RMS-Plus instructions

So, my Aerotech motor shipment arrives and some of my reloads are packaged in the yellow tube and called "RMS-Plus." Great, more Aerotech naming conventions to keep track of. RMS, DMS, LMS, PMS, PBS, EZ, Plus, SU, FU.....

Anyway, I am eager to see what the "Plus" is all about, so I spill open the contents of a 38mm reload. Every single part and the needed assembly is the same as any other RMS reloads. There is nothing "Plus" about it, that I can tell, other than a default Long delay that needs drilling if you want something less than 14 sec.

The "Minus" is the instructions. First, I find two glaring mistakes. Step 3 mentions Part 15 as part of the assembly of the seal disk. Part 15 is the ejection powder. Huh?

Second, Step 7 mentions the "enclosed Complete Reload Delay Kit (CRDK) instructions." More catchy abbreviations! Said instructions are nowhere to be found in the package.

The rest of the instructions blandly refer you to the assembly drawing without much discussion. The "Classic" instructions, even written in that tiny 2-pt font, were far better and more helpful. Luckily, I have built many of these motors in the past and remember the technique. For a newbie, however, I can imagine these instructions being a source of frustration.

When Aerotech changed the delay assembly for the HPR motors by putting the forward delay O-ring around the delay grain instead of just butting the delay grain against it like the RMS Hobbyline reloads they began calling the assembly RMS+ . Hobbyline delay grains still have the delay grain butted against the O-ring in the forward closure.

The CDRK's came out as an alternative to their now defunct EZ assemblies, so you would have a choice to use your forward closures instead of the EZ closures. Now the CDRK's are the repacements for the EZ's.

RMS plus is what AT had been using for more than a decade before the changes with the floating closures and such.

I'll echo what the others have said about RMS-Plus - that's what we've been flying for a while.

That said, the instructions vs "what's-in-the-bag" is getting out of sync, for sure. I just experienced that with a K1000T, relative to a fiber forward insulator vs. aluminum seal disk. Instructions said insulator, but the reload didn't come with one, and included the o-ring for the aluminum seal disc. The previous one, flown a month earlier (but older stock) had the insulator. Good thing I had a 75mm seal disc on the trip, and understood the issue. [not that this motor has an RMS-Plus delay, but still a mismatch between instructions and parts]

This instructions issue was certainly made more complicated by the back-pedaling on RMS-EZ loads, and the need to include conventional, RMS-Plus parts and instructions.

In the Aerotech Open Thread, I believe I've seen that Charlie Savoie has been addressing some reload instruction updates. I think the best we can do is to communicate our concerns, objectively and factually, directly to them, and encourage more updates. I plan to do so. They seem to be heading in the right direction, but not surprisingly, there are still some kinks to resolve.

Mark

markjos said:

I'll echo what the others have said about RMS-Plus - that's what we've been flying for a while.

That said, the instructions vs "what's-in-the-bag" is getting out of sync, for sure. I just experienced that with a K1000T, relative to a fiber forward insulator vs. aluminum seal disk. Instructions said insulator, but the reload didn't come with one, and included the o-ring for the aluminum seal disc. The previous one, flown a month earlier (but older stock) had the insulator. Good thing I had a 75mm seal disc on the trip, and understood the issue. [not that this motor has an RMS-Plus delay, but still a mismatch between instructions and parts]

This instructions issue was certainly made more complicated by the back-pedaling on RMS-EZ loads, and the need to include conventional, RMS-Plus parts and instructions.

In the Aerotech Open Thread, I believe I've seen that Charlie Savoie has been addressing some reload instruction updates. I think the best we can do is to communicate our concerns, objectively and factually, directly to them, and encourage more updates. I plan to do so. They seem to be heading in the right direction, but not surprisingly, there are still some kinks to resolve.

Mark

Click to expand...

They are reworking all of the instructions right now. I think 38mm is almost done. Then it will take time for the old loads to be used out of current stocks.!

I have never liked the Aerotech assembly instructions. An exploded view of the completed motor and some basic text as to what needs grease and in what order the parts go together would be much better than what they have been doing. I know people who have put together over a hundred Aerotech motors that still get confused by the instructions.

The handful I have put together have been cookbook. Follow along, line by line and I have not had a problem. That being said, I have not yet run into a set of instructions like those pictured in the OP.
All of my stash is more than 18mos old, so I guess I am working with the "old" instructions.

Silly me, I just looked at the photo. I really like the diagram (if you ignore the mistake that the OP calls out). Clearly, step 3 should call out 9 and 19 that were called out in step 2. You would have thought someone would have caught that during the proofreading.