RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Saw the Predator last night for the frst time. Looks awesome! Wonder what the GPS control system will add to the price?
Placed my order for the Eyetop glasses yesterday. I will let everyone know how they work. Ordered the clear lenses too.
I had DFI send me a handful of extra screws when I popped my two spares in the first half hour of flight. I think an extra set of rotors and screws should be included in a starter kit.

Norfolk? I'm in Fredericksburg. Maybe we should get together and fly sometimes. I have a DFIV on 44. What channel are you on?

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Hey there fellow DF'ers
Got my DF lV delivered yesterday but the camera was missing, DFI had put a letter in the package saying they were on back order and would be sent out 3-7 days time, but thats more like 2 to 3 weeks for me coz im in the UK :( .
Got the DF set up in about 1 1/2 hours , attached the tether cord and started my learning curve. after about an hour of hopping around the room i got it into a steady hover and kept on hovering for about 30 mins i only stopped coz my brain was so blitzed and i coudnt concentrate any longer. I left it for about an hour and went and had a cup of tea and some Hob Knobs then started to hover it again ,that was until it keeled over to the right and dropped like a ton of bricks. On inspection i found that one of the little brass cogs on the motor's had slipped down the shaft and wasnt connecting with the main prop cog,it now spins freely on the shaft and comes of completely from the motor [:o] HELP!!!!!! how the hell do i get it to stay on and grip the motor shaft????????

Was gonna try using superglue but thought against it coz i dont think it would take the forces involved, :eek: i am now thinking of trying some kind of metal cement to see if that will hold , but surely this shouldnt be happening wot if all the brass cogs fail on the shafts ??? God help me if im up high with the DF coz it will just fall out of the sky, Has any one else on here had this this problem happen to them???? [&:] ive only had it 2 days and about an hour of stick time and im grounded already coz of a stoopid little bloody brass cog[sm=thumbdown.gif]

Any help would be very much appreciated chaps coz as you might understand Sasktoon Canada isnt just round the corner from Liverpool UK [sm=tired.gif]


Thanks a lot and watch out for those LITTLE BRASS BLOODY COGS...............

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Bummer!!! Did you call DFI about this?? That is very odd. I bet they would FedEx one to you pretty quick. They are a GREAT bunch to work with.

Make sure you don't fly much more than 15-20 minutes at a time, though. The motors do heat up pretty quickly. That MAY have had something to do with it but hard to say.

I got the tether too but have just done battery flying. Did you add the battery as ballast while using the tether? This was recommended to me by DFI.

I love mine! Having a great time with it.

Good luck!!

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

hi there Aero [8D]

!! UPDATE !! Just noticed another brass cog has dropped down the shaft on ANOTHER motor but its just about connecting with the main cog i can move it up and down the shaft with my fingers so thats another one gone :( :( This is Bloody STOOPID !!!!!
HAS ANY ONE ELSE HAD THIS PROBLEM ????

I did actually phone DFI yesterday but not about the cogs, when i had put it together i noticed that my DF didnt have the plastic cup protectors on the bottom of the motors like i had seen all the others have on the DFI website!!
The chap i spoke too explained they dont use them any more because the motors tend to get too hot with them on, i explained that all the soldered wires and the resistor are showing and would be prone to being "hit hard" on the ground, but he said thats the way they are now so i took his word for it.

How The Hell do i get these cogs to grip to the shaft????? So i guess that means the other 2 cogs are eventually gonna fail on me.

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

I questioned that too. But I found these thingys at a hardware store. ITs a major brand over here but not sure of the name. They make a whole line of these pad things for easily moving furniture and stuff around. Hard pads that have rubber on one side and are hard and slick on the other. The new thing I found is for the bottom of chair stools. About an inch in diameter and are soft, cupped rubber on the non-hard side. They gripped the motor bottom fine and still allowed air to move around becuase its not a perfect fit. but they grip well and are slippy on the bottom. The can come off but only after a bang up. Then you just slip it back on. I did this after a few bang ups on asphalt ate off the capacitors on the bottom. DFI sent a strip of new caps to solder in place. Poor design having the bottoms exposed and a REAL bummer that your motors are failing. They will make good with you on that I am sure.

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

I was wrong about the size of the motor capacitors. I got out a magnifying glass and managed to read 104K on one of the caps. That would be 104K picofarads, or 0.1 microfarads. On the plus side, they're easy to get.

[&:]

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Got some Loctite 642 bearing retainer today and fixed the 2 cogs that were loose ,,, seems to have fixed the problem they seem to be fastend on hard ,, good stuff this Loctite.... just wondering if or when the other 2 cogs might fail but so far they seem solid..
Im wondering whether i just got unlucky and got 2 motors that were put together badly ,would just be my luck that[&:]

Got back to my hovering around the front room and everything seems fine and dandy.. In Answer to your question Aero, no i dont use the battery as a Ballast when flying with the tether cord it seems to hover around just fine without.

