughly recommend you take a look. It has a wealth of usefull information and set-up tips for the Raptor 30/50.

http://www.raptortechnique.com/

[philiphenderson]

I put the photos I took, when this happened to me, into the gallery.

Phil.

[Kaymo]

So what was the fix Phil?

[philiphenderson]

I couldn't really say what the fix was as it never happened again. The thing is that you remove the boom to clean everything down, so if it was the angle of the boom that caused this to happen then you most likely removed the problem by putting the boom back in correctly after cleaning.

Phil.

[Kaymo]

You may be right and Im prepared to go along with the boom theory, its just strange its never happened before. I must have removed and refitted the boom dozens of times and its never been a problem until now.

[philiphenderson]

You did say that you were running your belt tighter than you normally do. This could've been a factor as the belt moved to the edge of the guide.

Phil.

[Kaymo]

Well by way of an update...
I renewed the belt and pullys and made sure I held the boom up when I tightened it. Ran fine for the 1st couple of tanks then on the 3rd the belt came off the LH pulley again :cry:
Looks like its back to the drawing board.

Damm but this is annoying :evil:

[philiphenderson]

Maybe loosen the belt again. This might stop it being dragged down if there is something not quite lined up straight.

Phil.

[Raptorite]

Hi guys,

I have had and seen this myself many times before, its a real PIA when it happens as it usually also takes out the little plastic holders on the inside of the frames that those 2 belt pullies sit in.

You will most likely find that the pully will now want to sit at an angle and may even cause the belt to turn inside out on the drive gear, also creating huge amounts of white powdery stuff as it shreds the edges of the belt.

The best thing and probably the only fix now is to replace the frames, this will insure that the pullies sit square and support the belt as they should, this unfortunately is the PIA bit :roll:

When you have got it back together, make sure as has already been mentioned that the boom is straight and square in the frames, this can quite easily be checked by eye, looking from the back of the heli forward and lining up the virtical fin with the sides of the frames.

The other big reason this can happen is because the belt is too tight or loose, tighten it such so you can press the belt in just infront of the 2 pullies about a quarter of an inch only, any more and its too loose and is likely to skip teeth causing intermitant tail authority problems, anny less and its too tight which is just as if not more likely to cause the belt to turn inside out on the drive gear and do exactly the same again :x

I hope this helps,

Cheers,

Pete.