Scale Airwolf scale project

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Bill Lowen

Member
Some questions...

When I started this 550 kit, my plan was to go scale. Century has a scale Airwolf fuselage for both the 550 and the 600. Funsky has the Airwolf fuselage as well. From what i can tell, Century and Funsky are related but Funsky ships out of Hong Kong. Has anybody had any dealings with either one of these companies? Roban also makes a nice Airwolf fuselage but I cannot find any information as it relates to cost and shipping. Any feedback in regards to these three companies as well as any others would be greatly appreciated.


The 600 fuselage is a bit bigger (actually 9 or so inches longer) than the 600 fuselage so I am going to go with then 600 fuselage. From what I understand, all I need to do is upgrade to 600 blades and tail boom and my 550 is now a 600. Outside of the scale fuselage mountings, is anything else needed to convert my heli to a 600? Does it use the same tail assembly and torque tubes?

I also am having thoughts of upgrading my head to the 600 DFC head. It just looks cleaner. Is that as simple as dropping the 600 DFC head and swash into my 550? Do you have to switch out the main bearing blocks and main gear? Do I have to upgrade the motor or ESC and any of the electronics?

My intent is scale flying so I am not really looking at 3D performance upgrades. I am mostly concerned about reliability, stability and aesthetics. The 600 has less moving parts so it just seems like a nice upgrade to the FBL I have now. All feedback is welcome and appreciated.
 
holtneil

holtneil

Active Member
Hi Bill RC AERODYNE do the roban airwolf they are USA based , good luck on this build , When I did the cobra 500 it was a bigger job then then I was told , only pain was getting head speed right for a scale heli , I got there with help for the scale guys , we changed , motor and pinion, main gears , CC talon ESC , spin blades on head and tail , but OMG it was so worth the time , Photos Please as you build
http://www.scaleflying.com/
 
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Bill Lowen

Member
Roban's site shows RC Aero as the US distributor but I did not see a fuselage for the 600. I sent them an email so hopefully I hear back from them. There was a few distributors in Europe that have it for around $370 but I am not sure about how shipping to the US would work for that. I was going to check with a friend at my LHS here in town, thinking he might have some contacts. Is your Cobra a Roban fuse?

This project has been a lot of fun so far, I know the scale conversion is going to be some work but like you said, I think its going to be worth it. Pictures will be forthcoming for sure. Sure am glad to see there are guys like you doing the scale stuff and are willing to share their experience with me.
 
murankar

murankar

Staff member
I am guessing your on an Align 550. If so then stretching will need everything from the front boom block back. You may need to change the main gear and your motor will need to be able to handle a 600 sized bird.
 
holtneil

holtneil

Active Member
Hi Bill no the Cobra was an Align kit made at the same factory as the heli artist, it was to good when it came , but its now sorted , I did want to get the areodyne kit ( roban) but works out a lot of money with shipping to the UK , and the German site does not have the range that rc aerodyne has, this is the german site
scaleflying.de take a look they dont have as many kits as the US
I have been tying to find the file i had on my pc of the airwolf close up and spec ,but I think it got deleted shame it had so much info
http://scaleflying.de/index.php
 
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Bill Lowen

Member
Thanks Neil. I had a bit of a setback this weekend. I went to power up my ESC and "pop" than smoke. Oh well, gave me some time to clean up my workbench and get reorganized. I went down to my LHS at lunch today and picked up a CC Talon 90 so I am back in business. I like the programming interface and I think this should fit my scale project needs quite nicely.

After speaking with my friend who owns our hobby shop, all I really need to do is get the 600 boom. The head I have is more scale than the DFC head and the 520 MM blades I have should be fine. After watching Tony's vid on headspeed equations, I will probably need to replace the pinion gear though to lower the RPM.

At this point, I just want to get this girl in the air to see how she is gonna behave. Get a few flights to get comfortable and then get going on the scale end of things. My friend also says the Century fuselages are very nice and easier to get so i am probably going in that direction.

Side note, some guy walked in to the hobby shop.. wanted to get into Helis because they were cheaper to fix than airplanes when you wreck them. Kind of made me smile.. If he only knew.

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murankar said:
I am guessing your on an Align 550. If so then stretching will need everything from the front boom block back. You may need to change the main gear and your motor will need to be able to handle a 600 sized bird.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have the 600MX and if I am not mistaken, that is the same motor the 600 uses. I think my main gear should be ok, but I will probably need to replace the pinion gear.
 
murankar

murankar

Staff member
I believe the 600mx is the standard on the 600.

As for the boom, just make sure a 600 boom will fit the boom block and tail output box (rudder assembly in the back).

What I am not sure of is the diameter of the 600 boom. Not sure if its the same as the 550.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Forum Runner
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
Actually, the new 600's are running the 750mx Align motor. Everyone is looking for more torque, and you get that from a 700 size motor. The 600mx will be perfect for scale. And yes, you can replace the tail boom but remember you will also need a new TT shaft as well. Not sure about the tail support bars.
 
