mti-helis
Posts: 7
Joined: 4/4/2005
From: , UNITED KINGDOM
Status: offline
|
OK - Short of rewriting the manual you should find this useful.
MTI-HELIS is not even remotely the name of our company, just to save you poor guys who do - searching for info. You may know the name soon though! - If you want to know its the initials of my kids.
There will be things I have forgotten or missed out so this shall be:
PART I.
Some have been previously posted by the nice guys like Galileo and BHERMER etc and I am in no way having a personal go at TD2000 I'm sure your a great guy really - I'm just demonstrating the same enthusiasm of my views as you.
OK HERE WE GO
This applies to the #35 Only - it may apply to other models but i don't know.
They come in a about 5 different versions depending on who you buy from.
ALL WALKERA FACTORY models are the #35 DRAGONFLY 400 full stop.
ALL OTHER VARIATIONS are made up buy buyers in HONG KONG, TAIWAN, CHINA
They are only selling on ebay and online shops linked to their ebay operations. They buy either the KIT - THE ARTF - or the RTF BOXED. They then do what they like with them including - adding extras Li-Poly batteries, spare blades etc changing the stickers and even the whole canopy - what they do and how they do it is nothing to do with Walkera the same as it is nothing to do with Walkera what you do with yours. These sellers change the names, package contents etc etc but they don't change the paperwork the reciever/control centre, sticker on the motor, because they are interested in nothing other than exploiting the sensational shopping ability of Americans and Europeans. They are not all bad sellers though and some of them seem to have a reasonable reputations - but they are VERY devious in their MARKETING schemes which can tend to mislead buyers - In some cases obviously quite intentionally and the postage scams etc. They are generally just members of the public like in the UK, US who are piling on the ebay bandwagon - they are inexperienced in most cases about the real business world. They buy from the factory in very small numbers - no one else can afford to OEM the products because of the minimum order quantity required - Thats how the WHOLE WORLD KNOWS THEY ARE ALL WALKERAS.
That tells you they are small individuals and not real businesses - I personally do not recommend Ebay for anything these days - It really is like the wild west now. Take all this into account and it points to these people probably being quite honest and hard working but struggling to deal with what they are doing, maybe they bit off more than they can chew, so the fact that you get emails and goods from these guys is amazing enough really.
Anyway lets carry on with the helicopter.
For a start they come with Non standard power connectors - ok if you use the nimh shipped with the charger - watch the charger - they say 15V 0.4a - We have measured voltages between 16v and 22v on the standard chargers - that's why some of the shipped nimh COOK in 30 mins and others are warm at full charge after an hour or so - Its pure pot luck - IF YOU USE THE ORIGINAL CHARGER AND BATTERIES - NEVER CHARGE THEM UNATTENDED - Better still - you got the heli cheap - spend some of the saved money on a decent charger, change the power connectors and your safe!
If you got a BRUSHLESS model or got the 1500 mAh LI-Poly - ****DO NOT CHARGE YOUR LI-POLY with the charger from WALKERA under any circumstances - You will need to get a dedicated LI-POLY charger and change the power connectors again. I repeat - DO NOT CHARGE YOUR LI_POLY with the CHARGER SHIPPED WITH YOUR HELI - Walkera are now aware of the problem and are addressing it. THEY DO NOT DO THIS ON PURPOSE - Its a misunderstanding they had.
The Batteries unusually have 3 leads coming from them - 1 Red - 1 White - 1 - black.
Red and black supply power out while running the Heli - HOWEVER ON CHARGING the BLACK wire IS - NEGATIVE and the WHITE wire is + POSITIVE IN to the battery from the charger. We have tested these thoroughly and that's how it is, We have had no problem with them charging with the CORRECT - LI-POLY charger and they are very good reliable batteries.
If you got a BRUSHLESS you should have a 'Y' connector to go to the receiver and the 'ACTIYATOR'
(speed controller) from the battery - if you have no 'Y' piece then you'll have to get one or change the connectors on the heli and the batteries.
Next check every last screw , hex grub etc, to make sure they are tight or not so tight as needed.
They tend to be OVERTIGHT from the factory and can become problematic - stripping HEX kEYS and the HEX BOLTS themslves rounding off - they are then difficult to deal with - We have spoken to them about this issue. SO BE AS CAREFULL AS YOU CAN WITH THEM.
The Tail blades should be 'swinging' pretty loose - they obtain their orientation from the inertia of rotation - This method goes a little way to help prevent stripping the tail drive gear on hard landings with the motor running - It is the correct way to set the tail BLADES - LOOSE - You WILL STRIP TAIL DRIVE GEARS - GET A FEW SPARES as a FIRST RESORT - IMMEDIATELY - followed by main blades, The rest is suprisingly resilient so get a range of spares for any eventuality anyway - This is good advice for any model helicopter owner.
Check the meshing of the tail drive gears - good description in the manual - make sure end bevel gears are a tight 90 degree fit.- Gear at motor end should mesh so that the teeth of the motor meet about half way between the 'vally' and 'Peak' in the tail gear - maybe a fraction closer to the valley ( closer)(tighter) - DO NOT MAKE IT A TIGHT FIT - there will be different opinion on this and is accepted - however I have flown lots and lots of Walkeras - set up like this, if you don't crash, they last a long long time. I have not converted any to belt drive systems as we can do. A less experienced or beginner may benefit from a belt driven drive tail as they don't strip.
Another thing that will cause debate is the use of piano wire for the tail servo - yes there is flexabilty - make sure your tail pitch is sliding smoothly on its bar and you will find that the system works perfectly OK - get the setup wrong and it can appear not to work at all - GET THE SETUP RIGHT - Check the very back end screw and make sure it's not 'squishing' the fitting together too tightly - If it is you'll notice now when you look from the back towards the front or down from above.
The tail fin is a fraction shorter than it might be and leaves the tail blades a bit close for comfort even on flat smooth ground - you may want to find a way of increasing the height by 10-30cm or whatever you feel happy with attatch a little stick or something.
Turn On
When you attach the battery to turn your helicopter on ( MAKE SURE TX is ON !!!!! ALWAYS FIRST )
The red LED on the control centre will flash 3-4 times then stay on red to indicate it has initialised the gyro. - If your LED continues to flash - check your throttle is down - OFF - and the throttle trim is low enough or off - Check the battery and all connections , this should ensure you get a steady LED indicating the helicopter is ready to fly. If your LED continues to flash and you cannot cure it with these remedies then you may need more expert help.
SERVOS:
from many helicopters, we have had nowhere near as many servo problems as reported here - It may be there was a large 'DODGY' batch - who knows - but here are some tips for setting up the servos. Servos 'HATE' static even go near a nylon carpet or other static source and it can sound like a cage of budgies. There can be a lot of static in the air on very dry low humidity days.
ON your TX make sure the Dip switches are as below:
1-off - 2 - off - 3 - off - 4 - on -4 determines the direction of the tail rudder - its a reverse switch - theres one on the gyro also so be carefull !!! - 5 - off - 6 - on - 7 - on - 8 - activates PLT and PZT knobs on the front panel of TX - PZT is a drastic pitch change setting for 3D - PLT is a 'NORMAL' non 3D pitch adjustment. If you have the heli flying nicely as you like make sure to set DIP Switch 8 to OFF to avoid upsetting your set-up.
9 - off - 10 Gear - you can operate external equipment if you like - landing GEAR, Lights etc. in generall this setting is obviously off. - If you like to see what all the switches do - One at a time with the heli on - flick the switch and watch the servos move postion - you'll soon get an understanding of whats going on - just remember to flick them back again because your set up is for the original settings !!! DO NOT FLICK THE FLIGHT MODE SWITCH ON THE FRONT
ALWAYS have the FLIGHT MODE SWITCH at postion N Normal. Mode 1 is for 3D and will fire your motor up to full speed - instantly - If your inexperienced YOU DON'T WANT THAT - I PROMISE
Make sure all your sticks and trims are centered - and throttle OFF - DOWN !!!!!!!!!!!!
