Posted on HeliFreak: Newbie Blues... (CAUTION:WHINING)

So, I've been at this for about 5 months now, and love every aspect of it! Wish I had discovered it when I was younger (I just turned 49 the other day). Started with a coaxial S107, which lead to CB100's, and a Walkera CB180D (love it) and my No-fly UFLYS (sorta hate it, but its problems got me over my fear of tinkering with heli's). I have been flying sims, from the FMS to Clearview, which I have mastered in its stock setup, and then the Phoenix, which grounded my expectations that I had a knack for flying. I especially love building and repairing (not so much the spending), and I love learning about the engineering and the electrics (not so much the sparking and smoking). I am pretty good at the building, always have been. But I made a big mistake and it has stolen my mojo...

I built my EXI 450, and in rebuilding the new stock rotor head I noticed that the dampers were pretty soft (way soft compared to the almost unsquishable 80s I have in there now), and one of them was damaged with a little angular split. I didn't think it would make much difference, even though I knew better from my readings. I figured if it caused a problem, I would change it out. I also wasn't entirely confident I knew what I was doing with the gyro and the CCPM setup. So I took it out for its first flight. It spun up nicely. I powered up in normal about 1/3 throttle and from about 20 feet away (damn thing scared me) I got down on my hands and knees and saw the tracking was off by about 1 cm. I also saw the tail auto gear was quite out of round. I lifted off and the tail wagged (at 32% true HH). No problem, I could fix all of this and be back. But she wasn't very stable, drifting back and forth. Some of it was a little wind, some of it was set up, but here's the rub... By this time I could fly the CB's well, and the Cearview sim was no real challenge. I hadn't gotten the Phoenix yet. The heli just didn't seem to be mine to control, and I decided to stop for the day, make the changes and sim some more. But then... I went up one more time...

I hovered just out of ground effect saw she was drifting and I wasn't really in control, so I brought her back down. She landed, then a dynamic rollover took the rotor into the dirt, and $50 later I have a new feathering shaft, flybar, main rotor and thanks to flying Fingers, a new main and auto gear. I still felt some of this was setup, and conditions, but I also began to doubt I could move from FP to a 450 as easily as I thought I might.

Now, I like a challenge, but this set me back a little. I realise I have only been doing this for a few months and did not expect to be flying circuits with a 250 and my 450 right away, but I felt I was on my way. Now doubt snuck in. Then the Phoenix made me realize how fooled I had been by the ultra stable settings on the stock Clearview, though I knew it was unrealistically stable. But I got to where I was flying the Phoenix pretty well, not great, but had control. However, the last few days it been dumb thumb-palooza... I can't even hover the sim to save my life. Now my mojo is lost... I am not confident in taking my 450s and my 250 out!

Lost my balls... lost my mojo... More sim, more time with the CBs, find my mojo...

I was warned...

I was warned that the Spektrum DSP75 servos I installed would strip easily, and they have. I was preparing to tune it when I heard clicking and could see stiff snapping movement. Inspection revealed that the elevator servo was stripped. I then realized the pitch servo stripped as well.

I am replacing them with EXI D213F metal gear 9 gm servos. Ordered.

I am putting really cheap servos on the FrankenHeli... When they strip I will replace them with the EXI servos as well.

Installation of Futaba GY401 in ERazor 450

My first REAL gyro (its a real SMM gyro, not a piezo), courtesy of HeliFreak Eagleridge, my neighbor up in Jackson! Thanks Kevin for your generosity. He UPS'd it yesterday and darn'd if it didn't arrive this afternoon! I installed and setup the gyro, following Finless Bob's 401 setup vid. I have seen this so many times it was easy to do. Piece of cake! Hopefully I will be able to fly it within the next couple of days.  Here are pics of the installation.

I can't thank Kevin enough, this was not a cheap give away and he would accept nothing in return (yet, a small token of my appreciation is headed your way)!  

