Heli Yeah!

Today I successfully flew my Erazor 450 and the Frankenheli Tarot ZYX in forward flight, doing circles, figure 8s, nose in hover, and did so several times! I also got myself out of a couple hairy orientation losses!
 
I took the FrankenHeli with the Tarot ZYX system up and she still had the vibration. I decided to take the blades off the Erazor, and put them on the Frankenheli and the wobble tried to emerge, then was gone never to return. The original blades were well balanced, so not sure what's up. I wonder if the CG of the blades don't match?
 
Dick Ober hovered Franky and told me to crank up the gain. I was flying at 23%. I cranked it up to 35, the 45, and now 55%, and wow, what a difference it made. I had forgotten about starting high and dialing it down. Made a huge difference! I need to take another look at the gain on all of my helis.
 
All in all, I definitely got my heli on, and it feels awesome
 
UPDATE: Well...the original blades were slightly off balance... rebalanced them and put
them on the Erazor.
 

Posted with Blogsy

Hobby King HK500cmt Build Day #1

My mistake was having $300 to spend...
 
I bought a Hobby King HK500cmt heli last week, and it arrived yesterday. I ordered Hitec 225mg servos for the swash and a Himax 9257 tail servo, a Turnigy Typhoon 500H 1800kv motor, a HURC 5 amp UBEC, and a HURC 60 amp ESC OPTO. I plan on setting her up to fly 6S 4400 mAh by setting up two 3S 2200 mAh in series using a series EC5 adapter from ProgressiveRC. I have a Spektrum AR6210 (DSM2) with satellite for the reciever, and an Align GP780 gyro. I think I made a mistake buying the HURC 60A ESC as it doesn't have a very soft start setting... and I may need 80 amps. I also cannot get it to allow me to program it: it doesn't accept commands from the Hobbywing programming card (most HURC ESCs do), and it won't respond to transmitter programming. I will likely replace it.
 
This morning I started the build by rebuilding the heads, resetting all the screws with Locktite for the metal to metal, and CA for the metal to plastic. I then installed the ESC and UBEC, which I had previously soldered the connectors on and joined the UBEC to the main battery circuit, built and installed the tail boom installation and then tried to program the ESC... Separately I am painting a spare 500 sized canopy I have. The stock one is coke bottle plastic and won't last long. I'm planning a flourescent green canopy.
 

I had one of several Emax DS9257 tail servos I have ordered come in the other day. I used it to replace the failed Align DS520 on my HDX 500, and it kicked over and burned out! It has a Sonix ESC OPTO and a separate BEC, but somehow the ESC must have sent the entire 4S voltage to the servo... not sure how. But I went ahead and divided the red wire on that ESC and I hope it doesn't happen again. I wonder if this is why swash servos keep frying on this heli? I don't understand how this could happen since there should be no current in the OPTO red wire. So, waiting for another Emax tail servo to arrive, hopefully tomorrow, so I can put all the servos online and set up the CCPM. I will call HURC tomorrow, but I think this ESC isn't going to work out... the site is pretty clear in that it doesn't mention being able to program very soft start, so its my fault.
 
UPDATE (6/27/12): I decided to buy a Hobbywing 80a ESC OPTO to replace the HURC one. I can keep the HURC one for another project on another day, fixed wing. Bummer is Hobbypartz takes forever to ship... NEVER a problem with the HURC guys!
 

Posted with Blogsy

Mushroom Head Sticks

 
Hey, Ray, here's that info you were asking me about. It took me a while to find them, but they have them and I got them from aprohobbies.com.
 
Aluminum Radio Control Knobs (BLUE) for FUTABA / SpekTrum DX6i / DX8 /DX7S
 
Make sure you take the time to pick the right one for your radio, noting that, for example, the Futaba sticks fit the DX6i, DX8, and DX7S, but not the DX7. There's a different one for the DX7. They have these for most radio types I believe.
 
I love these upside down mushroom control sticks since I use a hybrid thumb-pinch on my sticks. The mushroom top allows my finger under the top and my thumb a large gripping surface so I have a nice light balanced feel on the sticks, which I can get a more secure grip on when needed.
 
Glad you asked or I would have never documented them!

Sail 'Ho!

Like I needed another R/C outlet.
 
I have always loved sailing, but have never found the time or place to get it done, just like flying. I have lived vicariously through my R/C adventures in flight, and now that I am moving to Dayton, Ohio, where the r/c yacht club is adjacent to the r/c flying club, why I have no reason not to!
 

