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Tracer 2 Meter is here!!
- Thread starter Wayne
- Start date
TJI offers some brass slugs:
alofthobbies.com
These fit most of the ballast compartments of their planes.
Brass Ballast Weights / 10x20x30mm
Solid brass bars measuring 10x20x30mm and weighing in at 50 grams each. The ballast blocks are intended for TJIRC's lineup of aircraft; Tracer / Tempest / Alpha 2.8 and MANY others. Measure your aircrafts ballast bays before ordering to ensure they fit. Sold individually.
alofthobbies.com
These fit most of the ballast compartments of their planes.
WeKnowGlidersRule
New User
Your V tail Ball Horn set up, is quite clean. It's the best I've seen so far out of a few builds. Is there any way you could go into a little bit more detail in this part of the build? It would be much appreciated!
Doc J
Very Strong User
Actually the same as my models.TJI offers some brass slugs:
Brass Ballast Weights / 10x20x30mm
Solid brass bars measuring 10x20x30mm and weighing in at 50 grams each. The ballast blocks are intended for TJIRC's lineup of aircraft; Tracer / Tempest / Alpha 2.8 and MANY others. Measure your aircrafts ballast bays before ordering to ensure they fit. Sold individually.
These fit most of the ballast compartments of their planes.
Doc.
Make your own horns and don't use the supplied hardware. It was a pain but I epoxied the tails in first then epoxied the control horns into place, it was the only way to achieve small holes through the fuse.Your V tail Ball Horn set up, is quite clean. It's the best I've seen so far out of a few builds. Is there any way you could go into a little bit more detail in this part of the build? It would be much appreciated!
WeKnowGlidersRule
New User
Do you have any close up pictures? Really not a fan of glue in that tail on but if I need to to make it look cleaner and not produce a hack job
Jerry--TJIRC Glider uav
Active User
Jerry--TJIRC Glider uav
Active User
I used a large-sized, inexpensive servo. Meanwhile, using Dream's servo cover is perfect.
Attachments
I love a manufacturer that is up to a challenge, and Jerry at TJI accepted what I thought would be difficult, develop a new low weight layup.
This is nothing new, I have asked many manufacturers for different layups depending on the airframe, but this time around I wanted a substantial difference. When Jerry accepted the challenge he asked how much lighter I'd like the model, I told him the goal would be around half the weight of a standard layup. This is no small challenge. Typically when I have tried to get a lighter layup I'd get a plane that comes in maybe 1 ounce lighter. Jerry sounded confident, and I was not sure if this would lead to anything or not. Well, in our most recent shipment he included a Tracer that hits the scales at 28 ounces empty. That may not sound like a super light, but just picking up this model you will notice a large difference from the normal layup.
And dang she looks good!
Offering a much lighter model that still offers good strength margins results in very different flight qualities. This is something that PCM has been offering for many years. You could get a Pinot for example in versions that you could fly at a thermal contest, and a normal layp, or the insane slope layup for wild conditions. Three very different planes from one set of tooling.
The Tracer is a great airframe for this weight reduction with it's low drag design and thin airfoil with big flight surfaces. Yes, this is going to be a fun model!
I should have this flying at Sunset. Come and check it out. If testing goes as well as I suspect it will, we will be offering low weight versions of many of the TJI lineup.
Well done @Jerry--TJIRC Glider uav !!
This is nothing new, I have asked many manufacturers for different layups depending on the airframe, but this time around I wanted a substantial difference. When Jerry accepted the challenge he asked how much lighter I'd like the model, I told him the goal would be around half the weight of a standard layup. This is no small challenge. Typically when I have tried to get a lighter layup I'd get a plane that comes in maybe 1 ounce lighter. Jerry sounded confident, and I was not sure if this would lead to anything or not. Well, in our most recent shipment he included a Tracer that hits the scales at 28 ounces empty. That may not sound like a super light, but just picking up this model you will notice a large difference from the normal layup.
And dang she looks good!
Offering a much lighter model that still offers good strength margins results in very different flight qualities. This is something that PCM has been offering for many years. You could get a Pinot for example in versions that you could fly at a thermal contest, and a normal layp, or the insane slope layup for wild conditions. Three very different planes from one set of tooling.
The Tracer is a great airframe for this weight reduction with it's low drag design and thin airfoil with big flight surfaces. Yes, this is going to be a fun model!
I should have this flying at Sunset. Come and check it out. If testing goes as well as I suspect it will, we will be offering low weight versions of many of the TJI lineup.
Well done @Jerry--TJIRC Glider uav !!
Finally building up the original Tracer Feather layup. Was not able to get it done for last years Sunset, but should have her this year.
A few notes from my build. Being a lightweight I'm using small servos throughout . These list 7mm Frsky units for the tail, so I made a new servo tray by copying the supplied unit that is a very nice fit, and made the new one from lite ply and epoxied in. Don't forget to sand the glue areas first! the battery is an 18350 Lion, 900mah. We used to make these, but my source for these cells has dried up. If there is enough demand we can source more and make up a bunch. (Did you know Aloft makes custom Lion packs to meet your needs?)
While prepping my tail linkage for glue one of the balls popped off! We had this happen to a customer a while back and I alerted the factory at the time. This kit has been sitting around for over a year. You may want to abuse yours a bit before gluing them in to make sure they are sound. Looks like poor silver soldering, cold joints. Or no flux?
I was able to make a hole just large enough for the 4.5mm ball to pass through. But I'll probably end up gluing my V-tail in place. I hate removing v-tails. If I only glue the carbon into the tail, I could remove the v-tails from the fuselage. In this photo we are looking at the bottom of the plane. From the top you can not see the hole.
