RC-Hangout

Started the build tonight. Wasn't planning to do any unboxing pics but couldn't resist.
The manual seemed to be on heavier paper stock than I recall before. More typos and mistakes than I saw in prior manuals though.
As always fantastic packaging and presentation of the machined parts.
Way improved main gear compared to the original 700 and 500.
Gorgeous. Can't wait to get to this part of the manual.
This is my first time building a goblin carbon kit. II was surprised at how light and flexible the canopy is.
Three main and three tail blades. Along with the boom.

That's it for unboxing. Build begins!

Used a dremel with a pointed grinding stone to sand down the sharp edges. Way easier than wet sanding. Little messier. Excellent trade off.
I loved this. Simple, stupid little thing to get excited about, but this just made a great impression. And functional. No need to CA the ends into the skid pipes.

Yes skid pipes. On a gobler. Usual goblin transmission. Still a joy to assemble. Used dry fluid gear lube for the first time.

Going with a kde motor. They gave really stepped up their packaging quality. These motors are works of art unto themselves. I'm a huge fan of the flexible wiring they install for motor leads and the rubber gasket at the wire exit point. There's a ton of clearance between the mounting case and the windings and other internal wiring, too. Just a beautiful well thought out motor.
I did a dry fit of the motor and the mount. I like that this kit has the secondary motor shaft bearing setup. Should help handle the pinion stress much better. Have to mark the shaft and cut it.

Tomorrow.

Good place to stop for the night.

I'm excited to know how that motor works for u Paul.. I'm planning on using the same on my next build. What lead u to choose it? What ESC are you using? Good progress! Kit looks pretty sweet!

It's coming out really nice Paul. I could see why you couldn't wait to take pics of this build. Looks like a fun and a awesome bird to own. Good luck and cant wait to see her airborne.

Motor choice... I haven't flown KDE before. They look like a great motor by the specs and by the looks of the quality in pics and videos I've seen. And I have a ton of respect for what Patrick Koegler has built up and the products they put out.

Using a CC Edge 160A HV esc. CC BEC Pro for the electronics power.

BK brushless servos. Still deciding between Spartan Vortex (would by my first heli with one) or my trusted Ikon for the FBL.

I would have to go with the Spartan, but Cam would say the Ikon,

whatever you chose they are both great gyros,

That's one stunning looking bird Paul

Thats gonna be awesome.
Your RC bank account is taking a pounding

Yes Lee, at the moment. I'm going to be selling off the TRex 700, Blade 550X, and maybe the Gob 700 (V1). Along with the two micros I still have here ready to go out the door. Should help offset the wallet hurt.

Kev, I'm thinking I'm putting the Ikon on this build and will use the Vortex on the 570 build. Want to stick with a known quantity on this one.

You gotta have what's comfortable in your mind, you don't want to be second guessing the gyro,

WOW brilliant quality as always from the Goblin:) The engineering in it is awesome:) Packaging and fine detail:) shear quality:)

I dont have an Ikon, But Spartan i can recommend:) Made my 600 super stable:) Loving the build Paul:) MEGGA GREEN:)

Very nice bird paul keep those pics coming.

Day 2: The build continues...


We start with mounting up the transmission on the frame. The lower boom doesn't attach via friction cups like on the Goblin 500 so I locked this all down tight.

Here I took a close up of the main head assembly (came pre-assembled). Note how the screws do not screw down all the way. I initally thought this meant I had to take this all apart and re-lock it all. Turns out, the screws are more or less set screws against the pins you see outlined right below the screw heads. Those pins go through the spindles to keep them in the hub. So the screws don't clamp down all the way, they're supposed to be like this. The independent spindles is a really cool design. Simple. I actually wouldn't mind seeing the two blade heads go to this style too, if the physics works in a two blade head.

This was a bit of a pain to assemble. Instead of the usual two follow arm design found on most two blade heads, this uses a single follower attach point to the swash, with a two arm swing assembly holding it to the hub.

The dampers have an o-ring that is captured and sandwiched between the damper and the inner hub. This damper feels more or less like a solid piece of carbon. Very light, no discernible flex or squishiness. This is going to be one rigid SOB.

This is one of my favorite parts of every build. Getting the parts for the grips all sorted out, cleaned, lubed, and assembled and locked down with the spindle bolts. That last part was a pleasant surprise on this build. Normally you need two wrenches to lock down the spindle bolts. Since the spindles are captured into the hub by the independent pins, you only need a single big honkin' wrench to attach these spindle bolts. You can grab the whole head assembly and anti-torque with your hand. So much easier and seemed to allow for a lot more comfort in applying the herculean force I usually try to use on these bolts.

