ARTF Riot chat thread

[Ken Leeper]

Mark

How did you get a 4S to fit the battery bay? - or maybe you haven't tried that yet

Ken

[Mark R]

Hi Ken, yeh have used a 4s. Turnigy 2200 mah 4s fitted quite snuggly but still allowed hatch to be closed. But to be honest with new ESC I haven't bothered and use any of my 3s up to 3000mah in it.

Mark

[Bill_B]

Posted by Peter Beeney on 21/08/2013 11:41:18:

I paint brush foam safe kicker onto one half of the joint, and give it a few mins to dry. Meanwhile I cover the other half with MPX Zacchi, a foam safe cyano.

PB

Just a heads up to those modellers that may not know; Multiplex's Zacki is most definitely not foam safe and has been developed especially for their own brand of foam, Elapor. However, it works fine on all other similar foams like Arcel, Solidpor, EPO etc. Please do not use it on EPS type foams as it'll be too aggressive and melt the foam. As has already been pointed out, foam safe CA is not required, or even recommended for EPO type foams as it doesn't have the ultimate strength of regular CA glues.

[Chuck Plains]

Heh. Huge irony that I bought a Riot flew it once as a rank beginner, realized it was good and sold it before I wrecked it. But now, if they only sold it as an empty kit, I would buy another. Definitely.

I completely recommend it for beginners! It's so easy to fly, it's easy to fly slowly, and , from other's descriptions, is reasonably tough. The club I was with when I bought one also got one as a trainer.

[Rob Fairweather 1]

Well well, after following this thread for a while I bought one as a quick way back into the hobby after a 27 year lay off.

Mine is a "devil" badged version, and it would seem that I've got all the problems reported by various people on their models all in one.

On unboxing, the fin/hinge were two separate pieces where the half thickness joint had failed. . . . No longer hinged with glued hinges all round ? The Elevator is similarly hinged with half thickness material.

The control rods for elevator and rudder are too long, and due to the corkscrew type of ends on the rods, with evil clevisses, it doesn't look like I can do much other than move the servo arms round to the next spline to centre the surfaces, and suffer the differential movements that will ensue.

The wings look great, nice and solid looking, however the aileron servo rods are of different lengths, one being short enough, with the arm moved round to the next spline to compensate. This gives one aileron a good differential type of movement, but in the wrong direction . . . . More down than up ! This I can change with new rods and clevisses, ( clevii ? )

The wheels are not round, the bolts for the axles are tiny, the prop/spinner are way out of balance .

I'm going to re hinge the elevator and rudder, which will close up the joints and make the control rods even longer in effect. Change the wheels, change the aileron rods, and then pray that it flies !

As an old aircraft tech ( full size) and a longtime scratch and kit model builder (aircraft,ships,tanks) I'm perhaps a bit fastidious/perfectionist/anal about my models, or meybe because lots of people like ARTF models and this is what we have come to expect.

All in all, I'm less than impressed with my Almost Ready To Fix model. It seems to have changed a bit, specification wise now it's called a Devil. Or am old and grumpy.

[Chris Walby]

Rob,

I think there is a possibility of completely loosing perspective with the RIOT and while I agree there seems to be a number of faults with them (no excuse for broken parts on delivery) it is want what its is....A trainer

It flies well, is forgiving and can be patched up if someone puts it in the ground, hedge, tree while learning

 

Give the guys credit for a well mannered robust and cheap (for what you get) plane.

Everyone seems to want high quality and low price, but that will never happen...if you strive for perfection the best way is to do it yourself. There are British kit suppliers that are on the brink of giving up because only a few people are building kits, they are very helpful and you can spend many hours achieving perfection by building it to your specification.

It should come out of the box,l take you through training and beyond and do it cheaply then its just the job.

I know very little about aircraft, but what I can see is something that fits the bill for all the things it needs to do for a price!

There are plenty of posts for "improvements" but they all cost in time/money.. if the model was another 50% more expensive would you have bought it just to have x type servos, y type hinges etc..

Ask one last question....if it was a heap of rubbish, why are they so popular?

 

 

 

Edited By Chris Walby on 22/04/2017 10:21:47

[Rob Fairweather 1]

Chris,

Thanks for the reply,

Yes, for me 50% more on the price to have something that instills confidence right from the box opening would work.

Also agree on the british kit makers bit, just finishing off one of Jims Maddog creations. . . . Superb. I've built DB, Flair etc etc .

I'm just going to have to agree to disagree with ARTF creations, when they are not really ready to go without rectification of glaringly obvious short cuts ( done for cheapness)

Rob. . . Almost Ready To Frow it out dept.

[Colin Carpenter]

Still flying mine with 300 flights on the clock ! Only one wallop and all equipment original. Rudder not glued into its plastic fixing but discovered that early. Washers to adjust downthrust so it accelerates level and not climb. For 130 quid it's a bargain ! I notice the new ones u/c are much weaker and bend easily. Colin

[Rob Fairweather 1]

Thanks Colin,

I'm going to finish it and fly it.

