TopModel Samsara 3.2 meter glider, build thread on Aloft's Forum.

[Konrad]

Here is another post for a "How to thread".

The manual is very poor on this topic. After aligning the wing to the fuselage one is to use tight fitting drills to transfer the wing hold down holes to the fuselage.

But we are not to tap threads in the hold down plates. Rather we are to use threaded inserts. These inserts have a much larger diameter than the holes just drilled. It is impossible to drill a hole larger and still keep it on position using a drill bit. To enlarge the holes one needs to use a reamer if one wants to save all that hard work, keeping the wing aligned, when it is bolted down.

My kit has a major problem in that the port (left) wing has the through hole about 4mm too far outboard. The result is that this hole is only half on the hold down plate in the fuselage. This also meant that there was no edge margin for the insert's flange. To keep from violating the outside surface of the fuselage I had to file a flat spot on the insert flange. With the drastic difference in material properties between GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic) and plywood, I had to hand grind this hole to allow the insert to fit. I allowed this insert to float in the hole about 0.25mm and relied on the hole in the wing to align the insert as the epoxy cured.

This out off position wing hold down seems to be an issue with the factory fixturing as there are more than a few reports of this issue.

 

[Doc James Hammond]

I understand your position . But I don't subscribe to the notion of letting the dregs of society a pass in the name of civility. I hold folks (management) to their stated goal, or rule of law (constitution). And then I try to bring their failures to light, holding them accountable. It is often unpleasant work, but to date it has been very profitable for me to sell poor management short. Leaving the bad guys in their holes only allows the cancer to grow.

Totally agree, Konrad, but if you protest, even politely, the RCG moderators will ask you to edit your post as though you were the troll - which if you know the trolls persona as I now do, is one of the trolls objectives.

I have surmised, as have you, that a lot of this is about readership = in which case any advertising is good advertising.

RCG is a lost cause to be honest, it has been completely infiltrated by trolls, but for now has a good subscriber base.

I have closed down two thread recently - not because of what the trolls are trying to do to me, but rather because a lot of my supporters were getting a bit upset when the trolls turned on them.

One of them - A German national, Rainer Peters AKA "Coolmove" (Most people call him "Foolmove" actually) has said that he is registered here, though I doubt it.

Nothing you can do about it I'm afraid - especially when three of the gang up on you. Sad people.

Cheers,

J.

 

[Konrad]

Aligning the wing is always a stressful process.

To help keep the wing from sliding around on the fuselage I like to lay down some low tach masking tape on the wing bed and on the wing itself. I find the center line of the wing and the center line of the fuselage and mark these. I place the wing on the fuselage and tape it down. I measure using the diagram shown in the manual. Once I get the wing true to the fuselage I make an alignment mark at the front and rear of the wing and fuselage joint.

Now a neat trick to keep the fuselage and the wing from moving while trying to drill the holes is to use some double sided tape. Remove the wing and put a couple of pieces of double sided tape about 25mm long on the wing bed on top of the low tach tape already there. Reassemble the wing and fuselage using the alignment marks you made earlier. Double check the alignment. Drill a hole. Leave the drill bit or similarly sized pin in the hole. Drill the other holes and leave pins in them. You should now have all the hold down hole drilled and all hole should be in proper alignment as witnessed by the fact that all 3 pin are passing through the holes.

Remove the pins and pry off the wing from the fuselage. If forced to you can peal the masking tape off, if the double sided tape is grabbing too aggressively.

Ream the fuselage holes for the inserts as shown earlier.

With the wing aligned and bolted on it is time to bed the wing to the wing saddle. Not sure how much of this mismatch in the fuselage and wing profiles is as a result of manufacturing tolerances or that the fuse is used on an assortment of wings that have different profiles (airfoils).

Sand the bed to remove the shine. Wrap the wing with some cling-wrap to protect the wing from the epoxy. Mix up a very dry epoxy /micro ballon mixture and build up the void areas. Install wing and with a covered and wet (water) finger shape the mixture to make a nice fillet. Let cure. Remove wing and clean up with fine sand paper.

...RCG is a lost cause to be honest, it has been completely infiltrated by trolls, but for now has a good subscriber base.
...
Cheers,

J.

Lets see if we can change this!

RCGoofs is a haven for "trolling" as a result of ineffective moderation policies, lack of transparency in their implementation combined with the total lack of judgement from the moderation staff*.

RCG has actually allowed "sponsors" to employ troll (shills) to suppress bad press (shout down) or falsely drive up interest in their products.

*I don't believe there actually is a moderation staff. In the old days there actually was a moderation staff that was in tuned with the communities they moderated. But after the "Night of the Long Knives" these were all "fired" and replaced by Graham. Graham now relies on the screeching wheel approach to moderation. All he is concerned with is keeping the sponsors paying for ad space rather than the enlightened exchange of ideas, no matter how unpopular some well thought out ideas may be. The exchange of ideas, even the unpopular ones, was the hall mark of the E-Zone of old.

May the gods help you, if you don't hold the management of RCG in high esteem!

