Nose gear adjustment attempts, canard/elevator critical dimensions | 10.6.2020

I realized that I may have not adjusted the rod end on the cylinder fully, and may be able to get the gear to come up all the way if I adjust the cylinder travel. Tried this and cycled the gear a few times, just barely not enough travel, which sucked.

Need to think more about how to resolve the issue, so I called it quits and set the gear selector down to move onto something else. Except that I set the gear selector down onto the gear control box (grounded aluminum) and shorted a live terminal to ground. I heard a hissing and then a pop from inside the gear control box (gold box) and then the smoke came out. Anyone who works with electronics will tell you that the one rule is to not let the magic smoke out. Popped open the gold box expecting a popped capacitor and found just that. Nothing else looked fried. Ordered a new cap online (because RadioShack doesn't exist anymore) and will need to solder it in and test. I could send it back to Wayne, but this is within my realm of fix-ability, and I felt guilty from doing something so dumb.

Needless to say that this was a frustrating start, so I decided to take a break from working on the kit. I also don't have any pictures, because when I get frustrated, I tend to forget them.

 

Later in the evening, I decided I wanted to get *something* done on the kit, since the last 3 days of attempts had resulted in giant failures. Decided to shim the canard level on a set of sawhorses and verify all the critical dimensions and work.

Down elevator (canard upside down) - 28.7 degrees

Up elevator - 25 degrees

Hinges were all set at the correct distance from center.

The elevator gap also matched the correct specs per the build manual at neutral and at full deflections. At this point, I checked everything off in the manual as good to go.

I then started working on balancing the elevator. After talking with Chad previously, I had bought another set of elevator weights to cut down. Chad said that they've started adding an extra half weight on each outside end on all the ones that they work on in the factory. I had very quickly tested elevator balance previously and noted that it needed about another 1.5 lb to balance out, so the factory's recommendation matched my experience. Cut down the weight set that they sent me to make "half" weights which will attach outboard of the standard weight. Realized that I need longer screws and I don't have any in the parts bins. Tabled this for later and ordered screws off Aircraft Spruce.

Old weight and cut half weight.

 

- Jeff