iflylilplanes
Strong User
While flying the other weekend, all of a sudden, the rudder pulled to the right for no apparent reason, I held in left rudder and managed to gain control, called landing and somehow got the Royal Coachman back on the runway safe.
The Coachman is a rudder, elevator and throttle model, no ailerons, she fly's great and I enjoy the hell out of that model. Radio is a X9D plus with the M9 gimble upgrade.
After landing I went over the model to find out what happened, the setup on the Coachman is rudder can be operated from both sticks, I'm Mode 1 so steering on the ground is via the left stick and flying via the right stick. The left stick had stopped working. I looked all through the wiring, checked all connectors, checked the servos and found nothing out of the ordinary. On to the Taranis, outside all looked Ok so I opened her up, straight away I saw the issue, one of the three wires going to the rudder Hall effect sensor had parted, waving in the breeze
this is where I realized the faulty design.
The throttle and elevator Hall sensors don't move, they are fixed to the part of the gimble that will not move when operated, but the rudder and aileron Hall sensors do move when you operate throttle and elevator, the wires flex at the solder joint on sensor board and metal fatigue had set in.
On the work bench with a very small solder iron tip, I managed to reattach the parted wire to the board. The Hall sensor board slides into place in the gimble and is held in place by two plastic pins molded into a plastic cross bar, the bar is held in place by two small PK screws, I'm not sure if they thought the bar was to hold the wires solid in place, the bar does not, they flex at the board. To fix this I curled the wires around back over the board and bar then hot glued them in place on top of the bar. Now the wires flex over a long distance instead of at the solder joint at the board. I did this to both rudder and aileron sensor wires. Have 8 flights since the repair to the Taranis without any issues.
I should have taken pics, I can of the finished job if anyone wants.
The Coachman is a rudder, elevator and throttle model, no ailerons, she fly's great and I enjoy the hell out of that model. Radio is a X9D plus with the M9 gimble upgrade.
After landing I went over the model to find out what happened, the setup on the Coachman is rudder can be operated from both sticks, I'm Mode 1 so steering on the ground is via the left stick and flying via the right stick. The left stick had stopped working. I looked all through the wiring, checked all connectors, checked the servos and found nothing out of the ordinary. On to the Taranis, outside all looked Ok so I opened her up, straight away I saw the issue, one of the three wires going to the rudder Hall effect sensor had parted, waving in the breeze
this is where I realized the faulty design.The throttle and elevator Hall sensors don't move, they are fixed to the part of the gimble that will not move when operated, but the rudder and aileron Hall sensors do move when you operate throttle and elevator, the wires flex at the solder joint on sensor board and metal fatigue had set in.
On the work bench with a very small solder iron tip, I managed to reattach the parted wire to the board. The Hall sensor board slides into place in the gimble and is held in place by two plastic pins molded into a plastic cross bar, the bar is held in place by two small PK screws, I'm not sure if they thought the bar was to hold the wires solid in place, the bar does not, they flex at the board. To fix this I curled the wires around back over the board and bar then hot glued them in place on top of the bar. Now the wires flex over a long distance instead of at the solder joint at the board. I did this to both rudder and aileron sensor wires. Have 8 flights since the repair to the Taranis without any issues.
I should have taken pics, I can of the finished job if anyone wants.
