Housekeeping, not flying.

Hers's a surprise... the antenna snapped off bumping it on a door.

The HK500 is back.

And the work table has a nice new buther paper top.

FLYBAR EXI 450

Well, I did it.

I removed the ZYX Stabilization Gyro and the flybarless head, installed a metal 450 flybar head, and an Align GP780 tail hold gyro I've had laying around. Took me less than an hour to setup the mechanical head and to program the gyro. I took her out for a test spin. The gyro held, and she hovered somewhat controllable in a stiff breeze. The disc looked like it was tracking well, couldn't see so well in the darkening light. Dialed down the gyro to about 30%, I think. Need to work on the DR/Expo settings, check the tracking, but all in all I am pretty happy with it! I don't know why, but I was surprised the gyro worked. I didn't know I had one that worked, but there it is!

The original EXI canopy!

The sweet complexity of the flybar cage.

So complex, so simple!

Love that flybar!

I think the tail control lever on the tail was a bit too tight, and maybe it burned out the small tail servo while I set this up. I loosened up the control horn and since I found out it wasn't the servo but the orignial ZXY gyro causing the oscillation, I reinstalled the mini eMax servo. It's bigger and works well. I had to replace the aileron servo which was damaged, so I replaced both the pitch and aileron servos to match the Corona servo on the elevator. These are very strong quick servos. This thing is now rock solid. The system spun up nicely, was perfectly balanced!

I decided since I had one, and I think the other tail rotor head was a bit loose, I replaced it. Its nice and tight.

I am pretty psyched to have a flybarred 450, even though I don't enjoy flying these smalker helis. All I need now is a 700. Oh, and to learn how to reliably fly them!

EXI 450 FBL

I have been reworking the 450 with the Tarot ZYX 3 Axis heli stabilization system. I have never been fond of these budget gyros, not because they are budget (there is a big place for FBL systems that cost $40 rather than $200). They are not easy to program as the software isn't designed by the manufacturer, works sporadically and can be difficult to use. The ZYX has been discontinued. It uses the now wildly outdated free FBL software that itself was so easy to use, but the gyro doesn't communicate with it reliably. This pretty much leaves the market to the poorly manualed and very difficult to software install/setup of the V-Bar knock-off Mini K-Bar that comes in a green and a blue case, or the ZYX knock-off that is made by one maker under several names. I watched a video of the Mini K-Bar installation and while the plugging in is fundamentally simple, the installation of a PC Driver, then the complexity of the setup software made this less desirable. It uses the Mikado V-Bar software, but it's not clear, being the manuals are poorly written, which version you can actually use. There is an "Express" software that sounds like it might be simpler for most pilots, but who knows. The ZYX Knock-Off likely suffers from the same issues at the Tarot did. Its not clear if it is the original firmware or the updated S2. Both Tarot devices are no longer made. Tarot did, it seems, move into the upscale systems market.

Mini K-Bar

The ZYX system itself isn't reliable either. I finally figured out the oscillation issues I previously had with this heli was the gyro. Yesterday I swapped out the units from my other defunct 450, and worked to transfer the config file to it using the FBL software. It looked like it worked. I hovered it, and the oscillation was done, she was still super skittish, and then all hell broke loose. I am not entirely sure what happened. The receiver may have lost signal evidenced by not just the blinking receiver light, but the fact that HOLD failed. For some reason the lost signal failsafe did not cut the power. She hit the ground and ripped off the main blades, screwed up a servo, bent the main shaft and broke off a feathering shaft retaining screw in the shaft. Both the receiver and the gyro came off the fuselage. Not sure if that happened first? No idea. But for a moment there, sluggish response to the controls aside, the tail oscillation was gone. she tore off the mains, broke a screw inside the feathering shaft, tore teeth off the main gear, and bent

ZYX Knock-Off

I have decided I want the "simplicity" of the mechanical setup of the good ol' cage flybarred system. I looked around the shop and found a whole bunch of 450 parts in bags I had lost track of. I found a nylon 450 flybar main rotor, never used, a couple of HK500 metal flybar heads. I am pretty sure I have a plain old tail hold gyro sitting around somewhere. I wonder if, in that huge bag of parts, I have metal replacement parts for the nylon head?

