drobin

maddog57, yes,see you about 4 at brennens.

hdavid11580

Magic, thanks for the info I think I will see if we have them on the shelf and order if not. I wondered why all the rest of the head was alum and they were plastic. Did not make since to me but maybe it was a late part or something. Got to fly a bit last night it was great out no wind nice and cool. Put two packs thru the T 450, one in the T 500 and almost finished off a full flight in the T600. With the nice weather for a change every one wanted to go out walking and the turbin wine that comes from the T600 atracks a lot of people. So I only got about 12 minutes out of the 6000mah pack and shut it down to many questions and people standing around.

Maddog sorry bud it happens. You will get it just don't give up. The Trex tuning article is great for giving you a just the facts entry to it. Also consider that a lenier pitch may not be what you want all the time. I run a stright line pitch for Idel up modes but normal I try to flatten out the pitch curve around center. It make the heli a little smother and not so jumpie during the start up and when you get ready to swap to or from Idel up. In a 5 point curve if low is 0 and high is 100 then mid point is 50 so you have a stright pitch curve. If you vary the points on either side of 50 or center so they are closer to 50 say 40 on the low side and 60 on the high side the center of the stick position will move further around center to get a pitch change then it did before the change so in effect you built in expo to your normal pitch curve, you have elongated the movement of the stick to get less movement in the servo control horn. It makes the heli easier to control as a beginner and gives you control if you need it.

Dave H

David867

Hey Chris,

Ya, I think the manual is messing you up. It makes you think that flipping switch 11 changes only the pitch range(the colors were different for me too, that's when I should have realized it's garbage.), but it actually makes you adjust V1 and V2 dials at the SAME TIME, so when you were adjusting pitch range, you were also adjusting pitch curve. That's how I messed up settings, the manual doesn't say to be careful of both V1 and V2 at the same time, it doesn't even talk about the exp on the cyclic controls. Even though you're only comfortable with adjusting pitch, you're going to have to double check all your curves and adjust them properly.
You can't see what the curve is doing through an LCD display, but you can see what the swash plate is doing, and what the throttle channel is doing if you connect a servo to it, so you can work without the LCD screen without a problem.

drobin

I'm just wondering how many people are using the stock radio with the g2?I've had mine about a year and the big thing was to get rig rid of the stock electronics.I'm not hearing that now.A little over a year and very little flight time(or fright time) due to being out of the country,surgery and weather.

dooleyje

Hello everyone in reading the last comments it accord to me that it is important to know the equipment that folks are using and that not everyone here has a DX7 or DX6I or other premium radios, Trexes, TT Titans, 600, 500. As the advise is really good and sound and the videos are fine they just do not apply sometimes with all radios and helicopters. The G2 comes with a radio that does not really have any program control by changing values on the computer screen. While the radio is basic it is still usable. We have to go back to old school set ups. Using guages and servos as meters and in some cases we made our own guages by applying a template on the spare servo with the arm as a needle indicator and in observing the throw we could figure out our adjustments. David has put a great PDF together in the G2 thread. David has come up with ways to adjust and so forth and is great thinking out of the box. So when he talks about the G2 I take note because he knows from a great deal of experence. A lot of folks use the stock radio and somewtimes we may confuse them when refering to "our "type of EQ.

Have a great day everyone and I will hollar later,

Jim

dooleyje

Discribe what the heli did exacly so we can get a better picture of what is going on. We can then walk you step by step through it. We need to do a really good post crash inspection before you fly again. I will be out this afternoon but will be back this evening so I look forward to your post.

Jim

Magic Hook

David, I flew the 500 for most of a pack before the rain moved in this morning. I find myself over controling it a bit now. I have never done it but I may get into the expo now as my hover it all over the place. FF and FFF, tracking is very good, fly's like its on rails through stall turns. Wow I wish I could download your heli knowledge. Shelf? You are part of a store? Man, reading about your 600 flight I want one NOW! BTW I understand what carbon fiber is. I dont know the difference is in glass fiber? Strength, durability wise. The GF looks great in the picture. I just have to wait. Leaving town for a week I dont want it just sitting here. What servo's did you use? My plan was to put a 401 gyro, (because I know how to set it up) but have no clue about full size servos. If you dont mind, please tell me about your motor, esc. battery setup. Those are amazing flight times. I did not even know there was a 6000 battery! I would love to duplicate your setup.
Rick

drobin

maddog57,
Chris,bring everything with you tomorrow.Maybe we can figure out what happened by looking at the servos,ect.Things can't be so broken that they won't move.I'll bring mine so you can see if there is anything different.Mine is stock again.Except for the radio.I went with the DX6 only because I'm going to use it with my park fliers.

hdavid11580

The battery I am using is common sense 6s. Looks like a big L. Fits in the 600 realy good. If I just take it to hover say 50 or 60 feet off the ground and just sit there the power draw is constant and I get 18 to 19 minutes on a charge. I had a long discussion with the rep and found a lot of things out about motor start and constant draw on the battery. We bought two of them one for me and one for my partner. Both of us have seen the same times for flight on the battery and I like flying the 600 much better now. The original battery would run out at 6 minutes no matter what. What the rep was teling me was the original 4200 was enough to drive it but the battery never got a rest, it was up against the wall all the time. I needed a battery with enough reserve to do the startup and as I took it up to 10 feet or so and did my normal hover and control check the current draw was almost nothing on the big battery but was close to max still on the 4200. i got the bigger battery and my flight times went way up. I can watch the things he was talking about now on the eLogger and it is very ovious on the graph between the 4200 and the 6000 mah battery. The 6000 drops to about 18 amps at hover after the startup and you can see it drop in wattage during the pitch changes where the 4200 stayed at almost max the whole time.

Yes I am a partner in a couple of RC stores here in Denver area. Been flying planes and enjoying the hobby since I was 11, about 45 years ago. I got into heli when a friend tried to explain why I was having trouble trying a knife edge reverse loop and struggling with it. He told me I had to break a bad habbit and realy learn how to use the left stick. Forced me into learning to fly helis and now I have more of them than planes. I have a scale Bell 222 with retracts, raptor e & gas, the whole trex line, a blade 400, an SJM 450 with the koolest head (no damping at all). and the normal counter rotater helis. The helicopter is just fun and with the electrics I don't make any noise so can just go to the soccer field and no one knows I am there. Plus it seem that the heli guys are all sharing a common struggle to learn and I have not found any of them that are not willing to help out cause they just love it.

Dave H

Magic Hook

I appreicate that info a ton. My only reserve about the 600 was flight time being short. I love the electrics! Quiet but a great sound as well. I can fly every day here at my house with the 450 or 500. There is a flying field five miles from here that I can fly the 600 anytime. I will check out the 6000 common sense battery ASAP. Thanks for that.


I flew planes then ducted fans, for ten years. As they progressed into turbines I priced myself out of a hobby. Long drives to a flying area, long build times, and lots of cash just wore out the fun. I was out of it eight years. Last Christmas my we got son in law CX2 heli's. Needless to stay we have had a ball learning electric and heli's as a family.

David867

Ohhhhh, that's interesting!! 18 minute flight times, that's amazing. That's kinda neat, I can see the battery becoming much more efficient as the stress on it reduces. When pulling a lot from the pack, it heats up a lot, that's probably wasting a lot of energy. Now I'm wondering what would happen if I flew 2 packs at once, in a parallel, on my 450!. Might be worth a try!!

maddog57

hey fellas,

those big helis sound like alot of fun. maybe someday [after i master this G2] i'll move up to a bigger size.

man, all you guys here are the greatest, w/ all the help and advice and especially encouragement you've all thrown my way. it almost makes me teary eyed, haha. but seriously i really do appreciate it and all of you.

with that said, Jim i'll try to explain what happened w/ yesterdays flight attempt. when i powered it up. i let it sit for a bunch of seconds, trying to get my head and hands in sinc. [ i did the pre-flight stuff, swash plate moving in the right directions w/ the stick movements, there's probably more i don't know about] then i increased the power, not too slow like the first try a few days ago, and it seemed to want to push itself downward. it didn't tip in any direction this time. but i could see it squatting downward. it did this all the way to full power. so i throttled all the way down to where it stopped rotating, waited a few seconds, powered up again til rotors were spinning pretty good, and then fairly quickly throttled to app. 60%. it lifted fast straight up, which took me by surprise, so i dropped the throttle some, but it may have been too much cuz it did start to drop, but at the same time the nose tipped down, again, and that was pretty much the end of things. don't believe my reaction speed was close to fast enough to save it and regain control. so again i attribute most of the problem w/ my inexperience. it all happens so fast, and not really knowing what to expect, the ground is where it ended up. sim sim sim, i know, but my sim hasn't given me that scenario to deal with. you guys have probably heard that from other new guys like me before, huh.

believe me, i do understand that it's mostly due to my newness at helis. i'm not trying to use the G2 or my not grasping the art of pitch/ throttle curves or anythiong else as an excuse. i want to learn it all cuz even in all my frustration and disappointment [ i'm one of those that thinks all things i try should go off w/o a hitch the first time... wrong!], i'm loving this and the learning part is one of the best parts for me.

as far as the TX and settings go, i'm lost w/ some of the terminology. linear= being flat [so to speak ?], expo?, throttle hold [switch to lock the speed? i don't even know if my TX has that!]. also if my terminology is wrong, please correct me. hate to sound like a dummy cuz i pride myself on being pretty good w/ tech stuff. but til it's explained to me i'm gonna be lost.

oh yeah, i did have good luck setting up the Align esc . their instructions were pretty easy i thought. tried to keep things on the milder side. brake= disabled, timing= mid timing, batt protect= high cutoff, aircraft= heli 1[soft start, not sure what that means] and throttle responce speed= standard. i chose those settings based on what i read in the instructions.


so... guess that's it for now. looking forward to all your responces.

chris

David867

Hey Chris,

Ya we wanta get you up in the air sucessfully and safely!
It sounds like all was going well, you say it wanted to pitch forward, I'm guessing you need to trim it? On the sim, try setting your trim tab forward, and fly like that, was it something like that? It'll help you a lot if you offset your trims and try hovering in the SIM like that, it simulates what your heli will be like if you haven't set it up properly.
Before you take off, check the flybar paddles, to see if they're level, my guess is, that it's not, and that's what's causing the downward pushing you're experiencing.

Linear does mean straight line, so you move the stick 25%, the swash goes 25%, 50% stick, the swash goes 50%, so it's just 1 to 1. If you add exponential, then you're changing the rate the stick affects the channel output, you can make the center of the stick more or less effective. With your remote, you want to get it close as you can to linear.

You'll get a hang of it all!

dooleyje

Chris sounds like the very thing that happen in the last crash. I think you are way out of trim.Or your enelevator servo is reversed. When you pull back on your right stick the swash should tilt back. Push the stick forward and it should tilt forward. Push the stick right and the swash will tilt right. Left and it should go left. Your pitch servo seems to being the job. The G2 is not a ccpn heli so The set up is a little different than some of the helis that we have. Here is what I would like for you to do. Pop the linkks off of the two front servos. With the trim tabs centered. Please insure that the servo arms are an exact 90 degress across the servo. You do this with the radio on (disconnect motor) You take the servo arm off and move it around till it is close as you can get. Try a different arm if need be. This is the very first thing I do on all my new helis. Now look at your swash when you reconnect the links and the swash should be completly level all around. If not you need to adjust your ball links untill you do have it. The pitch servo will need to be adjust also and you will adjust with the left stick centered. Be sure the dial controls on the front of the transmitter are centered for mid conrol. The little wheels will have a hash mark and you will want then straight up and down. Keep this in mind that before you attempt to fly and before you set the heli up all the controlls must be centered. The swash plate should also be centered on the shaft mid way between full trravel up and down. Here is a recap: swash centerd, servo arms centered, trim centered, Links adjusted to achieve a centered and level swash. Now using your pitch guage you will want a pitch seting for a beginner to be -2, +5, +11 degrees. The motor should be set oh I'd say for you to 0, 25, 50 ,75, 100. The esc really needs to be high timing, mid battery, Throttle response to high. I run mine in airplane mode and slowly increase my throttle so I do not need soft start. That is what it does. On the first throttle up the esc will slowly take the power up. This helps in not slamming your oneway and gears. It only does this at first .

