hobbyking tundra

[nigel fatbloke]

Just a couple of quickies from a new Tundra owner. How did you secure the battery ? Given there's no provision for same as delivered, and I consider velcro to be a swine to part when used in quantity enough to hold it's weight,often resulting in gouging and chewing up of the surrounding structure , having had to resort to prising it apart with a screwdriver. I have some battery straps ,but there is nowt to anchor these to , and I relly don't want to make slots thru' the airframe to take them . Any offers ?

 

Secondly, my motor runs backwards. Ordinarily, I'd swop wires to the motor to achieve the correct rotation, but am aware that the ESC on these is reverse-capable out of the box. Don't know if that be the case here, short of trying all switches on my Tx- Hi Tec Aurora 9- to see if it's associated with a flight condition or such , or whether it's rigged to give forward thrust from half- stick forward, and reverse half-stick backwards. I may not need this feature , for now , at least , float-flying is not high on the priority list just now, bit is on there somewhere. If present in the ESC programming , can it be overridden or locked out somehow?

All thoughts gratefully received, folks !

[Edited for language - BEB]

Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 01/04/2017 22:15:06

[Don Fry]

As I recall, the speed controller has two servo plugs coming out of it. One for speed control, one for reverse. If you don't want reverse, don't connect the reverse plug. Take care if it is connected. If you inadvertently throw the reverse switch in flight it will firstly provide instant excitement, and then burn the controller out. It's only intended to switch when the motor is stopped. But even on its undercarriage, it is amusing to reverse the machine, do a three point turn to come back to you.

I used a balsa cradle to nestle the batteries into, with a strap. The cradle is hot glued to the fusalage floor, under the centre of gravity, basically as far back as you can go on the flat floor, before you get the step at mid span position

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[rcaddict]

velcro works for me - 100's of flights and no problem

[Geoff S]

I'm a bit wary of a Velcro only battery fixing. I had that in my FunCub and lost the battery in a bunt. Like an idiot I carried on trying to fly it even though I knew there was no power supply to the receiver. The model floated down inverted (having failed to complete the manoeuvre) to land gently with no serious damage. I found the cowl but the battery is lost forever

My FunCub now has a length of 1.5mm carbon rod pushed through the fuselage over the top of the battery. It sticks out a little through the snake tube lined holes but is virtually invisible and battery is unlikely to go flying solo.

On the Tundra I've fitted a length of hardwood with sticky foam padding that wedges under some protrusions in side the fuselage which keeps the battery pushed onto the Velcro. I have flown with just Velcro but avoid negative G manoeuvres and it's been OK.

I may try a plywood/Velcro strap method but I never trust wood glued to EPO 100%.

Geoff

[Don Fry]

I used the supplied Velcro for the first series of flights, to establish the C of G, and needed battery position, as the instruction are a bit opaque. After half a dozen flights, it was detaching from the fusalage floor. Not worth the risk of relying on it.

Geoff, if you lightly slash the foam, drill some shallow pilot holes in the foam, the hot glue will key to the foam. It won't shift, and because foam is a good insulator it gives good positioning time.

Edited By Donald Fry on 01/04/2017 16:45:27

[David Ovenden]

I use velcro and a foam block that sits above the battery and fills the gap between it and the hatch cover. This reduces the chance of the lipo detaching from the velcro as it would also have to overcome the hatch magnets to come loose. I also glued the velcro to the bottom of the battery bay with foam glue. 300 flights so far with no problems.

Edited By David Ovenden on 02/04/2017 21:10:30

[Delta Foxtrot]

Velcro is a lot easier to separate if you slide an old credit card or similar in between.

Edited By Delta Foxtrot on 02/04/2017 22:23:03

[nigel fatbloke]

Thanx, all !

Now all's I gotta do is get to my hot glue gun ! It is absolutely buried like you would'nt believe , in a shed where EVERYTHING has to come out to get it , then it all has to go back , which due to forces not understood , it never does". I'm just going inside ......I may be some time ".................

[Bruce Austin]

Hi there Tundra Guys,

About 18 months ago I bought my Tundra, as my first, and only undercarriage plane.

I fly a few different Foamie gliders including a Phoenix 2000, and am generally doing belly landings.

I stopped flying the Tundra after three months when I got tired of "straightening" the wire undercarriage.

The other day I decided to bring it out and have another go at learning how to fly and LAND the plane.

My question is. Has anybody come up with a mod for the wheely undercarriage???

I did observe that the FLOAT U/C uses a heavier guage wire than is used for the wheels, but not sure why?

I'm only looking for a more robust solution to the wheely undercarriage, please.

Go With the Flow

Bruce

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Geoff S]

The only problem I've had with the Tundra under carriage was when landing on some longer grass I lost one of the springs and the s/s hook that holds it. I assume it got tangled up but I didn't notice until I got back to the pits and the chances of finding either were near to zero. I made a new hook and found a spring to replace the one I lost. Never had the undercarriage bend. The Tundra lands so gently, even in a breeze.

Geoff

[brokenenglish]

The Tundra is a great flyer.

Concerning the prop rotation issue. You just have to read the instructions!!!

I gave mine its first flight in "ridiculous" conditions (strong wind and gusting) and I got away with it!

It has that "Wot 4" quality in that you can do a lot of things with it... but it's easy to fly!

[John Robertson 3]

The Battery Mounting - I cut out a cardboard-box template to cover the whole of the flat-floor area, then cut out a thin ply sheet and Gorilla-Glued that into the model. I made sure that all the edges had a thin line of glue squeezing out. I then applied Velcro to pretty much the whole area so that I could put anything anywhere to suit myself and the CG. Additional fixing of the battery to individual taste, e.g "... My FunCub now has a length of 1.5mm carbon rod pushed through the fuselage over the top of the battery. It sticks out a little through the snake tube lined holes but is virtually invisible and battery is unlikely to go flying solo ..." and "... I use velcro and a foam block that sits above the battery and fills the gap between it and the hatch cover ...".

​I also lost an undercarriage spring, but still had the hook. I had bought a spare u/c set (£5 or so) as a make-weight on an order, but as I am particularly interested in STOL fun and my "runways" are pretty rough (hence the reinforced floor), I thought that the undercarriage springs were far too weak for what I wanted out of the plane and decided to simply replace the springs with old technology - bungee straps or their equivalent. I simply used thick-ish elastic bands (obtained from a local craft shop for another purpose some months ago) run from hook to hook through the triangular bracket and secured with little plastic zip-ties (3 per leg) to give, effectively, the core of a bungee cord with no fabric covering. I've found that this gives excellent shock-absorption and well-controlled articulation without being too strong and I can't see me changing this until it suffers from u/v deterioration.

​At the tail, I straightened the wheel leg and fitted a larger, softer tailwheel. I also modified the supplied-as-an-option horizontal stabiliser struts as their fittings were silly little things, one of which broke during attempted installation. I simply cut away the heat-shrink of the stays, leaving me with the flat-strip struts. I bonded 2 small plates of thin ply to the stab and another to the underside of the fuselage (this one wider than the fuselage). I then bonded short lengths of balsa strip to these plates to make a housing for the struts and, when dry, used a little epoxy to secure both ends of each strut. This makes the tail end good, strong and still fairly light, although it can't be easily dismantled for transport without a little bit of knife work. This is not a problem for me, as I can transport fully-rigged models of up to 2 metres, but it would be easy enough to modify this setup to be broken down for transport as it's really only the shock of landing that has to be catered for - flight loads seem to be no problem.