I need a few opinions on a problem I've been having with my CX2.

I have made some mods to my bird including: CF tail boom, Xtreme 180bb moters, shortened flybar, 3-1 vented, servo horns on 3rd hole elev and 2nd hole aler. I am anel about my setup. All of my shafts are straight, flybar straight as an arrow, all berings lubercated, CG is perfect, gear mesh is always set with paper between pinion and gear.

In the last week or so my bird has been glitching. It doesn't happen every flight but when it does it usually happens more than once in a battery pack. I will be flying fine when my Tx and Rx apparently loose contact with each other and the heli falls out of the air. After the glitch my rudder trim goes from left of center to right of center about the same amount depending on how much battery I have left (lower battery = more trim). My bird has also gone from flying about 13-14 mins per battery pack to about 6 mins per pack ever since the litch started. I have 4 different packs and it is the same with all 4. I charge with an eflite intell balancing charger so i know that my batts have 8.40 volts with 4.20 per cell on all so batt problems are ruled out. Both of my roters run very freely aka no binding. Bearings have all been inspected and are in good condition. I have literaly checked everything I can think of and still the same problem.

This is really bumming me out.[&o] Please help!!

Thanks,

Uri

Uri,

I too experience "glitching". This didn't happen when I had first purchased the heli, but about several months after. I know the Spektrum technology is supposed to help alot with interference, but I still believe something out side the heli is causing the glitch

As far as setup, at one point I was losing lift. It was because the upper set of blades where out of track.

If you've recently installed a new flybar, you will have to adjust the linkage to put the blades back in track...

try some new servos.
Rich

My glitch has only been prevalent in the last week and I have had the bird about 3 months, so it didn't happen at all at first for me either. My flybar has been on for about 2 months and my blades are tracking perfectly.

I don't think it is a servo glitch because it doesn't jerk, it simply falls out of the sky. Once it is down the 3-1 goes through the arming process and when it arms the rotors spin about 2 revols.

I tend to lean toward a 3-1 going bad but I'm just not sure.

Interesting, mine does "jerk", and I'm stumped...

i tryed a new 4 in 1 I have the old one and it still does it.
Rich

Mine never has jerked just falls. I do notice that once the glitch happens my heli starts to sink shortly therafter. Before this started to happen I was discharging my packs to about 7.22v before I started to loose lift. Now I loose lift with 7.65v and sometimes more. This is from the most recent pack I flew tonight. The glitch happened 4 times during that pack. The first pack i flew today didn't glitch at all. I am really afraid to fly my bird any more until i figure out what is wrong. I can't have it falling out of the sky every 1.5 minutes. I am going to check for wire wear and make sure I am not gettin a short. Aside from that I think I will have to order a new 3-1 which sucks because it's pricey. Any other ideas on the sorce would be greatly appreciated by me and my wallet.

Rich,
Do you notice shortened flight times with your glitch?

1 thread please just kidding yes i did
Rich

I slept on it last night and came up with a few probable issues which may be causing my glitching. I was hoping to get a little feedback on which to check/replace first.

1. I have had Xtreme 180bb motors for about 1.5-2 months without replacing the brushes. I have conservativly flow about 24 hours total FT on these brushes. Could worn brushes be causing the glitch via contact between the armature and communicator? I have the original stock motors still in pretty good shape. I will try and put them back in and run a few packs to check this problem.

2. Rich (aka Richkid241) suggested that the servos may be causing voltage spikes thus shorting the electrical system. I have checked the servo wires and there is no worn through insulation or knicks to speak of. The servos also operate normally during flight. If I were to unplug the servos and tape the heli to my bench and run a pack through this would help to diagnose this issue although I don't neccessaraly get the glitch on every pack but do get reduced run times every pack.

3. A 3-1 going bad.

Opinions?

I have had servo glitching (not the Heli falling out of the sky) because I routed the servo wires too close to the motors.

i have the regular cx with 72 mhz and i never have glitches..must be the spektrum

UTM I am just curious what brushes are you using, the silver or carbon.

Nick

Has anyone suggested perhaps the TX batterys? Are you still running on the same batterys in the TX as when it was new? I have almost never seen a 3 in 1 go bad, but the RX might also be an issue. from your explanation you are saying the heli and TX lose contact and the heli falls on the ground and then it goes thru the entire arming process again. That is a loss of signal........... I would be amazed if the 3 in 1 or the servos were the culprit. (That being said, the Spektrum S60 servos are fairly fragile and do not last forever)
Check the TX batterys..... install new ones and see if that isn't part of the problem. From there you can diagnose if its is the TX or the RX.
That is my guess from your info posted. Let us know if it helps any.


