Creating Ball Links in RC Models

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name's Curtis Enlow and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm going to show you how to plan, setup and equip a work area for radio controlled models. I'm going to spend a few moments talking about some highly specialized tools that are very crucial to the proper operation of some very precision mechanics on say for example, RC helicopters. This is a ball link and ball link is essentially a ball and socket type joint. There's not mechanical slop on this, its required for very precise mechanical manipulation such as this, this is a swash plate for an RC helicopter. The way that ball links work is they only go on in one direction and this really important because if you put them on the wrong direction, it will stretch the ball link out, you'll introduce some slop and there's also the risk of it actually popping off in flight which could be disastrous. Now, most ball links have something to indicate the inside and the outside and they all vary slightly, but lets take a close look at this one to see if we can't figure out where the inside and outside of this one is. Now I'm pretty certain that you cannot see this, but on one side of the ball link, there is a little nub. That indicates the inside portion, or the part that goes on first on the ball link like this. Now its important that you get that orientation correct because if you put it on wrong like this, it will actually stretch the link out and you risk this link coming apart in flight under vibration which would be disastrous. Now different manufacturers are different. Some of them will put a small mark on the outer part of the ball link. You just need to take a very close look and see, usually you can tell on one side of the ball link, the hole is slightly larger than the other side. The hole that is slightly larger is a part that will go on to the ball first."