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PhlatStang

Discussion in ''Aircraft KITS' you are working on' started by 3DMON, Jun 6, 2010.

  1. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    I got my PhlatStang in yesterday.

    Very nice kit Mark and Trish. You can see the thought and care that goes into these as soon as you open the box. All the parts came out great and the sticker package with it is really gonna bring this plane alive. All my micro stuff is in my Micro Ripper that I have been prototyping, but I think it's about time to retire the prototype (beat up pretty good) and put the electronics in the PhlatStang.

    I think I will try and get this plane built soon.
    More to follow...
    Attached files [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
  2. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    :mrgreen: Too cool Shaun! Thanks brother, I think you may be the first to fly this outside of NJ! :D
    Looking forward to your flight results with finger crossed :)
    Thank you
    Mark and Trish
    p.s. Great site Shaun! Best of luck :)
     
  3. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Man if I'm to be the first, I may just get this puppy built by tomorrow lol. We will see. :)
     
  4. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    :mrgreen:
     
  5. swim93

    swim93 New Member

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    its upsetting i don't have any of the stuff but i will get there soon,
    i don't even have the glue and its killin' me!
     
  6. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    I run outside with this little plane every chance I can get! :) Its really nice to have sitting around ready to go at a moment's notice!
    BTW Shaun when I came home from working I got you message, I will get back to you asap :)
    Thanks
    Mark
     
  7. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Ok guys,
    Time for my flight review.
    Back on Monday the 7th I tried to fly the Phlatstang with my parkzone Sukhoi power setup (it's what I had available). I've found that the original Sukhoi prop is bigger (about an inch) than what is recommended for this plane. I found that when I took off it had bad torque which I couldn't over come. After talking with Mark we came to the conclusion that I needed to put the right prop on it.
    I found the right prop at my hobby shop and put that on there.
    Today the winds were low enough for a test flight so I went for it. This time it flew much better. I still think I need the 4sight motor/gearbox setup to do it right but it flew well like this. The Phlatstang scoots along pretty quick and with the cg right it can be a lot of fun. I couldn't really do too much slow high alpha type maneuvers because my setup wasn't powerful enough but flying around fast with the nose level was enjoyable.

    Here are some pics of the modifications I did to accommodate the Sukhoi gearbox.




    Attached files [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
  8. frankrcfc

    frankrcfc New Member

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    That's a mean looking little bugger. Got to love the inguinity that goes in to producing and building those little things. Nice work on the build Shaun. :)
     
  9. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    Nice job Shaun! That is one mean looking PhlatSTANG and I would be worried about going into a combat with you! I like the mods you built for this. That mount looks tough! Thanks for sharing your build and flight with us and we are glad to hear you have it going and are able to fly it now. Sorry about the troubles you ran into with the larger prop, I think with that little wingspan it really needs the smaller prop. I have not tried any other props but one of the guys at the hobby shop told me that you can also use the gws style direct drive props as well! I really want to give these a try too. I think that you are right about the 4 site gearbox/motor mount with the 4site/mustang prop and the 4site gearbox you get the best flying results.
    Thanks again for posting and sharing your PhlatSTANG build with us!
    Mark and Trish
     
  10. Chuck

    Chuck New Member

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    A couple of build notes on the Phlatstang. I got into a mess with the control rods. I reviewed the build video and know that I followed it. Now, after completion, the shrink tubing on the elevator and rudder does not hold after applying CA as suggested. They are loose now and I really don't know how to get in there and get them tight without destroying the airplane. A big problem for me was the motor plug-in. The receiver is hot glued in place and nowhere di anyone say to hook up the motor. Well, now, I need to use needle nose pliers to even begin to get that little plug connected. The plug itself has two pins, the receptacle has three and nowhere do I see how to correctly plug this up. When I finally got it plugged up, the motor began running full bore as soon as I plugged the battery in. I attempted to bind this 6400 to my brand new 6 channel Spektrum DSM2 and nothing works correctly., The motor runs full bore with the throttle stick in the down position. I have tried to reverse the throttle in the transmitter and this does noghing. Neither the elevator nor the rudder servos work at all. So, here I sit without a clue what to do to make this little plane work. Oh, also, not with the transmitter nor with the receiver did I ever get any means to charge these little batteries.
    The receiver is in a difficult place after building to remove and do anything with. I guess I should have tried to bind it before installing it, I don't know. All being said, I highly recommend (1) checking out the RX before installing. (2) finding a better way to hook up the control rods, mine do not work at all (3) plug the motor in before glueing the RX down and try ti find out from someone where the plug goes and which pin goes to which pin. It does not appear my Phlatstang will fly any time soon!

