madmorgan

My Feedback: (2)

 you didnt go wrong  from what i seen on another post apperantly eflight hasnt adressed the batt wire issues exiting the board i would definately glue them down better as i had a wire break and another guy did too. its up to you  maybe leave it be until the warrenty expires ?  you didnt go wrong  and further down the line when you get that 450 and crack it up  i would like to hear  your opinion  on the mcpx vs any other 450 and up on stability ease of getting it back in the air etc. you will find we didnt steer you wrong.  let goggles fly it  i am willing to bet he will find one and start flying it  lol. as far as big helis and damage theres a  youtube vid  over in japan where a dude somehow got 1/4 of his head removed from a trex 700!  they are not toys  even that lil guy (what i knicknamed mine) will draw blood ! i opened a finger up tryin to be cool and land it in my hand !

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Ok...more update news. Had a hard time sleeping last night....knowing that as of 2:00am this morning, my DX7s was finally charged and waiting for me to start programming and binding and reading, etc.
Spent about a hour and a half on radio setups and I am starting to grasp a bit more of what it's going to take to start flying. Then, in one of the posts I found, someone mentioned registering my radio....so off I went to the Spektrum site to do so. While there Ifound an update for the firmware or airware... version 1.02. Downloaded it and installed it via the sd card...pretty easy. Then Inoticed another file for the MCPX that would give me a setup provided by the techies at Spek. I grabbed that file too and installed it in an empty slot and that is what I decided to start training with.
I then did the binding of the heli, following the easy intructions. It went smooth as well. Did a quick study lesson on the buttons and functions of the buttons of the radio by using tips from this site andgood oleUtube vidsand was all set to power up fo the first time.
TX on....pause...plug flight battery in....pause....SOLID BLUE LIGHT!!!! lol
Took her outside to the carport for a bit of a wind deflector (lil gusty 3-8kph) Went over the buttons again....Throttle hold/kill....check.....F-mode/idle up......check.....everything else....trims...switches/buttons all set to *0*. Did Imention that I was quite pumped even at this stage?!!! lmao
Slowly moved the throttle stick up and the power was immediately apparent (over the co-ax and FP 4-ch I had tried before this) WOW.....kewl stuff....moved up a bit more and got the left lean on the skids....compensated....check.....more power.....AIRBORN!!...Stayed up 1 foot for about 20 secs and was more or less contained inside a 12 foot square area. Had to use the throttle hold once and it worked flawlessly and shut down without harm.....NICE.....getting more pumped now...heheh
Placed the bird back in the center of the carport and readied to try again.....this time I stayed up for just less than a minute and right about then, I was fighing a breeze gust but was able to fight head-on into it without too much trouble. Could not do that with the FP 4-ch. Great feeling. I was about to do another hop/hover went all of a sudden the freaking radio started beeping and vibrating.....lol Throttle timer....check.
Popped in the second battery and got right back at it. This time, though, Ilooked timidly down at the Idle-up switch....hmmmmm ....went for it....moved the throttle up about 1/4 and reached for the switch......Please don't rocket off into space....finger ready on the T-hold......click.....WHOA!!! Screaming head-speed now but it is just sitting there hard on the skids.....AWESOME!!! I try pushing up the throttle stick (now the pitch stick...see, my researching is paying off..lol) and I am goin up baby!!! Took it up about 4 feet, still able to stay inside a 10-12 foot square area and I swear I could feel my face and cheeks heat up....ahahaha...what a buzz!
I got about another 2 minutes outta these brand new batteries but wanted more....gimme MORE!!....Packed up a bit and headed out to the local hobby store....picked up 2 more stock batteries (they did't have any Hyperions or Turnigy ones that I was going to try but they are on order).
I also got a length of carbon rod for the boom, if needed (knocking on wood right now;-) .....an extra set of blades....feathering shaft is also on order and that was about it.....for today...muhahahaha!!
So here I sit...only cause it's dark outside...lol...everything is all charged up and waiting for tomorrow.
Thanks again to the great comments and general all-around helpfulness people....I am like a kid in a candy store....I don't care if I have to just hover and hop for another month or more...it is just that much of a blast!!
Stay tuned for more....I may even try to set up a video recording to confirm...you know what they say....if there aren't any pictures/vids....it didn't happen...lol

Latah,

K

Goggles

My Feedback: (4)

Holy crap Vern, most excellent progress! You'll be looking for a bigger heli in no time.

ATVAlliance

If you ever replace the boom yourself by making one from the rod...be VERY CAREFUL not to short the two leads together.  I did this by accident and fried my control board.  Those things are pricey!  I think I had to pay about 80 bucks for a replacement.

