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Old 01-07-2007 | 03:25 PM
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noguy
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From: Oroville, CA
Default RE: E-FLITE BLADE CP PRO

OK im alive again. 1st Ill see if my newb way of explaining tuning helps you some more commander bob.... but it is essentially what copperdudes said.
tuning means getting all the mechanics setup as good as possible ie, level swash, blade balancing, blade tracking, pitch, cg, and lastly trim.
Ok So for anyone who isnt aware this is my first heli and I have come a long way from my first week now in understanding the very basics.... My heli has been through many crashes, mostly minor while practicing hovering. And even though I had been checking blade balances after each crash and watching for bends in my flybars and spindles. I had felt like I mastered tail in hovering with a completly stock setup, After many crashes the bird just seemed to get more and more difficult to fly. I was beginning to get very flustered and was becomming to think this heli was a very bad choice for a 1st timer.
Well my opinion has changed some now... I dont know if I would completely agree with copperdudes
yep, teh blade is a fine starter heli IMO.
but it can be learner.

Ill try explain my trip through dialing in this thing with a little ramling as possible:

First a trip to the LHS for parts, and a complete teardown(not eletronics)
I first checked for vibs by just spining up the motor and mainshaft, No head/swash/blades & tail motor was unplugged.
I had a new mainshaft in and checked it for vibration by spinning it up and feeling the skids and chassy for vibs...there was some very high freq vibs but Im sure they are normal for such small components that are molded (not the very most precise stuff) More importantly I pinched the top of the shaft and slowly incresed the throt to make sure I could not feel and bend in the Mshaft.

Then I went on to checking out my center hub and rotor head. The ones I had been flying since new I found out were hammered. The key on the hub and the keyway on the rotorhead were worn from too many bladestrikes/crashes. This caused the hub to be able to twist inside the rotor head too much. I pulled out some new ones from the LHS and they had much less play in this aspect to on went the new ones. I then placed these pieces on the shaft(swash too) and spun up to see if they would cause in change in level of vibs. Everything seemed as before when spinning up the shaft only[8D]

Next I added the paddle control frame and pushrods, also the feathering/spindle shaft, blade grips, mixing arms and pushrods. Did a spin up check here and everything seemed the same as when doing a shaft only spin up... [8D]
note:I added 1 shim to each side betweeen the oring and the step washer on the spindle shaft, allowing less lateral play in the blade grips and beter centering it.

Next I removed the hub&rotor head, and the paddle control frame and inserted a new flybar (the old one had a very slight bend in it that I was not able to detect when fully installed) I centered the flybar perfectly by using the depth gauge part of my digital calipers based on the lock nut part of the paddle control frame to the tip of the flybar. i then attempted to try to check the balance by teetering the setup on the outer ball links of the control frame carefully between my fingers. this didnt seem to work too well so I just tightened the bar down in the current dead ceter position and threw everything back on the shaft.....Did another spin up check and every thing was super smooth...
note: with this little wieght on the shaft and a new center hub everything would spin up fine without installing the shear pin...saving time since I just was looking for vibs along the way.

Next I again removed the head and added the flybar weights and paddles (ensure the are all the way on) and set them perfectly parrallel to the paddle control frame (something I had previously not paid close enough attention to, it is importand to use the paddle control frame as your refference when setting paddle pitch to 0). tried my crappy little balance by the link balls method again and it seemed pretty well in balance so on the bird everything went. Another spin up test. I now needed the sheer pin to get everything to spin up and there was an ever so slight difference in the smoothness of the spin up but I decided it was negligable and went with it.

Onto the blades...This was the first time I hade balanced the blades off the head. Hopefully some experts will chime in on this matter as to if this is a much preffered method or not. Previously I had been using the meathod listed here: http://www.bladecprepair.com./man_mr...stment#balance.
On the blades went and another spin up....everything seemed super smooth. I dont know if I would claim that the heli had no vibs at ALL, like uncle sir has obtained, but there was no visible vibs. The only detectable vibration anywhere in spin up was only found by feeling the bird by hand (im pretty sure that it is totally impossible to get it feel like its not even running at all).
I tracked my blades and decided everything was acceptable and pluged in the tail for a test hover.

I had also just installed a telebee/zoom HH gyro (followed the instruction in the blade CPP manual exactly). I did some ground test to make sure my reverse setting were correct and then popped her in the air and I WOW! after a little triming and tuning the gyro gain this thing would hover rock solid. I could dead stick the controls 2-3 times longer than ever before. The HH gyro, another WOW, holds the tail wherever I leave it (only hovering so far). I gave some jabs of throttle and the tail does not swing as it did before with heavy jabs of throttle...Love the HH, glad I followed your advice jelly.

I dont know if much of this will be technically helpful to most, but it will hopefully help some other newbs like me in realizing the importance of maintinance and not try to fly a beatup machine. Also I hope it offers some encouragement to anyone who is starting to feel like this little bcpp is a piece of unstable junk. It certianatly is not. Now if im hovering and give forward stick it goes strait forward and when i bring it to a gradual stop it stays right where I stopped it. It almost seems toe easy now.

I feel that it is time for me to get out and do some FF. I have been trying to master all orientations of hover first but I am hearing more and more that people are doing FF before they can noseIn hover.

Copperdudes
(and anyone else who can help),
how did you move out of hover into FF. I have heard of slow ff to one side the a half piro and back and forth progressing farther, faster and wider until your fly big fig 8's....alternatively I have heard to fly in a circle around yourself in one direction and then the other before doing fig 8's....I have flow pretty far and fast forward and backwards away and twords myself, but i am nervious about incorporating turns into FF. How did all of you start out with FF...any advice would be gfreatly appriciated.

Thank everyone, Noah