A Depron Airbus A350 - 1000 for 76 mm EDFs

After much cogitation I have finally fixed in the tail servos.

The rudder servo is 'conventional' mounted in the fin but the twin elevator servos are stacked together under the tail plane which means they will be inside the fuselage. However this location also means the servo arms have different centres which needed a bit of trial and error to arrange both linkages to give the same and equal travel (more or less).
Now I have just go to join the bits together. Only then will I have any idea where to put the battery.

The next task is to cut open the tail of the fuselage to fit the complete tail unit and in such a way that it is at the right incidence and 'true' with the wings.
The first view of the more or less structurally complete Airbus A350.

It all just 'balanced' in the picture with actually nothing fixed so there is quite a bit of fitting and remedial work to do but it does 'look' about right.

what a wonderful looking model.
another one of your excellent designs Simon.

thank you for sharing.

Tony B

Looks terrific Well done Sir

Now that is some build Simon
The big 380 next

Thanks for the kind words.
Actually fixing the tail in place and reorganising the elevators servos (again!) along with the usual Christmas stuff has made for slow going but the tail feathers are now permanent.

With long servo wires running down inside fuselage.

And some small printed mounts to stop the wires thrashing about.

Next is to organise the wing mounting and installing the rx, ESCs, UBEC and battery into the underside wing fairing.

The as yet unfinished "sardine can" installation of the ESCs in the fairing under the wing.

The UBEC and rx will go a bit further aft towards the wing trailing edge to give maximum separation from the ESCs.
For CofG reasons the battery will go forward towards the front of the fairing.

If it works out as planned the wing will thus hold everything except the rudder and elevator servos. .

Added the UBEC so it could be tested.

It all worked although one motor turned the wrong way but I had given myself the luxury of using 2 mm bullets on the motor wires so no problem changing the motor direction.
Then I ran into a problem
On my 'test' 2s it all worked perfectly but on a 3s the RH motor would not turn, just oscillated! Put back on a 2s it all worked perfectly.
Thinking it might be some sort of 'interaction' between the ESCs I separated the signal wires so I could run up each motor separately but the result was the same. No problem on a 2s but the RH would not run on 3 although the LH was fine!

My gut instinct is it is the RH ESC that is at fault rather than the motor.
The ESCs were cheap enough at the time but of course they are no longer on offer and are now only available in the US with a horrendous postage cost.
And it was all going along relatively smoothly.

Eric
Whilst it is not at all easy to swap over the motor wires I did couple up the 'oscillating' motor to a stand alone conventional 'plane' ESC that had its own BEC (thus testing just the motor) and it ran perfectly on a 3s.
I also tested the other motor in this way so I could check the 'good' SimonK quad ESC did not limit the top end power - a fault that some had noticed when SimonK programming first appeared - but it does not appear to.
So an identical ESC has been ordered but it has to come from China. I just couldn't bring my self to pay over 3 times the price for UK stock and I can wait.
This means I can continue to complete everything as long as I leave the planking off a bit of the underside to fit the new ESC when it arrives.

I expect I am guilty of using printed components simply because I have a 3D printer but ti does allow things to be 'engineered' accurately.
This odd looking thing is the fuselage part of the wing mount.

The two 'formers' will be glued to the inside of the fuselage skin - they are exactly the same radius as the rest - with a M4 threaded block glued between them to pick up the 'wing spar' nylon bolts. It weighs 2.2 g
These bolts pass through similar printed blocks glued between the spar and the inner rib.

There will be one further wing/fuselage bolt near the wing trailing edge.

With the wing mounting complete such that it can be bolted in its final location the wing underside fairing can progress.

I took the opportunity with the plane "in one piece" to assess where the CofG was with the 1000 mAh 4s in its intended place. My "guess" it was a bit too far back given how little lift I can expect from the outer portions of the wing.
The solution was to mount the battery a bit further forward in an small leading edge extension that extends into the hollow fuselage.

The battery will still be accessible with the wing in place.

As a bonus if it proves possible to fly it on a 3s a 1500 mAh 3s is virtually the same weight and size.

.

Rather slow going, and I am still waiting for the replacement ESC, but building the wing fairing continues.
The electrics all in place with the front and rear potions of the fairing almost complete.

The three green 'tubes' provide screw driver access to the 'retained' wing fixing bolts.
The battery is part submerged inside the fuselage although its battery box is still part of the wing structure.
The Lemon 'stab' rx will have its own hatch to allow gyro gain adjustment.
The under wing fairing is quite shallow so things are a pretty tight fit. As a result virtually every wire will have to be cut back to be exactly the right length.
It looks like it is going to weigh just under 600 g (21 oz)..

With the wing fairing complete - well almost - the wing can be unbolted and pried off.

To reveal the battery box mounted on the front of the wing which fits in a 'hole' in the fuselage.

This is about as far as I can go until the replacement ESC arrives.
I suppose I could paint the wings.