Here are some of my review notes;
My Synergy N7 build…
Ok, so here we are at the beginning of February…and I have a new heli to build! I received my Synergy N7 from Experience RC. There shipping is very fast! I ordered the N7 Thursday night as Experience and Helidirect were the only two shops that had one in stock. I clicked on the “Add to basket” button on Helidirect, and the site crashed! So I ordered the N7 from Experience. Tuesday, it was at my door! I was expecting it like Wednesday/Thursday time frame…
The build begins
I opened the box and pulled everything out to look at. Then it was time to fire up the MacBook Pro to print out the manual. Right in the middle of the print, the printer ran out of ink?!!! Great! No problem, I have a spare cartridge. I finished the print and headed off to start building my N7…finally!
The manual has you start with the fuel tank. It “looks” like an Align tank for one of the Trex 700 V2 helis (I have the Trex 700N heli, just haven’t looked at it to compare). So the tank builds up like any other tank…vent, feed line, clunk, etc.
Next is the landing gear. For the most part, the landing gear is assembled like most except for the tube locks? They are something like a frame spacer, but only one inch long with a threaded hole through the center and a threaded cross hole where the bolt from the landing gear goes into to hold the skid tubes in place. A cool feature, the skid tubes have predrilled holes in them for the skids…no measuring the skid tubes!
Now, to get those tube locks in place. My first thought was to find something I could run the tube lock up front to the first hole and possibly hold in place while I screw the bolt into it. Ah…a threaded rod! I had a 4-40 threaded rod the just worked. The threads were wrong in the tube lock, but who cares, as long as it will hold it in place long enough to get the skid bolt into the tube lock…with some Loctite of course. This worked perfectly for all 4 tube locks.
On to the clutch stack, well nothing special there, just take it apart and Loctite the screws. When I got to mounting the fan hub assembly (hub, fan, and clutch) to the motor, I found one of the fan blades was broken. It must of happened during shipping. The box that all the parts come isn’t packed with anything and the parts bounce around inside. I placed an order with Experience RC for a new fan ($6.00! Not bad) and some other stuff. That showed up in 2 days!!!:)
I continued on with the build skipping the fan shroud as I needed the fan mounted for it. Now you build up the gyro plate, rear frame plate, and radio tray. And while I was playing with some of the carbon fiber, I used this opportunity to sand all the edges on the carbon fiber. I’ve learned to use rubber gloves for this as it leaves a terrible mess on your hands. With the gloves, I just take them off and throw them away along with the carbon mess!
Next is the disassembly of the main gear. All the bolts in this kit are not loctited, you need to remove them all and apply loctite. There are two brass bushings that will need red loctite. The main gear is really big and beefy…I like that! The front tail transmission assembly is a real work of art! It looks very sturdy along with the gears, beefy! Reassemble the boom clamp with loctite. Loctite the tail offset bell crank. I like the offset bell crank design as it places the tail push rod in the center of the boom. Nice touch!
Ok, now the body starts to come together. You start by installing the main bearing blocks, frame spacers, tail and throttle servos, rear frame brace, boom clamps, front tail transmission assembly to the right frame halves, and then install the left side frame halves.
On to the tid-bit stuff…the motor mounts. In the kit you are supplied with motor shims. This is a nice touch. This helps in setting the proper gear-lash and alignment of the clutch stack…kind of like the old Miniature Aircraft days with the X-Cell line of helis. At this time, I transgressed back to installing the motor fan assembly to my motor, now that I received the replacement fan, but nothing special here, assembly as usual.
One added note here: Matt really shins here when mounting the clutch to the hub…the screws are long enough to properly engage most of the threads in the fan hub! I’ve built a few “other” helis that gave you much shorter thread length. Only 4 threads would go into the fan hub! An easy recipe for stripping threads and then needing to buy another fan hub! The rule of thumb, as I’ve been taught 1 and a ½ times the diameter of the bolt should be the length going into the threaded hole. So if the bolt is a ½” in diameter, 1-1/2 times will = ¾” long, or ¾” going into the threaded hole.