Sailing clubs are organized under the auspices of the American Model Yacht Association (AMYA) The club I will be visiting and learning at is the Miami Valley Model Yacht Club (MVMYC). The model I am initially intersted in is the Thunder Tiger Victoria Class, which is good as its a class of boat I was already looking at before I learned that clubs sail certain classes of boats to allow for class racing. I am pretty excited!
 
The Victoria Class is a nice boat. About 32 inches long, almost 4 feet tall, and displaces about 4 lbs, and can be had for a bit over $100. It is a class racer so if one makes modifications within the rules of the class, you can race it against others in organized regattas. Since it is a popular boat, there are a lot of available upgrades, and a lot of experience in building, modifiying and racing them.
 

I am also interested in the Soling 1 Meter, having sailed real Solings. The Soling One Meter Class is an equally beautiful boat, and is the largest registed boat class of the AMYA. Its a 1000mm long, 1321 mm tall sloop.
 
In addition to the fun of building and sailing, showing these beautiful boats is a nice addition to my man cave! I am pretty psyched, and will look into buying a boat after I get settled in Dayton and have a chance to meet some of the builder/sailors and learn a few things. I learned from venturing into flight by myself how much time, money and frustration I could have avoided had I found some good advice early on.
 
So, I have changed my banner from "Adventures in R/C Flight" to " Adventures in R/C", and I am changing my blog name to RCBLog! And I have added Sailboats and Sailing Links to the sidebar. Hope you enjoy sailing with me!
 

Gremlins

Today was gremlin day.
 
The winds at BMF where too high, so I pretty much was the only one with a bird in the air. They ran to 6 mph at first, but quickly bumped to 10-15 mph with variability, but pretty much from the east.
 
Started out the day with the Thunder Tiger eHawk. It remains a POS. She has such inadequate tail repsonse to elevator and rudder as to be virtually uncontrollable. Shot straight up though she is set up a scosh nose heavy. It was all I could do to get her back on the ground. I started thinking about all the things I might do to extend the length of the short servo arms on the already max travel and d/r servos... then I gave the damn thing to George Vilchez and his son Antonio. Let them sort it out. I had decided it wasn't making the trip to Dayton, so I had no problem giving it to them. They love the challenge and will undoubtedly get her flying just fine! You can see her sulking in the car aft her embarassing behavior today, in the above pic...
 
Flew the PulseXT 25e, practicing crosswind landings. The winds were due east, so landings from either end of our 36-18 runway provided a nice experience. She was buffeted and carrried in some gusts, rolls were done with caution, but it was fun to finally get somehing up in the air and get my thumbs back.
 

Set up to fly the Sbach and in preflight found her rudder servo was stripped. To be honest I didn't check it before I left the house so it could have taken a hit in the same incident that tore the tail gear off. When I got home I fortunately had the gear that stripped on the JR MN48, always that damn middle one, and replaced it. Reinstalled the servo, reset it and she's as good as new. (See my earlier post on changing servo gears. Waaaayyy cheaper than buyting a new servo, and so very easy to do)!
 
Took the EXI 450 Beast X out. Noticed a programming error and reversed the offending servo. Things looked good, took her back out and she did a major spin out breaking her tail boom and stripping the pitch servo. I hadn't put any inputs in. When I got home and changed out the tail boom, replaced the pitch servo and rechecked the programming I found a couple of things I should have changed in the rest of the programming after changing that pitch servo direction! The ever important reason detre gimbal response was all backwards, and the tail servo, for some reason, was set to sense in the wrong direction. Really? I'm not usually this careless... My inexperience with programming the BeastX, which itself is easy, caught up with me, and my inexperience flying it let me miss the mistakes I made. Now I have a FBL preflight routine... The spin out and twist was like a snap roll on the ground. The BeastX saw a wind gust on the rotor as a push to one side, and thinking it was correcting it pushed it over to that side, and thinking it needed more tipped it more. Meanwhile torque effect started a yaw and the mis-sensing tail gyro commanded a correction, but in the wrong direction. So, Dick Clark, what we saw, and why the boom snapped at the frame, was a violent and self progressing snap roll! The blades and that stalwart Tarot head survived, but I did replace the tail blades just because they were worn from tip strike. This time I went through the entire programming step by step, which took only a couple of minutes, made the correct settings, and took her outside. She flew just fine over my driveway in a still very brisk wind, and was perfectly controllable. Lesson I should have learned when I did the same thing with the Tarot yesterday: when you change one thing, especially a major thing such as a servo reversal, check the entire 3G programming.
 
