Agreed but laser cutting has made a bunch of stuff possible for the E business model only plastic could do in the past. Time for a balsa glider for 29mm motors!

I found a couple of images of the real model that might help in seeing what the hinge portion looks like.


John Boren

See that elastic in the second pic all skwunched up inside the ears of the hinge? That's a potential cause of a no-deploy.

It looks like it will work fine to me....

You mean those rubber bands resting peacefully in the groove waiting for the thread to burn through so they can EASILY deploy the blades. Yes, I see that.

Anyone who decides to purchase and build on of these please simply follow the directions. I've never NOT had a blade deploy. The design gives the rubber bands a ton of leverage to deploy the blades. I used this same hinge mechanism on the F Helicopter model I flew at NSL last year.



John Boren

I agree with John. Oh, no!

Ah, thread burn-through. Well that answers another question. I'm curious to see where and how the thread is tied in. Just above the motor mount?

No the thread is much higher up to keep the blades from bowing out. I've also found that the thread burns through much more reliably when higher up. I don't know why it works better but it does for me.


John Boren

John-
Thanks for actually finding the "optimal" burn string position by actual experimentation/field-testing instead of relying on THEORY (just assuming) placing it lower "has" to be better.
I'm an engineer, and those in my field often get caught up with determining "why" something works rather than insuring/testing it DOES WORK.

Indeed. I've heard it said that "one good test is worth a thousand expert opinions". I got that one from Tom Hunt - a test engineer at Grumman who was very active in the world of RC airplanes, electric power in particular, for many years.