Wolfpackin

I have an electronics problem and I have little idea how to diagnose it.

Symptoms:
When I spool up the B400 slowly, power to the motor cuts out at around 50 seconds, just below 1/2 stick.
If I try to apply throttle (collective stick) quickly on spool up, power to the motor cuts out immediately at 1/2 stick or around 75% throttle.
I still have cyclic and tail rotor control at all times but the throttle, motor, stays dead for about 10 seconds then power is restored.
Battery is good, I did not overdischarge, end V always around 11.1V.

History:
I was doing beginner hovering, had a real good one, and landed gently.
On the next attempt to lift off the heli exhibited the above symptoms.
I thought the battery was dying but a voltage check showed 11.2V and the battery only took 35 minutes to charge after that.
After trying the newly charged battery the heli continued to have the same symptoms.

Is this an ESC issue?
Any thoughts ?

Thanks in advance.

almaidah

im seeing alot of posts about that power problem i would contact eflite or horizon and let them know..it could be the charger or battery or esc..

Wolfpackin

Thanks,

I'm thinking it is not the charger or battery.
Charger always worked fine as far as the indicator lights etc. and charges the battery to full capacity.
Battery seems fine as I can go through the spool up routine, up to 1/2 throttle-cutout-power returns after 10sec over and over.

Something is cutting power, only to the motor, when I get the stick up towards 75% throttle.

I will call Horizon if nothing turns up here.

Please keep any thoughts coming, thanks.

almaidah

well this guy has the same problems so you 2 mikght want to get together http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_6925622/tm.htm

darticus

We also have battery or charger problems see this tread
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_69...tm.htm#6940216

Wolfpackin

Just confirmed charger is charging the battery to about 12.3V

Something is cutting power to the motor before I reach 75% throttle.
If I lower the stick to about 50% throttle on the curve and wait ten seconds the rotors start to spin up again. Then as I try to push it up to 75% throttle it keeps cutting out.

almaidah

would you mind posting all you settings on the tx? and also have you made any changes to the settings? and also make sure your plugs are in good to the rx

Wolfpackin

My Setup:

Using Normal Mode only at this time;
Throttle Curve= 0-50-80-90-100
Pitch Curve= 40-45-50-85-100
I have my curves like this, with pitch and throttle coming in a little sooner because I fly at 8,000FASL and lift is a problem.
The heli lifts like this at just below 3/4 stick (88% throttle, +6d. pitch).

Gyro= Factory setting 66.5% for the mode I'm on.

D/R & Expo= Aileron 80%/20%, Elevator 80%/20%
I lowered the dual rate and added expo on the aileron and elevator channels only to lesson stick sensitivity. Rudder settings at stock.

Trims= Aileron, 5 clicks right; Rudder, 2 clicks back; Elevator, 2 clicks back.

All other settings are stock. I had the default setup guide sent to me from Horizon a while back and have confirmed them.

I have also adjusted my idle-up curves to transfer smoothly to and from normal but have not yet thrown the switch. I'm just doing basic hovering.

The problem occured mid flying session after a successful hover. I landed, regrouped and powered up again after switching throttle hold off. The blades spun up to 1/2 stick and shut down.
Thinking the battery was dying I powered off and recharded the next day.
Same symptoms upon next flight test.

What plugs should I check and where are they?
Did I mention I hate eletronic and electrical problems?[:'(]

almaidah

ok now i dont know about expo but i was told not to use it so i dont know if thats the same for you but mine is off or 0% was yours that way at first? and also have you ever unpluged anything and might of pluged it in backwards and do your blades spin clock wise?

evdreamer

Do you have a voltmeter? Your batteries voltage maybe going way down under a load. With my NiCd's for my RC car I had like ten light bulbs hooked up in parallel and connected to my battery. You could do the same and read your voltage off your battery. Be carefull it drains a battery really quick and could kill it if you don't unplug quickly. If your voltage goes down to low under load it could be causing the ESC to think your battery is dead and kill the power.

damonlee

Wolf,

Considering the money you spent on the Blade 400, I wouldn't bothering babying anything or trying to fix something yourself (aside from crashes).

Horizon seems to be really good about making things right. Just call them.

It sounds like a short in your ESC. Make Horizon go through the trouble...not yourself

-Damon

darticus

Two different charges are having trouble with the battery and they only show 2 cells but the eflite charger shows 3 cells but after a charge it only flies 2 mins. Gonna try another battery first. Battery does measure 12.52 after charging. Ron

Wolfpackin

Thanks to all.

The heli was flying, no problems, with my current TX settings.
So I haven't changed anything that would bring on these symptoms.
Expo on the cyclic stick only decreases the sensitivity of the sticks around the neutral position.

I did not do anything mechanical or unplug anything.

I got through 13 battery charges before this started happening.
Early on I broke a tail rotor and bent the tail rotor shaft but replaced them and had numerous good hovers.
Again, this happened following a successful hover and gentle landing.

