ADW 123 wrote:curious what you pay for your electronics and where you get them
A number of places, although the Horizon stuff like the Park180 and Spektrum servos are from the LHS. The servos aren't bad at $14 each, but I normally won't pay $30+ for the motor. The motor was not supposed to be there, as I told the LHS that Horizon had lowered the price to $30, which they now sell for a week later there, but he wouldn't give me that price. Buy from an LHS regularly, and you'll watch them take you for granted, serving other customers and viewing you as a bother, if you need something. I've found too many good micro motors for $10, to pay Horizon's price for the Park180. The little 10gm HXT unit is a favorite, although I won't buy from HK, but it can be found for a buck or so more in the states. ELE and AEO seem to be good micro motors. I was getting them from Hobbypartz, although they seem to be out of stock on them for a while. I had a BP Hobbies Welgard micro motor in the plane, but the wires were poorly strain relieved, and broke from gently flexing them to fit within the confines of the cowling, even securing the wires at the motor so as to not strain them. The windings were so weak that they apparently still pulled a bit inside the sheathing, and broke inside the motor. I got the Park180 as I wanted something now, and later actually repaired the motor as one of the most insane repairs I've ever done. I actually got inside the motor housing window with a pintle tip and soldered repair leads onto the broken off motor leads, that had maybe 2mm of length to solder onto. It seems to run fine now, and maybe will be used in something else someday. The lessons here are that good micro motor have the wires well strain relieved, as well as being setup to exit the motor in such a way that they can fit within a small cowling.
http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66297The ESC is a Castle Tbird, although I generally use the low cost ESCs from Hobbypartz. The Tbird-6 is a good ESC for these small models, but it costs over $20 also. You have to become familiar with the various ESC designs, as they are sold under various labels, but are from the same manufacturer, or at least same design. There are a number of good ESCs all the way up to 20A or so, that sell for around $10. I've been buying these, as I'm too poor to keep paying Horizon prices. The Exceed 6A ESC at Hobbypartz is technically a Pentium ESC, which was the name they were first marketed under. They sell for $10 and under, and will handle 3s from my experiences, although not speced for 3s. The little BP Hobbies ZXTech 2.4gm receiver is a gem, for around $12. It's 72MHz and uses the same crystal as the single conversion GWS and Berg units use. I actually find 72MHz to be a good thing, as I've run out of model memories on my 2.4G unit, and I generally fly the micros in areas where I'm not worried about others on the same, or adjacent channels.
The small Spektrum bricks are nice, but also not cheap. They now have a brushless 3A brick that I've used, but for around $70 it's not cheap. I've also reprogrammed the older brushed bricks to drive BL ESCs, although you then have to use an external BL ESC. The one issue with them is that they only have 2 onboard servos, so you still will need an aileron servo, unless you do something insane and run a bellcrank down to the ailerons from the rudder servo, as I did on my Guillows micro Stuka conversion. For servos, the Blue Arrow 2.5 is a favorite of mine, and they have come down in cost to under $10, but they are also difficult to find lately. I should have stocked up on more, when I had the chance. I've even got some good knock-offs for only a few dollars, that have the high resolution amplifiers and work as good, if not better than any BA I've had. Lesson learned: stock up on stuff that costs much less than similar stuff from the big brand names, when you have a chance. For $14 though, I'll probably use more of the Spektrum micro linear servos. This plane has BA 3.7 servos for the rudder and elevator, which I'm tempted to tear out, as they are heavy. The under 2gm linear servos would be better.
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After stringing, the floats will be sheeted with extremely light 1/32" sheeting that I have collected, whenever available. Careful covering with ultralight iron-on covering will be used for waterproofing and finishing, which has worked in the past, when properly done. 