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Just got my Eyetop video glasses in. Pretty slick. The lenses are not as perfect-clear as I would have liked but I think they will be useable. Will try them outdoors tomorrow. I think they will take some getting used to, though. Very clear picture using the Eyecam from DFI. I ordered a set of clear lenses but they are coming from a different place so will take a few more days to arrive. Don't think that control of the DF will be possible but all I really want to accomplish using them is for aiming the camera in generally the right direction. Should help with orientation if it gets too far away. We'll see.

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

I just received my Draganflyer IV after a long wait! I`m afraid of damaging it and wondered if any of the "simulator Heli`s" that come with Real Flight are similar to the Draganflyer? I know I should just go out and practice but I`m on crutches for the next few weeks and the closest I can come to practicing right now is through Real Flight. This is my first post at this Great Site! Thanks!

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Hey there nike...

When you say your afraid of damaging it do you mean your afraid to fly it full stop????

Did you get the tether cord?? you definatly need this,,, no need to mess about keep charging the batterys for some stick time....

Ive only had mine 4 days now and i can hover in one spot no problem now, for as long as i want ive even started to do 90 degree hovering , its Bloody hard!!!![>:] in total ive snapped a total of 1 blade's and chipped quite a few more but i just get my Dremmel out and sand em down a little and they seem fine ,,

Believe me Nike these little DF'S are a LOT tougher than they seem dont be scared to get it up hovering even if you do crash chances are there wont be a thing wrong with it , you may chip your blades up but like i said you can sand em down a little and they still work fine.
After every bump ive had so far i found all i had to do was straighten up the motors and off i go again.

By the way as a matter of interest just keep an eye on the brass cogs on the motors ,, ive had 2 of mine come loose and fail i would be interested to see if any one elses does the same .. ive used Loctite 645 bearing retainer on the 2 failed ones and it seems to have done the job.

Did you order the camera with yours?? I did but i had a letter in my parcel saying they were on back order and wouldnt be shipping till 5-7 days time.. Coz im in the UK that will proberbly be 2 weeks for me...#

Ive had about 5 hours stick time so far (4 hours on the tether and 1 hour on the Li Po's) and im really enjoying it , All the Heli chaps at my flying club are amazed at how quick ive been to be able to hover it so skillfully, some of the chaps there have had thier Helis for months and they still cant hold a hover for more than 5 seconds at a time.. im gonna ask one of them to let me try thier raptors to see if what i have learned on my DF will transfer straight away to the real Helis...:eek:

Any ways Have Fun,,, after all its what its all about!!!!

Laters...[8D]

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Hey Captain...
Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, I guess I am afraid to "throttle up" too much. I have a very limited space to practice in and outside isn`t an option for me quite yet. So far, I`ve only practiced for about an hour total and haven`t gone past 6" in height. I have chipped up a few blades but they seem to be holding OK. I read somewhere that hovering and control improve once your up over 2 feet. Is that your experience with this? Yes, I bought the tether cord and the camera and I`m really excited about trying to get this thing to hover in one spot for more than a few seconds! I would appreciate any other helpful hints for a total rookie! Thanks again for your response. Nike

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Hi Nike. I have to agree with Pug, fun's the thing! Send in an order now for a half-dozen sets of rotors and don't worry about it.

If you've only practiced for an hour, I'd say 6' is a tad high. It's true that hovering is a bit easier when you get out of the ground effect, but with a few more hours of practice you'll be able to keep it in one place a few inches up. That will give you more confidence when you start rotating it. If you're going to crash, crashing from a few inches is, in my opinion, better than crashing from 6'.

Okay, here's my tip, learned from painful experience. PAY ATTENTION TO THE BATTERY LIGHTS ON YOUR TRANSMITTER! Sorry about the caps, but my experience was traumatic. I was out in my garage practicing hovering. It was hover a few seconds, chip a rotor, hover, chip, etc. I was practicing 10 minutes at a time, then taking an hour off. As time went on I got better and was getting excited about it. I cut the cord and was hovering on the battery - very exciting! Then it happened. During a hover all of the motors went to full throttle and my copter crashed full speed against the wall of my garage. Believe me, it was not a pretty sight! The batteries in my transmitter had gone low and lost control of the copter. On the plus side, the DF IV is a sturdy craft, and I was running again in an hour. (I had to order a few rotors and other parts after that, I admit.)

Have fun!