Just Tested:

The problem now seems to be intermittent.
I tried to spool up and it cut out below half stick.
I flicked throttle hold on then back off and quickly tried to spool up.
It worked and flew, I landed quickly and tried again.
Cut out.
Between dropping the throttle, switching throttle hold on/off, and waiting between spool ups I can get the heli to stay at flight rpm's without it cutting out.
Out of five hover attempts it failed to ramp up, and cut out, two times.

A short somewhere?[sm=confused.gif]

Thanks.

Edited to add:
More info...
Just tried it again.
Cut out every time, but once, just below half stick at around 75% throttle.
If I drop the stick to low position and then back up, power is restored immediately until just below half stick where it cuts out again.

I thinking ESC or a short for sure.
Continued suggestions are welcome.

almaidah

im so stupied it is your battery because i had the same problem its not putting out enough volts and the esc is cutting it off to protect it....that happend to me a few months back, sorry it just hit me.. im 100% sure its the battery...

Wolfpackin

This happens on a freshly charged battery that reads 12.4V.
If I only use the battery lightly it has an end voltage of about 11.5V and takes only 30 min. to charge.
When I could hover and end voltage was around 10.75V the stock charger recharged in about an hour.
No balance errors.
Seems like the battery and charger are working fine.
Thoughts?

almaidah

if you have a lhs around take it there with the heli and ask them to test the battery im sure its the battery.. did you test it canected to the heli with a volts meter and check it that way also?

fw190

My Feedback: (37)

Get another battery, i am sure you would like to fly more than once every hour . If it happens on another pack then check the esc, a bad esc would be my guess.

Sarah

I've had a similiar problem with aircraft and the ESC was set to the wrong number of Li-Po cells. When it was set to the correct number of cells the problem went away.

Has anyone any idea how to check the ESC to see what it is set for?

darticus

My Heli is doing the same thing. I hover for 2-4 mins and that's it. It cuts out like the battery dies in just the last 10 seconds. It takes 35 mins to charge on my Triton Jr charger when it will charge it. I say that because now my Triton charger is turning off during the charge and saying open circuit and it won't charge it now. If I hook it to my balancing unit it reads only 2 cells now when before is said 3 cell or no cells, it changes. When all fails I put it back on the eflite charger it came with and it says all cells are good and it takes about 2 hours to charge to give me 2-4 mins hover time. The eflite charger is the charger that wouldn't work from the start explained later but now it sometimes works.
I notice the procedure changing for charging. It has told me all cells are good , some bad, sometimes all cells not even there, open circuit, some times it takes a partial charge sometimes it won't charge and the first time I charged it I had to use the Triton charger with balancer that than showed 3 cell as the eflite charger was turning off and on while charging and wouldn't work. The Triton charged it fine the first time using a balancer and gave me good fly time but never again. Could't even find any cell using the balancer. Had to charge with no balancer in line that it partially charged but said it was fully charged.
The battery reads 12.5v after a charge but don't know how to measure on the heli.
I took it to the LHS and he was charging someone else's eflite battery like this one. He put my battery on their eflite charger and the charger shut off 4 times in the first 2mins by turning the first green light to red turning off than coming on again with everything fine until it went off again. It also turns my eflite charger on and off the same way.I didn't notice the other battery he was charging turning off the charger when it was charging. Have to try a new battery if I can find one. No one has them around here.
The battery charging procedure changes so much and the cell reading changes so much its like a mouse is inside the battery pushing levers.
Just flew on last nights fully charged battery from the Eflite charger. 1 1/2 MINS OF FLYING TIME.

evdreamer

Could someone test it on a CP or CP Pro charger? Don't they have the same balancing connections? It would be interesting to see if it does the same thing as the B400 charger. It would probaly take longer to charge though.

darticus

It would do it but take about 5 hours. I have used two different chargers and NG. I am gettin a different battery later, will charge and post flight time.That will tell me if its the battery, or all my chargers and another persons charger, or the ESC is bad. Ron

Wolfpackin

darticus,

In your case I'm guessing bad battery.
In mine, I'm going with bad ESC and Horizon agrees. They are sending a new one to me.
I'm also buying a new battery just in case.

Thanks.

darticus

I have the new battery on charge but won't fly until tomorrow. Will post info. Ron

Wolfpackin

It was indeed a bad ESC that caused my problem. Fried, shorted or the magic got out, I'm not sure.

Tried a new battery first and that did not fix the problem.
Replaced the ESC I received from Horizon and the heli immediately spooled up over 70% rpm's and began to lift. Prior to the replacement ESC the heli would have cut power to the motor.

Now all is good.[8D]
I've gotten in several good hovers; trimmed her in, and she's pretty stable now.

darticus

My problem was a bad battery. Now fine. Ron