Now that I am getting close to finishing of my electric Pro2k I am looking for ways to save weight and the obvious candidate is the canopy ;- the one I have weighs in at nearly 12oz. Otherwise there doesnt look like many other areas for weight saving unless anybody has some suggestions.

cheers Nigel

Nigel,
I don't remember the stock Lexan canopy being that heavy...
Unless you have some ungodly amount of paint and grafix on it, but I'm having a hard time think of how one could weigh that much....
A fiberglass one yes, but the stock Lexan????

Lynn

Lynn

aha there you go mine is fibreglass. I didnt know they did a Lexan one. i wonder what that weighs.

cheers Nigel

Nigel
You may want to wait just a little bit. The Ion canopy might fit if you modify your mounting a little. I'm not sure here but if it would it would save you a ton. We are able to get those canopies painted under 4 ounces...actually very close to 3 ounces. They are fiberglass. Another option may be for you to get a hold of Tim at MinAir. He may be able to special order a really light Pro canopy for you.

Chris

Chris,

sounds perfect:- waiting is no problem, in as much as, in reality there is a fair bit of work to do yet. I only ordered the motor yesterday and I have yet to get my LiPo packs. Since the current draw from the 40-4 is likely to be somewhat higher than with the 24 series i figure on getting 3p of the Tanic 2600's but i dont think anyone has these cells at the moment. I am also looking at getting the mainshaft, feathering spindle and tail rotor shaft made in Titanium (ive got some bar stock laying around). When i did this for my Joker it not only saved about 80g but the resilience of the titanium meant that the shafts lasted through 4 or 5 crashes whereas i found the steel ones needed changing every crash. I am also going to swap out all the steel bolts for titanium and replacing all the steel nuts with aluminium ones which in the Joker saved another 30g+.

Following your ideas about removing the big Torrington unit i had aclose look at mine and one easy way of doing nearly the same thing seems to be:- removing the whole Torrington unit (0866-7/8+9) whilst leaving the inner sleeve/connection disc (0866-6) in place which means i can still lock the whole ger in place with the original pin and collar (0866-12 + 0840-6). then i just have to bolt the main gear to the tail drive gear/inner sleeve assembly and all should be well. OK I know I then have to get the pinion with torringtons made. In your opinion what is the smallest pinion that i could still fit the nesessary one ways into.

Cheers Nigel

hey , I would stay away from the tanics , they havent been holding up to well in HV setups because they dont match them like Charlie Wang does with his Thunderpower packs , they maybe good cells but Charlie orders like 10000 at a time so he can match each cell in Voltage and res , the tanics , well they cant do that yet , plus they weigh about 10% more and produce about 10 to 15% more heat compaired to the TPs .

hey that titanium shaft sounds good , what type of titanium do you use ? I have a pile of titanium welding tig rods that I use to use for linkages for the littler helis

Tony

Tony

Tony,

cor that took you a while to chip in I thought maybe you had an accident or something-- but seriously the titanium is referred to as 6/4 titanium alloy (i have more details if you need them).

I am surprised to hear what you say about the Tanics-- has there been any posts detailing these problems. I was figuring on the Tanics because of their higher "C" rating and i understood that Joe Howard (Joker USA) was matching up his packs although as to wether he has 10000 to work with i couldnt say; and i sure wasnt aware of this weight difference.

Cheers Nigel

huh? ME Nope Ben has had problems , and as long as the cell count is low like 3s4p then its more forgiving ,

Nigel

That sounds like it should work well, be sure to do a before and after weighing so you know the difference. I think you could probably get the torrington in question into a 14 tooth pinion and still have enough wall "meat" left to hold it together. A 14 tooth pinion would have 2mm of wall thickness all the way around after boring to 10mm, which should be plenty. I did 15 and 16 tooth and they had more than enough. Make sure to use two of those bearings.

Titanium? Wow, that is ambitious. I always bored out my main masts, but in a crash, as you said, they are toast. I guess I'm used to that...

Chris

Chris

I do like getting your answers so far they all confirm my best hopes for the various options. From playing with KC's spreadsheet the 14 tooth pinion showed up very well. However before going to the trouble/expense of getting the 14 pinion with bearings fitted etc. I am going to generaly prove the setup by ruuning a standard MA 12 pinion with the standard one way bearing system. Then when I have some real world figures and experience I shall determine what the actual weight gain will be for my halfway-house version of your idea in order to determine whether its worth doing.

I have been a long term fan of titanium since getting into titanium pushbikes some years ago and benefitting from its amazing properties.

Cheers nigel

I have not messed around with titanium since my model boat days, used to make turn fins out of the stuff. Hated working with it. It truly is amazing stuff, tougher than steel and lighter than aluminum if I remember correctly.

Never have chucked a piece of it up in my lathe to see how it cuts, I suspect though that like most any other metal, most arguments can be won with the proper application of carbide.

yeah, i've had some problems with the tanics, but it's pretty unclear as to what the causes were. don't write them off just yet.

Chris,

ah yes Tungsten carbide the metal/wood workers friend. The worst is trying to grind the stuff as the titanium kind of moves away from the stone so it takes about 10 times as many passes of the grinder and then it still wants to get hot plus of course the 2grindings" and swarf have a nasty tendency to catch fire which is why many machine shops dont like to touch the stuff.

Ben,

it will probably be about 4 to 6 weeks before i want to make a LiPo purchase so hopefuly we can have some answers in that time.

cheers Nigel

hey , Nigel , took your advise and got me some 6AL-4V titanium on the way , huh? still trying to find out on the net what the AL and thre V means , Ill take it either to my work or try it on my little little mini lathe thats about 14" long , never used it yet , now I got to come up with a way to auto feed it , huh? HV , DIY Brushless motor with gear box and a cheap esc with one of my old radios should do it huh?


Tony

Tony

6Al-4V refers to the alloy components of the titanium as I recall the it means 0.6% aluminium and 0.4% vanadium. With regard to machining it I would take the trouble to look up in some refernce manual or other the best speeds and cutter materials and remember to watch out for the highly flamable nature of the swarf.-- Good luck and let us know how you get on

Cheers Nigel