As soon as I opened the box I felt that need to build it up ASAP! There is not really much to do but what’s getting it complicated it to embed the own setup! If you simply want to put it up to fly manually and without fancy iNav setup then you could be done in half an our. But I like to be safe and have flight controller with assisting OSD integrated to almost any wing and that simply takes a bit more time.
We will take a look at the components first. I’ve already set up a Video with my Ideas and considerations about what to build and use:
Components für my setup
Over the time I’ve build up a bunch of thrust-worthy components who won’t let you down. No guarantee though but I’ve been having no trouble and a lot of airtime with them as they where carefully picked.
- Flight computer: Matek F405-WSE
- GPS: Beitian BN-180
- 2x 12g Metal gear digital Servos
- ESC: Airbot Wraith32 (35A)
- Motor: F40 Pro-II 2150kv (but that’s just my pick I had in stock)
- VTX: TBS Unify Pro32
- FPV: Runcam Hybrid
- Radio: Radiomaster TX16s running ExpressLRS at 2.4GHz
Starting on the wings
The wings are the first thing I usually go for. I do that as I want to place my VTX and receiver in each on wing so they are separated a bit. That helps for reception and reduces interference between the modules. For this build I even decided to place the GPS into the left wing.
I picked the left wing to carry my ExpressLRS NanoRX and the TBS Tracer antenna. As the antenna has to be in the outer part of the wing I found the right place to embed the NanoRX. Also the groove for the four wires got painted on the wing so I can take the dremel and get this clean.
As everything got placed I finally needed to get another groove for the antenna wire. The idea is simply to push the antenna into the wing and cause minimal drag while standing raised. The above picture illustrates how my wire should go.
Now the ExpressLRS receiver and antenna are embedded and ready to be connected. The next task is to embed the VTX in the other wing – same pattern and way to do it.
Last but no least the GPS has to become a part of the left wing too! Reason being that otherwise it won’t get a good reception of the satellite signals with equals no 3D fix for iNav!
I made the space about 7-8mm deep so the GPS is flush to the surface and will cause no drag. The wires are routed trough a tunnel that I drilled. You won’t see any wires of the GPS on the surface and everything is a bit cleaner. Having done that all wires meet up at the spot where it has to enter the fuselage to be connected to the FC.
Getting the things together
Okay, we’ve prepared all wires and components in the wings and can now take a look at the fuselage where we will hook up the wires to the Mater F450-WSE. And as we just are speaking of the FC then we should prepare it so it also can be placed.
With only two zip-ties and some anti-slip mat we can get the FC to stay where it has to be! I used the 30mm holes for the zips and that worked like a charm. Now we can pic four screws and fix the position on the rail. That’s all there is to it.
The FC is zipped in place and will go nowhere.
In the fuselage we will have to connect the motor leads to the ESC. The problem and little downside of the ripper is, that you can’t shorten the wires of the esc to much as it will have to be maintainable – in other words: You can’t solder the wires in the tail as it is! So the wires have to be longer.
This detail really annoys me a bit as we there are about 3cm of unnecessary wire that has to be stuffed back into the tail after soldering them to the esc! I’ll get over that and continue to make the ESC work with these leads.
And again this part is plain simple: solder the wires, get some shrink tube over the ESC and then solder it to the FC. And while we are soldering at the back of the FC lets just add the power leads to connect a battery. This is how it should look like now:
I think it’s time to power up the system for a test.
Making those wings special
If you followed up on my latest builds then you may have discovered that I us colored foil to add some accents to the wings. And of course I will do so again on the Ripper as it’s way cooler to have a wing standing out of the row instead of having that thing everybody has 🙂 And perhaps this is only me having that feeling! However … this one is going to be a bit crazy.
I started out drawing the wing shape to a piece of cardboard and began to draw some shapes on it. Usually I end up with some linear shapes, something where you simply connect some lines on the wing and well that’s it.
This time I had to make my mind about mixing colors and where to put them. We have the grey foam as canvas and those black covers for the servos.
In addition to that I wanted something off the standards and also something to stabilize the elevators as this wing can really go fast! There is no carbon reinforcement on the elevons- the are just foam. In the end I decided to put the brighter color on the elevons and the brushed pink metal foil on the leading wing edges. After having slept over that idea I ordered the stuff.
Be careful with the elevons! I found them to be very brittle and they will not last long unless you reenforce them. I used Fiberglas tape to make the more durable. You could take and put a film of UhuPor on them to not simply break off or crack over time. Just keep that in mind so you won’t end in an crash because you lost an elevon mid air!
Covering the hatch
Decided to add another colour to the scheme and so the elevons and the hatch got covered with a slightly colorshifting white.
Thats it for the first part of the build. I’ve wrapped all this up in a video on Youtube. Next time we will set up iNav.
Joqiz