I can get an affordable ($30) all metal head from China, but no one seems to sell these stateside, though in passing I saw one for $50 that may have been. There has been wholesale abandonment of the flybar systems I don't understand. They work wonderfully for sport pilots and take no special skills to set up. Most of us are not 3D pilots who need DFC Flybarless systems. I don't know if the market thinned as pilots abandoned this far more affordable system, or sellers just stopped selling them forcing us into the more costly FBL systems. Its nearly impossible to find new simple MEMS Tail Hold Gyros like the Spartan Quark or Align 780 anymore.

Another get nowhere day...

In the continuing saga of the Evolution 10cc,  it wouldn't idle. So I spent a couple of hours trying all kinds of settings with the end point and the low neelde, rsetting to factory, trying something else. She runs wondefully, accelerates fine so the best settings can be found, but she won't idle low enough to produce low to no thrust. She has this habit of slowing to a high idle, then slowing, then quitting. I have tried leaning her, running her richer, at idle, and I just couldn't find an acceptable idle. I decided to go back to the 2 blade prop, and she really seems to run better. But Ibhad enough and called it a day. Day after tomorrow I will start again. All that oil mess, she runs way too rich.

I worked on the EXI 450 FBL heli a bit. I spun her up and decided to change the main shaft. There was a bad bearing I replaced, and with a new shaft the main is totally smooth. I disassembled and cleaned the tail in preparation to replace the tail shaft, the new one should be here in a few days. I am confident this will stop the vibrations, but I am not confident she will fly well despite that. I also zeroed the swash arms using the FBL software, which I knew would balance the -10 to +10 degrees. She now has full swash movement. I am not fond of the XYZ system, its not hard to program, but the interface isn't consistently responsive, so making changes can be iffy. I think the programming is good. We'll see. Once the tail is put back together we'll know. If so I may put the other 450 together. 

Productive Day

The Sbach 10cc Evolution

The fuel nipple came in from Horizon Hobby, and a couple I ordered from Graves RC, and I installed it snug with a little red grease. Re-did the fuel lines and the leak is gone. I took her out to the garage having set up the carb needles at stock, Low 4.25 turns, Hi 2.5. She started right up, rich. For the next 2 hrs I was on my knees trying to find an idle that worked long enough to work the Low needle. I got the Low tuned, then the high, retuned the Low. I had to lean it in a bit, and leaned out the Hi a smidge.

How low can you go... my knees are killing me.

From the richer settings. I think she is leaned out a bit, but she throws a lot of oil.

This is pretty much how she is running. This was before I found the sweet spots, but pretty close.

The 450 Helis

I dusted off the EXI 450 FBL. She had issues with a severe oscillation, and I could never quite find the source. I went through the swash, and the tail. Snugged a few things, had to flip the tail blades I had installed upside down. I think there is an ever so slight hint of a wobble in the tail shaft, so I ordered a new one. Maybe that might be enough to cause an oscillation? I snugged up the main shaft collar, and then plugged in the XYZ FBL programmer and checked the settings. I am not sure why, and can't fix it, but I get +10 degrees, but only -6 degrees pitch. I have no idea why. I do see that at 0 pitch the swash arms are NOT level. I can't figure out how to get that level and have zero pitch, physically in the set up or in the software. I need to take a look at the length of the control arms, maybe they are too long? I have some work to do. The FBL software isn't the best, but it's all there is to program the XYZ 3 axis stab system. I need to look into that a bit. I haven't been super impressed by these stabilization systems, and they are pretty old. If I stick with the 450s I may need to look into replacements.

The HK450 Sport is collecting dust. It needs a few servos replaced, some new control arms. I am sure there are some other things wrong, it's been so long since I worked or flew it I have no idea.