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Hi Durf,
Actually, it was 6 inches, not feet. I just wish the snow would all dissapear so I can take my practice sessions to the yard. You mention buying lots of blades. I have a few chipped blades already and was considering using clear strapping tape to "reconstruct " the leading edge. Anyone have any advise about this? Also, do relatively small chips make a lot of difference in craft stability? Thanks again for your reply.
Nike

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

I use regular thin scotch tape for my rotors. After I knicked a few tips I sculpted the tape to a similar shape. Works so well I cover the leading edge of all my rotors now with a strip of tape. One thing to watch for is balance. I bought a small prop balancer...the kind you hold between your fingers...and that works well. I lightly sand all my rotors to smooth edges, add a strip of tape to the leading edge and tips and then balance them. Add small pieces of tape to achieve balance as opposed to sanding off the blade. And if you have knicks in the blades now with small sections missing, just 'fill-in' the missing part with tape and keep flying!! I have even had great luck while practicing, using blades that have been taped back together after being broken. I lift gently to make sure they won't warp funny at the break but it has really helped. I am saving my new blades for unfixable breakages or when I get better.

Did you ask about RealFlight? If you don't have it, GET IT!!! That is an amazing tool to learn with. I take chances using it that I would never do with the DF. It has helped me a lot! You set the flying field to the house that is included. Then you add a few new view windows. One for sort of a relative attitude of the bird in relation to you. Move it to the lower corner of the screen. Set another view looking out the front window. Then use the main screen view as a normal, ground based view. Position yourself (F8) a few feet away and then save the whole thing. I use the trainer helos mostly and the electrics but the bigger birds are fun to mess around with.

The 'camera' view out the front window is sweet. I have found that I can keep the choppers flying around the house and control it so that the house stays in the front view. Then jsut go round and round. Cool. So, I had to go and buy a set of Eyetop.net video glasses to try and reproduce the same setup. Just got them in and am still scared to take the DF up high enough to really try it out. Should work well to reproduce the same setup as in the RF sim.

Oh well...Back to work!!! (whip, whip) Later....

RE: RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

I've got quite a lot of time on my DF IV, and I found early on that there is a product that works amazingly well for repairing rotor chips. It's called "plastex", it's a 2 part molding compound, one dry one wet, that includes a small piece of mold making material. you heat up the molding putty and press it against an undamaged edge of a rotor (make sure if you have chipped a leading edge, copy a leading edge, not a trailing edge!)

Once you've made a master, align it with the damaged area, and apply the plastex per directions. (a small drop or two of the liquid into a mound of the dry, pick up the resulting ball of material, place it in the area you're repairing, then flood in more of the liquid until it flows into the gap) Then, just hold it in place for a couple of minutes until it sets up enough to remove the mold, then let it cure for an hour or so.

Once cured, it sands beautifully, and it's density is very close to that of the rotor styrene. I have never had to rebalance a rotor repaired this way, nor have I ever had a failure in one that's been repaired this way. It's really good stuff!

WARNING: (two actually) this stuff stinks! make sure you have good ventilation away from open flame or sparks, cause it burns too. Don't try to use this as a repair medium on a conventional helicopter rotor. No I haven't tried it, nor will I, EVER. I have no intention of have a meter wide horizontal circular saw fail at 1800 RPM because I was too cheap to replace a $40. set of rotors that were damaged. The DF rotors are light enough, and the disc loading even lighter, that I don't have too much concern about the repair of these little guys.

If you're interested in trying it, the company website is www.plastex.net. This stuff is not cheap, but I have used my small kit many, many times ( you only use a very small amount of the stuff for each repair) and still have lots left
Wayne

RE: RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Hey Dragnaflyer,
Thanks for the suggestion of "plastex" I just went to their web site and ordered a small kit. Sounds like a great repair solution.
AeroRecon, I have Real Flight (lite version) Is the Draganflyer similar in control to the "30 heli" simulator? Thanks again to everyone for your help and suggestions. I love this site!

RE: RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

You know, I've got realflight G2 lite, have used the full version, and I haven't tried anything on either that was even close to the the DF. In reality, I think the closest thing to the DF as far as the speed at which you can get it in the air, and the inherent and immediate stability is the Hirobo XRB. The differences are that the DF is much happier outside than in, and you can fly it a bit higher, and a bit faster:D
Wayne

RE: RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Took my DF to the park today to see if i could start doin some FFF , I have to tell you that it was a lot easier than it seems. i had some trouble with the orientation at first but i found that once i had commited to flying away and turning it round to come back it all fell into place. did this a couple of times until i very stupidly flew into and looking at the sun, got blinded for a second and lost my orientation and had a nasty little bump into the grass, I snapped one of the risers near were it goes through the carbon rod ,seems it could be a weak point on all the risers. it was a clean break so i used some plastix superglue on it and you cant even tell were the break is now and its bonded very strong! Ive got a couple of spare risers and this leads me to a very important question "HOW THE HELL DO YOU REPLACE THEM WITHOUT TEARING THE DF APART????" as far as i could see you would have to unsolder the motor completely to pull the wires through the carbon rod to get the broken riser off, am i correct in saying this??? seems like a lot of delicate work just to get a broken riser off,... I suppose i was lucky this time that i had such a clean break enabling me to glue it back with ease but in future i may not be so lucky...
Anyways im off back to the park tommorow as long as the wind is as calm as it was today.... Practise,Practise,Practise is what its all about... ;)
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/thum...33/If10872.jpg

