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I put soft velcro on the mount to try and reduce vibration, but it was still pretty bad. I also need to point camera down a few degrees. I will try some sponge or receiver foam to see if that will dampen the vibration a bit better.
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Quote:
   lolTotally my pleasure to help! I'm sorry my build is going slowly.....or else i'd have posted the build log by now..i'm making a few changes to mine....basicially just reinforcement to some areas.....and with the tiled plans being just a wee bit off i've had to do some mods here and there to make up for it. Plus..i'm VERY hard on my planes..and this is gonna be no different...i made my midplate wider..the tail section top plate stops at the angle change on mine boxing it in.....and then i made a seperate midplate to span over the wings by about an inch or so..and sandwiched it all and glued the heck out of it. I added bracing at the lower step knowing i was gonna try some touch and go's on grass....and will armor plate the bottom with sheet plastic to allow it to slide easily. I also am using BBQ Skewers on the inside of the canopy where it pinches in back..ran one vertical down into the mid plate and glued it up the center of the back piece...and will do one as well on the outside of the back section...want to reinforce the canopy/motor mount location for when i overpower this sucker with a 2200kv motor lol! attached is a quick pic of where i am at now...i usually can knock outa plane in a few hours...but haven't had the time to really sit down and get this done in one shot...by the wekeend it should be ready to go... Dan |
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Thread OP
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Adding structural reinforcement seems to be a popular theme among you builders, so I thought I would share what I have learned through numerous uh-oh landings. Basically I like to build 'em light and fly within (or maintain because of) the limitations this causes, but you guys with a different flying style can definitely make it stronger.
On my maiden flight, I got up to about 100 feet high and the tail completely departed the airplane. The resulting 1 point landing (on grass) broke the roof off the cabin as the motor came off, but this was an easy fix. I subsequently modified the tail for more glue area, sanded off the surface glaze, and used triangle stock reinforcement here. After enough hard belly flop landings (from trying to do a 5 foot loop from a 4 foot altitude), the battery has broken the middeck in the battery mount area. I keep adding glue, but a doubler under the middeck under the battery might be a good idea. One hard nose first landing (it looked like an osprey after a fish) tore a wing. More glue to fix, but some packing tape wrapped around the leading edge would add some strength here. The aileron control horn area has needed regluing on more than one occasion. I don't usually fly off land, but I do often taxi from the garage, across the concrete driveway, across the pinestraw/pinecone side yard, and down the grass backyard to the pond. The only time I have damaged the bottom of the plane was landing on a wooden dock with a nailhead sticking up about an inch. This put an abrupt stop to this behavior (in more than one sense), but a shot of glue and new packing tape on bottom fixed it. Using full throttle with any down angle builds up enough speed to get the wings flapping. I don't know if this is a true aerodynamic flutter or some other mechanism. There are a number of causes of this: big ailerons; aileron control horns at the end of the aileron instead of in the middle where they belong; and wingtip floats. I fix this just by not flying that fast, but you guys with high speed motors and props may want a different answer. The good news is that it gives some warning instead of just self destructing in mid air (so far). I have wanted to experiment to see if moving the wing spar fore or aft will fix this, but it pretty much requires building a new airplane to do the experiment. Maybe some future builders can play with this (consider this a challenge). The original design had no wing floats. It flew fine but was not as maneuverable on the water, and it took much less wind to blow it over during taxi. At one time I decided to check for leaks by putting a mild air pressure inside the hull and brushing soap bubble solution over the glue joints. The joints blew bubbles everywhere! Since I never get water inside the plane (unless I flip it over), I decided not to worry about it. About the only other maintenance issue is that sometimes the pushrods get frozen in the pushrod guides due to rust. I have grease in there, so I don't quite know how to fix this (stainless steel wire maybe?). Just be sure to check your control movement before flight. I actually have two of these airplanes and still fly them both. The original (the one the tail fell off of) is a V-tail. The V-tail doesn't have as much rudder authority in 3-D flight and was harder to build, but otherwise they have very similar characteristics. Scott |
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Last edited by scott swanson; May 01, 2013 at 07:01 PM.
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heh..good stories! I was actually thinking of adding some bracing from the lower side of the cabin/step and onto the tail of the plane....i was looking at the size of the wings and the ailerons and thinking the wings would be a bit flexi...i held up the plane by the tips of the wings and sure enough the flexed (even with 3mm carbon rod in the wings) by nearly 3 inches! My solution is going to be strapping tape on the bottom of the wings after my servo install...and possibly running either BBQ skewer/dowell along the leading edge of the wings or maybe use some carbon tube i have...with the LE reinforced and the carbon in the center of the wings they should have a lot less flex. We'll see how it goes....
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Got some good flying in today. Here are a couple of videos.
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Hello Scott!
Your SlowBoat looks very nice indeed. Also, it files much better than a flying catamaran slyle boat that I had built in the past. I would like to try to build a bigger verion of the SlowBoat out of EPS. Could you please share the CAD file so I can scale it up, and make templates for EPS hotwire cutting? Thank you in advance, Stavros |
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what size lipo's are you guys using? i always build heavy and throwing all my weighty parts in the front of my sloboat last night it will not balance out on a 1300 3s....gotta go bigger on mine (not a surprise lol) my servo's are all in and the linkages setup and my Rx bound and controls are ready. Some final middeck gluing tonight..then placement of the ESC and Rx and some velcro for the battery and i'll be ready to close up the cabin and mount the motor and get that done. Hoping to have it basicially flight ready by tomorrow.
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Thread OP
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Hello Stavros,
I do not feel comfortable posting the SlowBoat CAD files on the web. However if you post a message or send me a PM asking for them, I will send you a .dxf file of the plans. I do ask that you include in your request words to the effect that you will not use the files for commercial purposes or distribute them to others. Also include your email address so I can attach the files. The design was done in AutoSketch version 1.02, which is a 20 year old program. Check for anomalies when reading these old .dxf files on a more modern CAD system, but considering the age of the program they usually do pretty well. Regards, Scott |
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Last edited by scott swanson; Apr 27, 2013 at 11:21 PM.
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Slowboat water maiden
Hi Guys,
To date I've flown the "Boat" about a dozen times but not off water. Got a chance to try it out off water at a local pond, a bit hazardous flying there, trees and utility wires to the right and behind. Four takeoffs and and landings, first takeoff pretty sorry, too worried about the trees. Nice that this plane pretty much flys off the prop when you need it. Don't think I got any water inside the fuse. With out a doubt the plane is aptly named, it is very SLOW!!! Lots of fun. A few minutes of my less than stellar flying:
Bill |
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mine is done..hoping for a quick maiden today or tomorrow....
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Quote:
 What is your AUW? |
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Thread OP
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Quote:
I have not flown it with anything except a 1350mA 3S. But I did do a static test and changing to a 2200mA 3S pushes the CG forward 1". Hope this helps, Scott |
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