Once your happy with your TX look at the helicopter and the manual and see how close your swashplate is to 'LEVEL' and how close the servo arms are to 90 degrees as shown in the manual.
If they are way out you can make the necessary adjustments by un-screwing the servo arm from the servo - move it round on the spline to the best required postion and refit.
When these postions are all correct you MAY notice any noisy 'CHATTERING' servos have gone quiet - what makes them chatter is being in a postion where there IS a FORCE applied on the servo that it not required - I.E the servo wants to travel further than it is able or vice versa, can't travel as far as it wants, so there is always an applied force - this causes servos to chatter. - To be sure, take all your servo arms off the servos completely - wiggle your sticks and centre everything and see if you have chattering still - If you DO then you may have interference - check your antenna from the receiver box thoroughly and all electrical connections and connectors including all the soldered points on the motor - DO NOT HOLD THE MODEL IN YOUR HAND OR ON ANY STATIC SOURCE SUCH AS A CARPET - Also the GYRO SERVO can tend to chatter away and is NORMAL operation, or you may well have that dodgy servo. The WALKERA servos are actually a reasonable quality servo comparible to some big makers cheaper ranges.
The next on the list is galileos observation that the linkage rods to the flybar from the swash plate are 2-3mm too long - remove them - unscrew the ball attachment - remove 2mm first and then refit them - use CA glue if the thread is so short you don't have much left to screw back on to - this will then make the crome stabiliser bars level and will prevent the top half of the swash plate being exposed to high exertion forces and fouling which occur on further servo travels.
Now you can check your basic blade pitch settings as per the manual about 0 to +3 degrees for practising - if your well past that then you don't need my advice on that.
Check the blade tracking again - as per the manual - the tightness of the blades should be that they will move when they strike an object but not so loose they are flapping about - they should hold when held horizontally on the vertical plane.
Check the flybar paddles are horizontal. If not adjust as necessary.
Make the trim settings on the gyro half to three quarters initially for the sensitivity and half for the servo travel on the tail, watch the tail when you adjust that trim and you will understand what it is doing.
During test flights you will be able to adjust the gyro according to your setup.
The other 2 teeny slider switches on the gyro are a heading hold lock and a reverse switch.
GO OVER ALL THESE THINGS and the MANUAL 2 or 3 times and really familiarise yourself with the workings of a CP Helicopter - especially if your used to fixed pitch models - They are completely different beasts and you NEED to understand whats going on when your controlling it and setting it up. When I say 2 or 3 times thats NOT REALLY enough - I know you all want to get out there and blast it into the sky but it don't work like that unless your a good pilot. Patience can save you a lot of wasted time and hard earned cash in spare parts.
DO NOT CONSIDER LEARNING to fly WITHOUT THE TRAINING UNDERCARRIAGE FOR THE HELICOPTER - DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT - Better still get a real good SIMULATOR and play on that a lot too. Please you need PATIENCE.
The whole thing is exactly like learning to ride a bicycle when you were younger X 2 - at first it seemed completely impossible - then you got stabilisers maybe and thought OK i'm a bit more confident now this is good - you carried on - it was still difficult - time to take the stabilisers off - back to difficult period for a short time - then suddenly - Success you can ride the bike no probs - but it took a fair while right!!! and you wanted to ride it for years from then on
OK the same path is taken for learning and setting up a CP helicopter - that's just the LEARNING AND SETTING UP of CP HELICOPTERS.
S**t I have to learn to ride the bike all over again to learn to FLY THE HELICOPTER. Yes pretend you have now forgotten how to ride that bike completely and you have to start all over again.
Riding the bike took a fair while right!!! - learning about CP Helicopters - setting up - Learning to fly properly takes ****ing ages!!!!
So you see its quite easy then to see who, on these forums has got to or past which stage.
When you understand this of people it becomes much easier to help them because you have a much wider view of the WHOLE picture.