Took my Frankenheli Tarot ZYX up and she hovered fine, and that vibration I noticed yesterday at certain frequencies showed up again. This time Dick Clark took a look and found the main shaft head bearing had some play small but quite noticeable. I changed out the entire head bearing platform from one I scavenged from another 450, and now she is tight. It makes a lot of difference. Tomorrow I will test fly her in the driveway. Like yesterday, in the brief hover before the vibration tried to shake her apart, she was nice and stable, suggesting the Tarot ZYX is a good stable inexpensive 3G system. I was quite impressed that the severe vibration did not affect they gyro at all, she held her head and her pitch/roll just fine. Impressive.
 
The HDX 500 flew fine, but I noticed a worsening abiity to hold her head, and finally had to set her down. On re-examining her I realized there was no rudder at all... the Align DS520 tail servo, probably 5-7 years old, had finally died. I ordered a replacement Himax ES9257 Futaba clone, same one I will be putting on the HK 500cmt. Half the price and people really like it. For my emerging sport flying its just fine.
 
So beating back the gremlins. Fixed everything except the tail servo on the HDX, but the issue identified. I am looking forward to building the HK 500cmt belt driven heli as its parts arrive this week. I am determind to push my heli skills forward hard these next few months. I haven't been able to fly the sim since the kids took over all the HDMI spots on the media room TV, but will be taking it downstairs to my bedroom TV and get some more time on it. Need work on orientation.
 
On a side note, I have been working on flying most of my helis at 100% rates with about 40% expo. My 500's are easily flown this way. I find I sometimes have to dial the rates down for the 450s significantly, to at least 75% to keep it from over reacting. Some people are very against dialing down the rates, but I really don't understand that. I can see for 3D, but I am no where near doing that... I think I will keep my rates wherever I am most comfortable withthe, and dial them up as I get better.
 
 
Thanks to Ray for the chili dogs!
 

Oh... so that's how I killed it...

Its amazing when one does what one is supposed to do, what one learns from that. Its also amazing how frequently we don't quite do what we ought and get away with it...
 
But, I haven't been getting away with it lately. I have been burning out motors on my Eflite Stearman, which calls for a 15 sized motor. I have found that to be an adequate motor, flying 3S, but just adequate. I have learned that my particular Stearman doesn't like flying 3S as it flies sluggishly and stalls easily. So I have been flying the motor, a HURC 3542-10 with 4S, and over time the system fails. I know the motor is rated for the 4S voltage, but was pretty sure I was exceeding 40amps and 550 watts, just not by how much. I wasn't sure if it was watts or amps or both that was frying everything, or if the motor failed or if it was the ESC, because after the ensuing crash the everything works fine.
 

Everyone tells me I need a watt meter, and I know I need a watt meter, so I finally bought me a watt meter. On eBay I bought a Watts Up Meter from All-Battery and threw on the EC5 connectors (it does not come with connectors. You solder them on, load end with battery leads, source end with ESC leads). I plan to stick this puppy on every plane I have! I do hope it doesn't lead to having to replace all my motors... or accepting less performance from my aircraft. I wonder how I can put it on my helis? I like this meter, simple, straight forward.
 

Today I put it on the Stearman. The HURC 3542-10 is spinning a 12x6 APC eprop. It does that easily. The motor is rated for 550W at 38 amps for no more than 60 sec. Fired her up with the wattmeter in line, pushed the throttle to the firewall. 48 Amps and 640 watts. Well, yes. Its over amped and over powered, so that's why the systems are frying. I replaced the 40 amp ESC with the Turnigy Turst 70A last week. I just ordered a PowerUp 25 Speed motor from HURC today, rated at 50 Amps and 740 watts for 60 sec. The motor is bigger, but I am pretty sure I can get it to fit in the cowl.
 
Well, this brick is likely to fly much better with the 25 sized motor. When I build the stock one I have NIB, I wonder if I should power it with a 15 sized motor and just fly it 3S? I don't look forward to returning to her high stall speed and mushy performance with limited vertical... If this arrangement works out I will likely build the new one, when the time comes, with a 25 sized motor and 4S.
 

Tarot ZYX 3 Axis Stabilization System: And Update

A while back I bought the Tarot ZYX Stabilization System and a FBL (flybarless) two blade head for my Frankenheli 450, as a less expensive alternative to the BeastX, which I have installed on my EXI 450. I bought a cheap aluminum head instead of the quality Tarot head, which I may get if I keep this system. I installed it today. Couldn't get it apart... I will likely replace it soon.
 
