Ripmax EasyStreet 2

[Bob Cotsford]

I loved my old Easystreets so when I saw that Ripmax have released an updated and upsized version as the Easystreet 2 I put my order in to Wheelspin. 2 days later the box arrived- last Friday. It's very nice bit of kit, well made and easy to assemble. Looks just like the film that you get from HK, neat and well applied trim, the wood quality looks good, no wood carving needed to assemble it . I did extend the fuselage servo tray openings to take some Corona 339HV metal gear servos I had handy - massive overkill at 5kg.cm but they were to hand. Ailerons will use 2 MG90S at 1.8 kg.cm. which should be plenty on this size model. I had a 3542 size motor of unknown make lying around, it powered my late Dogfighter more than adequately. I'd guess that it's probably around 1200kv, iirc I used a 10*5 or thereabouts on the DF. I had to find a suitable cruciform mount and bolt on prop driver amongst my odds and sods but it is a perfect fit and saves me buying the recommended Quantum 25 Speed motor. A 60A esc is on it's way from HK.

Assembling the Easystreet takes just a couple of hours, the only issue so far is with the slots for the furry hinges. They look to have been cut with a slitting saw so they are a little wider than I'd like. They do make inserting the hinges easy but then it needs a lot of applications of the recommended thin CA to secure them. I found medium Zap-a-gap CA a better bet.

Don't forget the wire elevator joiner when gluing in the tailplane, there's no room to insert it once the TP is in place. Luckily I remembered just in time

The tailplane slot is a nice snug fit and lines up with the wing tube perfectly, a nice surprise on an ARTF. The fin slot again is perfectly sized and was square to the tailplane too. All in all a very easy and relaxing assembly job.

Flying it may be some way off as I've gone right off winter flying the last few years, my bones don't like cold and wet anymore!

[Bob Cotsford]

There was one other issue - the instructions for orienting the aileron servos disagreed with the photos. Ignore the photos there or your aileron horns will miss the hardwood inserts in the ailerons.

Re the snug tailplane and fin slots - the fit was so good that I used CA rather than the suggested epoxy.

Waiting for an esc:

The motor box is sturdy and as with the rest of the model, not short of glue. I still ran some CA around the joints (sorry for the fuzzy pi):

There's quite a bit of room in the battery bay. There are two nylon incidence pegs a side:

Edited By Bob Cotsford on 01/01/2018 12:05:28

[Ron Gray]

That is so tempting Bob but still need to check my spares box for a motor. On the sloppy hinges issue, Gorilla Glue is excellent as it expands to fill gaps. I’m only a recent convert to GG but the more I use it, the more I like it.

[Bob Cotsford]

I'd use epoxy rather than GG, at least epoxy won't expand everywhere and have to be scraped out of the hinge line. I like GG where it can't be seen or where it's flow can be restricted with a wrap of masking tape or similar. This is a good way of joining and filling a sloppy joint in one go, I may try GG on the La7's tail end hingepoints where there's less chance of it expanding out into the hinge.

I was lucky with the motor tfor the ES2 though a 3536 size would probably be fine with a suitable spacer on the mounting and should fly the model, maybe with a bit less energy though. A 3536 1400kv was plenty of power for the original and I would have thought it would give enough power for pattern style aerobatics with this bigger version.

It's very tempting to slap a piece of ply in the underside and bolt on an undercarriage as David suggested in his review as arthritus is taking it's toll on my shoulders making hand launches a bit hit and miss.

[Ron Gray]

Just checked and I can rob a Propdrive 35 (900Kv) (35-48) out of an unused fus'. What do you reckon?

[Bob Cotsford]

Not far off Ron, the recommended Quantum-II 25 Speed is listed as 1200kv and 60A, your 900kv would need to turn a bigger or higher pitch prop on 3 cell or you could run 4 cell on the 10*7" recommended APC-E prop. I'll have to nip out to the garage at some point (once the esc arrives!) to get a LiPo for setting up. I'll see how much room there really is then.

4S is suggested as an option using a 9*7.5, I would have thought this would make the ES ballistic.  I'm just looking for flowing aerobatics so I'll stick with 3S and a 10*5 to start with.

Edited By Bob Cotsford on 01/01/2018 14:34:20

[Ron Gray]

I was thinking of using 4s rather than 3 so as I like a bit of speed and the EasyStreet looks fast just when standing still, maybe, just maybe, I should get one!

Edited By Ron Gray on 01/01/2018 14:43:49

[Ron Gray]

Will have to reverse the motor shaft on the 35!

[Stuphedd]

That looks good , much more room than in the "old one ", all my Easy Streets are powered by Mystery 2836 , 1700kv on 8x4 props ,

The motor plus esc used to be a fiver on ebay !!

excellent

cheers

[Bob Cotsford]

Posted by Ron Gray on 01/01/2018 15:35:21:

Will have to reverse the motor shaft on the 35!

you may notice an inch of motor shaft sticking out of the back of my motor into the mounting box! Luckily I still had the bolt on prop driver that came with the motor so I didn't have to try to knock the shaft through.

Peter, the servos in the fuselage are quite a way down, if you are working with fat, shaky sausages then what should be a ten minute task to connect up the rudder and elevator actually takes 2 1/2 hours

Of course the metal pushrods provided endless entertainment for Ben as I screwed the clevises on. All the Ripmax ARTFs I've had previously have suffered from sloppy clevis threads, no danger of that here as the nylon clevises supplied are a tight fit on the pushrod threads.

