Saturday, August 10, 2013

Resurrected 50 year old Tiger Moth

Once flown with Galloping Ghost RC control and a throttle equipped indestructible ENYA 19 engine for power. The model was scratch built from Aeromodeller free flight plans and was modified for 3 channel radio control.
 Now converted to brushless electric power and mounted on a pair of light weight Styrofoam floats for lake flying. 


Preliminary trials were disappointing because the EMC 40 size motor did not rev-up sufficiently to develop maximum power for water take-offs.. After much experimenting such as, changing propeller sizes, reprogramming the ESC setting. changing the battery voltage:;all to no avail, the problem remained unresolved. Until a fresh look at the problem; fully one year later, revealed that on spool-up the left hand threads joining the front housing, carrying the bearing to the cylinder to which the permanent magnets are attached were backing off; allowing the magnets to drag on the poles. This unscrewing continued until the motor bound up suddenly and completely, making the problem and solution obvious. The solution to the unscrewing problem was to weld the threads, by running a bead of CA glue around the joint. I could have used LocTite but I did not have any at the time and, I could not imagine why I would ever need to undo this joint in the future, so permanently gluing the components was a good choice.
Taxi Trials: