Spockie-Tech
Posts: 101
Score: 100
Joined: 7/11/2005
Last Login: 2/20/2008
From: MelbourneVic, AUSTRALIA
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Thats a hell of a good summary of things to watch for on the #36 there Mikey..  Allow me to add a few comments, mostly agreeing with you, but some thoughts and questions as well..
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ORIGINAL: Mikey-Flies
Got my 36 today and went about checking it over. This came with aluminum upgrade parts for some of the head, brushless motor and atiyator, and 2 sets of blades (foam and "fiber" blades that appear to be some kind of plastic with lightening holes at the root) and a 2200 mah lipo + charger.
Where did you buy a #36 that came with aluminium upgrades and ABS/Fiber Blades ? Was the Lipo the fairly common unmarked "blue" one, which seems to have highly variable quality, or was it a different type ?
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These yellow plastic blades are quite a bit heavier than the foamies but more flexible.
They sound like T-Rex ABS blades. If they are, then they are much better for a beginner to practice on, since they're a lot tougher. The white foamies are light and stiff, but disintegrate at the slightest touch, whereas the ABS ones will cop a pounding without a mark.
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( radio or receiver, not sure which yet and not sure if I'll bother to find out).
From what I've seen and others reports, the radio glitches are most likely caused by the 5v regulator in the receiver/esc overheating and shutting down momentarily. Probably due to excessive current load from the servo's, since there is no end-point travel adjust to stop them from pushing against the limits. Removing the plastic casing and heatsinking the two surface mount transistors (actually, one is the motor speed control FET, the other is the 5v regulator) seems to reduce the incidence of over-heat shutdowns a lot from what others have found.
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* 1) Noticed that the part HM36-003 (perhaps spindle shaft? Not sure of the right terms yet) was bent.
Feathering shaft I believe, except in Walkera engrish, where its probably called a "Turnig Plole" or some such.. Are people who can read and write english really that hard to come by in China ? Perhaps someone should offer their services to Walkera as a product manual author ?
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flybar paddles out of whack, Several screws stripped or mismatched, Lots of loose or tight screws, transmitter stick not returning, motor got hot quick. motor screws sunk into plastic frame. pitch all out of whack
Usual wonderful QC. How they can call these things RTF is amazing. They would be better off selling them as Kits like the T-Rex.. I'm sure your average 5yo, and even his all-thumbs dad could do a better job of assembly than whatever trained monkeys they must use on their assembly lines 
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tail servo moves quickly but centers really slowly.
I noticed that too.. it is caused by the gyro. if you bypass the gyro and plug the tail servo direct into Rx channel 4, it goes away (but of course flying suddenly becomes very hard  ). I now have a Futaba Gy240 on my #36 and it seems a lot better. Supposedly the "V2" Walkera Gyro is a "Heading hold" gyro whic his presumably what they are trying to say with "Lei Sure" (Direction Sure ?). but flipping that switch never did anything on my Walkera Gyro. I might set them both up on the bench and see what I can find out, since noone seems to have answered my estion about how you tell a HH from a Rate Gyro yet. I'll get back to you on this one.
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tail drive gear for the belt rides low on the shaft gear when any lift is applied to the rotor. The main rotor moves up and down about 1/2 the width of the tail pulley gear. I think something here needs adjusting but I'm not sure what??
Mine was like that too.. so much so that I was worried about the teeth stripping since will the main shaft lifted it was only engaging the belt drive gear by about 1/4 of the tooth. I fixed it by disassembling the whole frame, and replacing the aluminium bush at the top of the main shaft (just under the top bearing), with a slightly thicker one that I salvaged from my old #35 frame. That eliminated the up and down play in the main shaft and kept the gears in mesh. To anyone who doesnt have a "parts bin" lying around, perhaps try and find some suitable washers.
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Gyro led light never lights!
Sounds like a gyro fault. probably just the LED, since if the gyro was dead you probably wouldnt be able to fly. It should flash fast when its initialising, slow when its completed its initilisation but has no signal from the receiver (tx off), and come on solid when all is good.
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which I believe is the result of too much pitch and too little headspeed, should be quite fixable
I upgraded mine to an align brushless motor and governer mode ESC, and this allowed me to wind the head speed way up compared to the stock brushed motor, which seems to have made a huge improvement in flying characteristics. It always felt mushy with the standard motor. With the rotors at full speed regardless of pitch it feels crisp.
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The Tail pin was not in securely and actually fell out during a test flight
Ditto to me and a friend. Does anyone at the factory actually fly these things after production has started ?
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other than the missing locknut she is flight worthy again (mechanically). Electrically is another issue. Should have got a barebones kit!
Thats what I did after similair experiences with my #35. The frames arent that bad for the $ if you go over them and check everything you've listed. The electronics are junk. Its what I'd read on quite a few occasions (after I bought my #35) and it is so.
I guess that when you pay about $150 (Australian, $110US) in total for a Transmitter, Receiver, Speed Controller, Gyro, 4 x servos, Motor, Battery and charger you really cant expect much.
A "ready to crash" Walkera #36 is about $240 in Australia for the full package.
Heres what I spent to make it ready to *fly*
(Australian dollars)
$100 - Walkera #36 Bare-Bones Frame
$ 78 - Align 35Amp Brushless Esc (Governor mode & Soft Start)
$ 55 - Align 420LF Brushless Motor
$ 90 - Align 2000mah 18C Lipo
$200 - Triton Charger (you can get a Swallow for $90 which will do)
$150 - Futaba GY240 Heading Hold Gyro
$ 80 - 4 x GWS Micro Servos
$150 - Futaba 7C Transmitter
$ 50 - Novak XXTra Receiver
$ 15 - Deans base-load Antenna
$ 20 - Carbon-Fibre main Blades
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$988 !
A hell of a big difference from the $240 "Ready to Fly" package.
All I can say in the positive is that the price of the first Walkera Kit I bought was cheap enough for me to think I'll "give it a go" and try one.
Then, the momentary glimpses of successful flight I had in between crashes, wimpy batteries, radio glitches, gutless motors, stripped servo's, unexplained Gyro hiccups, stripped tail drive gears (my first one was a #35) and so on was enough to keep me adding bits one by one until I ended up with a package that works.
3 months later, and I've just completed my 5th 15+ minute flight with no problems.. Finally I'm starting to get somewhere.. 
Had someone told me it would cost close to $1000 to start, I probably would have skipped it, so maybe there *is* some justification to selling a "cheapy" kit to give people a brief taste of flight and encourage them to get some serious gear a piece at a time.
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All Forums >> RC Helicopters >> Electric RC Helis >> Walkera Helis - Dragonfly, etc.. >> RE: Walkera Dragonfly #36 
RE: Walkera Dragonfly #36 - 
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