i got my Rave after much trouble with the customs here. started to do the build today and i thought i would document this as much as my abilities would allow me to.. so here goes...

i plan to use this set up
- motor - scoprion 2221 - 10 with 13t pinion
- Castle creation 60 amp esc
- Castle creation 10v bec
- Jr ds285 MG on the cyclics
- futaba 9257 on the tail
- futaba gy 401
first imression of the kit was WOW... carbon and high quality machined metal parts everywhere... got the bag out for the frame which came with the CF frame and bearing block with bearings, canopy mounts, antirotation bracket, plastic frame base (quite rigid) and the battery and the motor mount (both the battery and the motor mounot are exactly the same and can be interchanged..... i will add pics and much as possible.

fixed the CF frame to the plastic base frame... (i tend to use a bit of medium CA when ever i use screws that go inside plastic parts).. but all the screws are loose right now wanted to align the main shaft with the mean bearings and then tighten the screws.

main bearings - one had to face up and other had to face down... fixed the main bearing mounts, motor mounts using blue loctite - 242... but again loosely... also fixed the battery mount and anti rotation bracket

fixed the other side of the frame .. used a 90 deg angel with bubble level, placed the frame on a flat spot inserted the main shaft and saw that the main shaft slided smoothly into both the bearings and now i started tightning the screws... good thing about the canopy mounts is that they have a hole in which you can push a 1.5 mm allen key and turn it to tighten the canopy mounts...

took the landing skid bag out... its is a single piece skid like the gorilla ones.. quite flexible and this should hold some hard bangs on the ground i hope... the manual asks to intall a bolt with around 5 mm of stand of and insert a tube in the bottom of the stand off (dont know why this is for but i have installed it)... now will start the biuld for the other parts and will post the tomorrow..

built the head, main gear drive, flybar cage, flybar seesaw, tail rotor unit and swash plate unit last night...no slop in any of the machined parts... the tail servo were to be mounted on a two CF sandwiched plates... quite unique (one end fits into the rear side of hte frame and the other on the tail servo) am not sure about the rigidity but will go ahead as recommended in the manual..

the swash has a unique holding system with 3 counter sunk screws that hold the outer swash unit with the inner racing (had to be careful in not making them too tight or the bearing will start getting slop in them).. the rotor head, flybar seesaw was easy to built and like any other head...

The frame is the most wide open 450 frame I have seen so far.

the tail rotor has a system like the align 450 v2 version with ball links on the tail pitch link system.. torque tube (TT) was easy to fix.. with non centrallising the bearing in the TT and fixing the bush on the bearing - lubricating with some non corrosive grease and sliding it into the tail boom... and end have been fixed with the TT gear system

absolutely,,, i dont know whey the design has such as high CG... but again its Curtis YB, so no questions, just follow the manual... but the frame is quite narrow in width...lesser than the furion and the align

Quote from: anwar on May 15, 2010, 10:17:10 PM
The frame is the most wide open 450 frame I have seen so far.

this is where i had the hardest part in making the heli till now... getting the gears to mesh with each other.. with the rear tail gear box and also the fore gear box... it has to be done with good precision so that there is optimum back lash (gap between the gears).. i had to remove this atleast 4 times to get it done right...

after spending an hour and a half in getting the gears to mesh perfectly i saw that the tail servo holders were not to my liking so had to install the tail servo holders like the aligh 450 ones.. but this means i had to remove the boom / TT unit from the boom "again" and get them to mesh perfectly "again" but thought this is the right way forward and wanted to be safe... this "again" took me an hour easily to heat the screws and removing the loctite and placing the locktite and getting the gears to engage without much of backlash.. time...... more time and patience   ... i think i might have got this right now but not as satisfied as the first time it had it...

this is how the whole frame looks now... will try to fix the servos and the electronics today or it will have to wait for next week.. but will post the build when ever i get to build it again..

What is the thickness of the frame ?  Is it 1.5mm or 2mm CF ?  With such a wide open design, it seems one would want it to be a bit thicker than normal.

i dont have a screw guage but used a digital slide calipers (which is not the right method of measuring thickness) and saw it was just 1 mm thick... dont know if this is right... if i have measured it wrong it has to be 1.5 mm... but am sure this is not 2mm..

Quote from: anwar on May 16, 2010, 09:29:54 AM
What is the thickness of the frame ?  Is it 1.5mm or 2mm CF ?  With such a wide open design, it seems one would want it to be a bit thicker than normal.

anwar.. this stock frame is 1mm thickness... just got it confirmed...

Hey Sujju,

OFF Topic: But dont you feel like building bigger Helis. I mean, even if you send it a little far away from you, these things look very small to get the orientation right.

Simple answer... once you get serious about 3D, you never really fly too far.  And the size of these things reduce the risk of flying somewhat closer (but not too close, they are still dangerous), that is why many people who fly bigger ones also have their 450s to "relax"

Quote from: vinay on May 17, 2010, 02:26:38 PM
Hey Sujju,

OFF Topic: But dont you feel like building bigger Helis. I mean, even if you send it a little far away from you, these things look very small to get the orientation right.

have already build and done the larger helis... i tend to stick to the 500 and 450 sizes now for 2 reasons
- r/c modelling is not allowed in the place i live in.. so its easier to get parts and build the helis here and also gets less attention
- importantly i prefer helis that are not very stable, the larger ones are slow for me and i have got used to the twitchy helis (except for a hanseleit heli and i dont know if i can own one for now :-) )

okay... got the electronics installed yesterday... got the servos (which was a perfect fit for this heli and also recommended by the designer of this heli)... dint have a swash plate leveller for the rave ( the leveller for the align does not fit into this as the swash is larger in diameter in the rave).. have eye balled it for now...  but frankly there is no much of space in this heli so a clean wiring job will be a challenge.. installed the scorpion hk2221-10 as i plan to run this heli on a 4s setup..
the phoenix CC 60 amp esc is tightly fixed below the battery tray ( i am a bit worried about the heat as the motor draws in a lot of amps) created some space on the side of the CC 10amp BEC... and the gy401 goes below the main shaft on the bottom tray

i am not very satisfied with myself on the wiring job but dint want to shorten the wires and regret later... am also worreid about the close promixity of the electronics to the gyro and the rx... but CC boasts of a non interference units so will check it out in this heli... it was quite a challenge in getting the serovs wires to the rx as they had to come from one side of the main shaft ( i wonder how the flybarless guys do the wiring to this heli ?)...
now am almost done here... will set up the neutral points on the pitch and get the pitch settings of +12, 0, -12... if possible will try to get this to hover tomorrow and will post the response..

hi mate,
nice biuld
flybarless wireing is just the same...............................a lot depends on the servo........
.the wire length is different on each make
regards
don

thanks don... infact just got a skookum 360 from a guy on runryder... do you have any experience with setting this unit up?.. planning to use this on my furion 450 or protos...

hi mate,
sorry I dont know a lot about the stablity systems,
always used the computer on the tx for my FBL helis
regards
don

The final pics of the heli ... had been a bit busy from 2 weeks so dint have much time on my hand. got it built and took the heli for a spin sometime back... and as everyone who flys a rave says "its a 450 but flys like a 500" i now will second that... very stable and i get my inverted hovers perfect to level in this heli... torque tube is smooth, infact too smooth for my comfort (it was a slightly breezy outside today and when i placed the heli on the ground the blades started spinning on their own... was quite amazed with the non-bind of the TT)... if anyone is looking to get his heli i would recommend this to him anytime (just be ready for some complicated tail and TT setup and do a clean wiring job or the heli will look crap)...