Zelos - Rudder Dilema

[mikiek]

Had a nice day with the Heart of Texas club. Boating on a private ski lake. Literally in one members back yard. Very cool.

I flipped the z-boat early on and I think it pulled the last of the tray mounting screws out of whatever that glue is underneath. So time to pull the tray and remount it.

My problem is this. The rudder cables need to be disconnected from the servo as they are holding the tray in. The cable ends where they go thru the set screws in the servo arms are frayed pretty bad from a couple of previous removals. If I disconnect them I doubt I will be able to get them back in. And as we all know the cables have been on backorder at HH since forever.

So I need to try something else. I thought disconnecting the entire servo from the tray might do it but the cables are held in place by a sort of plastic mount behind the servo. The mount looks like it is a separate piece but it just flat won't come out.

Anyone got any ideas?

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[fweasel]

The plastic piece in question is a separate piece. I don't recall if it's screwed or glued in, but I know mine came out. Have a look at the HH website, the replacement tray shows it clearly: https://www.horizonhobby.com/electro...n-bl-prb286024. As for the cables, you could try and solder the tips to stabilize the winds, or, loosen the grub screws, pull the cables through, and unwind the problem strands far enough back to where they have a natural spiral and cut them there with a sharp set of snips, then wind the strand back into the cable. It won't go the full length, obviously, but it will clean things up and maintain the tight wind. We used to do this on brake cables for bicycles when there wasn't a spare cable on hand.

[REDLINE1]

That plastic piece is a bitch! Must be glued on mine cause I couldn't get it out. Unfortunately I think you have to pull the cables out as I did on mine. Done it twice now not easy luckily my cables weren't frayed too bad. Get out the magnifiers Tried soldering the tips couldn't get the solder to take even w flux. Maybe I couldn't get the cable hot enough. I have an extra set of cables on order for a month now. Still waiting for them

[mikiek]

The boat isn't usable as is so I suppose pulling the cable can't make it any worse. What sucks is it has to be pulled from the opposite end. Temper got the better of me and I have pulled the cables completely out. Maybe I can load the frayed end up with solder. The next bad thing is that white guide tubing that the cable was in does not want to come out of that first piece I was talking about. Looks like it may be glued.

I'm wondering about some sort of solvent to soften up the glue. Maybe some acetone of just some gentle heat. Or both It ain't gonna come out on its own.

[fweasel]

My white cable guides were definitely not glued in. In fact, before I put a little more tension in the cables themselves, the white guides were moving around causing some slop in the steering. I had considered glueing them to the black stand-off, but they stopped moving as soon as I took slack out of the cables at the servo horn.

[mikiek]

OK - well that makes my next decision a little harder. I was considering cutting the guides right where they go into that black piece. There's just no room to tug on them as it stands right now.

On a positive note I think I have salvaged the ends of the cables. I added some solder into the cable about an inch from the end then started twisting the cable right above that. Then I added some solder there and did some more twisting towards the end. I did 5 "spot" solders as I moved to the end of the cable. This was a hard solder rather than lead. I used a butane burner and some gold paste. It took pretty well. Then I filed it smooth and it fits into the fastener on the servo arm.

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So it looks like the last issue is that white guide tube.

[mikiek]

Acetone did the trick. It still took some serious twisting, but the piece and the piece on the tray that it fits into are intact.

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That's a relief, I really didn't want to cut the cable guide tubes.

[REDLINE1]

Nice work The guide tubes on mine are not glued in so I just disconnected the cables at the servo horn and pulled the entire tray out

[vinnyp]

When I took mine apart, I couldn't get that block off the battery tray. I pulled apart the rudder cables and white tubes instead. A couple of tray mounts were ripped on mine as well. When I did the carbon fiber inlay, I got the fabric up as high as possible on the tray mounts. Hopefully, that will keep them in place. As you can see, my inlay job looks terrible. I had a hell of a time cutting the fabric out around those tray mounts. I attempted to tape up the area of the fabric to be cut, but it still twisted and lost its pattern. Then, once I folded it up to get it in the hull, the fabric got even uglier. At that point, I basically gave up and glued it down anyway. In the end, looks like crap, but added quite a bit of strength to the hull. First I glued in a small layer around all the tray mounts, then 2 large layers covering as much as I could. Time will tell if the tray mounts hold. I am embarrassed to post this picture, but what the hell.......

[REDLINE1]

Fweasel gave me some pointers. Made cardboard templates of what I wanted to cut out first. Use testers 1/16" wide masking tape and lay it around the boarder of the template onto the CF cloth then cut it out with a scissors. The tape holds the edge of the CF cloth from fraying. Spray the Cf cloth with a light coat of 3m contact cement spray. Lay the cloth into the hull the contact cement holds the cloth down nice then coat with the epoxy/ resin. I just did the center section and the rear around the strut mounts. Did it in 4 sections it was easer to handle smaller pieces of cloth. Put two layers on center is much more rigid now

[vinnyp]

I made templates. That was easy enough. I layed the templates on the fabric. Used 1/4'" masking tape around the edges of the template and cut through the tape. I still had a hard time with keeping the fabric from fraying. I didn't know about the contact spray trick. I coated the hull with epoxy and attempted to lay the fabric down. Didn't work so well. Luckily, you cant see too much of it when the battery tray is in place. Still came out much more rigid.

[mikiek]

I wasn't planning on beefing up the hull, just remount the tray anchors. I'll use WEST epoxy for that.

Getting all the old glue (or whatever it is) off the mounts isn't easy. Then I dropped one in the acetone for about 10 minutes. It was almost all gone when I took it out. Hopefully I can epoxy them back in tonite.

[mikiek]

It took almost all day to get the old gunk off of and out of the mounts. There's still some but I think they're clean enough for the epoxy. I kept soaking them in acetone, then scraping off some gunk, then back in the acetone. The rearmost mount is still in place on the hull. The tray did not screw into that one - no screws at all so I guess it hasn't taken the pounding that the other 3 have. I'll probably still slather some epoxy around it and need to find some screws.

[vinnyp]

Mike,
When I made a mess of the hull with the carbon fiber, one of my battery tray screws rolled off my work bench and must have landed in a black hole, never to be seen again. erroneous suggested to get this kit
https://www.amazon.com/RC-Screwz-Sta...s_a_1_1&sr=8-1

It had the correct screws in it.

[ray schrauwen]

Can't people replace the push pull cables with quality Sullivan brand golden rod?