    Chuck
    ...somewher in Indiana...
     
  11. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Hey Chuck,
    Look at my first pic a couple of posts up. If you open the pic and zoom in close you will see how the motor wires are to be plugged into the receiver. It has 3 spots in case you want to put a brushless esc in there. You might be in the wrong holes.

    As far as the control rods...hmm. Thats a tricky one. I think you might need to dismantle the side pieces to be able to get them out and back in. If your careful you should be able to get those side pieces out ok to glue them back in.
     
  12. Chuck

    Chuck New Member

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    Thanks Shaun, looked close at your photo. I have the wires plugged into the correct spot, I m not certain at the moment if the motor is plugged into the correct pins, I will check that out and compare with your photo. The motor does run, problem is, the control stick on the transmitter is bass ackwards, when it is down to the bottom, motor runs full speed. Up to the top, it stops (sometimes). As I said, reversing the throttle stick in the transmitter makes no difference. Neither of the two other servo motor move at all. They don't even try. Also, there is a noticeable whine when the whole thing is sitting still. Sounds like something is running, but nothing is. Any idea in the Spektrum how I can "UNBIND" this thing and start over? The Spektrum book does not say how to do this.
    Tomorrow I am going to do my best to rip the entire receiver out of the little Phlatstand and see if I can get it to work on the bench. It could be faulty. As far at the control rods go, I put them in as described. Used a little CA to glue them up to the shrink tube but it did not work and the small wires pulled out of the shrink tube. Maybe will get a different kind of adhesive in that shrink tube and glue them up without too much damage to the airplane. The shrink tube would work fine IF you could put some heat on it and draw it up but that is tricky on a small foam plane and the h eat would likely damage something else.
    As always, I appreciate your ideas and you help. How is yours flying, by the way?

    Chuck
    ...somewhere in Indiana...
     
  13. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    Chuck thank you for the tips, we will add them to the build log page. Its easy to overlook some things like plugging the motor in before finishing the build.
    The push rods for me are always a piece of heat shrink with a dab of CA on both ends and a spray of hardener to set them. I have not had a problem with this method so far. I have seen where others will wrap thread around them when they are overlapped and then add CA to them but that seems to be a bit hard to do on these little guys. :)
    (as Shaun stated above) The AR6400 has 3 holes for the option of a brushless motor. But two of the holes will send the signal for the brushed motors like we are using for our builds.
    Here is a up close pic of where the negative and positive of our motor connector go into the board. If you are looking at it from the front the negative will be to the left most hole.
    As for the binding, the steps are to plug in the battery (with transmitter off) wait for the led on the AR6400 to start blinking then while holding in the bind button on the back of your transmitter turn on your transmitter and wait for the led on your AR6400 to stop blinking and stay on. At this point you are bind ed to the board. You never need to access the receiver to bind to the transmitter.
    Hope this helps to get you up and flying. If you need more help, feel free to give a call and I will do my best to help :)
    Thanks
    Mark and Trish Attached files [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
  14. Chuck

    Chuck New Member

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    Thanks Mark. All you said is pretty much what I did. I do not know why the motor takes off and runs full speed as soon as I hook up the battery. This happened before any attempt was made to bind it. I do not have a binding button on the back of my transmitter. I have been told to use the trainer switch instead. After binding, nothing is working, at least nothing is working correctly. The throttle stick does turn the motor on and off but it is backwards (up is off and down is full throttle). Reversing it in the transmitter makes no difference. Neither of the servos are responding to stick movements so I have no rudder or elevator. I will fiddle with it tomorrow, but I wonder. I have a friend who had a bind and fly P51. It did not work right so he got a new receiver set up for it and that did not work either. My transmitter is a DX6i and is brand new. I still have not figured out why I did not get anything to charge the flight battery with. No charger with the transmitter or with the receiver. I did get a wall charger for the transmitter battery pack. The more I mess with Spektrum, the more I like my HiTec stuff :). Thanks for the photo(s). Oh..would it be a good idea to bind the receiver BEFORE hooking up the motor or can that be done? What would happen if you bind the receiver and then plug the motor in? Also, as I asked Shaun...do you know how to "erase" the binding I have done and start over? I have not found in the book how to do it but there must be a way otherwise when someone went through ten airplanes he would have to throw the TX away because he could not replace old airplanes with new ones. I tried calling Horizon. You can imagine how that went. I think my call went to Bangladesh and everyone working there was named "George". I never got past the please hold music so after forty minutes I gave up.
    Tomorrow will likely be a better day! Hope you have a great one!

    Chuck
     
  15. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    It sounds more like you didn't get it bound to the transmitter. There is no way to "unbind" instead you just go through the bind process again. I'm not sure on the binding process with the dx6i but it seems weird to use the trainer switch. Is that what the dx6i manual says to do?

