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JR 'Ergo 30' kit review

Written for 'MHW' July 1996.

Picture of 'Ergo 30'

The kit - The kit box - Assembly - Installation - Ah yes, painting...why? - Flying - Conclusions - Specification

This machine is from a manufacturer who is new to helis, but long established in the radio equipment field. When JR decided to found their new helicopter division they hedged their bets by employing some of the most experienced design engineers in the world, many of whom had previously worked for the Kalt company. In many ways, this makes things difficult for the reviewer because he has to consider the fact that this is, after all, a new company despite the pedigree of its designers.

To make things even more difficult, the 'Ergo 30' is described by the importers as a '2 in 1' machine and is claimed to be a beginners machine when fitted with a '30 - 36' size engine, or a '3D' machine when used with a '46 - 50' size engine. It is certainly large for a so-called '30' size model. It must be remembered here that all of the existing machines of this size actually started as '25 - 28' size models and have since been stretched to accommodate bigger - and more powerful - engines and longer blades. Therefore, it could be claimed that the 'Ergo' is the first machine that has actually been designed for modern motors in the current 'up to 36' size group.

Having said that, the model is actually only about 4 - 5% bigger than most machines. It looks bigger than this because it has a very large canopy and is very tall. Tall compared with the average model, but in keeping with machines like the 'Moskito Basic' and 'Concept 30SR-T', which are intended for beginners.

The kit

Surprisingly, this goes rather against the current trend in that it is mainly of metal construction. There is still plenty of demand for metal machines, particularly at the quality end of the market. The mainframes consist of flat aluminium plates with aluminium spacers. This ensures accurate alignment and also means that distortion due to crash damage is easily identified. It also means that a carbon fibre up-date is a simple matter.

Most notable is the incorporation of a minimum number of ballraces. Most of the bearings used are large diameter oilite bushes. Many may look at this as a backward step, but the fact is that anything which turns less than 360 degrees doesn't need a ballrace. In fact, a simple bush can actually be better. As far as slop is concerned, using a ballrace doesn't eliminate this - it depends on the quality of the item, ballrace or bush.

A mechanical CCPM system is used (our American cousins call this 'direct' control), which means that the swashplate moves up and down to change the collective pitch. The system is remarkably similar to that used on some Morley machines. One notable point about it is that the elevator linkage is push-pull, which should show advantages in fast forward flight.

The tail drive is by a toothed belt which is driven off the rear of the main gear via an idler pulley. The motor drives the front of the main gear by means of the usual clutch pinion.

A metal centre is used in the main rotor head and the flybar is underslung. The blade axle is a 'straight through' type with a nut at each end to retain the blade holders. This whole unit has a marked resemblance to the head used on the still-born Kalt 'Alpha 30'. No thrust races are included.

The kit box

It comes in a stout cardboard box which, strangely for a Japanese kit, is plain brown with black inscriptions. Inside, there are separate brown cardboard boxes for the canopy and the mechanical components and a package containing the main blades. This austere presentation is echoed in the main components because the canopy, tail surfaces and tail blades are in a neutral grey shade of plastic, while the ball-links are in a darker grey and the tailboom socket, tail 'gearbox' and tailplane support are in a very dark grey. To complete the set, the main blades are covered in grey heatshrink tubing! This one was definitely designed for John Major (little bit of satire there, Ladies and Gentlemen). It's a little unfair to dwell on this at this early stage, but it cries out for painting and the canopy and tail feathers are in that type of soapy, flexible, plastic which simply cannot be painted by normal means. Peter Rieksts' preview of the machine in a recent issue covered the model very well and it is surprising that he did not mention this.

The kit is completed by a bundle containing the boom, boomstay, flybar and tail pushrod and a large decal sheet. The main components are supplied in the now familiar numbered bags, which match numbered sections in the instruction manual. Very few items are supplied ready built, the exceptions being the washout mixer and the tail output shaft/drive pulley. The assembly of the latter is actually described in the manual, so this is presumably a late modification.

I was a little disappointed to discover that, since Peter's article, the instructions have been changed. Gone are the two-colour diagrams and there are no separate instructions. Instead, there is a straightforward manual consisting of single stage exploded diagrams with the English instructions included on them. These are excellent and there should be no problems here for anyone.

Without wishing to be in any way critical, the whole kit has a quality which does not imply a Japanese origin. Japanese kits have a certain daintiness which is hard to describe. This is completely lacking in the 'Ergo'.

Assembly

As usual, there is no point in presenting a blow-by-blow description of the assembly, but the following reviews the major points and any points which need clarifying.

If you read Peter Rieksts' review you may have been puzzled as I was by a reference to a 'drive dog' in the clutch. Actually, this refers to the prop driver on the engine, which is required. Peter used an OS '32SX-H', which comes without a prop driver fitted. Our review machine came with an SC '36H' which had a prop driver fitted, so no problem.

The bearing blocks associated with the idler pulley and main shaft are described in a confusing way on the diagrams. It is difficult to decide which way up they should be installed. However, appearances to the contrary, they are actually symmetrical about the fixing holes and it really doesn't matter which way up they go. If the bearings try to work loose in their blocks it will cause problems either way!

The mixing arms with their oilite bearings are supplied with nylon spacer washers to keep things separate. Not mentioned in the instructions is a bag of thinner nylon washers which can be used to adjust things so that there is no lateral movement. The interesting thing here is the washout mixer which comes ready assembled - with lots of slop. However, there are enough of the thinner washers to sort this out, too. Those with an enquiring mind can while away those winter evenings wondering just why this item comes pre-assembled.

It's a very minor point, but the assembly of the top and bottom side frames is covered by section 2 in the manual and the frames are not in Bag 2. They are in a separate un-numbered bag.

The actual combination of the top and bottom frame assemblies is by means of spacers and bolts as used by various other recent designs, There are a lot of these and the actual assembly is quite fiddly. The easy way is to hold the middle and one of the outer spacers in mid-air while your third hand inserts one of the bolts. You can then hold the other side spacer in position while you insert the other side bolt. You need to leave most of this assembly in a loose state, otherwise it becomes difficult to insert succeeding bolts.

Both of the bolts which retain the rotor head (sometimes called the 'Jesus bolt') and the auto unit to the mainshaft are plain threaded bolts. I have had problems here with other machines and took the precaution of changing both of them to a shanked type of bolt. Actually, you could use the original silencer bolts (suitably shortened) if you are fitting longer bolts and nuts to hold the silencer.

When all was finished, I was left with two spare silencer bolts and a set of M3x15 bolts which I think were intended to replace the M3x10 bolts originally supplied to attach the engine to the mount. I was short of one self-tapping screw out of three to retain the vertical fin. That's pretty accurate accounting by any standards. Our European friends have far less confidence in their abilities and tend to include a few spares.

The tank assembly is fully detailed and a length of 58 mm is suggested for the klunk line. This is too long, the correct length is nearer to 48 mm. T he foam supplied to go around the tank openings is a little soft and needs some adhesive to make sure it stays in place.

Starting is by means of a top start with a hex drive and the bottom end of the start shaft is plain. I was puzzled by this until I realised that the clutch itself contains a Sprague clutch (Torrington bearing to our American readers). A neat touch.

The flybar paddles are retained by nylock nuts at the end of the flybar. To one who has always been paranoid about the paddles moving, this is a nice point, although it doesn't make the alignment any easier.

Despite its relatively massive size the main rotor diameter is actually slightly smaller than a 'Space Baron' because, despite using 55 cm main blades, the rotor hub is much smaller.

One change from the manual is that the tail rotor hub has been changed to a one-piece type with set screws retaining the blade holders. The instructions show a hub which is retained by long grub screws which double as blade axles similar to the 'Concept' and 'Space Baron'.

No less than seven screws are used to hold the two halves of the tail 'gearbox' together. This and the tailplane mount are really massive.

Peter commented that it was difficult to get a snug fit of the various items on the tailboom. Others have told me that it is difficult to maintain the belt tension because the boom moves. It does tell you in the instructions to wrap tape around the boom to help clamp it in place. So far, I have not found this to be necessary. I did take the precaution of applying one layer of insulating tape to the inside surface of each of the saddles which serve to support the tail pitch wire. This was mainly done because I did not use the decals which are supplied for each side of the boom. I would assume that these decals would probably suffice to hold these saddles.

I really liked the tail pitch linkage, which is a single piece of large diameter piano wire extending the full length of the machine. Some other machines have used a similar system, but always with a coupling in the wire. It is possible to obtain a completely straight run from the servo to the pitch bellcrank, by adjusting the angle of the supporting saddles. I have always been puzzled by the current trend to 'improve' the tail linkage on many machines. If you change this one, you're just looking for something to do.

