Electric Crickets!

Somewhere on the internet, we stumbled upon several different brushless electric power conversions:

This got us to thinking.... why not build our own electric Cricket!

Then we figured we would like collective pitch and autorotation as well.

Since there's pretty much no realistic way to do that with stock Cricket mechanics, here's what we came up with:



Very fun project. Start by laying out the Cricket frame on top of a Trex 500 side frame. Line up the center of the mainshaft on both frames, and drill the mounting holes in the Trex frame for the stock Cricket frame bottom and canopy mounting angle rails.

For proper balance, all that's in the canopy is a modified version of the wooden servo tray assembly and the main LiPo battery.

This model flies great. It's a bit less aerodynamic and a bit heavier than a normal Trex 500, but that's not completely a bad thing. It's not quite as twitchy with the extra weight, but still has plenty of power to spare. It's not quite as fast with the Cricket canopy and skids, but all and all this is a great sport heli, and it maintains that intangible Cricket quality and asthetic.
 

this website created in consultation with

the late John A. Gorham and the Gorham Estate

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