Warning - there's very little clearance between the elevator and the rudder linkage at the full 15mm throw. Err on the low side when fitting the rudder horn, I didn't and can only use about 13mm of down elevator. SAtill looks a lot to me though. Here's the elevator linkage, all parts fit for use IMHO.

[Bob Cotsford]

ps - I make the battery space 40*45*155mm, but that's not leaving any room for the connectors.

[Ron Gray]

I reckon a 4S 3000mah LiPo should fit in there a treat!

[Bob Cotsford]

Aileron servo connection - this is a slim wing and the holes in the ribs for the servo leads to pass through are suitably slim. I couldn't get the female end of an extension though using the pull cord, the fit is just too close. Luckily the leads on my servo are just long enough to poke out of the wing root but even getting just the servo plug to feed through was a fiddle. What I should have done was to remove the plug housing and just pull the wires through.

Servo testers are great things, I now know exactly what to set each channels centre and limit to on the transmitter before I even bother binding the receiver to it

Edited By Bob Cotsford on 02/01/2018 11:34:35

[Ron Gray]

On wing servo extensions I take off the connector housing and then heat shrink over the 2 plugs, either that or copy the aerobat boys and tie the 2 together with dental floss!

[Ron Gray]

I blame you Bob, one ordered from Kings Lynn Models!

Do you think you could fit retracts in the wings?

[Bob Cotsford]

they really are thin wings Ron, I doubt you would have the depth. I'd be more inclined to set a ply plate into the fuselage bottom with suitable fillets inside and bolt on a fixed undercart. I think it would look good with spats.

[Ron Gray]

Thanks Bob, just thinking ahead, although I don’t mind hand launched I do like retracts. I’ll concentrate on the LA-7 until it comes, but hopefully will get it built ready for flying next week.

[Ron Gray]

Spent a bit of time last night reversing the shaft in my motor in preparation for the arrival of my ES2. This involved grinding new grubscrew flats and making a narrow shaft retainer collet. Got it all assembled and then, whilst searching for a suitable mounting plate, found a bolt on prop adapter which meant that I needn’t have done all of that work, 😤

[Tim Kearsley]

I too have nearly finished assembling an ES2, on the strength of the review in RCM&E. On the subject of getting the servo leads through the wing, it sure is tight! I must admit that when I need to extend a servo lead these days I usually remove the plug and solder an extension, so it wasn't too much of a hassle.

Good point Bob about the rudder horn position - thankfully I read your post before I fitted mine, so thanks again!

The only thing I've found a bit awkward is fitting the elevator and rudder pushrods - the whole bending and cutting the wire with it already in-situ I found tricky.

I'm going to run it on a 4S LiPo, so it should be quite quick!

Tim.

[Ron Gray]

Cutting and bending in-situ Tim? The pushrods look like they are straight threaded connectors to the control horns or is there something strange about the setup?

[Martin McIntosh]

My old original copy of the Mk 1 sports cheap and nasty servo driven plastic retracts. The wing is 15/16" deep at that point and the units including linkages are less than 3/4" deep. Don`t know about the Mk 2 of course.

[Bob Cotsford]

Posted by Ron Gray on 03/01/2018 13:22:06:

Cutting and bending in-situ Tim? The pushrods look like they are straight threaded connectors to the control horns or is there something strange about the setup?

The pushrods are quite deep in a 2" wide fuselage and need flexing up a fair bit to remove or fit them from the cockpit opening. The clevises are a tight fit on the threads too, so being lazy I left them in situ and bent the servo end up to put a Z bend on and cut off the excess. In order to connect the clevis end to mark the servo end bend I first had to cut about 3" off the overlength pushrods as otherwise the wing tube former got in the way.

[Ron Gray]

Ah, that explains it Bob, thanks. Looks like mine is arriving tomorrow, had to cancel order with KLM as they don’t actually have any in stock thanks to the article! Went to Inwood in the end as Wheelspin were showing shadow stock and I really want it before the weekend.

@Martin, that’s what I was thinking of using, cheap and cheerful HK retracts, will have a closer look tomorrow when mine comes.

[Bob Cotsford]

I'm still waiting on the esc from HK and while waiting I couldn't help myself. First, half of the battery tray dropped off - honest  I just tapped it with a razor saw and it came apart in my hands

so I raided the scrap from the La7 for a piece of 5mm ply which I cut to 52mm wide, add in 2 off 22mm wide strips of 3/32" balsa to fill in the space between the doubler top and bottom rails, anda couple of 1/16" ply load spreaders/treblers

add the ply trebler load spreaders and clamp

I may have clicked on 'buy' for some carbon legs from HK but they will be travelling from China so they'll be a couple of weeks away. All the models that I've wrecked over the years and all my recycled U/Cs are either too big or too smal.l, typical.

Edited By Bob Cotsford on 03/01/2018 17:18:45

[Tim Kearsley]

So, fellow Easy Street 2 pilots, what battery are you planning on using? I'm going 4S and was thinking of Zippy Compact 2450 mAh (35c). What do you think?

Tim.

 

Edited By Tim Kearsley on 03/01/2018 20:49:26