Evolution 10cc DISCONTINUED

Working on the Evo 10cc, snugged up the exhaust extensions which were leaking a bit, and wanted to snug up the carb screws. I snapped off the fuel nipple trying to tighten it. That's when I learned Horzion Hobby has discontinued the engine and that the nipples are NIS. Crap. Found some at GravesRC, got two, for about $6, but shipping cost $8. Damn. I could not get the retaining bolt off the engine case to remove the carb, it stripped its cap. So I had to grind a line for a slot screwdrived and got that off. Turns out the screw is an odd size M2.5 16mm. So I had to order some from RTL Fastners. Jeez.

I did see that the guide screw for the barrel throttle wasn't quite right so the throttle did not close. I greased it and adjusted it, now it has full smooth range of motion. Broke out the manual and set the screws back to stock settings, High is 2.5 turns, Low is a whoppjng 4.25 turns. Once I get the fuel nipple and the 2.5mm clamp screw in, I can put it back, redo the fuel lines (there is a leak somewhere, maybe it was the carb).

So HH has discontinued the 10cc. Huh...

UPDATE 10/16/19: One of the reasons I really love Horizon Hobby is their incredbile customer service. Yesterday I left a note asking about HH having d/c'd the 10cc Evo and my being at a loss for a fuel nipple. Dave Poole the Service Manager has one laying around and will have it sent to me gratis. I love these guys!

Flying with the big boy...

Took the Sbach and its unreliable Evo 10cc, and the very reliable though sometimes hard to dry start RCGF-USA 30cc MX-Bach. I took the MX-Bach up after several minutes hand flipping her. She ran very reliably, and I took her up for a few minutes. She flew wonderfully, but I really don't like to fly in front of a crowd, especially the incredibly skilled Cody. He would never make me feel uncomfortable, it's all me, in my head. But I mean, Cody Wojcik... come on! So I landed and set her aside for a bit. I then took up the Sbach with its Evolution 10cc, which started and ran fine right away, but after a few minutes of flight and light aerobatics, quit. Dead sticked to an acceptable landing, tore off a wheel pant, but otherwise she is fine. It took some time, but I got her started, but in idle she would slow to a stop. Cody wanted to help but I really didn't want to take his time as much as I wanted to let him fix her. He came to fly with a couple of visiting quad pilots, I think to video. I took the cowl off and tried to lean her out, as there is is oil all over the wing, suggesting its rich as I have always thought, in fact, the low was 4-5 turns out! But she wouldn't turn over with anything less. I managed to make her not want to start at all. I decided to set her aside, and watch Cody fly his Extreme Flight DA 120.

I caught a few moments of Cody's flight. I wanted to watch more than video, so I only caught a few unremarkable moments. Watch his fingers. He makes this huge plane float, every movement is what he wants, not what he accepts. I have no desire to 3D, but would love to someday have that confidence. Oh, and the engine started with one flip. I had not intended to stay long, and was a bit pissed about the dependability of the Evo, so packed up and left them to their fun! I did get to watch one of the FPV Quad pilots tear through the air as I packed. WOW! I have seen videos, but this thing screamed. Fun to watch!

Looks like I have some work to do on the Evo.

Surgical or "Huck" Towels

I have used surgical towels as a work top "bounce suppressor" for years. This one is several years old. I wash them every so often, but eventially they need to be replaced. They absorb liquids like oils and glues, and keep screws from launching into the abyss. I never knew they were called "Huck" towels, nor why.

I just bought a boat load from Amazon, here is a nice new blue hone. No nap, no snag.

I will never need to buy another one again. I prefer these as they are not like build towels that snag eveything and get pulls, and they are cheap so if they get stained it's simple to toss and replace with a new one.

Here's The Amazon Link!

Series and Parallel: Keeping it straight

Image: Overclock.net

Image: Aliexpress.com

Flying blind

I made the mistake of trying to fly with my glasses instead of my contacts and I made this decision on an overcast and sprinkly day. I don't see as well with my glasses.

Took the freshly rebuilt HK500 FBL up. It went about as good as one might expect. Lost orientation, limited heli skills, yeah, a mess. I dragged the new canopy over for the pic, it having gotten tossed far afield. I know I need more sim time, but I want to get comfortable with flying the actual heli. I was doing fine, 4 min in to a nice basic flight, sometimes having issues getting the tail around. I was outbound, a bit far away, and lost control when I wasn't sure if she had turned nose back in, she drifted and I made things worse. That was the end of that.