Hopefuly you and Drobin can look it over and see what the probem is. I think it is something simple like a out of trim set up or revered servo. The other thing is that you could have a tooth missing from your elevstor servo. It takes a few control inputs the rotate the gear around and it my just be locking up. So check that also. at any rate always begin with what I call a square heli. You will be surprised at how sweet it will fly.

Let us know what you find,

Jim_

drobin

maddog57,

Chris,here is a link you may want to go to.I thought I had your e-mail address but I don't.

Dave

PS: I almost won enough won enough to pay for what I got today.Trudy wasn't so lucky.

http://www.walkera-heli.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28

dooleyje

What did you guys find out on the heli?

Jim

drobin

The only adjustment that was off was the collective pitch,the block slider.He just has to adjust the servo arm.The worse news was the tail gear is slipping.So he has to split the frame and ca the pin to the gear.He didn't have any damage at all to the helicopter.The blades didn't even get dirty.I think his takeoff and unplanned landing was due to the pitch block.And like me,being nervous.He did something else when we were there but I'll let him tell you about it.We were there for a couple of hours.My wife came alone with me and she is not interested in helicopters and she did not get bored.In fact,she kept saying"is there anything else".
We also ran into another guy at the hobby shop that told us about a helicopter club not far from us and they are willing to help out with setup and flying lessons.He offered to car pool with Chris(lives too far from me).The only thing,if you join the club,you have to join the AMA.No problem for me.I got my first plane 5 years ago and walked out of the hobby shop with an AMA membership.To me,the security of having it outweights the cost.And I like the magazine.

dooleyje

Good deal. A second pair of eyes help a bunch. The AMA is a great organization and I have been a member for well over 30yrs. I always recommend a flying club where you can get first hand support. You have to pay dues but it is well worth it. I belong to two clubs in my area. You need to join and participate in all the functions and then become an ambassador of your club.

Jim

maddog57

hi fellas,


had a great time w/ drobin Fri. yeah, it's good to have him look at it w/ an experienced set of eyes. he made me feel alot more confident in the work i had done to the G2. he told you what i need to do, so i'll tell you the 2nd bit of news. remember how i complained about the WK-0701 TX? well... no more . i'm now the proud owner of a new Spektrum DX6i TX. looked at the DX7, but didn't get it, 1=was the cost, 2= what would i have to move up to if i did? haha. so i'm a happy heli boy now. soon as i get the G2 back up, i'll install the RX and set it all up. this pkg. comes w/o servos, so the store owner gave me $25 off cuz he didn't have the package that did and that's what i was looking for. thought that was pretty cool. next i'll upgrade the servos. any recommendations? then a good gyro. so when i move to my next heli, l'ii get a kit and have the nice electronics already. or maybe just leave these on the G2 and get the latest for the new one. we'll see.

jim, thanx for the setting info for my esc and all the other advice. i think i have it all pretty much right and Dave thinks so too.

thanx to all for your help and support.