[Of all the things I ever lost.............................................. I miss my mind the most![/b]

On my CX I've been there with the Tx batteries. My glitching stops when I have good Tx power, and it's sure to show up when the power is down.

My Falcon 40 gave me glitching fits for a while. I've been through a period of time when I was about to toss the helicopter - until one of my servos finally went away. With that servo replaced, the glitching stopped at that servo, the other servo stopped glitching and the overall power was stable again. Before that I would not have guessed that one servo could pull everything down. I was wrong. That one servo must have had a motor problem because it did pull the entire system down. Could be a servo pulling the voltage level of the system down and disconnecting the Rx momentarily.
Just a thought.

Soloboss

I had a similar problem with the CX and it turned out to be a bad reciever. It was a crash that did it in.......
Your could try another one if you have one handy.

ahhh, yes I've had some hard landings...so probably a crash

Thanks for all the replies.

Evd - i am using the stock carbon brushes.

Arrow - I replaced the Tx batts as soon as the glitch started as my first thought. I was down to about 4.7v. New batts have 6.0v

I have also had some pretty tough wrecks. About 3 weeks ago I was flying on a very calm day. I had put the heli through its paces with FFF and bank turns. Found myself about 70' up when a rogue gust of wind flipped it upsidedown. Needless to say I was out of the air until I made a trip to the LHS for shafts and blades. I can't really rule out anything electrical yet but I did use up a ful pack today with the servos unplugged with no glitch. Not enough data to rule them out yet. The Rx is a bit beat up from crash damage. I just hate trial and error troubleshooting when it comes to the electronics since they are after all the most expensive pieces.

Didn't have a ton of time today so I will be doing more diagnosis tommorrow after work. I'll report any positive progress. Thanks again for the help. This forum is priceless.

Thanks for all the replies.

Evd - i am using the stock carbon brushes.

Arrow - I replaced the Tx batts as soon as the glitch started as my first thought. I was down to about 4.7v. New batts have 6.0v

I have also had some pretty tough wrecks. About 3 weeks ago I was flying on a very calm day. I had put the heli through its paces with FFF and bank turns. Found myself about 70' up when a rogue gust of wind flipped it upsidedown. Needless to say I was out of the air until I made a trip to the LHS for shafts and blades. I can't really rule out anything electrical yet but I did use up a ful pack today with the servos unplugged with no glitch. Not enough data to rule them out yet. The Rx is a bit beat up from crash damage. I just hate trial and error troubleshooting when it comes to the electronics since they are after all the most expensive pieces.

Didn't have a ton of time today so I will be doing more diagnosis tommorrow after work. I'll report any positive progress. Thanks again for the help. This forum is priceless.

UTM
sorry that i didn't post everthing in your thread that i did in another that you was posting in also with the same sort of prob.have you found anything yet.the others are correct about tx voltage could be to low have noticed if batt gets down to 5 have shorter range and some glitching.if you have that much time on the moters the stock brushes in the 180's could be worn.
Rich

I have heard the carbon brushes on the Xtreme 180's last over 180 flights. I could be wrong about that since it was written a long time ago. The silver brushes last around 80 flights that I kept track of.

Nick

Evd - I've probably run more than 200 flights on my original carbon brushes. Maybe it is the sorce of my problems. New brushes will be on the way by this time tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up on the life of those. I'll probably order a couple of silver sets. From what I have read they do a nice job on this little bird.

I'm not entirely convinced that this is the whole problem though. I will have more bench time tonight to try and see if anything else is happening.

Does anyone have a full wiring diagram for CX2 V2? I'd like to run some voltage testing and see what those results are. I will certainly be able to narrow down the problem that way.

Didn't fly at all last night[&o] Got some withdraw going. Almost clicked buy on an HBK2 this afternoon but resisted the urge mostly do to the wife's fury if I had

Ah HAAAAAAAAAAA! found it. I put my V tester to work and found that the left front motor was having some irregularities. Took it off and found the fuse had broken free from it's solder on the casing. I'll post a couple of pics. I suppose it was bouncing against the casing which was causing the spikes. I put my stockers back in and am back in the air and flying like a top. on the high side all the work I've done to it to try and figure out what was wrong has made it fly really well. I have ordered some silver brushes. When they arrive I will install them and fix the loose connection and put my xtreme's back in as I do find in the case of my heli they provide a little more lift and longer run times.

Thanks for all the help! flying again feels good

I believe that is a capacitor and not a fuse.

Nick

You would know better than me for sure. Mechanically, solid knowledge base. Electrically, woefully inadiquite.

Thanks
Uri