Yes, I am a Pirate! Thanks Kenny!

From my buddy, Kenny Chandler!
 

 
 

Posted with Blogsy

EXI 450 Sport to replace the Erazor 450

While the Dynam Erazor 450 has flown well over these past 2 years and has been an integral part of my heli development, her frame is plastic and has several breaks repaired with epoxy and CA, the tail tube is bent ever so slightly and the insertion base for the tail no longer closes over the boom so I won't likely be able to replace it. The tail assembly is worn and battered and held in palce by a set screw that wasn't there in the original design, and I don't like that in the tube with the belt. She is not Align compatible, is getting old and worn, and I have been thinking about a replacement, but don't want to buy an Align. I am determined to stay with Align compatibles so that parts are never an issue, and their quality has been good. I have an EXI 450 Pro, and thought about another, but I didn't like the servo tray, nor do I like having to take the battery base plate out to do anything with the pitch and aileron servos. The Sport has a boom mounted servo holder and the servos for the swash are side mounted and easily accessible. So, today I pulled the trigger on an EXI 450 Sport from Xheli.
 
My plan is to remove the electronics from the Erazor and use them on the EXI 450 Sport as they are all compatible. The Assan GA250 mems gyro actually performed very nicely today, so I will keep it on this heli until I come across another GP780 or 750 gyro. Its very impressive for a surprisingly low price! I will keep her flybarred as I now have two FBL 450s, the BeastX equipped EXI 450 Pro, and the Frankenheli equipped with the Tarot ZYX FBL system, both of which fly quite nicely.
 
The Erazor not being Align compatible meant having a separate box of stock replacement parts and I have been loath to stock it. Now I can just keep Align 450 parts in stock and cover all 3!

Posted with Blogsy

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!