I started this project last year, and although it sounds like a pointless exercise, let me explain the motivation behind it. Travelling these days using cheap air flights is way cheaper than travelling long distances by car. To take your model on the airlines requires a small packing box. Profile models are a pretty easy way to make nice compact stunters quickly, so I thought about making it all bolt together. About half way through, it started looking like it was going to come out too heavy, but the final weight is 43.7 oz. (1240 grams)........with the 2200 mAh 4-cell Lipo.
It's a .40 size stunter, and I use an E-Max 2820 motor (same as Arrowind 2820) with a Hobbywing 40 amp esc, plus my own governor timer. The bellcrank is in the inner wing and there is a short stub joiner going to the outer wing that is held on with 2 short M3 bolts with counter-sunk heads. The fuselage joint is staggered as you can see from the photos below, and has normal M3 bolts top and bottom. I suppose that 440 bolts would be fine over there. The wings are cored out foam wings with 1/16" balsa leading and trailing edges and cap strips between them. I use 3 x 10 mm wood spars under the balsa sheeting for the aluminium joiners. The covering is poly tissue, like Polyspan, and then I sprayed it with a quick drying enamel. This is "sort-of" fuel-proof, although it does not have to be fuel-proof for obvious reasons. I could have just used laquer spray with rattle cans, but the enamel is a lot more glossy and tougher. The quick dry enamels also have around 50% less solids than normal enamel. What sometimes happens is that you get someone with fuel on their hands that picks up your precious new model, and then the lacquer pain will be damaged. This is why I wanted a "sort-of" fuel proof finish.
It flies well and I believe it is rather nice to take with you even in you car if you like taking a model with you on holiday. I have not yet made a simple box for it, but last week-end we had a competition down in Durban (South Africa) and this is a 600 km. drive. There were 4 of us in my Nissan Almera and I stuck the profile parts in sections of bubble wrap into gaps in the boot. This worked very well.
I've called it "Protron" and it is based on my full-bodied Electron, so it's like a Profile Electron. The cheek cowl works nicely to cover the electronics, and the ESC power cable goes through to the battery side as you can see. The Velcro straps work well to hold everything in place, and connecting the battery is quick and easy. I use a slide switch on my timer to start it all up and this is neatly tucked away in the cheek cowl. There is a gap underneath the cheek cowl for air to flow out, so the switch just sticks out enough to get to. My governor timer is programmed by means of a simple plug-in 3-button card, that is used in place of the slide switch when you want to change settings. When I want to do a lot of fiddling with the settings, then I leave the cheek cowl off. It's held on with just one M3 bolt and 2 dowel pins at the rear.
The motor and esc hardly gets warm, so I believe that this is a nice power package. I use the popular APC 11 x 5.5 E-prop. Anyway, if you have any questions, then fire away.
Keith R
Topic: My new take-apart electric profile (Read 1300 times)