I fitted the fan shroud to the O.S.105 motor and quickly saw that I needed to remove some material to clear the carb stack and heat sink fins on the head. Now the fan shroud fits! I really wasn’t too keen on how it assembles, using 4 long, but small diameter screws. Yea, I’ve done that before, didn’t really care for it then and still don’t…sorry Matt! It’s a pain in the rear trying to get those screws to line up. I installed the motor, and it was a good fit, no problems, and no rubbing on the fan to the fan shroud.
So now it’s time to square up the frame, this whole frame assembly is done without the frame bolts being fully tighten. What I do is insert the mainshaft through the bearing blocks and then tighten the bolts in a “zig-zag” fashion. One bolt on the left, opposite bolt on the right, etc. This way the main bearing are in perfect alignment to the point that the mainshaft will slide out of the bearing blocks as you rotate the body upside down. There is no drag on the mainshaft or preload on any of the bearings. The mainshaft will side in and out as you turn the body upside down and right side up. After that, I tightened the rest of the bolts on both sides of the frame.
Next I installed the bottom stiffening plate, landing gear, clutch stack, radio tray and gyro plate, protective rubber for the fuel tank and then the fuel tank. At this time, the three cyclic servos are installed. However, I had a problem with the servos I decided to use...MKS HBL950HV. The servos are too tall. I had to use spacers under the mounting tabs to gain enough clearance between the two side cyclic servos. I’ll check the alignment of the swashplate linkage, and if needed, I can move the linkage ball to the inside of the servo horn. I think I’ll be fine…haven’t got to this point yet.
Moving on, and while my buddy Mark drools over the main body…leaving “his” finger prints all over it…LoL…I started in with building the tail section. The boom is like any other brand…that has a torque tube. And the tail gearbox is just the same. As I was placing the tail push rod guilds on, I noticed the boom is a straight piece of tubing! No predrilled holes or slots cut out in either end??? And no company/heli name imprinted on the boom!
The instructions mention “pinning” the tail housing to the boom. Well…I did just that. There are pro’s and con’s to pinning or not pinning the tail or the boom to the body. The two most important reasons I can think of…the tail turning up or down, and the tail box falling off the boom/the boom pulling out of the body. So I pinned it, peace of mind…
According to the manual;
IMPORTANT!
If you wish to use boom pinning feature
you must drill 3mm hole! Follow these steps.
1. Install Tail Box
2. Ensure Tail Box is vertical
3. Mark drill location
4. Remove tail box and torque tube
5. Drill 3mm hole at marked location.
So Mark had noticed that I was missing a boom support and had two tail carbon fiber push rods! Ok, so we found the first part missing from the kit. Sunday I stopped in my local hobby shop after church to find a replacement. It turns out they have one that’s one size smaller than the factory one. Now I could bug Matt about this, and he would send a replacement one to me ASP, but he has better customers to deal with versus waiting on me hand and foot. LoL!
Also, just because one small part or a cheap (not cheaply made, but cost) isn’t going to deter me from buying this heli. Yes, it would be very nice that all the parts are there, but remember, we are human, we are not perfect, so a part missing is no alarm to dis the company. However, having the owner call you asking for your address so he can send the correct parts…says a lot about the company. I will be talking with Matt in the near future, wanting to get to know the man in person.
Moving on…I mounted the main gear and mainshaft. However, I’m a bit fuzzy on the mainshaft shim thing. According to the manual;
Use the 10mm main shaft shim if you have vertical
movement in the main shaft after assembly. This
is completely normal and within tolerances.
I don’t see/understand where it should go, so, moving on…the head and swashplate are normal…remove and loctite everything and set aside.
I need to start programming the Spartan Vortex VX1n so I can center the elevator servo and mount the carbon fiber control arm to the plastic horn. Once the servo is mounted, there is no way to adjust the servo arm position without removing the servo. The servo horn screw is blocked by the aileron servo, much like the Goblin helis.
And here is where I “went off the beaten path.” So I started the programming. I created a new heli profile in my DX9. I went through most of the radio setup in the Spartan Vortex, enough to center the cyclic servos. I installed the swashplate so I could see the how the balls on the swashplate will line up with the balls on the servo horns. They’re not perfect, as a matter of fact; the center of the swash ball is directly in-line with the servo horn (the center of the carbon fiber horn).
So now it looks as if I need to move all 3 servos out enough to place the servo balls on the back side of the servo horn. So now I’m wondering if I should pick a different servo for this heli… Not just yet!
To be continued…