The main blades appear to be of K&S manufacture (they are very similar). I have always had problems with the balance of blades from this manufacturer and these were no exception. The spanwise CG's were about 4 mm out and the blade with the outboard CG was also heavier. For the purposes of the review I corrected things with tape.

The moulded plastic tail blades also showed a large difference. It is difficult to do much about this because of the shape of the blades, so this too was corrected with tape. For the record, I flew the model with the blades as supplied and found that there was an unacceptable level of vibration - by my standards, I hasten to add.

Installation

This is fully described in the manual and all of the linkages are pre-assembled and very close to the correct length. You very quickly discover that the ball-links are non-reversable, but there is no mention of this in the manual. At first I puzzled over how you were to know which was the correct orientation, but then I discovered by very close inspection that the inscription 'JR Propo' appears in tiny letters on the outside surface. Anno domini strikes again!

You may notice that the rudder and throttle servos and the silencer are all on the same side of the model (the right side). Pick the model up by the rotor head and it has a distinct lean to the right. Now, which way does a clockwise rotating helicopter normally lean? Correct, to the right. I like to think that this admirable idea is deliberate!

Having put the gyro, receiver and battery pack at the front, all of the radio equipment is located in a very compact area. This leaves the problem of what to do with all that wiring. This is not a problem that is confined to the 'Ergo', of course. The servo wires can be grouped into a fairly neat loom which comes out over the gyro, but the usual chaos ensues when you try to get it all into the receiver. The easy answer is to loop the wiring down below the receiver tray. A much better answer, which I have adopted in the past is to shorten all of the wiring so that it is tailored to the installation. Unfortunately, this takes time - which I didn't have in this case.

Another notable point is that the switch is soft mounted - Dave Wilshere will like that bit (actually, I only mentioned Dave to prove that someone at Traplet can spell Wilshere). This is done by passing the mounting screws through two rubber grommets, which are trapped between the switch and it's cover plate.

There is a gyro platform at the rear of the mechanics. However, if you mount a normal sized mechanical gyro here you will need a lot of nose weight. I used a Quest unit mounted at the front (there is plenty of room) and the CG came out spot on the mainshaft with a 1300 mAh sub-C battery pack.

With all of the linkages set up in the centre (arms parallel and bellcranks at 90 degrees) you end up with 5 degrees of pitch because this is moulded in to the blade holders. This is an excellent idea for beginners, but '3D' flyers may have other ideas.

The throttle linkage is shown as being below the servo and throttle arm. This is fine if you are using the silencer supplied. However, I did find it necessary to use longer bolts backed up with nuts to support the silencer adequately and this then fouled the linkage. The solution is simple - put the linkage above the servo and arm.

The manual contains a large section on radio set-up including sample programs for a choice of JR equipment ('XF622', 'XP783' and 'PCM10SX'). This gives away the origin of the instructions, since the '622' is known as the 'Max 66' in Europe and the '783' only exists in the USA.

Ah yes, painting...why?

I thought long and hard about this. Due to a rapidly approaching print date, I really didn't have time.

However, I was aware that my rapidly ageing eyesight would have problems with that sea of grey so I decided to go ahead and paint the canopy and tail in the easiest way possible. The idea here was that I could re-do things later if it all came off! After all, it only had to last long enough to get the pictures.

With this in mind, I cleaned the parts with enamel thinners and then sprayed them with an aerosol can of enamel paint (J Perkins paint, actually - that'll teach 'em). The results were quite acceptable, but a trial attempt with one of the smaller stickers showed that I had little chance of readjusting the position if I got it wrong. The solution here was to use the old trick of wetting the surface with a mixture of washing-up liquid. To avoid problems with the concave surfaces, I reduced the size of the decals slightly by removing the silver/bronze strip from the top and placing the stickers rather lower than the instructions show.

The result is quite attractive, because the red used in the decals is almost 'dayglo' in nature, particularly when applied over a white surface. All of this is still in place, but I will have to do it again sometime, shortly. Next time I will break the surface with a 'Scotchbrite' pad and use 'sticky primer'.

The canopy itself has a lot of flow lines and dimples and needs quite a lot of material to be trimmed away to finish it. It is very light, however, and uses a four point fixing. The centre spacers between the top frames are hexagonal in section, but the outer spacers are round. So too are the canopy stand-off pillars which really need to be hexagonal, or have a hole drilled through them, so that you can tighten them.