The v-til has been challenging to do this way. It might have been easier to glue them with the elevator in place on the fuselage. I did this with them off the fuselage, and then did some final bending for fuselage clearance for the ball links. A better control horn would be nice here, but these will do fine. Just a bit tricky.
Waiting for epoxy to cure now.
A few notes from my build. Being a lightweight I'm using small servos throughout . These list 7mm Frsky units for the tail, so I made a new servo tray by copying the supplied unit that is a very nice fit, and made the new one from lite ply and epoxied in. Don't forget to sand the glue areas first! the battery is an 18350 Lion, 900mah. We used to make these, but my source for these cells has dried up. If there is enough demand we can source more and make up a bunch. (Did you know Aloft makes custom Lion packs to meet your needs?)
While prepping my tail linkage for glue one of the balls popped off! We had this happen to a customer a while back and I alerted the factory at the time. This kit has been sitting around for over a year. You may want to abuse yours a bit before gluing them in to make sure they are sound. Looks like poor silver soldering, cold joints. Or no flux?
I was able to make a hole just large enough for the 4.5mm ball to pass through. But I'll probably end up gluing my V-tail in place. I hate removing v-tails. If I only glue the carbon into the tail, I could remove the v-tails from the fuselage. In this photo we are looking at the bottom of the plane. From the top you can not see the hole.
The v-til has been challenging to do this way. It might have been easier to glue them with the elevator in place on the fuselage. I did this with them off the fuselage, and then did some final bending for fuselage clearance for the ball links. A better control horn would be nice here, but these will do fine. Just a bit tricky.
Waiting for epoxy to cure now.
Servos mounted in the nose, and test fitting a 20cm nose harness. It is perfect as I would like the receiver behind the servos. I'll be using 4x3 carbon tubes for the pushrods with mp-jet inserts for a a little low cost bling.
These little servos with the default programming swing nearly 180 degrees! I should be able to use nice short arms on them. Thy come with a nice selection of arms. More than I have seen from other brands and they are nice and tight. Well done.
These little servos with the default programming swing nearly 180 degrees! I should be able to use nice short arms on them. Thy come with a nice selection of arms. More than I have seen from other brands and they are nice and tight. Well done.
Waiting for epoxy to cure, so a quick update. One of the carbon rods for the tail alignment pushed into the stab. I could not get any tools onto it, so I tried super glue and some scrap spruce, but the CA popped right off the carbon. Next I tried epoxy and let it fully cure, this did the trick and I was able to pull it back into position and secure with some thin CA.
Here is a picture of marking the pushrods for final cut. The ball links are resting on the v-tail balls. Also showing the parts I am using. This is a stout setup that is very clean and is cheaper than most other methods. (Look for once I'm not using Z-bends!)
This is 4mm x 3mm tube. I have a very simple test for pushrod materials. If I take approximate length of the tube that will be needed and I try to push the ends together and it does not bow, then it is fine. I will use the smallest and lightest tube that passes this test. We don't want to add tail weight to our models. The loads for a tail surface are VERY small, even for a full flying elevator. The servos I am using max out at 2.8 kg, that is all the more push the tube needs to resist bowing. You will never even see this high a load even if the plane is going 250 mph.
When the glue cures nice and hard I will install the pushrods and can start doing a little radio setup for the v-tail.
Here is a picture of marking the pushrods for final cut. The ball links are resting on the v-tail balls. Also showing the parts I am using. This is a stout setup that is very clean and is cheaper than most other methods. (Look for once I'm not using Z-bends!)
This is 4mm x 3mm tube. I have a very simple test for pushrod materials. If I take approximate length of the tube that will be needed and I try to push the ends together and it does not bow, then it is fine. I will use the smallest and lightest tube that passes this test. We don't want to add tail weight to our models. The loads for a tail surface are VERY small, even for a full flying elevator. The servos I am using max out at 2.8 kg, that is all the more push the tube needs to resist bowing. You will never even see this high a load even if the plane is going 250 mph.
When the glue cures nice and hard I will install the pushrods and can start doing a little radio setup for the v-tail.
Finished off the v-tail install last night.
I can just sneak the receiver in, the limiting factor being the servo wire length. Hopefully still fit after the wing harness is plugged in.
These little FrSky servos are neat little units. These were swinging almost 180 degrees. I was too lazy to reprogram them, so currently have the outputs dialed way down. I could probably mount the clevises to the shorter holes, but didn't try and they clevis would probably hit the output shaft. FrSky does a great job supplying a wide range of servo arms, normal and low profile arms, one set with larger holes, another with tiny holes. I drilled the tiny holes up to 1mm to fit the MPjet pins. They also have TINY arms and a pulley for pull strings. Nice to see.
Working on the wing tonight.. Wish me luck.. IDS...
I can just sneak the receiver in, the limiting factor being the servo wire length. Hopefully still fit after the wing harness is plugged in.
These little FrSky servos are neat little units. These were swinging almost 180 degrees. I was too lazy to reprogram them, so currently have the outputs dialed way down. I could probably mount the clevises to the shorter holes, but didn't try and they clevis would probably hit the output shaft. FrSky does a great job supplying a wide range of servo arms, normal and low profile arms, one set with larger holes, another with tiny holes. I drilled the tiny holes up to 1mm to fit the MPjet pins. They also have TINY arms and a pulley for pull strings. Nice to see.
Working on the wing tonight.. Wish me luck.. IDS...