RE: RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

yup, that's the only way. Actually, it only takes about 10 minutes total to replace, really not that big a deal. By comparison, my Corona had a nast habit of stripping the tail rotor drive pinion if you even looked at it harshly, and it takes a half an hour minimum to take the tail off, pull the pinion, re-install a new one, remount the tail and hook up the servo. All in all, the DF repairs are a piece of cake in comparision, and the Corona is considerably easier to work on than any of my collective pitch helis
Wayne

RE: RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

My new DraganFlyer has experienced the same fate from my learning curve. Even though you guy's unfortunately are "bashing-up" your DF's, it comforts me to know that I'm not the only one who spent lot's and lot's of good money to only drift your thousand dollar machine into the wall and floor with pieces flying off...!
In my limited indoor practice space, I have nipped and cracked a few blades and cracked-off my rear spar pylon in a panic landing. Glued back the plylon.
I mounted four 1"x2" styrofoam pads or feet under each of the four pylons (virtually no weight factor). This adds about 1" of extra ground clearance which saves alot of wear and tear on my blades, and also adds a larger more forgiving landing-base as well as a shock-absorber cushion. Virtually no upset in balance or lift quality and no more parts flyin'. Looks kinda cool too!

Made my own tether cord. Quite simple actually. Any length you want. Just obtaining the connectors were tricky. I use a 12volt motorcycle battery and get hours of time.
I'll try the scotch tape on my blades. I was using masking (heavier, but works). The Plastex sound great. I may try if I go through the next sets too quickly. Gonna order 2 sets of blades so I can have for summer, when I'm a better pilot.

Can't wait till spring to go outdoors in my backyard. Maybe in late March if we're lucky!

Few questions
 

I'm really interested in buying a draganfly but I would like to know some details, if somebody could help me... :
-How far can you control the draganfly ? (the Remote Control range)
-How high can he fly ?
-Does he fly faster or slower than a normal helicopter ?

(excuse my english : I'm french)

RE: Few questions
 

PoussmY...
I think you mean the "Draganflyer"...? Because there are so many names and models.
Firstly you should have some experience with RC flying. The Draganflyer will fly farther than you can see it, so you will only ever fly about 200 feet up and/or out. At this price, you don't want to loose it, eh? Speed is not the attraction of this machine, but it will fly as fast as any E-Heli I guess. The info on the Draganflyer web site should answer all your questions here.

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

Has anyone had problems with the heat sinks coming off the motors? I had one come off yesterday when I was practicing in my garage - no crash. I'd hate to lose one, because I'd be grounded until I got it replaced. I put mine back on with super glue, but I'm a little worried about the heat conductance.

We're having a break in the weather here, so I just went out in the backyard for my second attempt at outdoor flying. I got the DF up near the tops of some eucalyptus trees, which was pretty exciting. In fact, it was a bit too exciting - I got shaky and almost lost control. I did manage to bring it in in one piece, though it was far from a pretty landing. One thing that really helped today was having painted the underside of the front rotor fluorescent orange, a tip I got from an experienced flyer on this board. It made it MUCH easier to see which way the DF was heading.

Onward and (gulp) upward!

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

So what is the heat sink? Is it inside the eletric motor? Seems like alot of things are coming lose from the draganfly. Bolts,blades snapping, heat sink falling and lose of power. I guess the design is not all that good. ONly if everything will stay in place. But the draganfly is a neat little toy.

RE: Draganfly iv. Anyone flew it?Control?
 

The heat sink is an aluminum snap-on piece designed to reduce heat build up in each motor. You'll find them on many R/C motors, and they all fall off; the fix is easy, a drop of CA. They don't glue them on in case you have to replace the motor. As for it being a bad design, I would strenuously disagree, in the strongest possible terms. I would suggest that you fly one, then acquire and fly a conventional .30 size heli, crash both, see which survives better and cost less to fix. The DF is a brilliant piece of electrical and aeronautical engineering, and not only does it work, it works VERY well, and at the same time is much tougher than ANY helicopter I own, including the LMH Corona which is widely recognized as being the most crash resistant conventional heli on the market.

These helis are all highly complex, precise machines. Like all highly complex and precise machines, things fail occasionally, or don't work the way they were designed to. That does not make them junk, or a bad design. It is the nature of the beast, and one of the things about this hobby that you come to accept, and in many cases embrace just for the sheer complexity of it all, and the immense satisfaction you get when you build it right, tune it right, maintain it right, and it works the way it was designed to
Wayne