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| The following is a review of the Align Carbon Fiber Frame, my thanks to www.wattsuprc.com.au for supplying the frame for review.. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Align carbon frame comes in a small box with all the parts nicely packaged
into separate bags. Also included is a printed set of instructions for
assembly. The instructions consist of an exploded view of the frame assembly. The frame comes packaged in two pre-assembled halves with the main work being the bolting of these two halves together with the motor mount, front pulley and main shaft bearings in place. The main bearing blocks do not come supplied with bearings, so these need to be removed from the donor frame and put into the Align carbon frame bearing blocks. The frame does come with a pre-assembled front pulley drive which is already secured into place. Also already secured in place are the tail boom clamps. The majority of the pre-assembly is metal screws into plastic, so tightness only needs to be checked as loctite is not a concern for metal screws into plastic. Even though this frame comes partially assembled there is still a significant amount of building work to be done in order to bolt the lower frame to the upper frame. Additionally careful thought needs to be given to servo fitting as it may be easier to fit servos before bolting the lower frame to the upper frame. Before starting the assembly I weighed the components for the frame and it came out at 95 g. This is a relatively average figure when compared to other carbon frames available on the market. The main thing that hits you when looking at the contents of the box is that there is a large number of blue anodized parts that will very likely look good once in place on the frame. It's one thing to be functional but in this market it pays to look good as well. |
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| The first tasks I set about were installing the motor mount and inserting
bearings into the main mast bearing holders. I also looked at how easy
it would be to install my HS 56 servos once the frame was assembled. I
chose to fit servos after the frame was built but in hindsight it would
have been easier to fit the servos before building up the main frames. Something that I discovered very quickly was that Align have abandoned their old Philips head screws in this kit and have instead gone for hexagon head screws. Initially I was very pleased about this change based upon experience of stripping the heads of the old Philips head screws. Unfortunately I was soon to discover that these hexagon head screws also strip very easily rendering the screw useless and difficult to remove. In fact I would venture as far as saying that the supplied screws are a huge liability in this kit and one would be far better off replacing them with higher quality screws. Each screw has a blue anodized cap into which it screws. The result is a rather nice look which to some extent hides the problems with the hex head screws stripping when done up tight. |
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| Again in hindsight, now is a good time to fit the motor as once the cyclic pitch servos are in place access to the motor mount screws will be severely impaired. I didn't do this and had a long fiddle when it came to fitting the motor later on in the build. Once again it should be noted that careful reading of the exploded diagrams of the frames needs to be done as I took three attempts to get all of the screws in the right places with the right spacers and utilizing the little blue anodized cups. The top left picture below was the source of most of my incorrect assemblies. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Having assembled the main frames the only item remaining is to install
the anti rotation guide for the swashplate. This mounts onto the top of
the main frames into some little indentations in the frames. This can be
seen below. Having completed the install of the anti-rotation guide the next step is to install the servos. I chose to use HS 56 servos for my installation as they have superb centering, good torque and speed. The only problem with using this particular servo is that the servos spline is quite high above the mounting brackets and this can cause problems with the geometry of the servo arms to the swashplate. Particularly the rear servo which acts as the elevator which required some packing underneath the servo mounting tabs in order to get a straight and perpendicular pushrod from the servo to the swashplate. Below are numerous pictures of the servo installation. On the early versions of the frame it was necessary to modify the servo slots in order to fit HS 56 servos. It is no longer necessary to do this and the servos can be wiggled into the frame without having to undo any screws. |
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| The next set of pictures show the pushrods installed onto the servos. I have also included a picture showing how the geometry is incorrect if you do not put some packing on the rear servo (bottom right). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Once the servo pushrods have been installed the frame itself is mostly
complete except for adding the undercarriage and also plugging in the tail