I Love Helifreaks!  

ERazor 450 Build Project Completed!

This evening I finished setting up the gyro and the CCPM on the ERazor. She is ready to go! I do have one outstanding question on HeliFreak regarding the Gyro settings on the Dx6i transmitter.  The next question is when will I feel ready to fly her, considering my confidence has a big dent in it...

Here are the inaugural pics of the ERazor 450!  She's beautiful!

My next project will be a FrankenHeli 450 made from parts given to me by Ron "Flying Fingers" Golden, and purchased parts.  Once I get these two 450s and my 250 out and flying, and can confidently do so, then I will build FrankenHeli.  MUUUUUUAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAA!

450s about to be ready, but am I?

A special note of appreciation to Flying Fngers on HeliFreak for sending me a couple of boxes of 450 parts out of the kindness of his heart! I put one of the main/auto gears he sent me in the repaired EXI 450.

The EXI needs to have its CCPM phased in, as does the ERazor, but that's it and they are ready to fly. But... am I?

I was pretty confident in my basic flying and felt pretty confident I could hover the 450. Everyone says it is easier, more stable than my small FPs, which I can fly fairly well (although I can't seem to control the UFLYS. Thought it was e heli, but maybe its me). I wasn't in complete control of the EXI when I test flew it. And despite mastering the Clearview, the Phoenix sim mde me start all over again with my flying skills. Even I knew that the stock Clearview sim was easier to fly than the real thing, it was just too stable, but my recent work on the Phoenix makes me feel like I have never flown before. This, my concern that my build skills may be less than I believe them to be, and my seeming inability to confidently control the albeit troubled EXI 450 have made me lose confidence. More sim time. When I can fly the 450 on Phoenix, I will take my helis out again. Its a newbie crisis in confidence that only sim time, and then getting out there and flying, will overcome.

On another note, expecting to be in this hobby for the long run, And after some nice educating email exchaanges wtih David Gray of ProgressiveRC, I purchased a 350 watt power supply, an iCharger 208B, 2S and 3S parallel charging and balancing harnesses from him. Big chunk of change... but will make charging a brief wait and mee my needs for the foreseeable future.

Speaking of upgrading... I decided to put a dedicated computer on the 50" in the media room for flying the Phoenix sim and bought an HP p6654y desktop from Best Buy. The stock integrated graphic card was mediocre at best, so I decided I needed a better one. I tried the ATI Radeon 4350 that was on the family computer downstairs, and it worked better. The power supply in the computer is a measely 250 watts, and this card was supposed to be run with a minimum of 300 watts, but it worked fine. I went back to Best Buy Buy another 4350, but got sucked in to "for a few buck more...". I left with a 430 watt power supply and an ATI Radeon HD 5570. I had no idea if I could change out the power supply, but, hey, I did and everything works awesomely! I looked to see if I should just exchange up the HP I had purchased, but this was I still came out $100 ahead and with a better graphics card than the Best Buy had in the store for the money. Very nice gaming computer now!

Sim, sim, sim... then fly, fly, fly!

UPDATE: After flying the Phoenix sim for a couple of hours, I am getting my skills back, and with it my confidence. Hours of alternating 4 squares is making me handle the heli in multiple aspects, controlling speed and precison handling. Enjoying it tremndously! Feeling better already.

CB100 #2 Rebuild

A week or so ago the frame on CB100#2 cracked along a mold seam. To fix it I would obviously need to replace the frame, which meant a complete rebuild of the heli.

Here's what the frame looks like. the top is the replacement, the bottom the one in use. Remember to keep the main rotor bearings. They don't come with the frame. There is one on top, and one on the bottom of the frame.  I  removed them and soaked them in silicone lubricant while I did the rebuild.

I completely disassembled the heli. That took about 5 minutes!

I had to cut away the old frame from the CF boom I had made in an earlier modification, and cleaned up the end. I placed it in the boom hole on the new frame, secured with a little CA and held in place by the stay screw.