    As far as chargers go, I've never bought a battery or receiver expecting to have it come with a charger. If you have a lipo charger that will charge a 1 cell battery at low mah then all you need is the little plug to charge it. I think Lasertoyz or Headsup R/C should have them.
     
  16. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    Chuck don't get frustrated with these micros, I know its easy to do because everything is so small and they are hard to work on. Once you get the binding process down you will never want to go back. Shaun is right there is no such thing as unbinding. So if I have a new model I can either bind it to a new model memory or bind right over top of an existing one.

    The idea is to bind all your models (that will fit in the transmitters memory) to the radio. Once you do that you can just pick the model you want to fly, turn on the transmitter and plug in the battery, your ready to go. Also to note once you bind a model you do not need to keep binding it every time you want to fly it. That's the idea behind having models in memory.Also while holding in your bind button or in your cast the trainer switch, it may take 15 sec for it to transmit the code from the receiver to the radio and bind it.
    There is no reason to bind the board before installing it

    Lets see if we can figure out where the problem is:
    What exactly is happening if you follow these steps
    With the radio off, plug the battery to the receiver
    The red led on the receiver should start to blink after a few seconds
    With the bind button held on turn on your transmitter and wait for 10 to 15 sec
    The red led on the receiver should stop blinking and go steady red

    If you have a reversed throttle it may be that you are in the wrong mode? Most people in the US use mode 2. This really doe not sound like it is the problem though.

    Just browsing the net I found that there was a recall for the pot of the sticks. This maybe related to your radio (hope not)
    http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=993065
    Keep us updated
    Thanks Chuck
    Mark and Trish
     
  17. Chuck

    Chuck New Member

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    Thank you Shaun, Mark and Trish. Got the thing going. There were a few problems, none of which relate to the design or assembly procedures for the Phlatstand. The receiver, a brand spanking new 6400 had a poor solder connection to the servo which serves the rudder. It would move at times, but would not center itselt. The other servo also was reluctant to center itself. I am probably responsible for breaking the solder joint on the motor plug=in. It was hard to get my phat hands or the proper tools in the small space to plug it in. A friend had the receiver out of a Mustang (which he wrecked) so I plugged that up, bound it per the instructions, and everything is phine. Oh...Shaun, yet, the 6XI uses the trainer switch for binding. Getting the Phlatstang back together after chaancing the RX was a bear and pretty much an all day event. But, together it is and it is flying. Thanks for everyone's help and advice. Just for the record, considering how difficult it is to change out the RX in this little plane, I recommend binding it and checking it out PRIOR to installing it. That would have saved me a lot of grief. All is well except that I am not a RC pilot accustomed to flying with the rudder on the left stick. Usually, when I do not have ailerons, I put the rudder on the aileron stick so that is what I am used to. It would do best for me if I figured out how to transfer the rudder in the Phlatstand to the aileron stick. I must have crashed fifteen times today because I forgot to make turns with my left thumb. No damage, the Phlatstand is exceptionally durable. Anyhow, I eagerly await another variety of these little airplanes. Great job Mark on this design, cutting and the graphics.

    Chuck
    ...somewhere in Indiana...
     
  18. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    Chuck, you can use one of you programmable mixes and mix aileron > rudder.
     
  19. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    Chuck did you get the mix to work? I tried to fly with the left rudder and its next to impossible for me. It makes a world of difference once you have the controls on the right stick.
    Mark
     
  20. Chuck

    Chuck New Member

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    I have to check tomorrow to see what programmable mixes the DX6I has. At this moment, I do not believe it has a aileron/rudder mix, but I am not certain. I fly so bad with the rudder on the left side that I flew the Phlatstang about six times before I even noticed I had the rudder reversed and it was turning the opposite way I wanted it to. I fixed and and did not really do any better. You gotta admit...that's funny. Also, the Phlatstang seems to me to be a bit tail havy with the battery in the suggested spot. I might try moving that forward a little and I think I should reduce the travel on the rudder and elevator, especially the elevator. Neat, neat little plane and "durable" too! I'll check out that transmitter tomorrow and see what I can do.

    Chuck...somewhere in Indiana...

    Oh...The AMA electric fly=in is June 24, 25, 26 at the Academy of Model Aeronautics in Muncie IN. All electric stuff for a few days could be interesting. I weather permits, might take a motorcycle ride up there and hang out a bit.
     