For now since you are brand new...i wouldnt worry too much about making a boom when you break it (notice I didnt say IF you break it).  Just buy a couple replacement booms...they are like 12 bucks or so and come with the motor already on them.

For a new pilot...the stock boom/motor works just fine.  Its not until you learn to fly circuits and start flipping it around will you notice the tail blow out on you when you punch the collective hard.  If you do it slowly, the tail will hold just fine.

I only mention this because it sucks to create a bigger problem by trying to save a few bucks.  I thought I would make the boom longer and I ended up costing myself another 80 bucks plus shipping for a new board.

Goggles

My Feedback: (4)

That's the problem I have with mine, as soon as I get aggressive with it the tail flips around. So how do you fix this?

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Thanks for the heads up on that issue.

I have been reading more interesting posts and have agreed to do as first planned Kelvin.....Whenever you get the chance, pop over and it's yours for the previously mutually agreed upon price of $80.00
Seriously though, however you want to do it is fine with me...as I said before, unfortunately I don't havepassport yet cause I'm lazy so meeting you at your flying club field is out for awhile, but if ya want, I can cruise out to your neighborhoodon the bike one day...lemme know bro.
Got some more flying time in....3 batteries and now i am going to try some different settings on the radio to experiment a bit....wish me luck..lol Am getting the vid camera charged up too...don't think it's HD though but oh well.
And Bigpapa...let us know what you choose...the nano or the MCPX....I was also thinking about the nano but because it's so new, I thought I would wait till the actual buyers/pilots flush out any glitches and then wait for the updated version 2...lol
Good luck with either way you go but I can tell ya right now, I am glad I got this lil dude and I can always go bigger later. Have fun deciding and flying...latah

K

madmorgan

My Feedback: (2)

goggles if your making your own booms try adding a inch over stock length and if you need wire find a old cat 5 cable or even a old phone chord and take out a length of the individual wires and or play with the hh gain% i think mine is flying right around 65%. it gets worse the higher the gain .

bigpapa1272

Yeah krash i will let yall know......kinda leaning towards the nano.....price seems more my way......save what i can and all....lhs will have them in about a week....works for me cause i got ten more days on the boat then a week off.....can we say flying time!!!!!!......anyway i will let yall know what the haps is on the nano.....later guys......

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Ok...here is a short video of my hovering to date. Sorry for losing the chopper in the view as I am using video glasses and am not sure where it's pointing sometimes..lol
And the res is only 480 I think so it looks a bit grainy.
Having fun though...I have 4 different setups in the radio now as I am experimenting with settings that I found on this site and throughout Utube. Anyways...here goes...hope this works.
http://youtu.be/mPev39hH2ZU

Oh ya..in case yer wondering about the 2008 date that keeps coming up from the bottom..the video glasses time stamp.txt thingy will not work so the date will always show that 2008. Also, sorry for the banging and
clunking of the mic...kinda sensitive like my feelings....lol....latah,

K

bigpapa1272

Way cool video krash......got me excited bout getting mine here soon......hopfully next week.....lhs is getting the nano in on tuesday.....will go thursday hopefully ......if they dont have any i am gonna be upset......[&o].....great hovering though krash and keep it up.....later....BP

Goggles

My Feedback: (4)

Looking good!

Maybe try putting in about 20% expo in your aileron and elevator. That may help smooth things out a bit.

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Thanks for the confidence building peeps. @Goggles...expo changed and is good!!
Btw...I didn't show any crashes on the vid but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen....lol
Had some hard landings on the driveway but the only issue was to push the main gear back up......no probs.
Then I had a couple of off-course incidents where I just wasn't quite quick enuff on the T-hold and hit the grassy area....busted some main rotor linkage rods...replaced em with the
ones that came with the bird.....no probs.
Had another hard hit and the tail motor popped out and the Vert Stab came off....popped both back on and flew some more....no probs.
One time, the landing gear came off...another pop back on fix.....no probs. As they said....very durable and easy to fix (so far heh)
Anyways, went to the lhs yesterday and picked up some extra blades, linkage rod set, green canopy, and some more batteries...I now have 7 batteries...4 stock/200Mah/30c and 3 Fullymax/300Mah/30c.
Also got me a Hitec X1 AC/DC charger...good for future upgrades/helis.And.... picked up a nice little case from WalFart for $20.
Here's a few pics.
Latah,
K

madmorgan

My Feedback: (2)

yeah krash thats what were talkin about  now if that had been a trex 450  you would still be fixing it  . proof is in the pudding i guess. cheers

Goggles

My Feedback: (4)

you're right Madmorgan, my 700 went in yesterday but hey, it's nothing that $375 can't fix, lol.

madmorgan

My Feedback: (2)

ouch !  that equals 3 new mcpx artf's lol

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Sorry about yer crash Kelvin. How long is it going to take to git her up again? If Colleen sees something like that, Iwon't be going bigger real soon...sheesh. Btw, was wondering if you have a sim that I could purchase from ya or I'll even rent it for a lil while...lol If not,
I might get Phoenix on payday...something like $120...does that sound right? I was trying to find ClearView cause it's supposed to be a little cheaper but I heard the physics and gfx are not good. What are your thoughts....and ur right Mad....I would be in the work shed
and the dog house by now, with the 450...

Lates,
K

TakeshiSkunk

SIM SIM SIM SIM SIM I'm surprised noone else said it first

I've been away from the boards/hobby for a couple months and am just coming back, happened to see this thread and couldn't resist taking a look. You seem to be making nice progress with the mcpx! Too many people get too scared and stunt their progression when they move to CP, you look like you should be just fine if you keep it up. I think you absolutely made the right choice going with the mcpx but only because you're effectively using it in place of a sim. No CP heli takes a crash like an mcpx, get on that throttle hold and the majority of the time it'll be back up in the air in a minute.

I always tell everyone new to the hobby that a nice sim (Phoenix or RealFlight) is THE absolute best thing you will ever spend money on in this hobby. I've learned everything via sim thus far and have avoided much of the costly and time consuming repairs I hear other newcomers complaining about. My first helicopter ever was a Blade 400, no time spent on coax or fixed pitch whatsoever, and due to the sim I was able to go from my first hovers with training gear all the way up to inverted hovering, flips, and rolls without a single crash. The trick is simply to drill things on your sim until you can do them at least 90% of the time and can comfortably bail out of them the other 10%. Keeping your heli in the air is almost entirely about understanding its orientation and having the muscle memory to pull yourself out. There are other important principles to work on like collective management (which the mcpx will absolutely force you to learn) and translational lift and vortex ring and all that good stuff, but the most important thing to have down is orientation.

My other big recommendation to you would be to not buy anything smaller than a 500 when you decide to move up from the mcpx. There's a HUGE jump in stability going from the 450 to the 500 without too severe an increase in cost. They may be slightly more expensive to repair but you'll be less likely to crash because they're just easier to fly. In helis the hard and fast rule is that the bigger it is the easier it is to fly, and the 500 sort of strikes a sweet spot between cost and flight performance.

But yeah, welcome to the forum! I'm looking forward to see how you progress, you're off to a good start

EDIT: Just saw you mention looking into picking up Phoenix! You'll never regret that purchase.

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Thanks muchly Takeshi...I will heed your advice and most likely get the sim this weekend (payday), that is, if Goggles doesn't have one I could borrow/use/buy/rent...lol
I am still happy with just hovering and going back and forth, side to side and down again. I may try some quarter turn hovering soon but am interested in trying a sim so I can really let er rip and see what happens. I feel that will help me progress better.
Thanks again,

K

Goggles

My Feedback: (4)

I don't have a sim for you to use, but phoenix is a good one. I had clear view but your research is correct. It's a ok sim for $40 or what ever it is now, but Phoenix is much better. IMO

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Not a problem...as I think I mentioned somewhere else in this thread.....I don't have much patience when I want something.. lmao
I just got home with my new copy of the Phoenix flight sim....can't wait.....getting it all set up now....will update soon...Take care and hope yer heli is flying again soon.

K

bigpapa1272

Hey everyone!!!!
Good to see the thread going strong.....well i finally got my nano today.....lets see how it went......two batteries before work.....hover.....got away.....crash......hover.....got away.......crash.......hover.....gotaway......hung in a tree......lol.
Anyway the reports are all true......tough.....can take a crash and has trouble binding to my dx6i.....had to also reverse the pitch.....but once i did that and set it up according to the book it flew fine just that one reverse is all.....i think i need some advice though.....i would like to tame her alittle bit so she isnt so snappy.....is that done with the expo? I am not worried about 3d right now just keeping it out of the trees....but anyone thinking of getting one i say yes it is a great little chopper and from the snap i get i can say it looks like a good one for 3d......later guys and thanks for any input about taming the ol girl down.....bp