I already have most of the rebuild done. I have to order a new belt, it broke in the crash as the tail boom separated.  Replaced the main shaft, the feathering shaft is fine. The tail shaft will need replacing. Lost a control rod, replaced it. The canopy took quite a lot of damage, glassed in some repairs.

The tail boom is 461mm long. The tail belt is labled as 400mm. Not sure how that works... We'll see.

I also brought out the MXS-R with its 30cc DLE. Took a bit to start, haven't run it in a while. Took it up and even that big plane was a blur, not enough orientation in this light with my glasses. Landed, called it a day.

Disappointing.

Well, that's a thing I know now...

For a number of years now I have whined about off brand EC5s not going together right. I don't know how I got there, but I read a thread about EC5 gripes on one of the rc groups, and someone commented that the off brands often go in backwards from the Horizon Hobby originals, that is, you don't press them through the back, you instead rub the wires through the plastic, solder them, then pull them back through the front.

I just got two new batteries, so tonight I did that and they went together simply...

Damn.

HK500 has a new lid!

KILLER!

HK500 Tarot Swash

The washout arms came in from Amainhobbies quickly as always! They had M2 screws, but Tarot head uses M3 so I had to swap out the bearings. I only damaged one of the old ones removing them from the arms, but had several on hand.

Installed easily! Like the red among the black finishes.

No other adjustments were necessary but for zeroing out the control rods. Nailed it, no tracking error!

Everything checked out!  Took her out back and despite full swash movement -11 to +11 on the bench, she barely lifted off. Recheck and she was only getting +5. Reset the swash limit in the BeastX and that's fixed. Took her up and she has her positive rate now. But the tail control lever main bolt stripped, so I had to replace that and use a nylon lock nut opposite it, and now she is 100% ready! Have to run out to my wife's work party, so no further flights.

Time on the sim. Unimpressed  with my focus.

Align Trex 600e PRO

Oohh... look who got cleaned, lubed and bench checked! When did you last see a flybarred icon?

Making sure the 5S 5000 mAh batteries fit. I flew her 6S so I was pretty sure, but I don't have any 6S batteries anymore and don't need the power.

Since this pic I changed some of the velcro. I was kinda annoyed that the reciever pack is at 4V per cell, as it's been over a year since I flew her. But it's a LiPO so hopefully it's fully dischargeable and rechargeable.

Who doesn't love a flybar cage?

Sweet. 

HK 500 Repairs

Started the repair process of the HK500. Its done but needs new swash washout control arms as the originals took so much energy they twisted. 

Both of the washou arms are twisted.

Found this replacement pair at Amainhobbies for the 500x. Hope they fit.

I had to replace the tail shaft, main shaft, feathering shaft, tail control rod, the swash control arms, the washout arms  and the main blades. Not bad at all. I think its time to replace tha canopy though... once again excited about flying helis again!

UPDATE:   Went ahead and purchased a new canopy.

Pricing 5S batteries, again dismayed at the expense! 

Well, it's a start.

After several months of pouting and focusing on my new planks, I moved the HK 500 to the work bench. She will probablybsit there a while before I get around to actually fixing her. I need to tinr up that e 600's and the few 5S batteries I have. Try to get my heli mojo back.

Sweet end of summer day!

A day off, the promise of possibly awesome weather, yeah, we are going flying!

Just took the Pulse XT60 with its RCG-USA 20cc, and the Sbach with its Evolution 10cc.

Jay and Louis were there flying their helis. When I first went up there were a few winds up high, and the rotor at the south end was active, but things calmed down amazingly, and it turned out beautiful just as I had to leave.