Quick note on how I'm lubing up thrust bearings these days. I got sick of buying little mini tubes of clear silicone lube. So I bought myself a tub of grease and loaded up a hobby syringe with it. Easy to apply now exactly where and how much I want. The grease is messier to clean up, but this is working out better over all.

Head is assembled and ready to rock!

Swash seems much better than previous generation goblin swashes I've worked with. Bearing quality, the spherical in the middle, all of it just seems built like a tank and silky smooth.

And the end of the session. Only a couple hours put in today. And nothing more on the motor assembly since I got a late start and didn't want to be grinding off the motor shaft while my wife was trying to sleep. It's starting to look like a heli. And it seems big. 700's always seem big at this stage though, to me.


I did run into one issue so far. When I put the head assembly on the main shaft and tightened it down... it still had axial play. I've tightened down the jesus bolt and cross clamping bolt at the bottom of the hub a much as I dare before I risk stripping threads out. At my club's funfly this weekend Chris Reibert mentioned that he had a lot of play in something (I don't recall exactly what) on the head of his KSE, as did all the KSE's Kyle Stacy himself has. Said it was normal, albeit unusual compared to other helis and Goblins. I thought he was talking about the follower arm assembly, but he may have been referring to this. Will have to ask him in the morning. Hoping there isn't something wrong. Pretty sure I didn't forget or overlook anything.

Day 3!
Got the motor installed!
Shaft cut down.
Pinion is aligned so the belt rides on the driven sprocket correctly.
I reinstalled the head next. I tried to get the lower "split" in the hub to cinch down, even going so far as to apply vice grips to it. No dice. It just will not snug down and remove all play like on my other Goblin helis. I may write email to SAB custom support on this one since it is a rather critical joint.
Next up were the servos. Ran into a bit of a hassle here. Ended up having to go without the spacers between the arms and uniball, after I had already installed them on all three servos. Doh! Also should have held off on mounting the motor, forgot it gets in the way of bolt acces for the front servo. Luckily I have some ball end metric hex head drivers and was able to roll on without removing the motor assembly.


To finish out the night's build time I strapped the ESC in place and played around a bit planning my routing strategy. I think I'm going to do this one up a bit different than my norm. Usually I'd have power wires coming out the front and motor wires out the back of the ESC area, feeding out through a frame hole and then up to the motor connections. However the wires on the KDE motor are longer than what I've usually dealt with, which is opening up another option: reverse it.
I think this may actually give a cleaner install, provide additional protection for the ESC's exposed capacitors, better utilize the length of throttle/aux lead wire (direct route instead of a 180 degree turn and wasted space), and may help with the power source wiring on the BEC too.

I'll solder up connectors and y-harnesses tomorrow, get the bec on and get the ikon fired up. Won't zip tie any wiring until later in the build. Then onto boom and tail assemblies. Hoping to maiden this weekend!

All I can say it's WOOOOOOW! That's one great looking bird.

That's gonna be an awesome machine, Paul! Very cool!!!

So jealous

So was going to do the electronics today but ran into a little problem: no more EC5 connectors for the esc. So cut that effort short, and moved onto tail. Unfortunately, with the holiday weekend here, that means I'm not going to be getting this finished and maidened this weekend.

Think I'll just leave it like this. Should fly, right?

I spent some time centering arms and doing some preliminary setup on ikon. These servos make zero noise at rest. It is a bit disconcerting, actually.
Got the bullets on the ESC for the motor connection. You can see better how I'll be routing this side.
As mentioned, no EC5 connectors for ESC side left so skipping this. Got them on the battery though.
The tail grip links are more traditional on this model vs the delta-3 configuration found on the 2-blade rotor on the Gob 500. This is a non-flapping tail rotor. There is some play in the grip links, but not as much as on the 2-blade tails.
Ready to install on the boom, which is the next step! Later today...

BTW, I got a response from SAB on my question regarding the hub-mainshaft interface play I have. The rep said he has the same issue on his KSE. Made some suggestions on how to eliminate it. I'm not sure how well they'll work though. I really am hesitant to crank down that cross bolt any more. I think the hub's metal at the split is just too thick to bend with this standard sized cross bolt. It may be too thick to bend significantly at all.

I am loving the build Paul:)

Very nice Paul, good build pics too, very jealous...