Dave, here's the link for the cellpro site. take a look at the 4s charger/balancer i was telling you about www.fmadirect.com


chris

dooleyje

Congrats!!!! I to have a DX6I and like it very much. I use a Futaba 9C super on everything else but the 450 helis. As far as servos you can't go wrong with the Hitec HS65 hb HB are the norm on 400-450 helis. The HS65MG are also good and it is the metal gear version. As far as Gyro The Futaba 401 is the most popular However the Logitech 2100 is just as good and smaller and only about $100. Hitec has their gyro and servo combo and is actually a Logitech 2100 gyro and JR 3400 tail servo. Never cheap out on the tail servo. You have to have a super fast digital servo. Good luck and I know you will enjoy the DX6I.

Jim

David867

Congratulations on the DX6i maddog!!!!!!!

HS65HB's are the best, worth every dollar, they're really fast, has great torque, and is VERY strong. I got 1 set of replacement gears, and haven't had to use them, not even after 6 hard crashes!

They're a little big, so you need to grind the frame of the Raptor to fit them in, same goes when installing them into the CopterX, it's normal.
You will not be disappointed with these servos, they're a bargain at $24.99 each.

You're slowly upgrading, that's a good way of doing it.

With Jim's advice, you'll get the best in the industry for your needs.

Have fun with your new radio.

flyachopper1

Hey flitter flyers,
I'm back from two days of enjoying the Colorado Rockies and trout fishing with my son in law and his dad. We met up in Durango and fished the Animas River on reservation land a few miles outside the Durango city limits. That has to be some of the most beautiful country Colorado has to offer. Caught and ate some nice fish, am relaxed enough to face another week of dealing with the Oklahoma bumblecrats. Got to see some US Air Force choppers doing some amazing maneuvers out over the countryside south of Durango. They were apparently practicing or training and some of those guys can really fly. The power and capabilities of those choppers are amazing. Saw three of them pop up out of a canyon going nearly straight up in formation and they spread out in three directions, flipped into a dive, lined up side by side and buzzed by at less that a hundred feet right over our heads. I gave them a thumbs up and saw one of the pilots salute me. That was good for some goosey bumps. My son in laws dad grouched a bit about them scaring away the fish but I loved every second of it. Besides, he caught a two pounder right after that. Heading out this afternoon for Okie City. Gotta (ugh) fly there commercial as the black beauty is already there. It's sure gonna be good to get 'back in the saddle' and captain my own bird. I don't much like leaving my chopper far away like that, but that last week there really put it through a workout and in the interest of safety it needed a good going over by the techs. This time will be a lot easier. I'll have all the info from the surveyors programmed into the GPS and that will do the navigation for me. Should be a 'cruise' compared to last time. Next week I get to fly out over Iowa and Missouri to photograph flood damage for the Union Pacific. It's sad how that area is suffering from all the flooding and it's apparently not over yet. The Mighty Mississippi is joining in now and there are more storms expected throughout the areas in the next few days. It's even getting kinda worrisome here. There is a river on each side of North Platte (North platte and South Platte) and the North Platte is just four feet below flood stage now.

I worked on the T Rex some this morning and made some good progress. It's getting real close to flying again. I'm putting one of the tough orange belts in this time and am going to put the idler back on the tail to begin with to see how it works with those. They seem to be a little stiffer than the stock belts and I'm thinking until it gets broke in a bit it will need the idler. When I turn things by hand it looks like the stiffness causes the belt to want to climb a little where it contacts the teeth on the tail pulley. Rather than running it too tight to stop this I'll use the idler to keep it running straight onto the pulley. Feels real smooth though. I hope it works out to be a good belt as I went nuts and bought five of them. I'm also looking into getting some Gates belts too. Had a lot of good use out of the shorter ones on the old nitros and there is a bearing and drives company here that supplies Gates belts for all uses. They sell mostly big industrial stuff for farm equipment and kind of chuckle at me when I come in with my itty bitty stuff for the helis. They are always interested in what I'm doing with the helis though and are real good at finding stuff for me. I'm going to take some of my spare bearings with me to see if they can match them with a good Timken bearing. If I find out they can I'll let you all know the part numbers. I'm betting the Timkens will be a lot better than the Chinese bearings and less expensive than some of the exotic ones offered by other manufacturers.