There are two lengths of canopy stand-off and the manual is specific that the longer ones should go at the front. It is quite difficult to locate these in the grommets in the canopy because they are a long way inside the window openings. The rear of the canopy also rubs on the screws through the side plates. All this suggests that it might be better if the long stand-offs were at the rear, but I haven't tried this.

Flying

The SC '36' started instantly, but refused to continue running. This was because the idle needle was way too far out and the main needle only needed to be about a turn open (I had opened it the usual two and a half turns for a first start).

With that sorted out the model was into the air in a matter of seconds and was actually in trim, in track and hovering in the middle of the stick. That's only happened to me before with an 'X-Cell'. The only adjustment needed at this point was a small amount of left rudder trim. I was quite impressed by the models stability in a brisk breeze.

At this point it became apparent that there was an increasing amount of smoke coming from somewhere. Investigation revealed that the two halves of the supplied silencer were coming apart. This was easily tightened, but the silencer was no longer gleaming! I flew out the tank and went home for a full inspection.

The silencer was easily sorted by soaking it in 'Persil' and reassembling with 24 hour epoxy. One of the threads for the fixing bolts was already starting to strip and the silencer was actually loose. This was sorted by using longer fixing bolts backed up with nylock nuts. this, in turn, needed the modification to the throttle linkage already noted.

On the second outing I rapidly gained confidence in the motor, which does go through a rich patch when opening the throttle. This can corrected by leaning the idle needle, but the tickover then becomes erratic. With the rich mid-range the tickover is superb. For the record, I was using a Super Tigre 'Orange' plug and 'Superglo 5' fuel.

Midway through the second tank of fuel I was sufficiently confident to climb out and try an auto. This presented no drama whatever, but there is absolutely nothing left at the bottom on the kit blades. Just make sure that you stop on the ground and not above it.

It actually flies very nicely and is notably stable. However, once it starts to descend, it is quite difficult to stop because of a lack of power and disc area. Changing to 55 cm 'G-Blades' produced quite an improvement in terms of smoothness, RPM and aerobatic ability. I was actually beginning to enjoy myself when things were terminated for the day by the autorotation unit seizing. This is obviously a one-off occurrence and best put down to my bad luck.

Loops and rolls definitely show up the limitations of the large model with modest power and limited disc area. It falls out of loops in a manner that suggest that there is no lack of control power - just a lack of oomph (the technical term is 'mush'). Rolls can be quite nice with care and it does carry the speed through the manoeuvre reasonably well.

One thing that really does impress is the tail. This is absolutely solid and shows the advantages of a belt drive. There is more to it than that, of course, and some care has obviously been taken to match the drive ratio and the tail diameter.

Conclusions

The 'Ergo' is a quality machine that should be ideal for the beginner, particularly with its straightforward construction and good instructions.

However, compared with some similar machines it is not exactly cheap. Prospective owners should be aware that they need to purchase a 6 mm hex drive shaft for their starter (this is mentioned in the manual).

With the optional bigger engine and longer blades it should be capable of a very good performance. No doubt there will eventually be a line of up-dates which will allow you to transform the machine into virtually anything that you may wish.

The whole machine does certainly grow on you (well, me anyway), but it will certainly need an increase in both power and agility to compete with some of its longer established competitors. I must confess to being somewhat confused by the basic specification of the model. After all, it has a slightly smaller rotor disc than an average '30' size machine, yet is noticeably larger and around three-quarters of a pound heavier.

As with everything these days, its a question of which machine appeals to you. With the 'Ergo' you know that it is the first of a new line and it has the backing of some very experienced design engineers. Already in the pipeline are an 'Ergo 60' and the 'Superio' FAI machine.

Specification

Product'Ergo 30'
ManufacturerJR Propo Helicopter Division
UK ImporterJ Perkins (Distribution) Ltd., 90 - 96 Greenwich High Road, Greenwich, London, SE10 8JE. Tel: 0181 692 2451, Fax: 0181 692 2469.
Main Rotor DirectionClockwise
Main Rotor Diameter48.5 in (1232 mm)
Length46.5 in (1181 mm)
Height16.38 in (416 mm)
Tail Rotor Diameter9.17 in (233 mm)
Main gear ratio9.78:1
Main to tail gear ratio1:5.18
Weight7lb 2oz. (3.24 Kg)
Powerplant0.32 - 0.35 cu. in. (5 - 6 cc) two-stroke glowplug engine
Control Requirements5 servos and a gyro

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