dlfowler

Hello,

The other day I replaced blades, servo arm, and tail motor. After replacing the items, I fired up the heli and it ran great on the ground, just a bit of throttle. Then I get up to half throttle and it's still on the ground, then it shoots up about four feet, hobbles around, then "pushes" itself back down to the nice hard concrete, where I broke another skid. So, I did some research, found that I should check the following:

1. servo arms at 90 degrees
2. Pitch Angle
3. Tx settings

My pitch angle is at 2 degrees, I think! I am not sure how to read the doohicky. Items 1 and 3 I believe are good-to-go. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Derek

s_mcflurry

Some people advise against this but I like checking general heli behavior while holding it up by the skids and giving it throttle. If you do decide to do this, be safe. With that out of the way...

• Does it look like your servo arms are moving smoothly throughout giving it throttle? Does it look like it suddenly pulls down all of the sudden instead?
• Are your servos glitching or sticking at any point during cyclic movement?

With power removed from the main and tail motor:
• Is your blade pitch at zero while at 50% in Idle Up mode (another check in addition to the 2°)?


EDIT: Oh wait, you have the DX6 right? I think someone with that knowledge should chime in with other troubleshooting tips.

Heliko

We call it "sticky collective" and it's not unusual with the Axe. Check for binding in the head. Especially make sure the blade grips and flybar pivot freely.

Good Luck!

dlfowler

Thanks a lot! I will check it all out when I get home tonight. Fingers Crossed!

thestratcat

My Feedback: (12)

mine did this, I checked the servo's and I had one that was going insane (the collective)

for that holding the heli by the skids, it was a great idea that I used until that fateful morning when it bit me in the ass.. I was holding the heli, gave it throttle, nothing happened.. gave it full stick, nothing happend... then I moved it back to zero and SOMEthing happned.. the rotors proceeded to take three chunks of flesh out of my nipple.... obviously thinking back, I had the throttle reversed, full stick armed it, and shutting it down opened it up.. just be aware of what you are doing!

alienteabagger

Check the AXECP post. You are having a problem very similar to Markinds. Its called unwanted swashplate interactions.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

I've posted on this problem before, but this time the culprit was a bad servo.

In normal mode, the heli flew fine. But, in idle-up it jumped into the air about 4 feet up. Then it tried to slam itself into the ground. I saved it, but it was crazy. Jumping up and down by more than 6 feet! Took everything I knew to get it back on the ground. Managed to set it down without breaking the skids, but once it was there, the main blades had a strange sound. Apparently, one of the flybar links became disconnected from the swash. Reconnected and tried again. Flew ok in normal, but idle-up had twitchy results. Finally, one of the flybar links came loose in flight and I set her down to find the link was broke on one side and disconnected from the swash. (did it break first then disconnect, or disconnect then break??)

After last battery, I looked it over closely. The swash would jump when moving the front servo up or down by hand. Why? After a while, it was apparent the front servo had a stripped gear. Maybe one tooth missing. It was right at the level servo arm setting, so it only revealed itself in idleup.

Replaced with Hitec 55 and flew much better, but didn't have a battery to try idleup.

I'm sure the swashplate was jumping up or down on the shaft as the missing tooth on the servo let it. Something to check.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Holy Crap! What a difference!

The new servo made it fly soo sweet. I have to add that I finally found a simple way to balance the blades. I just took a piece of balsa wood about 4"x1/2", measured it to get the center, and taped the blades onto the wood. Added one small piece of tape to the light blade and the heli was ultra smooth. Its never flown this good, and all the vibrations and jumping up and down were gone. (in both idle-up and normal)

Note: It did glitch while sitting on the table as I was about to attach the canopy. Spun the blades and hit me in the arm, but I don't think this is what caused the bouncing up and down before.

Don't give up. Once you get it going its worth it.

I would get some vid, but its dark and about to rain here. (figures)

toms_cpcx

Good to hear that you got your axe cp going again. Now if I can just get mine to work right. I should have the new drive shafts for it tomorrow. They are being made out of 6 mm stainless steel so hopefully all of my problems will be over. I am also exchanging the colco 400 gyro for the E-Sky head locking gyro but I have not figured out where I am going to mount it. Any suggestions would be welcome. Hope you have a good flight with your bird.

Later
Tom
[&o]

hobby_man

My Feedback: (8)

today I sent a very large box with 2 Helimax axe cp to hobby services,
told them to fix um and cover it under warranty

we will see

I have 2 more under the table,,, all 4 have electronic promlems..


I even purchased a new 3-1 board, junk from the factory

toms_cpcx

Got new drive shafts now the only problem that I have is when I throttle up, [color=#FF0000] I can hear the pitch change, but it sounds like something is popping as the blade pitch changes and then it jumps a little and it takes even more power to get lite on the skids.. Once it leaves the ground it very jumpy and hard to control. Any Help on this problem would be greatly appericated

Thanks
Tom
color]

PapaST

I had a similar issue with the sporadic flight. Mine turned out being a bad bearing (well it wasn't bad until I wrecked) that wasn't allowing one of the blade grips to rotate downward.

toms_cpcx

OK I found the problem with the popping and shaking of the rotor blades.

1. The blades were out of balance. Put on a new set and have no problems there
2. the change of pitch and power was due to a striped screw hole in the main rotor shaft collar. I fixed that by putting a rubber that was tripled so that it was a little smaller then the shaft under the collar on the main rotor shaft.

Have not had any more problems with this heli. In fact, I was able to hover it around the living room tongiht. I did have to move all of the control linkage down one hole on the servo arm so that I could shorten the amount of throw on all of them. This helps a lot with control issues and clams the heli down qut a bit. I was able to hover in the air at about 3 ft for thirty seconds with no major problems. The steel shaft although being just a little bit heavy has worked wonders and is a lot tougher then that stock one that comes with the Axe CP.

Now if I can just find a way to enable the sixth channel on the radio so that I can control the sesitivity of my new head lock gyro then I think that I will finally have this thing set up so that I can finally fly it and further my skills. Right now it is real annoying to have to fly the tail all of the time.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appericated.

Tom