motors in XD

[stv9000]

I know some of us have put small electric motors in some of our
XD planes. Has anyone tackled a helicopter yet ?

[aferguson]

i've thought about it; the tail rotor's a killer..

[Adeleron]

Would you be able to power the tail rotor with a flex shaft?

Say if you had the flex shaft from a broken cheapo Dremel ripoff?

Any thoughts...

[tmanthegreat]

Pardon my lack of technical jargon, however, I recall having a Lego Technic set many years ago that was a helicopter and had a moving rotor that simultaneously moved the tail rotor. Its been a while since I've seen the directions and the piece has long since been dismantled, however, I'll do my best to describe how the system worked.

There was the main rotor shaft (running vertically) that attached to the motor. Attached to the main shaft was a horizontal gear that connected with a vertical gear. That vertical gear was attached to a shaft that ran horizontally through the tail boom. At the end, the horizontal shaft attached to another vertical gear which connected with a second vertical gear at a 90 degree angle --> like this: |_ . That second vertical gear was attached to a small shaft that to which the tail rotor was mounted. The spinning of the main rotor shaft was thus transmitted through to the tail rotor.

If you look on the first page of my website (using the link on my post), a diagram of what I described above has been posted as the very first picture. Hope this helps!

[p51]

At Disneyland, they have these Buzz Lightyear and spaceship things that spin at the top with somewhat rubber roter blades. The blades were heavy since they were rubber... so the motor seemed to be able to move things with a lot of stress... and they spun pretty fast. It's compact... like half the size of a normal flash light. They're $12... and I plan to get one to take it apart and put it in a XD plane. Seems quite simple and effective. I'll be at Disneyland on Saturday, so I'll try and remember to snap a picture.

[stv9000]

One of my sons had a toy C130 that had a weel just sticking out of
the top of the wing that you would turn with your thumb. The weel
was on a shaft that had pinion gears at each of the engines and would
would turn all four props. He doesn't play with it any more so, with his
permission, I may rip it apart to see what I can do. They also sell
these mini rc cars at t-r-u that you can buy upgraded engines for about
5 bucks. That along with the gearbox may have enough torque to
spin a tail rotor.

[tmanthegreat]

Careful with that C-130! You may be better to sell it on ebay if your son doesn't play with it anymore. Its one of the old Galoob Battlesquads vehicles from the late '90s. The line featured a variety of Tanks and aircraft, both WWII and modern. They were about 1:64 scale. That C-130's kind of rare and was one of the better pieces of the line!

[stv9000]

Tmanthegreat, thanks for the heads up. I will have to go a diffrent
route.

[mondaytanker]

I bought an $80 electric micro helicopter from Hobby Town USA. It has a separate motor for the tail rotor that would fit in a Blackhawk just fine. They sell a replacement motor for it. The trick would be, to run it slow. I am sure the rotors are not balanced. Same with the main rotor, pin them in place. A trick to balancing the rotors on the R/C helicopters is to place tape on the lighter rotor blade. Similar to a counterweight on your car wheel. Of coarse the R/C rotors are precision cast and much easier to balance. Also a big problem would be to get all the rotors to track (all droop the same).

I have given this some thought.

mondaytanker