Hey Maddog,
Glad to hear you got yourself a good rx/tx. That's gonna make a big difference in whatever heli you end up flying. Good servos too. Oh yeah, you're gonna be flying some good equipment soon and having a lot more fun. Later maybe you can ditch the stock tail assy. and go with the one for the T Rex. It's a lot better and won't fail you as much. Better yet, save up and get yourself a Copter X, upgrade that some and fly the heck out of it. It's cool that you and drobin can get together to work things out. It's nice to have a buddy to help with the brain storming and if nothing else just to fly and joke around with. I'm bugging Ames to get ta gittin' on his T Rex so I don't have to be a lonely old helinut. It is good to train your thumbs and forefingers with the persnickety little G2 though. After mastering it you will fly the others with confidence and skill. I'm betting though that you, like all of us, will be adding to your hangar soon.

Gotta go shove some lunch down my neck and catch a plane.

See you all later.

flyerbug686

Hello Pilots. Im having another sweet flying weekend, and I added a new flyer to my collection. Since all my flying buddies have both planes and helis, I decided to get a plane aswell. For those of you who dont have any preferences as to what you get up into the air here is what I bought. A katana 47" power set combo [link=http://www.3dhobbyshop.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=62&WT.svl=lc21]click here[/link]. Never had a plane before, cant wait till it gets here. I was going to canibalize the raptor for electronics, but I cant bring myself to do it. I still have JR s 285 servos, so I think ill throw those in there. Two new Evo 2175mah and an AR 6100 good to go. Nice thing is I dont have to splurge on a GYRO. Ill post some photos when she gets here

Well, time for todays TREX session hope you got to fly something this weekend

Ames where are you?

Flyerbug

maddog57

hey guys,

been playing w/ my DX6i and this thing is sweet! it's so easy to work with, has a great manual and all the features i could want, unlike the W-0701 i was using. just had to spout off about it.


hey drobin did you get the message i sent? was asking about the allen head screw sizes you gave me.


chris

Magic Hook

Flyachopper,
I am not so sure about that idler pully. Although I have not tried a orange belt, or heard of it, I am sure its good. I have used the stock belt, and now use the Mavrick belt that looks like its Kevlar. My V2 with idler managed to shread them all. Could have been me learning how tight to make it, but since I removed it, No problems. Well not counting when I attacked the ground inverted, tail first in idle up 2 that is. Pulled that bonehead stunt showing myh wife how good I could fly backwards. But that one also broke the carbon fiber tail boom in five pieces and bent the tail drive shaft 90 degrees. The CF tail blades went someplace. My CY main blades were destroyed also among other various parts.

I am looking for internet shops that sell the Common Sense batteries 6000 for the Trex 600e. I see them on the Common Sense site, but just wanted to compair dollars before I order. I am on vacation this week but plan to order my 600e about Thursday so that I can have it in my hands on Monday. Not going to rush that build, and plan to bling it a bit with some metal head parts and a tork tube tail. Looking forward to some big air manuvers.

Maddog,
Congrats on your DX6. You will enjoy that a lot and there is a TON of info on the web about them. I have the DX7 and just love that thing. Your heli will fly better with it, trust me on that. Keep confidant in you skills on the sim. I did not believe I could actually fly even after I could hover and ff on my G4. I struggled with my heli, crashed it twice before it left my "Man Cave". Once while armed, and motor plugged in (dont do that) I knocked the transmitter over. It leaped off the bench, hit the floor inverted, then did the dead chicken dance out the door and into my yard! The other time I decided to program my ESC on the bench. (Note to self: slide motor back) Well when I turned on the TX with throd all the way up, you guess it, it went crazy but it had no main blades. My tail blades wrecked enough stuff before it was over. I made every stupid mistake possible before I got on forums and started to really learn. Now that you have good help your first hover is not far off. After that......its all good even the ground attacks.