Difference between revisions of "Zeta WingWing Z84"

Revision as of 21:24, 21 August 2018

© Mark Qvale - April, 2018

Contents 1 Introduction 2 General Specifications 3 Components/Flight Gear 3.1 Power Set-up 3.1.1 Motor Mount 3.2 Flight Control 3.3 FPV Gear 4 Airframe Mods and Set-up 4.1 Front Nose Skid 4.2 Wings 4.3 Airframe Changes 4.4 Mods! 5 Kit/Build Review 6 Maiden! 7 Project 3D Print Files 8 See Also 8.1 Some of the Vendors I used for this project 8.2 Comments? Questions?
	New (tiny) wing!

Introduction

I decided to try something much smaller in the Wing world. The Z84 is a smaller version of the C1 and FX-61 and I am hoping it flys well as I want to take it backpacking! For flight management/control I'll be starting with an Omnibus F3Pro flight controller to keep it light and simple.

Here then is a collection of my build notes and eventually a flight review of this plane.

General Specifications

Distributor - HobbyKing, USA
Aircraft - Zeta WingWing Z84
Build Date - April, 2018

Components/Flight Gear

Below are my initial components. Not shown is the DragonLink Micro MR-RX:

Initial selected components

FC,ESC & Motor Mounted

All geared up and ready for maiden!

Power Set-up

For power on this build I will start with a Multistar Elite 2204-2300kv motor and a HobbyKing Blue Series 20A with a single Low ESR capacitor added.

• Motor - Multistar Elite 2204-2300kv
• ESC - Blue Series 20A
• Prop - HQ6x4.5
• Battery - Li-ion 3S/3500
  
  

Motor Mount

I have designed a 3D printed motor mount which places the motor 10mm rearward of the stock mount. This is to accommodate a standard 22xx motor and standard prop. To use a folding prop I will have to put the motor on an additional 10mm stand-offs.

Mount and 2204 motor

ESC Mount

I decided to design and print a simple mount which glues into the motor mount and bottom of the fuselage. The ESC is held down with a single wire tie and there is a foam pad between the ESC and mount deck.

ESC mount

Flight Control

For initial flight control I chose the Omnibus F3Pro from Banggood. It is an inexpensive and in my experience completely reliable FC. This is the same board I have in the larger C1 Chaser

• Omnibus F3Pro

w/iNav 1.8.1

FC Mount

To mount the FC I Glued in some 6mm stand-offs in the bottom of the fuse.

Motor, ESC and Flight Controller mounts

RC Control

For radio gear I am using my standard DragonLink V2 system. I have mounted a multi-rotor RX with integrated DL dipole to the left of the hatch.

GPS Mount

For the GPS I used an inverted version of the one on my C1. This is to mount it under the wing and it is sized for a Ublox Mini M7 GPS.

• Mini Ublox M7/M8

GPS Mount - 1.71g

Mini Ublox GGS mounted under wing

FPV Gear

• VTx - RMRC 200mw, 1280gHz
• FPV Camera - Foxeer Arrow Micro V2 with 2.1 lens
• HD Camera - TBA

Foxeer FPV Camera

Airframe Mods and Set-up

Front Nose Skid

While I originally was going to go for a simple tape skid on the nose, I had some extra time so I designed and printed a plug that copies the shape of the nose and vacu-formed a skid.

Vacu-form plug and part (with vacu-frame)

Part Specs:

• Material - .020" Clear PETG Sheet
• Part Weight after trim - 2.24g

Below is how it looks with most of the trimming done.

Trim and Fit-up

For glue I used Gorillas "Clear Grip" contact adhesive which is an excellent cement for attaching plastic parts to EPO.

Wings

Printed a couple of form fitting skids for the wing tips. This area on both my C1 and FX61 get really banged up so this time some 1mm thick skids.

Printed Wing Tip skids

Installed skid

Airframe Changes

I made some initial changes based on experience with the C1 and FX's and listening to some of the more expert posters on RC Groups.

The first change was to swap the very flexible fiberglass spar for a slightly larger Carbon Fiber tube spar. The CF spar is slightly lighter but considerably stiffer. I only had to do a small amount of hot-wire work to fit it in nicely. Of course this means I will have to come up with my own hatch latch (stay tuned).

Spar change

The next "Aero" change I made was to cut down the center fin on top of the hatch and grind away the rear flare around the motor mount top and bottom (not shown). The fin on top just collects damage and blocks air to the prop. The flare around the motor mount makes the prop much less efficient and much, much noisier!

Initial cut

close-up

Front-to-back view

Mods!

Here are a few mods I've done after flying for sometime.

Kit/Build Review

The Zeta WingWing Z84 is a good, complete kit. I bought the kit version (no electronics) as I don't trust any PNP kit as far as component quality. It is very much a scaled down version of the FX-61. The parts are all decent quality and all pieces went together without issue.

Here are some of my personal points for improvement:

• The motor mount is extremely weak! I designed and printed a much more robust version which cost me an additional 3g.
• It would be nice if Zeta would copy some of the features of the C1 Chaser such as the top wing linkage set-up. This planes lower linkage will be very susceptible to damage just as the FX-61 is.
• Widen the gear bay (see C1 comment above). Even an additional 10mm would help immensely!
• Provide molded plastic skids for the wing tips and the front nose. I designed and printed the wing skids which are 1.3g each. I'll probably use tape on the nose.
• Get rid of the lower vent holes and put them in the canopy instead. This will keep the dirt frome getting in the gear bay and ultimately in the motor.

Maiden!

What a great tiny flyer! Weather was perfect at 82 degrees F and very light wind. I built this wing to use as a backpack FPV rig and so I maidened it as such. I used a lightweight 1.5kg bungee for the maiden as I wasn't sure how it would fare on a hand launch with the motor & prop I have in it.

Everything worked flawlessly until the landing which caused no damage but the plane did sink very quickly with the throttle off due to my not setting the brake on the ESC so the landing came up a little short. Not having the brake set also caused the prop to break (OK, so there was a little damage).

Project 3D Print Files

Here are the 3D print files shown:

• Z84 STL's

The total weight of all 5 parts is ~15.4g, depending on print set-up. The cover over the Foxeer FPV camera is not included.

See Also

• Banggood_C1_Chaser_Wing
• Zeta FX-61 Phantom Wing Number 2
• Thingiverse Design Page

Some of the Vendors I used for this project

ReadyMadeRC (of course!)

HobbyKing

GetFPV

Aloft Hobbies

Comments? Questions?

email me!