detroitdr

First, I took pictures all the way through building this landing gear and the nav lights. If you want me to post them with instructions let me know.

1) The landing gear is a great shock absorber when landing fast (hard) or in tall grass. I dropped the DF from 4 feet and it just Bounced straight back up and landed flat. It will cost about $2 to make.
2) My NAV lights are different then anyone else’s I've seen yet. I have two strobe on the tail facing down, Two blue "neon" bars going parallel to the flight direction (important) and two landing gear lights (in a custom angled mount) shinning up on my front rotor which I painted a phosphorus orange and finally a blue spot light at the front facing down. With the two landing lights facing up on the "orange" rotor, and seeing the BLUE LINE from the "Neon" tube, I can easily see direction night/day of the front of the DF.

Sky High

A jacked up DF! Are those LEDs inserted into the ends of a straws or are they real one piece light bars? I have got to see that thing in the air!

poorjohn6

Help me out.... The landing gear looks like nylon ties - are they? Also, where do they hook on to? I can see they are attached with wire twists to the struts, but the picture did not show the other end.

John

detroitdr

Here are some flight shots I did tonight:

detroitdr

PoorJohn,

I'll upload my installation pictures. I'm having a problem currently but should be able to get them up soon.

Hooch

Definately upload them, always looking for mods and landing ease hehe. Looks good. Love the spotlight, would love to know what led's you used.

nickruss

Hi there - how do you fix the "landing gear" onto the DF feet and engine mounts? Are they just nylon cable ties? This could be a good answer to mounting my small digicam under the DF V

detroitdr

I've been busy the last couple of days. I'll post my step by step tonight for all to try.

detroitdr

1) Tools you need: 4 x nylon Multipurpose Ties 11" UV Black / 1 paper clip / 1 small drill bit / wire snips
2) Attach zip tie as shown.. ITS very important that it is oriented the way you see it as we will be twisting it the SAME direction on all 4 sides.
3) put the tie on the frame and drill a hole through both as low as you can go (I used the ejection mold snip as a guide on all of them... you can see this in the picture to the left of the hole.. it's some plastic that is left over from the mode.
4) This is how far from the end I drill the hole on the zip tie
5) cut your paper clip just about that size and use it to tie the zip tie to the base.
6) use the wire cutters to clap or a pair of needle nose pliers
7) MAKE SURE you put the zip tie on the INSIDE of that leg so the tie starts from the motor end on the "far" size of the carbon rod and finishes by the circuit board on the "close" side of the carbon rod on the leg support. you must do this the exact same on all side to ensure it is stable and will be level!!!
8) To strengthen it, drill one more hole through both the tie and the base as close to the "top" as possible as in picture
9) another shot of the hole
10) Do the same for the other three. AGAIN make sure its always going the same way for level reasons when you flip the DF over.
11) Voila

detroitdr

20) I used Polyethylene tubing 1/4" and cut two slits on the end as in the picture
21) inserted a LED from Flightlights.com, cut the tubing to length I needed
22) Did two more slits at other end to hold second LED and used Heat Shrink to keep them in. Notice the ARC, i used a heat gun to soften the tubing and molded it. this allows me to shoot these UP on the rotor.
23) attached with small zip ties and angled the leds up at the rotors (which the arc helps a lot also with the vibration they won't move now!)
24) another shot
25) my "Neon" Tubes are more tubing with a led inserted in each end. Again I used the heat gun to soften the tube up and inserted the LED, once it cools.... it's in there for good! These tube are on the left and right size going parallel to the direction of travel.
26) Two strobes at the back and now I can see easily what direction I'm going in, the red leds at front help light up the red front rotor as well.
27) picture of bottom. I used a 9volt battery... is there anything lighter?
28-31) more views.

I hope this helps someone else with landing gear....

nickruss

Hi detroitdr

You're genius - so simple yet effective!

Should it nor read 8 paper clips though? - 2 for each leg?

poorjohn6

WOW! ! ! This is really something. Thank you for taking the time to fully explain how to do it.

Just one thing - how does one keep a work table so neat? To get to your level, I would have to keep buying new tables for each project.

John

detroitdr

Nickruss,

No 1 paper clip does all 8 joints. If you look at picture #5, you'll see that i cut just the end off..... that was my third piece from that paper clip... just keep cutting off little bits.....

detroitdr

PoorJohn,

Who says I don't buy new tables everytime.... haha

It is really hard esp since I also do RC Monstor trucks and I share that table with my mods for that as well.

I made some headlights with reflectors and brake lights... had the landing Flightlights reprogrammed to my needs and did a neat mod for my Savage 3 speed limited edition truck.

Thank-you for you kind words!

Hooch

Looks good bud, thanks for the detail.

detroitdr

Hoochm

Your Welcome

It really is a good "cusion" landing gear

Sky High

You could use three 3v 2016 button cells for a much lighter power pack instead of the heavier 9v. Or you could get a lipo button cell or several of them and use that over and over. 2016's are around $3.75 for a two pack!

Lipoly Button Cells - Part Number: KOK145T
http://www.fmadirect.com/detail.htm?...949&section=33 button cells with far less weight.[/color]

detroitdr

Thx SkyHigh,

Never thought of the CR2016's... I'm not familar with Lipol ones that are rechargable...but i like the cr2016...

Thx

Sky High

The Lipo button cells may cost more up front but you will far exceed that cost when buying replacements for the CR 2016 cells.


CR 2016 Data Sheet
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/cr2016.pdf

phoglite

Cool idea! I just converted to brushless and mounted a camera below the battery tray. This meant I needed higher landing gear and so I did something very similar to the zipties using carbon fiber. One end fits nicely in the motor mounts while the other can be tied to the existing gear as was done here with the zip ties. It's under 5 grams total. -Keith