  21. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    The DX6i has 2 programmable mixes, page 70 in the manual. You can mix any 2 channels you like. Well, except for the bug, where throttle can't be slave. Try:

    AILE -> RUDD
    100% 100%
    (SW set to "ON") meaning always on
    (TRIM set to "ACT") meaning it will link the aileron trim also

    If you also want to get rid of the rudder stick input, you can probably also mix rudder to rudder and set to 0%.

    -Kwok
     
  22. Flashsolutions

    Flashsolutions Active Member

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    The AR6400 is fully programmable. If you do not have mixing on your transmitter, you can change the servo configuration to reverse servo throws or move servos from one stick to another.

    I believe the DX6i does have mixing. The DX5 does not. It is a less expensive transmitter with fewer options.

    The AR6400 manual can be obtained with a google search, for example...

    http://www.astramodel.cz/manualy/spektr ... 0L_man.pdf

    If at all possible, you need to learn to fly using both Aileron and Rudder control inputs. Some planes such as the 4Site just will not fly worth a darn without using rudder.

    These small planes are quite throttle sensitive as well. The PlatStang is not a beginner entry level plane. It is short coupled and has no diheadral to correct for pilot error.

    Using expo in your transmitter and possibly reducing the throw range via your transmitter will help to tame a wildcat but throttle management will go a long way in controlling this type of plane as will flying in a high alpha position to slow it way down.

    These little planes are pretty resilient. They can take a lot of abuse and can usually be easily repaired if you do manage to break one.

    I particularly like the looks of the PhlatStang. I took mine to a small indoor venue and was having a blast with it. It can turn on dime and is certainly a great combat choice.
     
  23. rcav8r

    rcav8r Moderator Staff Member

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    Couldn't agree with that statement more.... I learned a long time ago, and I'm sure it has made me a better and safier flier. Way back in the day I put the rudder on the rudder stick (left) on an old Kadet Senior ( Big lazy flying 3 channel plane that traditionally has the rudder on the right stick), and before long I had the hang of it. It was easier than I though. Now I have a real hard time not using rudder when flying.
    On the Pronto I recently built, it is a 3 channel plane, I almost crashed it the first time in the air. When a plane is flying slowly, I automatically turn with rudder, and keep the plane level with ailerons. ( I also control the altitude with throttle and the speed with the elevator, but that is another story ;) ) Well I kept bending the left stick without the plane responding.... unil I relaized I had to use the right stick to turn the plane. Made for a few hairly landings....now I mixed the rudder to the aileron, and all is well.

    Go to your local flying field, and see how many folks actually use the rudder in the air.... Once you learn you'll be one of the roughtly 10% who do, and in the long run you'll be a better, and safier, pilot.
     
  24. Chuck

    Chuck New Member

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    Okay, read all of the above. I use the left stick for rudder. I use this for taxiing (check the spelling on this). Once in the air, I fly with right stick ailerons. If I do not have ailersons, I program the rudder into the aileron stick. I tried and tried to fly the Phlatstand with the rudder on the left stick. Bad news, at least for me. I like to use the left stick rudder when I have an aileron plane. It is nice to make flat turns, etc. However, with no ailerons, I want the rudder on the right stick! So, for what it is worth, I am the owner of a Spektrum DX6I. There are no intelligent or easy mixes to put the rudder on the aileron stick but I now know how to do it. I will not elaborate here, it is real boring. If you have a DX6I and want to know HOW to move the rudder the right stick, let me and and I will outline how to do it. Got mine moved today and I am comfortable with the right stick handling up and down elevator and left and right rudder. Plane flew fantastic! If you are using a DX7 I guess you don't have to worry as your radio will easily make this switch. If you are using an AR6400 RX with the Phlatstang, you will need to get creative. The default position on this receiver is to place the rudder on the LEFT stick. If you use the receiver for the Ember or the Vapor, no problem, the rudder is programmed on the RIGHT stick. I have it figured out, I am ready to fly my Phlatstang managing everything except throttle with my right thumb (the only one that workds correctly). I am waiting for another mini plane to order and build...

    Chuck
    ...somewhere in Indiana...
     
  25. Flashsolutions

    Flashsolutions Active Member

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    I agree with you that bank and yank flying for this type of plane is the easiest way. Probably would not be much fun flying it with the left stick (especially if you are right handed).

    I like to mix rudder and aileron so that either one works the control surface since I fly so many 4 channel planes that require you to manage all the surfaces independently. I just automatically react with the left stick so often that I find it more convenient to have either left or right stick act on the control surface.

    At least the AR6400 is robust enough to allow you to switch things around. The receiver has connectors for hooking up aileron servos which is probably why the main servos are programmed for rudder and elevator.

    I have a DX7 transmitter, so mixing is no problem. Probably why I did not have any issues when I set mine up.

    Now that you're good to go, you'll be having some great fun with this plane.
     

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