So the Sbach is tuned and running well. There was a curious period where in idle when I moved her from the start bench to the ground and held her nose up. The fuel pump failed to maintain flow and she quit. This repeated itself. I decided to just fly her anyway.  After a long flight I held her up again and she ran on fine. She flew well, ran perfectly. She needed some DR/Expo changes. I turned the ailerons down from 40% to 35%, and the elevators to 35%, and she tamed right down with a bit more authority. With the higher expo I was over driving the sticks, and my style is a bit more subtle on the controls. The Sbach is always a twitchy wench, one has to pay attention as she is very unforgiving. Remember, I had to put vortex generators on her wings.  She catches the thermals over the dump parking lot and rises rapidly, and is sensitive in the rotor between the south end Ents and the rise of the landfill we fly on the top of an after rising over the lot, drops like a stone in front of the trees, and then rises again as she approaches the runway on the top of the hill. She isn't unique in this habit, but does seem more affected. Combine that with a tail wind on the base in front of the trees and a 90 degree crosswind on final, and it can take 2-3 approaches before we get wheels down. And then we are hauling ass, so we run out of runway fast. FUN!

She doesn't have a lot of power, is fast, but runs out of vertical fast. That's with the 13x8 two blade. I decided to look at the 12x8 three again, so will fly her that way.

Incidentally, at the field her power switch failed. Noticed that the vibration when the engine was running was making the light blink.. I had my suspicions this past week and today she was twitching her surfaces like crazy and the engine was missing. We figured out it was the switch with that blinl, so I was flying her by connecting the battery directly to the reciever. This evening I replaced it with another one, exactly the same, and she is behaving.

I also flew the Pulse XT60. she flew without any drama. She still sputters in the midrange, but idles well and has plenty of power! She wasn't bothered too much by the winds, but that Hershey Bar wing liftes in the crosswinds. 

I now have them in the normal rotation!

Hobbyeagle A3L v2 isn't going to work with dual elevators

I described in the previous post the issues I am having on the Sbach with with dual elevators and trying to get the Hobbyeagle A3L to work with it as it has only one elevator input/output, and the elevators have to be on a Y. This makes them move in opposite directions. So I thought I would try a simple signal inverter.

About $12 on Amazon. You can get one for $45 too.

Installed on the left elevator side of the Y.

The signal lag is too much, and the surfaces don't travel the same distances. 

So... this was an expensive "failure". The device works great. As I noted before, this single channel thing is true of all the stabilization systems I know of. Shame, as this is a small plane I would like to fly in higher winds. So, I removed it, set the radio back up to dual elevators (no mix) and we are back to where we started. Also, no issues with the ignition light fading at full deflection anymore.

I may use this on one of my simpler planes... Do I have one on the Stearman? I also have a remote Kill switch I don't need.

BTW: The maker never returned my email.

EagleHobby A3L v2 3-Axis Stabilization System

I have worked with several "gyro" stabilization systems, on helis (ZYX, BeastX), and on planks (Orange, Spektrum Alpha6), and now the EagleHobby A3L v2 system. The Alpha6 was a failure and is no longer made by Spektrum (and I can't understand why Spektrum makes programming the AS3X systems so difficult, requiring a special "bought separately" cable or a Bluetooth app).

The bag came with two bags inside,  nicely done.

These are the kits parts. The voltage regulator (nice, had never seen one before, put it on my receiver), the gyro, a pair of 3M foam stick pads, and 3 male-to-male short connector wires. There an no intructions, nor any link to a manual.

Google found a v1 manual which more or less is the same. The v1 had 3 gains pots, which I suspect were main, auto-balance and auto-hover. I think v2 pots are main and I have no idea what the second one is.

I mounted it on one end of the 9ch reciever. It's a nice little unit, well constructed,  and is programmed with the black button and its LED, which is very easy to operate. VERY easy. Screw it up, factory reset works well, same button. Here's how I know... when I first powered it up one of the connection leads they provided shorted, the magic came out of the wire in a nice little puff. I powered it off and replaced the lead, the brown(black) wire melted its covering off. Restarted it and cranked up the main gain so I could see the surfaces move in response to moving the plane in yaw, pitch and roll. The rudder moved in response to PITCH, and the elevators in response to YAW. WTF? I checked everything and the connections were correct. It was dinnertime so I fired off a quick email to support, knowing I should probably try a hard reset first. After dinner I did just that and the problem was solved. Sent my "never mind" to support. It now works fine. The short must have given it a concussion.

