A micro EDF DH Venom FB2

It is a 'current' plan but it appears I never did a build thread for it.
I followed on from my DH Vampire built from a Keil Kraft 'stick and tissue' plans intended for Jetex but converted to RC and a 40 mm EDF.
Whilst it flew the result was not very satisfactory.
I felt building the air frame entirely from 2 mm Depron would possibly be lighter and definitely be a better representation of what was an all metal plane.
As it is already built and flies extremely well I will skip the full details of its construction but it was basically built up starting from the 40 mm EDF itself.

Slowly extending the fuselage forward and creating the inlet ducts.

Ultimately forming the wing roots and the cockpit area.

The wings them selves are hollow with 2 mm Depron skins and Depron shear webs. There is no spar all the loads are carried by the skin

The tail plane and booms are hollow as well.

The end result is a one piece 32" (810 mm) span plane that weighs 6.2 oz (175 g) with a 950 mA 2s.

Even painted it still only weighs 6.4 oz (181 g)

It flies very well indeed and throttled back it has an endurance of 9 minutes. A unusual performance for an EDF of its size that incidentally is well below the proposed 250g limit for any form of "registration".

So onto the reason for this post.
With its EDF so far back it actually need 8 g of lead in the nose despite its 950 mAh Nano-Tech being positioned right forward into the Depron nose block thus leaving quite a bit of room in the cockpit.

I hate carrying ballast (8 g is 4%!) so I hunted for a bigger battery that would still fit.

As there is a limit of 10 pictures on any one post here goes again.
I found this battery.

1400 mAh and actually intended for a BB gun. :woohoo:
Although it has a lower C rating (15 to 25) than the smaller 950 mAh (25-50) its bigger capacity means that the Venom will only be drawing 8C from it even at full power!
By removing the need for the lead ballast the total weight gain for a near 50% increase in battery capacity is only 10.1 g. although its serious wind and rain at the moment.

'Airsoft' is a paint-balling name, not BB.s - but we won't argue, because a lipo is a lipo, and I'm using one on my self-powered railway cleaning train! [badass]

Not paintball according the Wikipedia.
"Airsoft is a sport in which participants eliminate opponents by hitting each other with plastic BBs launched via model non-lethal equipment called airsoft guns."

And ?/?

If the bigger battery is a good as I hope even with the small increase in weight the Venom's maximum endurance should get close to 15 minutes.
No pressing reason to do this change other than my own curiosity and to maybe raise a few eyebrows at the next club fly-in I get to. .

As I reported in "Been Flying" the sub 250g Venom suffered quite a bit damage being extracted from the very top of a tree.
This shows the areas that need repairs. 
 
 
It all has be done "ever so light" or I will also have to change that decal on the wing!
 

That is a very nice pictorial summary of the build process. Thanks!

Each on the 13 damaged areas are "squared off" then Depron inserts cut to fit and glued in.
 
They will sanded down carefully to match the original profile with light weight filler if required. The ffiller does a good job at filling the open surface of sanded Depron.
Still the elevator to do but this is not really a repair but more a full replacement.  

What do you use as filler?  (you probably mentioned at some point in the past).

Lightweight filler. 

It relly is light. If you are used to using something like Pollyfiiller when you first pick up a tub of light weight you wonder if there is anyhting in it.
I believe its liquid base is an emulsion so water soluble but when fully dry almost nothing disolves it. Sands nicely.
The little Venom is now fully restored.
 
Just the minimum of touch up painting as weight is obviously a major concern.
The repairs in total have added 5g so it now weighs 207g .ready to go.
Happy with that.

Ah that filler might be just the thing I have been looking for.  I do have a tub of filler that is super light weight and wondered about how it might react to wet grass.

A few weeks back I posted in "Been flying" that I had lost sight of the sub 250g Venom and did a nose plant job on it.
 
 It has been hanging on the wall since then whilst I struggled with the Stiletto but now it is structurally fixed.
 
The  2mm planking made good to the nose former.
The nose cone itself is printed in LW-PLA with a double wall which gives a thickness 1.2 mm.
 
Simply glued in place it is remarkably strong but weighs just 1.0 g.
Just some paint and it will be good to go again.    

As I report on been flying I crashed the micro Venom again.
 
A bit more serious then the previous crash in March.
The repair follow a similar process. build up the cockpit walls to support the destroyed formers all in 3mm Depron
 
Then carefully and slowly re-plank the 2mm Depron skin 
 
Just a LW-PLA nose cone to add then some light weight filler and paint.
I have got too stop crashing this plane. 
 

Now all mended - again.
 
Almost as good as new. except for all the dints and scratches but to be fair they were there before the crash. I may take it with others to the do the DVMFC open day 25/26 May.

I suppose I will also have to start repairs on the Stiletto. It will have a new slightly heavier battery which could take several week to arrive.so no rush and there is still the V-2 with wings to