sonick
Posts: 3
Joined: 1/1/2004
From: , IL, USA
Status: offline
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Greetings, new member here...
I wanted to reply to the last post as I am a proud new owner of a IV as of 2-3 weeks ago (exactly 1 week after it debuted on Tactical to Practical, lol). I'm now at the stage where I am versed in fine-tuning the craft regarding it's assembly and alignment, and can proficiently hover both in low/narrow areas with high rotor wash, and open areas almost to a standstill. Almost have 90 degree hovering and navigation down as well. NOT looking forward to nose-in, but won't be any fun without it so practice I will!
What I wanted to say was that after I saw you mention it's instability on the ground and the desire to ratchet up the throttle more to avoid the rotor wash and ground interference...... don't do it!!!!!
I know Zenon is a very busy guy and this machine kicks ass, but flight instructions are not quite comprehensive in one single location...... I gleaned all of the tips and steps from watching the video that came with the craft AND the owner's manual. I would recommend that you first double check the basics such as motor mounts and whatnot, but then also check your circuit board such that it is supperted by the notch between the tabs, and not just hanging below the bottom tab, which can seem correct when excitedly assembling as I did. I did just this, and it caused the circuit board and hence the gyros to wiggle, leading to of course unexpected instability. Not insulting your intelligence because i'm the biggest neophyte of anyone here, I didn't really do ANYTHING RC until I saw the DFIV, now I can't stop. After making 1000% sure the parts are assembled properly, I would have a look at the tension on the rotor gear pinion bolt, as mine were a tad bit tight on two of the mounts. I want to stress right now, SNUG IS SUFFICIENT FOR ALL TORQUE LOCATIONS, I was a moron and almost lullabied a motor mount. That said, I levelled out my flyer's general stability by backing off the bolt holding the gear (bearing) onto the mount, WITH the rotors on each, then tightened them snug and JUST a hair, maybe another 1/8 of a turn, then found the best setting to be indicated by the point at which the rotor-attached gear will freely spin one full turn when a modest twist is given to the gear, IN THE PROPER DIRECTION for the motor in question, as the opposite direction will fight the armature arrangement and not spin near as freely. I cannot stress enough how much more stable the craft becomes once you become more adept at doing all tensioning and adjusting/trending equally for all of the four extensions. The two poly screws for each rotor are very important also, undertensioned rotors will raise cane with the stability. Another obvious one is to make sure all of the carbon rods are firmly seated all the way in to the base crosspiece, AND that the motor mounts are pushed all the way in until they stop against the carbon rod. unequal lengths will have obvious consequences in flight but seem fine to the eye, these subtelties and applying them equally 4 times for each, is incredibly important for basic stability, and then equally as important for fine tuning the stability. I've found that with a couple weeks experience in tuning the assembly, very little trim is needed. Surely this will vary with motors and every other manufacturing idiosynracy per part, but if there is heavy deviation in roll, pitch or yaw, say past 4 trim clicks per adjuster, something could use adjustment. I've had 8-clicker erratic behavior corrected just by loosening and re-snugging/calibrating the mounts, centerpiece, equal distances between the legs, and tightening the lower carbon plate not one at a time to full tension, rather in a lugnut type star pattern, incrementing 20% at a time. Not surpising ultimately when you think about how amazing this thing is, how much the little things will affect flight.
Now, I really wanted to mention the way in which you're learning, as I fear for the safety of your new flyer. It's not in the manual, but on the video it shows step 1 after trimming/adjusting to be learning basic directional control, not by "just hover low and figure it out", but what the video showed was a smooth floor surface such as lineoleum with shallow channels as to not catch the legs, marked with a large 6-10 foot "X" shape made out of duct tape...... then learning to maneuver the flyer by increasing the throttle to the point it's JUST barely light enough to scoot across the ground, and following closely each leg of the X. It is super important to be able to accurately apply diagonal control input on the right stick, since often two short primary direcitonal changes intead of one smooth diagonal is often too late to correct course. once you master navigating the X shape with the yellow blade always facing away from you (pointing forwards), try learning a bit with the yaw skewed a bit, I even did a bit of skewed AND nose-in practice and still do on the lineoleum X shape, it's a good and safe reference. After you have that down, I'd go pick up a motorcycle battery and the tether cord, because hovering is going to take awhile, and you have to do it in small increments no matter how much power you have available because of the motor heat. They start to underperform terribly after 20 minutes anyhow, so the lithium battery isn't so much the single point of failure anymore for flight times.
I could type for another four hours on what i've learned just in the past couple weeks for a total of about 20 hours of stick time and probably another 5-6 in dedicated, trial and error adjusting of the components. Allow me to reiterate once again not to overtighten any screws or bolts, you WILL regret it. Also, watch the video about 100 times interleaved with reading the book at the same 100 times, then do it all over again. Continue to adjust for stable flight (stable is finite, it won't hover itself, hovering still involves many fairly rapid stick movements with the rare 3-4 second sweet spot). Oh, for checking trim I found it best to set on a hard flat surface, then slowly increment the throttle until it FIRST starts to affect the position of the craft, then use the right stick to make sure all motors are running at an equal speed. Once you can see all the rotors are level and running at the same speed, more throttle until it gets skittish/light again, then kick it two notches and see what the trend is in direction. Do it a few more times then start the trimming. Point being, I didn't realize for awhile that it is very time-saving to make sure all the rotors are moving, level, and at the same speed before even attempting to lift off for trim adjustemnts and regular hovering for that matter.
One more thing (how many times have i said that, haha) make sure your rotor decals aren't loose, ESPECIALLY on the leading edge, as this was royally screwing up my stability one day and eluded me for an hour before i even checked the doggone decal. a loose edge on the cutting side of the rotor will slow it down exponentially with more and more speed.
If anyone is interested I may write up a little pictorial and description on the uncovered points of physically and logically tuning the draganflyer IV, since Zenon obviously has no time to do anything but build and ship them these days. Hope this helps a bit, sorry to drone on but I REALLY came close to augering mine in on the first day I had it due to the very same philosiphy you had..... thinking the rotor wash was the main stability problem and adding throttle would make it lots easier to learn. NNNNNNOPE. it should be pretty damn stable with learned input at less than 12 inches off the ground..... rotor wish will come up and down on the craft if you're learning inside, but ultimately you'll get it down. A tether cord helps a bit for learning as it keeps the yaw somewhat under control compared to autonomous flight. Oh, and buy an extra set of rotors even if you already have an extra set.... especially if you're learning indoors.
Hope this helps a bit! If anyone wants any more tidbits or has tidbits for me abou the draganflyer IV, feel free to drop me an email at sonick@sonick.com , I LOVE this thing and have actually feigned sick to work to play with it. hahaha.
peace,
J
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All Forums >> RC Helicopters >> Draganfly Innovations Products >> DFlyer 
DFlyer - 
RE: DFlyer - 
i need some insights and or tips,pointers etc.. anything is helpful 
i know i read somewhere that its easier hovering the farther from the ground etc. now should i just get brave and apply throttle to get it couple feet off ground. is it more stable higher and what was your experiences. im really affraid of lifting to high and watching it roll and crash and costing me $$ right off the bat in that case i will prolly get P_O"D lol so anyways any help much appreicated!
RE: Draganflyer 3 battery Mods? -