SIG LIL' RASCAL, Assembly Manual

Page: 5 / 10

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1) Mount the receiver to the built-in receiver tray in the fuselage,
ahead of the servo compartment. The easiest and lightest way to
mount the receiver is to use a 1” square piece of Velcro
® tape. The
receiver is mounted between the forward and rear wiring access
holes in the receiver tray.
Position the receiver with its servo
connectors toward the rear of the fuselage cabin.
Earlier, you routed the rudder and elevator servo leads up through
the rear hole in the receiver tray. Connect these two leads to the
appropriate rudder and elevator positions in your receiver. The
receiver antenna is routed down through the forward hole in the
receiver tray, into the lower battery compartment. If you used an
antenna bobbin as earlier described, use a piece of tape to hold it
in place against the fuselage side and route the rest of its length
back up through the rear hole in the receiver tray.
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2) To route the antenna out of the fuselage, drill a small 3/64”
dia. hole through the right fuselage side, just below the wing
saddle and just in front of the fuselage former separating the servo
and receiver compartments. Pull the antenna through this hole.
To hold the antenna in place at the rear of the fuselage, use a pair
of needle nose pliers to make a small hook, with a loop at one end
- a piece of straight pin works great. Glue the hook to the rear of
the fuselage, beneath the stabilizer, using a little thick CA. Use a
small rubber band to attach the antenna to the wire hook to hold it
tight.
❑
3) The electronic speed controller (ESC) is connected to the
motor using a JST connector and simply floats free in the nose of
the fuselage. DO NOT wrap the ESC in foam, plastic, etc. It can
get warm during operation and must be fully exposed to allow it to
stay relatively cool. The receiver connector on the ESC is routed
up through the front hole in the receiver tray and plugged into the
receiver’s throttle position.
❑
4) The battery pack is mounted to the bottom of the receiver
tray, using the supplied Velcro ® tape. This makes the battery pack
easy to remove for charging between flights.
The airborne radio system can now be tested for proper operation
– note that the propeller and spinner are NOT yet installed. Note
that in the interest of minimizing weight and in consideration of the
small amount of available space, this installation does not include
an “on/off” switch. Turning the airborne radio system on or off is
simply done by plugging the battery pack into and out of the ESC
battery connector.
a) Make sure your transmitter rudder and elevator trims are in
neutral and that the throttle stick is in the full “low throttle” position.
Turn on your transmitter.
b) Make very sure of the correct polarity of the connectors and
plug your charged battery pack into the correct battery connector
on the ESC unit.
c) You should now be able to move the rudder and elevator
controls to check for the correct direction of their movement. You
should now also be able to move the throttle stick toward the “high”
position and the motor should run. NOTE: Some ESC units must
first be “armed” by movement of the throttle stick – read the
manufacturer’s directions for this information.
d) With the system now working, you must check the rudder
and elevator servos for correct movement. Use the servo-
reversing feature on your radio system, if needed, to make the
servo move in the correct direction.
e) Reposition the servo output arms on the servos as close to
90
O
to the servo case as possible. Reinstall the servo output arm
screws in both servos.
5
The “bobbin” itself is nothing more than a piece of
3/32” x 1/2” x 3/4” balsawood. From the receiver, measure the
antenna out to 4-1/2” – no closer. This is the point to start
wrapping the antenna wire around the bobbin. Do not cross
the wrapped antenna wire, simply lay it neatly next to each
strand. Wrapping the antenna wire 12 to 14 times around this
size bobbin, shortens its overall length by about 11”. Hold the
now-wrapped antenna wire to the bobbin with a length of clear
tape. Now when you install the receiver into the fuselage, you
will have a much more reasonable length of antenna wire to
work with at the rear.
What will this procedure do to the range of your receiver? The
answer is that you will lose some amount of range but not
enough to effect the overall safe operation of the model. This
is because a small R/C model is rarely flown to extreme
distances for the simple reason that you can no longer see it.
Since you would never do this, some loss of range is more than
acceptable for a small model.