StarMax F-16 90mm EDF

Originally posted by Kaldek   I will be doing some dynamic balancing this weekend to bring the vibes down and regain some thrust.

how do you dynamicly balance the prop

Well I've been away from this thread for quite a while, but figured I'd come back and let everyone know how my F-16 is going. 

In short - out of action!  Hadn't flown for a while and moved to a new flying field which is grass.  The front landing gear folded on takeoff, and I got a bit flustered so then I tried a takeoff from gravel.  Big Mistake!  Front gear folded on takeoff again and as you might guess, the fan ingested a good handful of rocks.

It severely damaged the fan and also stalled the motor, which caused the ESC to fail.  Back home on the bench, I didn't realise this until both my original and second motor burned up when I went past 3/4 throttle.  The sound/pitch of the motor went up and down like mad and then the magic smoke came out.  Twice.  Until I realised it was the ESC.

Anyway,  I have ordered a replacement motor to use on my Changesun Hobbyking 90mm fan (the one with the pointy spinner). It's a KD36-74-09XL which looks to be a good cheap alternative to the ARC-3665-1, although about 100kV lower.  To go with this I also  ordered a Hobbyking Super Simple 190amp ESC. It's opto, but that's OK because I have a Castle Creations 10amp BEC handy. I also ordered three of the heavy duty digital servoless retracts to avoid gear collapse once and for all.

Since my leading edge flaps are loose, I also glued these into position and disconnected them from the flap servo.  They don't seem to make that much of a difference anyway!

I made a video of my custom thrust tube, too.



Parts should be here in a couple of weeks.  I'll let everyone know how it goes.


Edited by Kaldek - 21/Mar/2011 at 12:39pm

With some work I managed to get the retracts to fit, however now the struts foul on the motor housing for the retract system.  I'm going to have to bend the strut pins in a "Z" shape so that the struts don't hit the retract system, however this is not exactly trivial when dealing with 7/32 piano wire!

Well, I managed to solve this problem by filing a flat on the landing gear legs so they clear the retract motor housing, as per some advice from a fellow Aussie.  I now have extremely strong retracts, but I'm still waiting on my servo extension leads though.  I can't get airborne until then because I need those for the ESC wire as well.


Edited by Kaldek - 06/Apr/2011 at 6:55am

Originally posted by RobbieDJ Well I ve been hacking at this awhile now, almost there BUT can't get the servos to stop  stalling (humming). whenn I dial them down to where they stop the gear won' lock down or tuck up all the way.

Yep, this is a common problem.  Don't worry if it won't tuck up all the way, what you need to focus on is making sure they lock when lowered.  Because your gear isn't lowered for very long - i.e. only when taking off or landing -  let the servos stall a little when in the gear locked position.  This will ensure the best possible gear lock for landings, otherwise your gear can collapse, particularly the nose gear.

I say "possible" because the strut pins still bend on landing.  I have mine modified with the HK digital servoless retracts, 5.56mm (7/32") piano wire for strut pins (the struts have been drilled out to 7/32").  This solution is strong.


Edited by Kaldek - 07/Apr/2011 at 2:38pm

Thanks Kaldek. I have a set of thoes for my FlyCat but haven't used them yet.