The short of this is that RCG is not the place to get one's information. It is a pale shell of what it once was! I hope the new owners realize this.

On the upside, I hope that this forum will become the center for exchanging of technical information, in an effort to get the most from this fine hobby.

All the best,
Konrad

 

[Wayne]

I am open to a new section if you all think it will be of use. Sometimes a pinned post that works as an index of good ideas and techniques can be of great use. The links can be from this forum or anywhere on the internet.

Trolls - We have some pretty advanced anti-troll measures on this forum. So far no need to use them. I will say that it is not just a banning from this forum, it will follow them across the internet. Our software has automatically flagged about 30 accounts as being accused of troll behaviours on other sites.

 

[Konrad]

How was I let in?!
I've embarrassed many forum managers, simply holding up a mirror to management.

Glad to hear. I was warned, elsewhere (given points), for posting re-directing links to non-sponsored sites.
Its all about the ad revenue on some forums.

 

[Wayne]

Konrad, I think you were actually one of the accounts that was flagged. LOL

The flagging is just a warning, I take it as a grain of salt. I am of the mindset to let people prove themselves a troll before taking any action.

 

[Konrad]

In the interest of full discloser I need to come clean.

I'm not affiliated with Aloft Hobbies in any way, other than they are my LHS. But I was asked by Wayne, as I was going out the door, to start a build thread on the Samsara. So while it may take a while to prove if I'm a "troll" or some other kind of Sh** . I'm not a shill for Aloft Hobbies. But I will link to products I think are of value in the hopes that it helps you (anyone build this fine model) and help Aloft Hobbies with the sale of high value, superior products.

All the best,
Konrad

 

[Doc James Hammond]

Aligning the wing is always a stressful process.

To help keep the wing from sliding around on the fuselage I like to lay down some low tach masking tape on the wing bed and on the wing itself. I find the center line of the wing and the center line of the fuselage and mark these. I place the wing on the fuselage and tape it down. I measure using the diagram shown in the manual. Once I get the wing true to the fuselage I make an alignment mark at the front and rear of the wing and fuselage joint.

Now a neat trick to keep the fuselage and the wing from moving while trying to drill the holes is to use some double sided tape. Remove the wing and put a couple of pieces of double sided tape 25mm long on the wing bed on top of the low tach tape already there. Reassemble the wing and fuselage using the alignment marks you made earlier. Double check the alignment. Drill a hole. Leave the drill bit or similarly sized pin in the hole. Drill the other hole and leave pins in them. You should now have all the alignment hole drilled and all hole should be in proper alignment as witnessed by the fact that all 3 pin are passing through the holes.

Remove the pins and pry off the wing from the fuselage. If forced to you can peal the masking tape off, if the double sided tape is grabbing too aggressively.

Ream the fuselage holes for the inserts as shown earlier.

With the wing aligned and bolted on it is time to bed the wing to the wing saddle. Not sure how much of this misalignment in the fuselage and wing profiles is as a result of manufacturing tolerances or that the fuse is used on an assortment of wings that have different profiles (airfoils).

Sand the bed to remove the shine. Wrap the wing with some cling-wrap to protect the wing from the epoxy. Mix up a very dry epoxy /micro ballon mixture and build up the void areas. Install wing and with a covered and wet (water) finger shape the mixture to make a nice fillet. Let cure. Remove wing and clean up with fine sand paper.



Lets see if we can change this!

RCGoofs is a haven for “trolling” as a result of ineffective moderation policies, lack of transparency in their implementation combined with the total lack of judgement from the moderation staff*.

RCG has actually allowed “sponsors” to employ troll (shills) to suppress bad press (shout down) or falsely drive up interest in their products.

*I don’t believe there actually is a moderation staff. In the old days there actually was a moderation staff that was in tuned with the communities they moderated. But after the “Night of the Long Knives” these were all “fired” and replaced by Graham. Graham now relies of the screeching wheel approach to moderation. All he is concerned with is keeping the sponsors paying for ad space rather than the enlightened exchange of ideas, no matter how some unpopular well thought out ideas may be. The exchange of ideas, even the unpopular ones, was the hall mark of the E-Zone of old.

May the gods help you, if you don't hold the management of RCG in high esteem!

The short of this is that RCG is not the place to get one's information. It is a pale shell of what it once was! I hope the new owners realize this.

On the upside, I hope that this forum will become the center for exchanging of technical information, in an effort to get the most from this fine hobby.

All the best,
Konrad

View attachment 290View attachment 291View attachment 292

Konrad - excellent stuff my friend! Clearly written, very logical and really easy to follow.

Really good.

Doc.

 

[Doc James Hammond]

I am open to a new section if you all think it will be of use. Sometimes a pinned post that works as an index of good ideas and techniques can be of great use. The links can be from this forum or anywhere on the internet.

Trolls - We have some pretty advanced anti-troll measures on this forum. So far no need to use them. I will say that it is not just a banning from this forum, it will follow them across the internet. Our software has automatically flagged about 30 accounts as being accused of troll behaviours on other sites.

Wow...thats not only incredible - its really GREAT!

Trollbait Doc.