The BeastX is a magnificent system and is my stablization system of choice. It is well designed, easily programmed and works. The computer link is weak however, and allows updating of software on the device and limited parameter programming, but not programming of the device. This is fine as the button/sticks programming system, much like using an Align Gyro programming, is very easy to do.
 
The Tarot is a mixed bag... My first one failed outright, the set button caved in; sent it back and got a replacement. I decided to get the USB cable with the replacement gyro sent to me by the vendor, but I had no idea how it worked. The USB device is a simple cable with a dongle, but no software, no manual. The manual doesn't even mention the dongle, let alone how to use it. There is no software made by Tarot that I can tell. I installed the first software I found, which had a driver exe file I used, but uninstalled it when I found a better one, below. This first one here has the driver. I ended up using the one that seemed to show up in all the vids, and that looked like it had access to all the programming functions. I used this one. I didn't have instructions on it (they are available on his site) but it was pretty striaghtforward.

 
I connected the USB dongle to my notebook, and the ZYX gyro. Powered up the heli and set the rudder stick over as the gyro initialized, putting it into setup mode as described in the manual. The assigned COM slot showed up on the software and I clicked Connect. I selected F3C, and then clicked Setup. I walked through each tab one by one. It covers all of the programming steps on concsecutive tabs. I had problems getting the device and servos to respond to the inputs on the notebook consistently. I couldn't center the servos on the trim page, and it took a couple of tries to get the pitch, elevator and aileron ranges set. All the other tabs worked fine, but if servos had to move it wasn't consistent. I found if I reset the connections (started over) and went directly to the desired tab it increased the likelihood of response, but I never got the subtrim to work All in all it beat the hell out of following flashes and moving the transmitter sticks. In the process I failed to set the "gimbal" gyro settings on the next to last tab... When I tilted the heli the swash didn't move at all... I wasn't sure about that. I took the heli out and spun her up. I lifted off and BAM! I saw what happens when the gimbal setting is backward. The heli tiled left and when the gyro saw that it rolled hard left, instead of right to compensate. That's how I realised I failed to complete that setup tab...
 
Went back and set up the gimbal, and it compensates perfectly. It was set up backwards. I had to balance a new set of tail blades, and tomorrow I will have to change out the main shaft (slightly bent, sets up a vibration I can get rid of). I have a feeling its going to work out just fine. Tomorrow I will let you know!
 
UPDATE (6/21/12): This morning I changed out the shaft, though it wasn't bent much at all. I set her up with new blades, and took her out to the driveway. This time she lifted off and yawed left, but was otherwise stable. She did this depsite my compensating, a slow spin. I checked her out and while she has right rudder, the tail blades don't move all the way over, which I knew. I made sure the gyro was compensating in the right direction (pinch test). This tail ROM issues was one of those programming steps I could not get to reliably respond to programming inputs. I took her back to the lab and thought I would try the manual transmitter programming. I startd the process and held the stick over to enter the programming mode. Now before I misunderstood the instructions about the light sequence to know she entered programming mode. This time I held the stick over for a lot longer, then saw the cascade of the three lights that indicated she was in programming mode. I tried getting to the section of programming where I set up her tail range of motion and it worked one way, but stopped half way over to the other... So I abandoned the programming mode and decided to try going to that tab using the USB link. I thought that since I had not waited for the cascade of lights indicating programming mode before, maybe if I did the servos would respond. Well, here's where I learned that if you go into programming mode with the USB, the USB will not connect to the gyro. Okay... so I restarted and didn't hold anything over, and she connected. I went to the tail and set both ranges to max, as when moving it the tail didn't respond so I had no way of knowing wht to set (the servo not responding to programming thingy). I exited and now have full range of motion in the tail. This time she had a vibration at certain RPMs which I think I have calmed down a bit, but the yaw issue was gone, no idea what or why. I found I had to stabilize the CF tail pushrod as it vibrated and bent like a guitar string, using some supports I had in stock. The tail just didn't have enough ROM, problem solved. I kinda got the impression she didn't have much headspeed, and did I notice a two step approach to high RPMs? Problem for another day, though I reprogrammed the ESC.
 
So, I know she hovers, will let you know how she flies when I can get her to the field. I and rather optimistic!

 

 

I guess I could have squared the swash for the pic...