OK - heli checked over - TX set up
The Walkera standard model with standard motor, standard 600mAh NiMh - correct setup - will lift off at less than half throttle - YES LESS than HALF THROTTLE - ALL of them without exeption - barring serious fault of course - I must stress - CORRECTLY SET UP - ON a machine that is NOT CORRECTLY set up it is possible to be at FULL THROTTLE and not come close to getting off the ground due to the swash plate - pitch angles - and flybars being so off from each others desired settings. They are not the easiest things to set up but once you get the hang of it you'll come to understand everything.
After a few tests - reading through the manual - which will be revised in perfect English - and getting all the tips you can from resources such as this - You will have enourmous enjoyment of your Walkera #35 - It is a very capable machine - When your at that stage you can think about upgrades and improvements that won't get broken buy messing around.
Another little tip that can be usefull for beginners is to make a fitting out of polystyrene foam or whatever your imagination can come up with and make a ring that fits around the left - right - forward - backward stick on your TX to prevent the stick being able to move to its furthest postion in every direction - the effect of this on nearly ALL MICRO and others for that matter is to stop the servos travelling out of suitable range causing stressess and binding on the swashplate and related components, If you have a higher Quality TX you can set servo travel limits on your TX to acheive the same effect.
Finally:
Walkera are a fine, descent honest company with some very nice people who are just trying to make a living like anyone else - What I have read about people communicating with them - to me seems unbelievable - I talk to these people every week - I'm sure they are not lying at all but approached Walkera with the wrong attitude at the beginning - Chinese people are a different culture who you need to understand - something that you feel may not offend someone in the West could certainly cause great offence to a Chinese person and vice versa - so miss-communication is very very easy - the Chinese have a policy of giving up at that point as it usually ends in everyones tedious waste of time - they know this. So please anybody, don't be offended with them, they are not a high street store - They are a manufacturer - a Chinese manufacturer not a US or European manufacturer - Manufaturers on the whole do not give end user support ESPECIALLY CHINESE manufacturers. You need to buy from a reputable local source ( a US source has already been supplied for you on this thread) - then you have all the support you require - whether with WALKERA or anyone else.
Walkera do not make the best helicopter in the world - neither do PROTECH
A lot of people want an affordable entry to this very exciting phase of the ELECTRIC helicopter hobby
A fully kitted ZOOM 400 with Hi-tec optic six - RTF is £400 UK GBP - $700 USD or so.
The Walkera is 200 USD off ebay and the mentioned US sellers
Nike and Indonesians etc springs to mind suddenly - You support that though - right
**** - 400 GBP for a ZOOM 400 - this sort of thing makes me want to go at these companies full tilt with something like the 35 from Walkera and we are more than big enough a company to do it if we choose - at least it should have the effect of descent honest people starting to see descent honest competition in a cosseted market - Everyone moans at Microsoft type companies for this sort of thing - Hell, how many times have they been in court in Europe and the US - What a nonsense.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE IT IS THEN -
if you want to get really ripped off TD2000 - spend 400GBP on a ZOOM 400
I on the other hand, am a bright, intelligent guy - I will buy the Walkera everytime.
If Walkera had such major failings I WOULD NOT buy them - just like I don't buy Ford cars or inumerable other brands and products that other people think are fantastic.
BMW - Audi - ASTON MARTIN - FERRARI - don't moan at FORD, GM/VAUXHALL or PROTON or HYUNDAI or DAEWOO for producing cheap motor cars DO THEY.
The fittest will survive - that's the way the world is !!!!
BTW - Walkera have CE certification on most products that they sell us - they don't only make helicopters. If it ain't CE certified we don't sell it, END OF.
< Message edited by mti-helis -- 4/20/2005 3:54:38 AM >
|
Printable Version
All Forums >> RC Helicopters >> Electric RC Helis >> Walkera Helis - Dragonfly, etc.. >> RE: Walkera DragonFly #35 CCPM Electric RC Helicopter Reviews 
RE: Walkera DragonFly #35 CCPM Electric RC Helicopter R... - 
