zirconx

I was flipping through a Harbor Freight mailer today and saw they have a 14" wingspan free-flight plane on sale for $7.99. [link to plane]

I was wondering if anyone had taken something like this and turned it into a 3 channel RC? What do you think it would cost?

$10 for 2 micro servos (7g, is that too heavy?) Otherwise can find 5.4g servos but they are $13 each.
$10 for a 10a speed controller

Use the stock motor and battery, or add a 1 cell lipo for $5 or so.

Total without radio: about $30, under $35 with shipping. Then just use one of your existing receivers and radio, or at most purchase an additional receiver and use your existing radio. What you you think??? I've never built a plane before (just used RTFs so far), but I think you could cut the rudder and elevator out of the plastic tail, and use packing tape for hinges.

So I think the first step would be to spend the $7.99, then start adding weight and see how much you can add and still fly. Then you'd have a starting point to see if it would carry everything.

soar-ne

zirconx:
I dont see any reason why this conversion wouldnt work. Just use the lightest possible equipment, every gram counts. There are some 4 gram servos out there and also I would use a smaller ESC, like the ICS 50 or 100. GWS 4 channel RX is about 30$ with the xtal and maybe try a little EDP 50 motor (11$ with props)or maybe even smaller.
HF used to have a little free flt bi-plane with a 12 or 14 inch WS that I converted with such equipment. Flew decent but was pretty fast and fragile., should have gotten 2, 1 to test and then after getting it trimed installed thw flight packin the good one and kept it.
Another cheap conversion is the foam 4 foot gliders in the plastic bags at department stores. Once you get the set up they are great fliers and only about 6 bucks. Can use bigger and cheaper equipment also!!!!!!!
Happy Flying
Bob

Twmaster

Converting those was the rage a couple of years ago when they first shown up in the HF stores. Should be lots of conversion info over in the archives on RC Groups.

The bipe soar-ne mentioned was called the acro-bipe and flew well with smallish gear from a couple of years ago.

Mike_Taylor

The HF Lightning, as the high wing is called, was the most mdded model when the RFFS was the state of the art radio. Conversions used a 2 gran RX/ESC, 2 x 1 (or 2) gram actuators, a 5 gram KP-00 motor/gearset, U-80 prop, and a 145 LiPoly. AUW was ~30 - 32 grams. They flew pretty well at that weight. Today you could use the 7 mm mptpr/geatr sets and save a couple of grams. Each one of the servo you mention weigh as much as the gear we were carrying in them. At the light weight, they survived quite well. Doubling the weight - not such a good idea...

RG WILLIAMS

Is it possible to use a HF Lightning power in a lightly built Guillow Super cub? Timer not needed. Non-RC. Free flight only.
rg

Twmaster

I don't see why it would not work unless too big physically to fit. The cub is nice and light and has lots of wing.

That would be a great pick.

RG WILLIAMS

Is it possible to use a Harbor Freight Lightning power unit in a lightly built Guillow Cub? WS is 20 in. Non-Rc. Free flight only. No timer needed. I understand the Lightning can be charged to run from 1 to 3 minutes.
rg

Twmaster

Ahem. Read the post in front of you.

RG WILLIAMS

Sorry for the double post
rg

swass rc dawg

I'm bulbing A guillows piper cherokee 3ch 2 blue arrow 3.6g servos & A park 250 motor & 6 amp e.s.c prop ?? 2" more on the wings
& I have that same harbor frate plane hope to find time to do it
just got an electrifly YAK 55 3d arf

RG WILLIAMS

I really like the look of the Guillow Piper Cherokee 140. It could be an outstanding flying model with light construction and proper equipment setup.
The choice for my first RC build will be the Guillow Fairchild 24. It has a 25 inch WS . I like the high wing stability for my first build. Check out youtube rc fairchild and you will see a very impressive Guillow Fairchild RC conversion.
All of the Guillow 300 series high wing ac would also be good choices for my first build , a person new to RC building and still polishing his flying skills.
Good luck on your projects and keep us posted.
rg

Bill G

14" wingspan is significantly different than 20". I have built some realtively heavy small planes that flew well and broke the so-called rules of the skeptics, so I'd be the last person to absolutely shoot down your gear proposals, but still assuming that you don't want to break the bank:
I would be looking at gear such as the 2.4gm ZXtec rec from BP Hobbies, BA 2.5gm servos, and an ESC such as the Castle TBird6, if you are planning BL. The reason I say this is due to my findings that a 16" plane flys about the same at a mere 80gms AUW, as a 20" plane flys at a staggering 6oz AUW, or even a bit more. I've never gone smaller than 16". As you downsize, the wingloading needed for good flight becomes exponentially lower.

I'm also the last person to discourage building, even if the necessary build knowledge is ahead of the person in their building career. I built a number of planes early on in my rc flying time, but basically none of them flew off the bat. Years later I reworked the planes as I gained knowledge, and 1 by 1 got them to fly. Even still, the afterthoughts were staggering: "If only I had built that tail a bit lighter...etc...".

Building micros is best done by starting larger, and slowly sizing down. In this case it's very important, as a slightly larger 20" plane can be a 6+oz tank and fly well, where a 14" plane probably cannot be even 1/2 of that. The challenges at this size are difficult.

For hinges, tape is very heavy. I've found the GWS hinge material to work well on micros. Cut the hinges at no more than 1/2 the width used on a GWS plane. Make knife slits in the control surfaces, insert a small amount of epoxy with a knife tip, and insert the hinges. Remember, glue weighs. If worrying about the glue weight used on hinges sounds insane, it actually somewhat is, but I never could get extremely light builds until I started considering things like that.

At any rate, high wingers are a good choice for rud/elevator. To get a low wing rud/elev plane flying well, you must set the right-thrust and washout angles to exactly what the plane wants. The right wing will have added positive washout to correct for prop torque, as well as the right thrust. To do this, you have to start out with a pretty good guess if you want the plane to even fly well enough to decide where to go from there, in making your adjustments.

GaFlyBoy

nice thread

swass rc dawg

can I use the HF motor on my PZ brick off my micro 210??
I know that the HF motor runs on the one cell nicad 1.2 V so will the
3.7 V lipo be OK ???