Kitfox on Floats

I wanted to share my float install story. I bought a set of aerocet 1100 floats with damaged actuator cables so I switched everything over to electric using help from this forum (Thank You!). I thought I would return the favor by talking a little bit about my conversion and installation.

I mounted the linear servos to the aft spreader bar supports and have a very strong connection into the floats. I used an aluminum arm off the rotating assembly to actuate the gear up and down and added a limit switch to have positive over-center stops in both the up and down positions.

I setup a single three position switch (gear down - off - gear up) and then used the position sensor in the linear actuator to provide feedback on the status of the float position. I made a microcontroller board to read the position of the two floats and then report that information on two LEDs. Solid green means both floats are down and locked, blinking green means one float is down and locked, no LED means the floats are in an intermediate position, blinking red is one float up, solid red is two floats up and locked. I may switch the red LED to blue, just for fun.

One of the hardest parts was finding the gasket that goes at the back of the floats. I finally made my own mold and fabricated the part from silicone rubber.

Everything worked great and I got to make my first kitfox floating landings a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you all again, the kitfox is a lot of fun!
Matt

I love this. I'm hoping to incorporate a set of amphibious floats onto our SS7 that we are building. For this reason, as well as a couple others, we are planning on the 914/Airmaster set-up.

Great work!

Enjoy the floats Mdock.
Love Kitfox on floats photos. :)

to make a seal for the back of aerocets use an old inner tube slightly smaller diameter than what is on back of float. old bicycle tube is good.

stretch is over the fitting on the float and use some silicone in the inside and wrap in tight and use a tie wrap to get it snug.

I done this a few times and should last you a few years each time.


Also -- you can make the rudder a little bigger for more control.

Cheers.

Matt, Congrats on getting it flying with your float setup! Hope to see some good videos coming up.

Ok where is that dang LIKE button when ya need it :)

Looks great. I'm jealous.

Sorry, I was otherwise occupied...here's the "like" button!Attachment 5380

Lol thanks Chris! And that goes to both your ego's :)

Hi Matt, you and I had a nice chat about your float conversion and silicone plug at OSH this year. Found your card a couple weeks back and was planning to email you for info, so a pleasant surprise to see this post. Would love to see some detail pics of the in-float assembly and a description of the actuators used. Thanks! -Doug

Hello, I was wondering if you can share some info with me in regards to the possibility of converting my aerocet 110's to electric retract. I have over 120 hours into my install now onto my kf 3 and I can still not get the rigging of the gear to be perfect. something is always a little bit off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mdock

I wanted to share my float install story. I bought a set of aerocet 1100 floats with damaged actuator cables so I switched everything over to electric using help from this forum (Thank You!). I thought I would return the favor by talking a little bit about my conversion and installation.

I mounted the linear servos to the aft spreader bar supports and have a very strong connection into the floats. I used an aluminum arm off the rotating assembly to actuate the gear up and down and added a limit switch to have positive over-center stops in both the up and down positions.

I setup a single three position switch (gear down - off - gear up) and then used the position sensor in the linear actuator to provide feedback on the status of the float position. I made a microcontroller board to read the position of the two floats and then report that information on two LEDs. Solid green means both floats are down and locked, blinking green means one float is down and locked, no LED means the floats are in an intermediate position, blinking red is one float up, solid red is two floats up and locked. I may switch the red LED to blue, just for fun.

One of the hardest parts was finding the gasket that goes at the back of the floats. I finally made my own mold and fabricated the part from silicone rubber.

Everything worked great and I got to make my first kitfox floating landings a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you all again, the kitfox is a lot of fun!
Matt

---

Jeff,

I'm happy to document the build for you. I have some pictures, but i'm on the road until next week. I'll send something then. Send me a private message and i'll get you my email address and i'll send the data package. I also have the data package from the previous gentleman that had done an electric conversion. I also have some general guidelines on setting up the mechanic mechanism from a long-time aerocet guy if you are thinking about keeping the mechanical linkage.
Matt