A light weight EE Canberra

At last I managed to install the elevators driven from a single servo.
 
No very elegant but light and very free moving,
I was then able to test the ailerons and elevators using a servo tester. Sorry is a "short".
www.youtube.com/shorts/P3SBJP2i-GY  

Moved on to the cockpit/battery hatch.
 
The canopy was a challenge but came out well being printed in Colour Fab LW-PLA. It gives a smoother surface finsh than eSun LW-PLA.
It took quite a bit of experimenting to get the canopy itself correctly "lofted" to account for the offset over the circular fuselage. 
 
The windscreen is a separate part but both are actually hollow boxes simply glued together and glued to the hatch cover. The complete canopy weighs just 2g and acts as the "handle" to lift the hatch.
The only item still needed is the receiver from China but with Iran in the way its anybodies guess as to how long that might take!   

Now the receiver has arrived from China I had to consider a safe way of mounting it in what is a pretty delicate structure.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time creating a LW-PLA box that was fully supported by to adjacent fuselage formers but it did not touch the Depron skin.
The CAD file
 
Mounted in the nose section
 
The box weighs 2g and the receiver just slides in. The twin aerials will be suitably located in the extreme nose.
The battery (850mAh 3s) is by far the heaviest single item and will be placed ahead of the receiver in a similar printed mount but unlike every other item in the Canberra it will be removable via the cockpit hatch.
Well that's the plan.
  

I coupled up everything in its correct location to do a final test before I glued the nose on..
 
With the intended 850mAh 3s everything worked for about 3 seconds and then the left hand motor suddenly stopped. The right hand motor and control surfaces worked as normal.
To be sure I connected power to just the left hand motor and controlled the ESC with a servo tester. The ESC armed OK but the motor just oscillated! 
This posed the question had a phase in the ESC failed or the motor.
Replacing the ESC is quite doable and would only require a small portion of the inner wing skin to be removed to get at the motor wires.
On the other hand replacing the motor will be much more complex as part of the printed nacelle will have to be cut away to release the motor and a bigger area of the inner wing skin to reinstall the motor wires. And then special parts of the nacelle reprinted.
Of course it could be that both the ESC and motor have failed.

All a bit disappointing as everything had been test several times during construction to try to avoid exactly this situation.
To make matters worse I do not have a spare of either part and they come from China so quite a few weeks delay before the Canberra gets completed back to where it was.     

A bit of progress the failed EDF has been carefully cut out and the ESC removed.
 
This allowed the ESC to be tested to show it still worked on another motor and the ESC tested to show that it didn't!
I did order a new ESC anyway, actually two because it cost no more and they arrived quite promptly even from China.

Ordering the new EDF ran into a load of trouble. I miss typed the password for my email account twice and Microsoft blocked it! The help line suggested waiting 12 hours and it would be unblocked. Still no joy just "too many attempts". The help line then suggested leaving it for a further 24 hours. I did then get a bit further with the "recover password option" with the sending of  a recovery code to my phone but on entering the code it replied "this is not working at the present"
After nearly a week I managed to get into a text dialogue with the formal Microsoft help line and did eventually get a code sent by them and it worked BUT now the wording on the email "options" om my account are in Chinese? Although the actual received emails are still in English. The replacement EDF has at last been ordered.

The annoying bit is my email account name has been unchanged for 15 years. In those days you didn't even need a password, just click on an icon on the screen!
I am beginning to appreciate how BB feels!  

 

At long last the replacement 30mm EDFs have arrived.
First is to glue the various printed out LW-PLA "repair" parts to the EDF.
 
They should allow it all to be glued directly onto the "cut off" nacelle.
 
However before that can be done the EDF wires will have to be "encouraged" through the nacelle wall and into the wing to be soldered onto the wires from the ESC that are already there. Using a soldering iron in a very restricted space surrounded by Depron I am not looking forward too.
 

The replacement EDF glued in place and the wing skin made good after the motor wires to the ESC soldered and the EDF checked for correct rotation. It is a 50/50 chance it will be right first time but it is amazing how often it isn't. 
 
With all the servo connections restored a short low power test of both EDFs.
www.youtube.com/shorts/so6qSdgKkOY
It had to be no more than 1/2 power as the glue holding in the replaced EDF was still not fully hard.
Next task is to install the receiver and check everything else still works. Only then can the nose be glued on which in turn will allow the battery box position to be guesstimated!  

 

The wires on the female JST are just 26AWG. The wires from the LiPo to the preinstalled male JST are significantly bigger, likely 22 AWG.
As the wires are carrying the amps for both EDFs the 26 AWG were noticeably warm at even half power.
I have ordered some female JST with 24 AWG wires whish is the largest preinstalled wire I have found.
Hopefully they will not get too warm.
I suppose if all else fails I will have to change the battery connectors to Xt30 and use 22 AWG wire.
The Canberra will get finished - eventually!    

After fitting the JST with 24 AWG silicon coated wires I did a further test but using a big 2s.
www.youtube.com/shorts/EDcIdyCpDe4
The wire from the JST to the ESCs did not get warm and to my surprise it certainly felt like the thrust was quite adequate & close to 1:1. If the actual thrust measured by a "nose on scales is sufficient I will use an 850mAh 2s rather than the intended 450mAh 3s.
Satisfied the next task is to fit the nose and then complete the desert camouflage.
 
Not exactly right. Perhaps the underside is a bit too dark but the correct pale blue was specifically intended to be hard to see against a clear blue sky. Not ideal for RC. 
Slowly getting there! 

  

When painted it does rather show the generous wing area of the Canberra, particularly the PR9 which had extended wing tips and the extended leading edge between the fuselage and the engine nacelle.
 
Still needs some filling and touch ups.
Without the battery it weighs 215g

Still calm(ish) this morning so I plucked u courage to maiden the Canberra PR9.
The picture taken after the maiden!
 
It flies and it landed smoothly with no damage at all.   
However there are some issues.
1. It is rather tail heavy.
2. The control coordination is poor, ailerons very sensitive, the elevator is very weak. Dual rates will solve the aileron issue and smaller horns on each elevator will increase the throws.  
3. Given that the flight only lasted 2 minutes and the 450mA 3s battery was down to storage level suggests a rather bigger capacity battery is a must!
An 850mAh 3s positioned with care should also cure the tail heavy issue.
Nevertheless I count a maiden of a home design that ends with absolutely no damage a true success!

The desert camo stands out like a sore thumb in a basically green environment although its pale gray under could be a problem at altitude in overcast conditions. 
Just need some decals to improve its 'look'.
With an 850mAh 3s it will weigh 295g (10.5 oz). It has a wing area of 1.7 sg ft which gives a wing loading of 6 oz/sq ft. Still seriously low for an EDF!