 

[Konrad]

Well, I awoke to this nice epoxy fillet! All I needed to do was swipe the fillet with some 320 grit wet& dry sandpaper to clean up some of the flash. I might paint the epoxy as it doesn't shine like the rest of the gel coated fuselage. But then again I might not as this isn't a concourse build.

I've been reading that there is a lot of angst about doing this. Some folks are concerned about messing up the angle of incidence. As this is flat bottom airfoil with a phillips entry there is little chance of effecting the angle of incidence with the use of this fillet. What you don't want to do is distort this wing to try to get the bottom of the wing to match the fuselage bed!

I added this fillet to offer more stability to the fuselage wing junction. And to lower the noise (drag) as the plane is in the high speed portion of its flight envelope.

 

[Wayne]

I like to do the same thing when I have a plane with this "flaw". I prefer the planes come with the saddle fitting nice and snug, but honestly I have had only a few with built up wings that did not need this adjustment.

 

[Konrad]

Not sure this is a "flaw". To my way of thinking it allows Topmodels to offer us a wide variety of models (airfoil) options, while keeping the cost down. No need to keep making new molds. I look at this as just being part of the building (finishing) of a model.

 

[Konrad]

I must be missing something in my kit . I piled everything that one would need to complete this model on the scale. And with a 225 gram 4 cell flight battery I'm just over 1.8 kg . I think TM ripped me off of 400 grams!
Even if I have to add 100 grams of trim weight it is going to be difficult to reach the 2 kg, let a lone the 2.2 limit, advertised weight!

Now 1.9 kg does not make this a world beater amongst the ranks of F5J ship. But as an entry level F5J and all around sport ship it should allow a competent pilot to place in just about any contest. Or put another way, most won't be equipment limited using the Samsara.

 

[Konrad]

I need some help (Watch it )!

First off I need to apologies to Wayne and James for ignoring their help when I asked for advice on glueing the servo directly to the wing. I've decided that this is a sport model and a gram here or there is worth the weight for the practicalities needed in a sport model. (I'll take the 6 gram hit, for using two of these servo trays).

I got these nice fitting trays with bearing from Aloft Hobbies to mount the KST X08H servo into the outer wings.
https://alofthobbies.com/external-bushing-servo-tray-for-kst.html

Now I do claim to be an engineer, but I'm a bit lost as to how to assemble these. I think the pieces to the left are for the mounting of the KST X08H servo. But in my mock up the servo is not held very tightly.

How does one assemble this mount?
Going to the OEM's site did not bring up this model of tray ( www.servorahmen.de ).

TIA,
Konrad

 

[Konrad]

Call off the dogs! I think I figured it out. The hollow in the filler block is not a recess for the servo's mounting flange. I just flipped the filler block and the servo now appears to be held captive!

But what is that thumb rest feature?
I assume it is an epoxy rake to allow the bearing support to be bonded to the wing's bottom skin.

All the best,
Konrad

Edit: to add assumption

 

[Konrad]

I'm really starting to like these servo trays. For decades I thought they weren't worth the weight and cost!

I had concerns that the servo opening was going to be too large for the servo covers. But the large servo covers Aloft Hobbies sells fit just fine.
https://alofthobbies.com/servo-cover-large-flat.html

I'm going to take the arrogant position and say it isn't just me. That is if I have an issue/questions with a product, others just might have the same issue. (Sorry for the depth of field issues, I'm doing this with a cell phone rather than using diopters )

So that thumb feature looks to be a rake to bind the bearing support of the tray with the bottom wing skin. I mixed up my standard 4:1 microballoon/epoxy mixture and put some on the inside of the lower wing skin. Then I slid the servo tray into this mixture. This should allow the epoxy/microballoon mixture to get entangled with the rake pins resulting in a strong bond with the lower wing shin.

True this probably doesn't add much strength to the balsa structure. But in a composite one it should help a lot tying the top and bottom wing skins. If nothing else it should eliminate some of the oil canning we often see in some wings from improperly mounted servos

 

[Konrad]

Before I destroy some unknown function, by cutting it off, I'd like to know what is this feature?
I assume it is just the injection sprue.

 

[Wayne]

Looks like you figured it all out.

Yes, I think that is just some injection plastic. They have made a few new trays recently that we are still adding to our website, some of them are very much oriented towards the foam core glass bagged wings found in some DLGs. Pretty neat.

 

[Konrad]

Time to hinge the aileron. Unfortunately the taped hinge tends to float out of profile. To keep the control in place I use an unglued CA hinge as a hard datum. These CA hinges act like a tongue in the hinge slots keeping the wing and surface aligned. For the surface to move out of profile the CA hinges would need to be sheared.

I use three CA hinges per control surface, one near the control horn, the other two near the ends.

 

[Konrad]

My reworked flap (a bit more relief) is now showing about the same reflex as the ones James was showing earlier, in post #36. This is for the aileron flap mix. Normal camber reflex will be 2mm to 3mm.


With my taping job, the ailerons are looking a bit restricted in the downward direction. I'll see if this is an issue during flight testing.