I went into programming and changed it to Mode 2 (On, Off, Auto-balance) since I don't hover, and programmed that to the F-Mode 3 way switch on my DX8 Gen 1. I do wish the order was Off, On, Auto-balance, because if it freaks out and I freak out, I don't want to hunt for the center switch position. I want to shove it to the stop instinctively.  I then set the servo frequency to 250hz since I am using digital servos (I figured they should be fine), and they were except the servos screamed, the  right wing servo went ape-shit in a noisy jitter then died, I killed the power. So, I am replacing that Tactic TSX47, and since I couldn't confirm the freq, took them back to 50hz, where they work just fine. All the surfaces were oriented fine, no changes. Will need to remeber to turn the gain back down once I get this all set up with the new servo. Didn't want to use the remote gain for now, so left that unplugged; I haven't found the need to dynamically adjust gain, and am worried about having it on a knob that migh turn without me thinking about it.

Why is it so hard to find servo frequency info? A lot of modern devices need that info.

This is a standard gyro setup. Three leads from the reciever to the gyro. All of these systems, (functionally the Alpha6 was one lead each control surface, though it had plugs for each of dual ailerons and elevators,  it would not handle them, you still had to use a Y. One of the many issues the device had). One plug for aileron, elevator and rudder. Output is one for each as well, so the ailerons will need to be on a Y-connector. This works for most aircraft.

The Sbach has dual ailerons AND dual elevator servos, which I ran through a transmitter mix when it was set up without the gyro. The right elevator was connected through the ELEV channel, and the left elevator was set through AUX3. The mix was ELEV>AUX3 and they responded to the same control input. Works great, can program the elevators individually through the radio. When you put the elevators on a Y, they move in opposite directions (actually the same direction, but being mirrored it functionally moves opposite). Mechanically the only way to get them to match is to have one connect under the horizontal stab (standard), and the other over. Right now both are the standard under.

So, I have to use a Y-connector. The elevators move in opposite directions.

HOW DO I FIX THIS? How do I make them move in the same direction?

I have that question in to EagleHobby support. I supect the only way is to mechanically over/under the servo control rods, or use a signal inverter, and I am not interested in doing that.  To be clear, this is not unique to this gyro, all of these seem to be single channel per axis: pitch, yaw, roll.

I do notice that the ignition light dims with aggressive control inputs. Will need to watch that, may just be a low battery? Nope, 4.1 V per cell. I may need to go to a two battery system if the draw is too high for the voltage. Right now I have a Tech-Aero IBEC on it, but may need to revert to a separate battery and kill switch. I don't think the Tech-Aero IBEC, so, more money for an RCExl Kill Switch...

This is a very nice unit and is now my go to stabilization system. I just may not be able to use it on the Sbach. I'll let you know what I figure out. I may end up forking out for a servo reverser...

UPDATE: Ah, screw it... bought a reverser on a short leash. $12 on Amazon. I like this one because its Turnigy (good quality), I can plug it inline on one servo lead, its very short so no significant resistence added, and not have to have another Y since I already have enough.  I had thought that the manual said something about not using them, but I can't find it, so... I'll let you know how it works.

Started as a simple addition for about $35. So far it's cost me $29 for a new servo, $12 for a reverser, $76. And likley a kill. Ouch.

UPDATE 2:  Ah, screw it again.  Went ahead and bought the RCExl remote Kill Switch too. Last thing I need is a voltage drop on the ignition. There is the capacitor that came with the kit that is on the receiver, I moved it to the gyro and it still flickered a bit. I'll just run two 2S 2300 mAh reveiver packs. What's a little extra weight on a 10cc gasser anyway....  The short was bizarre, still unexplained. The only cause has to be a voltage/amp spike overloaded the wire (it was the lead from the reciver aileron channel to the gyro aileron input, and likely is related to the now dead servo).  Is there some amp/voltage draw that is overwhelming the delivery, the capacitor and the capacitors on the IBEC board? That's kinda spooky...  I think the best way to handle this is to unload the draws by giving the ignition its own battery pack, so that all the voltage and amps from the reciever pack go to the servos and reciever, and there is no danger of losing the ignition to a spike from servo draw.  We'll see.

UPDATE 3 (Final):   Nope...