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Bill Lowen

Member
Man what a crappy day! I am a complete idiot and I even hesitate to mention what I did. Hopefully you guys have been there and maybe cut me some slack.. I mentioned I burned up an ESC and replaced it with a Talon 90. Well I also burned up a gyro and a servo. I was sleeving servo wires over the weekend and I will give you one guess what I did when I reinstalled the connector on the Aileron servo. This has turned into an expensive lesson of what the meaning of red and black is. . I was fortunate to pick up the ESC for $79 and a guy had a brand new gyro for $60.. but the servo is another problem. I cannot find a 610 anywhere. I am thinking I could use the 620 from the tail and replace the tail servo with something else.. least that way I could get the head set up while I am waiting on a tail servo. is there any issues with using 610's on the ele and pitch and a 620 on the aileron? Does anybody have any gently used 610's they would let go of for the right price.
 
murankar

murankar

Staff member
I wish you could. It's best practice to use all the same servos on the cyclic.

Yes a few have made that mistake. It can get very daunting to say the least. Passing full voltage in the wrong polarity can reek havoc on a system. Your lucky it was just an fbl, servo and esc. Some people have fried everything except the motor.

If your looking at a decent budget servo KST makes one for about 60 a servo. These are close to mks and/or BK servos. If you choose the 620 you'll need 2 more plus your new tail servo.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Forum Runner
 
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Bill Lowen

Member
murankar said:
I wish you could. It's best practice to use all the same servos on the cyclic.

Yes a few have made that mistake. It can get very daunting to say the least. Passing full voltage in the wrong polarity can reek havoc on a system. Your lucky it was just an fbl, servo and esc. Some people have fried everything except the motor.

If your looking at a decent budget servo KST makes one for about 60 a servo. These are close to mks and/or BK servos. If you choose the 620 you'll need 2 more plus your new tail servo.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Forum Runner
Click to expand...


New day.. Onward and upward! looks like 3 new cyclic servos are on the agenda for today.
 
murankar

murankar

Staff member
Good luck with the shopping. Let's us know what your looking at so we can give advice if needed.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Forum Runner
 
B

Bill Lowen

Member
murankar said:
Good luck with the shopping. Let's us know what your looking at so we can give advice if needed.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Forum Runner
Click to expand...


Well I ended up getting a Savox Titanium Gear Standard Servo (SAVSC1258TG) from Heli Direct $65 shipped. It has the same exact specs as the DS 610. I am going to use it on the elevator and move the DS610 to the alieron.

That turned into a $200 goof. Amazing, I only had the battery connected for about a thousandth of a second. I guess I can chalk it up to a learning experience but man, this one hurts.. :facepalm:

- - - Updated - - -

although the Talon 90 was a nice upgrade over the stock ESC so that was not money wasted at least
 
murankar

murankar

Staff member
There is a good chance that might work. Savox is the manufacturer for align servos.

Just pay attention to your connectors before plugging in. I always verify my wire colors before powering up. Just something I got into with deans connectors. Ec5s can connect just enough to short out.

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holtneil

holtneil

Active Member
Hi Bill your better off using the same servos as muranker said , as it can put the swash out of balance , The Talon esc is really nice , get the quick connect kit its not a lot more , but what it does is it will give a lead to plug the field card or PC in to so you can change setting easy no trying to pull leads off to connect to , the governor mode is so easy to set up you just dial in gearing then what head speed you want and if it possible it will let you run it , the only thing I wished it had was data logging , also when you spin up the esc will wistle dont panic its normal , if you watch my Cobra video with volume high your hear the wistle I mean
 
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Bill Lowen

Member
Thanks Neil. The Savox I just ordered had the same voltage, torque, speed ratings, and spline count as the DS 610. Murnakar confirmed what my LHS said, that Savox makes the Align servos. Also finding out that you do not mix cyclic servos was a good lesson and one that i did not have to learn the hard way. I am still in awe of all the damage that was done by mixing the pos and neg wires on one servo lead. Some of the best lessons are the ones you learn the hard way I suppose. and it did not cost me a trip to the hospital or any lost limbs so I got off pretty lucky with this lesson. It is ok to make mistakes, just avoid the ones that maim or kill you right?? LOL

Yes, I did purchase the lead. I set everything up last night. I thought it did have data logging. When i installed the program off of castle's website, it gave me an icon for the actually program and another icon entitled graphing. I guess I assumed that was for logging data. Maybe I need to do some more reading. I will go home tonight and look at it again. At any rate, I am pretty excited about the ESC, I love all this technology and somehow hooking up a RC heli to your laptop and fine tuning it is way cool to me.
 
murankar

murankar

Staff member
I am not sure of the 90 has logging. If its the Phoenix edge series it should. Also the castle link cord is free with the coupon that comes in the esc. If you bought the link return it and order the free one. Saves you $25 USD.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Forum Runner
 
holtneil

holtneil

Active Member
Hi Bil the talon 90 does not have data logging as I found out shame as I wanted that, never mind still a nice ESC , your like it the governor mode is spot on
 
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Bill Lowen

Member
yeah, I cant wait to mess with it some more. My servo should be here tomorrow so I have been on hold with my setup.. plenty of other projects and nitro to burn in the meantime though.

I did get an email back from RC Aerodyne. He did not understand why the 600 Roban AW fuselage had been removed from the website but he is going to get it back up. I am waiting to price it out before I make a decision between that one or Century.

Have you been out to Aerodyne's website and checked out the superscale fuselages? Man, some of those are sweet!
 
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