[Rob Fairweather 1]

Did I mention I've got a C of G indication, but no control throw hints ! That's a first.

[Ken Leeper]

Agree with Rob

Can accept budget servos, motors, esc etc

However it costs no more to put in the correct control rods

And it would add little to the cost to quality control the hinges

Ours now has a completely remodelled front end but still flies

To me the undercarriage was the weakest part- in our day a two sided affair waiting screws that pulled out on the first dodgy landing

[Geoff S]

All I can say is that after literally 100s of landings I have never had a problem with the undercarriage apart from soft 3mm bolts for the axles. After they eventually bent a bit it was a 5 minute job to replace them with HT cap heads. I probably do at least 3 touch and goes every flight so I must have landed my Riots about 1000 times, usually on hard asphalt.

Geoff

[Ken Leeper]

My original manual states :

Ailerons 10mm each way

Elevator 10mm each way

Rudder 12mm each way

[Rob Fairweather 1]

Thankyou Ken.

[Colin Carpenter]

I agree Geoff , but the latest undercarriage bends when you look at it ! I have an original one on my HK SBach and that doesn't bend but the latest Riots do easily. Colin

[Rob Fairweather 1]

I've just received a new rudder/fin for my two piece one, to find it 1/3 detached . The crushed foam 'hinge' just doesn't seem to be any good. I hope the elevators stay on !

I've emailed direct to Century as it doesn't seem to be the model shops problem.

[Rob Fairweather 1]

I have received an email this morning from Century regarding my Riot/Devil problems.

It would seem that the Devil version is the model that the manufacturers inflict upon the rest of the world, due to the Riot line being effected by a premises move and Reorganisation. The Riot being the proper hinged UK version.

The crushed hinges and other problems are only on the Devil version and not Riots.

Advice from Century is to fit pinned hinges to Devils

So, my apologies to Riot fans, it's only the Devil that deserves scorn.

Perhaps we ought to wait until more genuine Riots are available.

Rob. . . Fitting pinned hinges dept.

[Kim Taylor]

Thread revival alert!!

Just thought it may be useful to update with my thoughts on the Riot V2, which I've just finished putting together as a replacement for my original Devil badged version.

First impressions were that the finish on the plane is much better than the original, the decals are perfectly applied and to my eye are much nicer than the Mk1. The cowling is no longer painted which seems to change the shape of the plane visually making it look a bit less blunt at the nose.

When I tried to fit the tailplane / fin, I found that it was difficult to line up the tailwheel bracket and still get the fixing screws to turn in. In fact, when I tried to just push it all together and tighten down the screws, I found I had the old problem of the fin seating detaching.

Looking at the problem, I decided to trim a couple of mm off of the back edge of the foam fin locating tab, and it all went together perfectly after that (obviously after re-glueing the fin bracket),

I removed the nose weight, as I had done on my original and put in a bit of ply for reinforcement of the foam in that area. I'm using 3s 3200 LiPo's, so need a bit of help to get the c of g back.

There are a couple of alternative servo horns in the box, with adjustable screw type connectors fitted, along with a note explaining that some airframes have been found to have control rods that are too long. I found that I needed to use these, cutting off the original 'Z' bends as directed. In my view, this is a better arrangement anyway (there was some play at the z bends on my first one) although I know some don't like the screw type connectors, whatever they're called. . When I'm confident that I've got the setup right, I'll add a blob of thick cyano as a precaution against slipping / undoing.

Just fitted my rx and set up the throws - strange but true note, I used the profile from the original and the same rx, yet the direction of travel had to be reversed on both rudder and elevator, which I thought was odd. Just need to check the c of g and we'll be ready to go (when the weather lets me,anyway).

The complete model, in my view looks a lot 'crisper' than the original, let's hope I can keep it looking like that!!

Kim

[Jon Robb]

Did you check the CG before removing the nose weight? A lot of Riot V2's in my club, flown on 3s 2200mAh and people seem pretty happy with the weight distribution without removing the nose weight. I left mine in at the time and had the battery sat as far back as possible.

[Kim Taylor]

Hi Jon,

To be honest, no I didn't. I was flying my old one at the back end of the suggested range so needed to remove the weight to get there. Didn't think there would be a difference between V1 & V2 in this respect.

If I need to put it back, I can easily stick some weight in the nose.

I'll report back later if I need to do that.

Kim

[Kim Taylor]

Hi Jon,

To be honest, no I didn't. I was flying my old one at the back end of the suggested range so needed to remove the weight to get there. Didn't think there would be a difference between V1 & V2 in this respect.

If I need to put it back, I can easily stick some weight in the nose.

I'll report back later if I need to do that.

Kim

[Kim Taylor]

Further to the above, with the nose weight removed and using my 3s 3200 LiPo packs, the c of g is spot on 90mm from the leading edge, i.e. at the rearmost limit of the recommended range.

Hopefully maiden this weekend

Kim

[Jon Robb]

Thanks for the update Kim, it goes to show how forgiving this plane is then as the nose weight is quite hefty!