I found that in removing the boom with the Dremel, despite trying to take precautions, I knicked the delicate silicone covering of one of the three tail motor wires. To repair it I would have to add a section of wire I kept from a previous repair, between the plug and the motor, as in removing the damaged section I would come up a tad short. I spent about half an hour laboriously soldering, only to find on reconnecting the tail motor there was no juice. The solders were good, but because the wires are so fine I suspect in heating the shrink wrap I separated a solder somewhere. This was an excuse to change out the entire wire with a new one.  This took only a few minutes, and everything worked fine!

Reassembly. Motor, servos, rotor, main gear (lubed up), with the bearings taken out of their lube bath. Then the skids and battery tray.  Repinned the Jesus pin with a little Loctite

Took her up for about 6 packs in the house! The observant among you will notice the broken main blade... Also replaced a cracked tail blade. The last flight ended up a bit nasty as I was getting bored and cocky. Haven't broken a CB100 blade in a long time, didn't realize I was out. Helidirect only has the Harden blades, but are currently out of stock, so ordered some regular ones from WOWHobbies...

I also looked at the large aluminum box for the CB100 so I can easily take it with me on trips to Meridian, but the shipping was as much as the box! The $24 box was going to cost me about that much to ship! Removed it from the cart... so much for an impulse buy.  Shipping for the parts dropped to about $6. I really do want that box though...

I do like these little 100's. Yeah, a Blade mSR is swifter and could bind with my Dx6i, but this little bugger got me into heli's. They are fun to fly around the house and in the garage (hence the broken blades), and to hover in the Man Cave. I will always keep one of these around.

EXI 450 Maiden Flight... Not so good.

I should have taken pictures... It was a little breezy, but I felt that I should be able to hover the 450 for a shake down flight. I took it and the 250 out to the soccer fileds. I set everything up, and spooled her up to about 30%. Wow, the power already scared me! I let her spin for a lttle while, then took her up to about 70% in Normal mode, and she took off! Her tail wagged something fierce, and I could see where the canopy was worn through by the main gear, it hadn't been touching before. The breeze was more brisk than I had thought, and with my nervousness and my limited flight skills, I wasn't controlling her well, but she landed upright everytime. I was amazed how loud she is! The autorotation gear is clearly out of round, and the tracking is off (I suspect a cut in one of the blade dampers I noticed in construction, but didn't think much of, may be why. I'll be replacing them). I put some tape on the blades to see if I could tell which blade it was, but I couldn't tell... Last spin up, and a ball link broke lose, then the funky chicken danced the blades hard into the dirt in just the few seconds it took me to drop the throttle. Blades are fine, but the rotor head took a beating. The feathering shaft is bent, as is the main rotor shaft, and the main gear is stripped in places, and missing some teeth. I took the rotor head completely apart, well what I could do. My 1.5mm hex drives have rounded out so I am waiting for the arrrival of my MIP Thorp hex driver's to take the grips off and remove the feathering shaft. The flybar is bent, which was my first clue in the field that this ws ending badly. I was suspicious of the main rotor, so removed the entire head to roll the shaft, and yup, its bent too. Replacment parts, some coming in multi packs like the shafts and gears, is about $50... Makes me nervous about the next flight! By the time I was done the winds were really brisk, so I didn't fly the 250.

Well, I am glad I got that out of my system. I am now really just eager to fly again, but got my hands out there for the first big heli flight! I want to get the EC5 connnectors I need and get the ERazor 450 set up and flying.

I am disappointed in my build work, though I recognize I am self taught and it went much better than I could have expected. All the flight surfaces did what they were supposed to do. It didnt run as smoothly as I thought it should, perhaps the main gear had issues. I had decreased the gain on the gyro, but it wasn't quite enough. That will also need some fine tuning. All in all a good outing, but I remain disappointed in myself.