10 Tips for Building a Swappable Smash Trainer

by CStence | August 29, 2013 | (11) Posted in How To

(Looking for an equipment list? Specs? See the Review Article)


Building the Smash Drone Swappable is easy and straight forward. Here are a few tips to keep it simple.


1.Cut out all the plans first. This makes the assembly easy and clutter-free. Use a Basswood rod instead of balsa! It adds weight but takes a brutal beating where balsa will break.

 2. Do all four 45 degree bevels on the fuselage first. Be sure the rod is flush with the front and hot glue everything together.

 3. Glue in your powerpod brackets.

Use the rear bracket to set heighth. The top of the bracket should be flush with top of the fuselage sides. This gives maximum prop clearance.

Use the forward bracket to set thrust angle. The firewall should be parallel to the fuselage side trailing edges, giving a 0 degree thrust angle. A slight down thrust angle is okay too. 

4. Bevel the edges of the servo tray and glue it inline with the apex of the fuselage (where the highest point of the wing sits). Trim the edges so you can put a dab of hot glue on the bottom of the servos as well. This makes for a tough-as-nails servo tray install. Also, If done right, you can reach down from the top to access the servos when the powerpod is out.

Important: When routing pushrods to the tail, take care to run them on the side of the balsa rod where it exits the fuselage. This maintains maximum prop clearance.

5. Install your canopy support. Before gluing in the canopy, secure your battery lead extensions.

6. Glue in the canopy with battery door hinge line just ahead of the canopy support. Use a popsicle stick and rubber band (see video) to keep the battery door closed in flight.

7. Install the tail control surfaces with the elevator leading edge perpendicular to the balsa rod and the elevator hinge line just aft of the end of the rod. 

8. Use a speed clevis on each control surface for easy adjustments in the field. For best results, try to get 1.5" of throw side to side or 3/4" throw from center for both rudder and elevator.

9. Install the gearbox - you'll need two halves of whichever gearbox style you choose (Basic or Deluxe).

The basic gearbox is quick and simple. Be sure to glue popsicle sticks a little distance back from each edge. This helps keep the paper from pulling away from the foam in a crash.

The Deluxe gearbox looks sleek and is extremely crash proof. The front and rear wedges of your foam patterns will need to be beveled.

10. Host a build party. Share the excitement. Friends and family make RC building and flying even better!

(Looking for an equipment list? Specs? See the Review Article)

COMMENTS

91shadowrider on September 19, 2013
Great job!!! I will build one now.
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91shadowrider on October 13, 2013
I Built one and it is neat. It is a joy to fly once you get the motor angle just right. I have built a couple different wings for it. The first one is the old fogey wing, second is a couple inches longer with 1 inch less dihedral and the third one has standard dihedral but is 50 inches wide. They all fly different. It is just about as much fun as my G.W.S. slow stick.
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RoyBro on September 23, 2013
Wow, it looks easy enough.

Thanks.
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lostcity on September 23, 2013
It also looks like it does not have dutch roll seen with the Old Fogey. Nice work, can 't wait to put one together.
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CStence on September 26, 2013
Update: Please note the tip about using Basswood rods. they will make your experience much more positive by reducing the odds of a rod break. We discovered one of our heaviest and heartiest SD's had never broken a rod because it had been assembled with a basswood rod by mistake. Happy flying!
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Ron B on March 21, 2014
Don't use the 45 degree jig on the plans as it isn't near to 45 degrees
Make your own
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bamarshall on March 27, 2014
Hey CStence I wanted to let you know I built the smash drone body and tail, but used the simple soarer wings as a starter plane as I just started the hobby. I wanted to thank you so much for sharing the pdf plans for your smash drone.
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Desert.Rat on April 25, 2014
Where is the balance point on this plane?
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lostcity on August 7, 2014
CStence, Thanks for a great plane. I put one together after building and flying the Old Fogey. The OF wallowed a lot with any rudder movement. A new wing with reduced dihedral did help but not a lot. I put the Smash Drone together as an alternative using my latest OF wing. Well got a chance to maiden it today and it flew great. Very minimal wallow in the turns and handles light winds very well. Using a 1300KV Blue Wonder on 2S battery, it was able to hold it's altitude at just over half throttle. I will move it up to a 3S pack next. It is a very nice handling plane with no bad habits that I could find. I look forward to do more with this airplane and building a KF wing for it. The Drone is now the king of the hangar. Thanks much
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peabody1929 on May 27, 2015
The current .PDF plan has errors. Following it does not produce a functional Smash drone. Perhaps an incorrect file was uploaded during November 2014.
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10 Tips for Building a Swappable Smash Trainer