Darin's Raptor P-Spec Rigger Build

[Darin Jordan]

I thought some here would like to see one of Brian's Raptor P-Spec riggers being assembled, so here we go.

I'm going to keep this kind of shorter... mostly just pics and quick descriptions, but hopefully my take on putting one of these together helps someone out there.

Thus far, I have the motor mount drilled up and have installed the motor mounting blocks. I have decided that I may move the motor back another 1/2" to 1" to give me a little more room up front, but we'll see how things layout.

Rather than glue the booms in, I've decided to try making them adjustable, like the Nitro guys do, so I've fabbed a set of hardwood blocks with threaded inserts that the booms will bolt down to.

To solve the problem of how to seal the booms, I'm going to try using some of the Dubro pushrod seals. The hole in the aluminum mounting ring leaves plenty of room for adjustment, so I think this will work fine. Snip a little bit off the end of the rubber boot, and they fit nicely over the booms...

[kevakov]

There were two of these riggers at the Az FE event last weekend, where can they be purchased at? Do we contact Brian ? Looks like a great rigger. Let me know if they are still out there. Thanks.

[Ub Hauled]

yes, contact Brian Buaas, he has a list going...

[detox]

YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Darin !

[Steven Vaccaro]

Nice job figuring out what to seal the booms with!!

[Darin Jordan]

OK, I've done a little more tonight.

To prepare the booms to have screws through them where they will mount to the tub, I prepped them using a piece of inner and outter brass tubing, and put a piece of wooden dowl in the center just for extra measure.

These pieces are sized as follows:

Wooden Dowl = 1/4" O.D.
Inner Brass = 9/32" O.D.
Outter Brass = 13/32" O.D.

Each is cut to 3", so they will JUST come to the outter edge of the tub. If the booms shear, this way they'll shear outside the tub. Might have been a good idea to make them about 1" longer, but I think this should work.

After marking the center of the booms, I measured out from center 1.5" on either side. I marked up a small piece of dowl to use as a pusher stick to get the inner pieces located. This mark allows the end of the stick to go in right up to the center - 1.5" point. This will center the inner pieces. I used a piece of fuel tubing as a stopper to make it easier to work with once the epoxy starts flowing.

[Darin Jordan]

Once all the pieces were prepped and the brass parts cleaned up with scotch-brite, I mixed up some epoxy (FLAG Medium) and glued the dowls inside the inner piece of brass. I then put epoxy down into the booms with a long piece of dowl to get the epoxy down into the center. I partially slid the inner brass in place, put epoxy on it, then pushed it down into the center using the pusher stick.

After both of these were done, I epoxied on the outter brass pieces, lining them up with the marks I previously made.

Once these are dry, I'll locate and drill the holes for the mouting screws...

[Darin Jordan]

After the booms dried overnight, I transfered the holes from the mounting blocks to the brass tubing, being careful to make sure they were equal distance from the center of the booms.

I fabbed a drill jig that helps me center the drill on the tubing and guides it through. There are two holes in it, on for a 4-40 screw sized clearance hole, which is 1/8" in this case, and the other is the correct diameter to drill out a hole to run 1/8" ID tubing through, if I wanted to. I won't be using that in this case.

The base block that the boom is sitting on has a small V-Channel in it to help hold the tubing in place. I also used the drill bit in the first hole to help hold the rotational alignment while setting up to do the other hole.

Once the holes were drilled, I deburred and made sure the blocks bolted up, which they did... I felt like Norm Abrahm from "The Yankee Workshop"... They lined up perfectly the first try!

[Darin Jordan]

After test fitting the boom assemblies to make sure everything would line up correctly, I epoxied them into place. I will go over the blocks with additional epoxy to seal them once they are securely in place.

[HOTWATER]

Nice job Darin! What motor and esc are you going to use to power it? What size Lipos?

[Darin Jordan]

For the P-Spec Hydro class at the 2009 NAMBA Nationals, the required motor and ESC are the UL1 setup...

However, I'm going to run the ProBoat motor in it here locally as well to see what I can do with that. ESC may be a Barracuda 80 or 125 for that setup.

Lipos will be something in the 4500mah size...I can JUST fit a 2S1P 4500 Elite 30C pack in front of the motor, and can put another over the tops of the booms... I may have some other options as well...

[HOTWATER]

Very cool! I am interested in how the rest of the build goes and how it will run between the two different setups...Thanks Darin!

[kevakov]

Is the adjustment of the sponsons left and right, or up and down? That set-up looks Hitec and New Wave !!!!

[detox]

Lipos will be something in the 4500mah size...I can JUST fit a 2S1P 4500 Elite 30C pack in front of the motor, and can put another over the tops of the booms... I may have some other options as well...

After doing some measuring I think this 4s1p Lipo will fit best and work best. It's size (138mm X 45mm X 32mm) will allow for some adjustable COG. This battery will also fit pefectly in the UL-1 (two wired parallel in the UL-1 would equal 8400mah) . Using my 15% Silver membership discount one battery will cost me roughly $205.00 plus shipping

http://www.maxamps.com/Lipo-4200-148-Flight-Pack.htm

or this one

http://www.maxamps.com/Lipo-5250-148-Pack.htm

............................

[Darin Jordan]

Alright... finally more progress...

I made some plywood backing plates for the boom seals.

I added some carbon fiber to the floor bottom around the stuffing tube.

Stuffing tube is brass with no liner for use with a .078 wiredrive. I built up the end into the Speedmaster strut.

I opened up the boom holes in the sponsons, got everything lined up, then epoxied them into place. Inside the ends of the booms I've epoxied some aluminum tubing so the drilled holes won't split them. I drilled up the holes to hold the booms on with a set of stainless still safety pins that I got from McClendon's (a local "have everything" hardware store).