Wiring up a 50% BH Cub

[Kiwi]

With the advent of these 40%, 50% and 60% cubs I thought it might be a good idea to share some ideas on how to wire up one these critters. Like a lot of projects there are many ways to get a great result and I figured the way we have chosen to roll with this one might help someone out in the future.

One of the goals in this task is to eliminate voltage drop over long servo wires. Sure you could wire this up in the standard fashion and run individual cables to each and every servo. Figuring that out at say an average cable length of 5 ft we have anything up to 60 ft of voltage sucking wire floating around inside the fuselage.

So whats our setup.?? Well first of all we take the unregulated voltage directly to or as close as possible to the servos. That is we regulate the voltage in the tail or in the wing. To do this we have chosen to use 100% Smart-Fly products as they really do make this a walk in the park to achieve.

Primary power comes from twin 5400 FROMECO LiOn packs.

Using a series of Y cables we feed the Power Expander Sport Plus, the wing regulator and the tail regulator. To avoid voltage drop we are using 14G high strand count silicon wire to these three strategic points.

To simplify the on off business we will fit two Smart-Fly super switches between the batteries and the PEX x REGS. There is the option to switch all these using the failsafe pin switches but we figure the super heavy duty SF switches are man enough for the job and it makes the wiring even simpler.

So for the six wing servos we will mount a super Regulator up behind the wing tube and from that we will run twin redundant feeds to a pair of of Equalizer 3D's. That way we only run one servo signal cable from the PEX to each wing. The Regulators will feed the additional power bus on each Equalizer so we now have redundant power to each wing from the battery packs.

Same goes for the tail end. We will cut an access hatch into the tail and mount a Smart-Fly super regulator in the tail. Again two battery feeds to the regulator and two more Equalizers, one in each elevator half. Power from the regulator in the tail to the equalizers and again we have redundant power to the tail end. Also the same setup as the wings. We only need two servo signal wires to the tail end. These cables are exceptionally long and really prone to voltage loss over the cable length.

Doing it this way makes it an extremely basic setup and very very easy to setup. One single receiver (can be an 8 channel if desired) on the Power Expander and we are done. All the centering and end points are done with the equalizers so nothing is radio specific.

If your asking why so much trouble and yet just one receiver?? Well this plane has three owners. All fly Futaba, but one guy is Mode 1 and the others are Mode 2. So a single Rx makes it easy to rebind anytime the guy who flies back to front wants a tweak of the sticks. I figure that has a lot more benefits than me learning to fly Mode 1.

Gents this is just one way to do this and I know there are others. I think Bill Hemple is using three receivers and power systems. Again a totally valid system with lots and lots of redundancy a bummer to rebind as we need to be able to do in our case.

So all you other 40% to 60% owners please feel free to butt in here and show us what your electronics setup looks like. This is not a personalized build thread so feel free to pirate it any time you want to add to it. The more the merrier.

[Kiwi]

Oops maybe I forgot to mention, this is a modification to make things way neater and is work in progress. We have flown this plane before but it looked like Agghhhhh!!!!!!!!! inside so we stripped her out and started from fresh.

[Kiwi]

Here's what its going to look like again in a week or so time.

Power is an old ZDZ160 and its way lots of fun with that fitted. I cant imagine what a 210 or 275 would do for it.

[skymaster68]

nice one kiwi, as always, the cub sure looks and flyes awesome, now go to bed mate!!!! jajaj

Swine flu %$&^)*&^* !!!!! I feell like a snap!!!

[MrFlash]

Heres a little vid of Ali with his last week at Weston..like you say, awesome flying plane

YouTube - Ali Machinchy - Weston Park 2009 50%...

[JoeAirPort]

Wow man !! I have never seen anybody tear it up with a cub like that before. Killer knife edges on the deck....on a 50% cub !! Now that's my kind of flying.

PS: I saw one of these fly at a Huckfest recently and he didn't do any of that stuff. I think it was a 60%.

[NCFR!!]

That was cool. What motor / onboard starter is he using?

[Kiwi]

	Quote: Originally Posted by skymaster68
	nice one kiwi, as always, the cub sure looks and flyes awesome, now go to bed mate!!!! jajaj Swine flu %$&^)*&^* !!!!! I feell like a snap!!!

Remember if you have the pigs flu mate you have to take your OINKMENT

[Kiwi]

	Quote: Originally Posted by MrFlash
	Heres a little vid of Ali with his last week at Weston..like you say, awesome flying plane YouTube - Ali Machinchy - Weston Park 2009 50% Hempel Piper Cub

Well I can assure you the old ZDZ160 will not let us do as much as that. Lets just say its a whole lot more scale flying but wow that thing of Ali's is one sure powerful ship.

Maybe he can fill us in a little on the setup please!!!! ALI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rolling Thunder]

I watched Ali fly at Calif. Jets this year. He is an awesome pilot. A lot like David Shulman, low in your face and very precise.

[bodywerks]

I did the wings for Bill Hempel's personal 60% cub. He decided that a seperate, and completely independant radio system per aircraft section was the way to go, and he designed the plane to accomodate such a setup. Quite simple, really. Half way down the wing panel was a radio compartment big enough to fit a Fromeco 5200, Smart-fly sport reg, Equalizer 3D, and receiver with plenty of room for even a smart-fly power system if you wanted.
I then mounted the switch to the hatch and that was it. With this setup, none of the extensions were longer than 48 inches and no radio system had to power more than 4 servos. And talk about redundancy! He then did a seperate radio system for the tail and one for the nose. Seemed to work very well.
I would have done a build thread on it but I only had like three days to do both wing panels and heave them ready for the maiden prior to the Nall.
I like what you are doing here, too. I know that the 50%er wasn't designed with the possibility of a seperate system per section in mind so proper setup is key and it looks like you have the right idea.

[SleepyC]

	Quote: Originally Posted by MrFlash
	Heres a little vid of Ali with his last week at Weston..like you say, awesome flying plane YouTube - Ali Machinchy - Weston Park 2009 50% Hempel Piper Cub

That rules.
I'm going to hire an Englishman to MC my next event. it brings such an air of royalty to the event.

Here is the US we get "Ya'aww gotta get up on that BBQ, 4 O'clock ya'aww and I'm telling ya what, it's good eats ya'awww, so get ya self some before the bones is licked clean"


I'm sure the smooth English announcer would have done it more like:
" Ladies and gentlemen, I hope your enjoying todays flying festivities, be forewarned that Crumpets and Tea will be served promptly at 4 o'clock by the main flight line. Ties are not required, but please wear jackets."