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Good for you Big....congrats on the nano. I do believe yer right on the taming of the bird...try 20%-30% on the expo for the Ail and Ele. Goggles suggested 20% and some of the user setups use 30%. At least it's a starting point for ya and u can play around with it. I'm sure someone with more knowledge will chime in soon.
Been playing with the sim for the last couple of hours....pretty dang kewl...Although I have never spent more than $65.00 on a computer game...this sim is just like that....a game...but, a game that teaches real-life skills. The LHS gave me a lil break and I paid $135.00 tax included. But get this, I can already flip the lil guy and am now working on banked turns....the flippin is definately easier for me than the turns but with this sim, I can just keep hittin the ole reset button and try again. No fear at all...lol Now, inverted flying is a whole different monster...as was mentioned earlier.....orientation and muscle memory are two main keys.
Will let yas know when I will attempt one of the manoevers on the real thing....stay tuned....

Latah,

K

madmorgan

My Feedback: (2)

flipping the real thing doesnt happen like in the sim  its close but no cigar. i found giving it a bit of throttle then flipping fwd is my easiest way. that sucks  also i woulda sold you rf with controller box and manual  v5.5 for 100 bucks shipped to canada  oh well sounds like your having fun and thats what counts. i think alot of ppl get a big bird like a 450 -500 and wreck it a few times and quit the game. but knowing what i did about the mcpx and you also had a few other thumbs up about it from others shows that some wont steer new guys in the wrong direction.  any other problems or questions ask we will try and keep up.

TakeshiSkunk

Yeah it's definitely worth noting that the mcpx is modeled HORRIBLY in phoenix, in my experience it doesn't even fly remotely similarly to the real thing. Pretty much every other model I've tried in it feels fine. I'm a RealFlight guy myself but a friend of mine picked up Phoenix last year and I got to put a fair amount of time into it before he moved away.

The mCPx is a weird little thing when you start getting into tricks and aggressive flying and it gets back to what I mentioned before, collective management. The mCPx is underpowered, there are no two ways about that (unless you do the brushless mod but then you undermine the cost effectiveness and durability of the thing). If you give too much collective input, cyclic input, or combination of the two, the tail will blow out on you. All of your control inputs put additional load /drag on the disc. Past a point the motor is unable to keep up with the load and the main blades actually slow down. When this happens abruptly the tail will no longer be matched to the torque of the main blades and your heli will spin out of control until it sorts itself out, which can easily lead to a crash. This is something that can happen on larger helis as well (depends on the power available, I've never seen my 500 blow out), but the fact that the mcpx has a very small motor and a separate tail motor rather a direct mechanical drive makes it more of an issue.

On a bigger, more capable heli you can just crank it and go as you've probably already discovered on the sim. Collective management is still important for advanced techniques on high powered machines, but with the mCPx it's absolutely necessary for even the basics. When flipping or rolling the mCPx it helps to isolate your control inputs, don't try to feed collective and cyclic simultaneously. Rather than flipping the heli in place you're basically going to be tossing it into the air and then catching it.

To do a basic backflip you'll want to bring it to a hover and then quickly but smoothly pop to full positive collective. After you've popped the heli up a bit bring the collective to 0 pitch and feed in full back cyclic. Depending on your timing it'll sort of hang there for a moment while flipping or be falling during the flip. When it's upright again neutralize cyclic and feed in positive collective to catch it in a hover (be careful not to be too abrupt here, adding positive collective too fast here can easily blow the tail out due to the downward momentum).

If you want to do a half flip just neutralize cyclic and feed in negative collective when the heli is level inverted. When I was getting used to the mCPx I found myself more comfortable catching it inverted for a moment and then popping it up again to complete the flip, I just didn't trust the flip rate with the thing falling like that

The mCPx is a tricky little thing to fly, but since it's so durable that ends up being a good thing. It really forces you to think about what you're doing and understand how helicopters work.

KRASHKOPTER

My Feedback: (1)

Much appreciated Takeshi...again.
I read yer post and I understand that it's not going to be a perfect transition from sim to heli but your point about learning how helis work is well taken. That's about all I want from it (the sim) just a safe, less-destructive way to try new maneuvers and watch how it reacts with stick input.
RF was just a lil too expensive (tnks for the thought Mad) so Phoenix was the choice. Maybe a future upgrade will also update the models they have in their package to be more like the real thing (scuse the pun).
Either way, I am all set to attempt new things with the simulator and although it is not an exact representation of the MCPX, it does help me with using the correct stick input for a particular stunt or move.
You peeps are awesome...having a good time here and it's all your fault!! Heheh
Take it easy all,

K