boom and securing the tail boom supports struts. Having done this the frame is complete and ready for the motor, receiver, speed controller and gyro to be installed. I found the most logical place to install the receiver was on top of the front battery tray. The speed controller was mounted in the traditional side position which left a huge amount of space at the rear of the frames for the gyro. I should also mention at this point that installing the shaft and main gear is exactly the same as with a standard T-Rex and there were no issues with this particular part of the assembly. The installation of the motor was also uneventful apart from the screws for the motor not being very accessible once the main frames have been put together and the servos installed. As mentioned earlier it would be easier to install the motor before installing the servos. This brings me on to the tail boom clamping mechanism. The tail boom clamp is a plastic unit which basically squeezes the tail boom and holds in place by tightening the four screws that locate into the tail boom clamp. This was one area of the frame that I didn't particularly like. Firstly I am not keen on screws locating into plastic that need to be done up tightly. This needs to be done to stop the boom from slipping either forwards (most likely) or backwards. Slipping forwards result in a loose running tail drive belt which is undesirable as the belt could come completely off of its pinion. Secondly the hexagon head screws are made of what I consider to be quite a soft metal. In order to tighten the boom clamps to a satisfactory level I stripped the heads of two hexagon head screws to the point that they will now be difficult to undo in the future. Not only that but I could also feel that the plastic inside the tail boom clamps was also starting to give way. In my opinion this is the weakest element on this frame. Aside from this problem, once the frames are assembled they are extremely rigid and feel like they have a good deal of strength to handle an unfortunate fall from the sky. Some pictures can be seen below showing the tail clamp and also the configuration of the frame once all of the electronics had been installed. |
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| Flight Testing My expectation with this frame was that it would fly very well as it has a good deal of rigidity and the servo geometry is also relatively good. Once I had installed all of the electronics and mounted a pack the balance of the machine was just about right so there were no more excuses and it was time to fly. My configuration with regard to pitch was +/-10° of pitch on the main blades, with 0° pitch at the mid stick position. I had installed the JustGoFly 450F motor with a 13 tooth pinion and speed control was to be provided by a jazz 40-6-18 in governor mode. The machine was setup for flight utilizing a 3S pack, I chose to use the RC-Expert 2200 mah pack that I'm currently testing. Given the technical specifications for this equipment the machine should have a good amount of power and provide ample test for this set of carbon frames. Unfortunately the winter weather is upon us in the UK and so flight conditions have been less than ideal. However, I managed to get some flights in approximately 15 mph winds and slightly above freezing conditions. This didn't lend itself well to an all out 3-D session but I did manage some high stress moves to test the limitations of this frame. Lifting into the hover the controls felt nice and positive as one would expect with CCPM control. I noticed some excess vibration on the tail boom and thus far I have not tracked the source of this vibration. It was not excessive and so I continued with the flight. Transitioning into forward flight again the machine felt positive with no tendencies to pitch up whilst in transitional lift. Full throttle climb out was predictable with no tendency to pull off to one side indicating that both the geometry was working properly and no interaction on the mixing was affecting the flight characteristics. Loops were accomplished with relative ease as were rolls in fast forward flight. I was still slightly concerned about the vibration on the tail boom and this was also having some effect on the ability of the gyro to hold its heading and not kick. Given this slight unpredictability I chose not to try any flips or inverted but proceeded to do some very fast forward flight with steep banked turns and large amounts of elevator to pull through. Again this was accomplished with ease and with the model holding track very nicely. For the duration of this flight and flights since I have been using a standard plastic head and align carbon blades. My suspicion is that the vibration may be coming from the plastic blade grips having some difficulty holding the align carbon blades in track. I'm due to test a new CNC head this will be installed on this frame to see if the vibration disappears. I will update the review once I have eliminated the vibration and done some more advanced flying. |
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| The frame without any radio gear came to a weight of 95 grams. As previously
mentioned, this doesn't make this frame particularly light but it also
isn't overly heavy. Overall conclusions from the build Positives: Rigid Frames 1.5 millimeter carbon Good looks Upper and lower battery tray Good servo geometry (if not using HS56) Well protected servos Good price Negatives: Hexagon head screws are too soft and strip easily Tail boom clamp is not good because of the above and also being made of plastic can strip Lots of small parts makes the build slow HS56 servos don't fit too well and require packing at the rear for good geometry Overall conclusion This is an extremely competitively priced carbon frame and considering this I believe it offers great value for money as well as a confident flight experience. Anyone buying this frame is unlikely to be disappointed as the quality is reasonably good and the overall fit and finish is very nice. It is great that Align have moved away from the less than popular Philips head screws found in the standard kit but disappointing that their new hexagon head screws are made of such soft metal and generally are what I consider to be poor quality. This was proven in the screws inability to perform when tightening the tail boom clamps. If I was to pick my least favourite thing about this frame it would be the screws. Outside of this one issue the only other complaint I could raise would be use of plastic in the frame where competitors have used either carbon or CNC aluminium. This can be seen in the tail boom clamps and also the bottom of the main frames is made from plastic. It should be noted that despite the use of this plastic the frames maintain good rigidity equal to competitors products. Overall I think Align have produced a winning product but it is not a resounding victory. As always the proof is in the flying and in this regard the Align frames deliver. Discuss this review in the forum here --> forum discussion If you have this frame rate it using the TRexTuning rating system ..... |
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