FERNDALE AIR FORCE

alright i'm back, What the heck is the picoo thing? Did I miss something? Tim

AndyW

My Feedback: (1)

Tim,

Tried to get a closer pic but the camera went out of focus but only one wrap and so far so good. I improved on the fix by applying cyano to the wire after snugging it down to the body.

Also, I had some plastic friendly oil from LiteMachines that I applied to the main bearings as well as the wire wrap device.

And finally, I applied a very small bit of the tape they give you for balance but I used it on one of the rotor blades. That REALLY smoothed the high speed performance along with the oil and the top bearing. Now I have considerably more duration with better power.

How I got lube to the main bearings was to sharpen the tip of some 3/16" brass tubing and just drilled some access holes. I may not even bother with ball bearings or bushings. The oil LM supplies is quite thick and helps to dampen the slop in the main bearings.

After some 10 flights so far, I'm getting the hang of it. I can't wait for a dead calm evening to fly it under the street lights. That flashing diode should really show up. Neat.

I also enlarged the tail fin with some Scotch tape. Next up will be canards with a difference. [X(]

AndyW

My Feedback: (1)

Tim,

If you mean the name change from PiccoZ to PicooZ, I've read that there was a hassle with copyright infringement as in Piccolo so they changed the name to keep the law happy.

renoscenic

to fix the wobble in my picco , because it only moves side to side , i stucked to pins on both sides seems to be working no more vibration. Dont like putting any sharp needle in my piccos nose once it crashed it may damage the internal battery, so i just taped pain killers tablet in the nose , ( i comes available in different weigh and sizes. lol)

Prozak

Well I just got one of these and they really are a lot of fun, but now it isn't working :/

It was flying just fine and then I brought it in for a recharge and it doesn't seem to be receiving the siginal from the reciever properly. The only time it responds is if I stick the reciever a few inches away from the heli. I put in fresh batteries so I know it's not a battery issue with the reciever, and the heli takes off when it does receive input, so the battery in the heli is fine as well. Also, I've read that flurouecent light and sunlight can interfere with the transmitters IR siginal, but I've tried flying it in the dark and under normal candescent light and I still have the same problem, any ideas? Should I exchange it? Oh and its channel A is that means anything.

XStroX

I would exchange it.

Does anyone know of the current prices for these at Toys R Us and Walmart? Or even if either store has them in stock? They arn't on either stores websites and I'm gettin real sick of calling every Radio Shack, Toys R Us and Walmart near by.

Stro

Cptn. Krunch

Sorry for the late reply Googleperson, I have been travelling. It would appear that you have the body building under control anyways. Let's see a picture!
I did the mod for the main rotor last night and it worked really well. Added a full 2 minutes to the flight. Thanks guys! I have my Hind Gunship verson down to 8.9 grams and now my problem is it climbs too much, but, after the voltage settles it is very nice to fly.
Prozak, You'd be better off returning that one. Of course, it is a cheap parts wagon at $30.

Patrick_W

well i got my picco z last night... i was wating all day at school today to fly it again! its getting more flight time than my aero ace as of right now... now when i go to my church gym, ill bring with my whole fleet of minis! now all i need is a losi micro t, and i can have a whole arsenal of mini rcs.. the radioshack sales guy almost talked my dad into buying a mosquito... LOL

renoscenic

hey guys i have found another solution in too much spinning problem which cannot be corrected by trimming , i have this problem too with my picco , others said check for the hair , straight the tail rotor if bent then trim again , what if you have done this and its still spinning , . Basically the tail rotor needs to spin and produce enough power to counter rotate the main rotor. While im examining my picco , looking closely to find a better solution concentrating to the tail rotor , there 's a small gap between tail rotor and the motor , but if you turn the motor on this small gap disappears , the actual tail is pushing in the axle resulting a friction between the tail rotor and the motor limiting to spin the rotor freely meaning not enough counter rotation will produced , same effect as when the hair is present , thats why no matter trim you do theres no effect .
simple solution . . pull the tail rotor out from the axle a little enough not to touch the motor .

Evaluation : After doing this plus my simple needle mod to fix the wobble i can fly without any problem even on full charge it flies really smooth and i can even land in the right spot wherever i like. (thats another trick lol )

AndyW

My Feedback: (1)

That's a good tip regarding the tail rotor.

On rotor wobble, I found that I still got some wobble side to side. So I installed another copper bearing 90 degrees to the first. Along with adding some tape to balance the main rotor, I now have a very smooth machine.

Pictured is that fix along with illustrations of the access holes to the bearing components. Also, I installed vertical vanes that can be bent to apply just the right amount of forward push. Adding weight to the nose gives you forward movement quite effectively and maybe a little too effective. The vanes will have their effect proportional to rotor RPM. As well, they also act as a bit of an air brake to limit forward speed. That's the theory, anyway. Still need to test the idea in a wide open space.

iamthejoya

i got mine at [link=http://www.oozarf.com/?Click=16]www.oozarf.com[/link]

it was really cheap with this promotional coupon code

mysp8ce

theres a longer video on there too when you click on that page, those other videos are too short. so with this one you can see a lot more of what its capable of. great buy, i love the chopper

Cptn. Krunch

I just went to Walmart and paid $30 Can. I bet thats what a lot of on-line dealers did. Case in point, the Walmart I got mine at had a stack. I bought mine and told a buddy. The next day there were none when he went. She explained that one person bought the whole tamale!!!![:@]Not to worry, the lady at WM ordered another 250 for next week. My guess is that there will be lots of these around. $80 US. Yikes!

renoscenic

it seams that a lot of people would like to make some money out there , here in uk is not that bad yet , probably next week , more and more people are getting interested to get one of this , i am sure it will be out of stock here sooner , buying this from ebay + shipping cost is too much , if only i can tell them its also available in woolworth for £24.99 .

I shown mine to my friends playing basketball this afternoon , and flew around them , guess what they asked , how much is that ? ( 24.99 ), where did you get that ? ( woolworth ) how far can it go ? ( not very far ) Can i have a go ? ( NOOOOOOOOOO) lol

MegaByte-2

Ferndale,

When I went looking for micro helis I found this thread under the description. Must be in the right place.

Glad to see the posting abt HobbyTron raising their price $10. HobbyTron is the place that seems to always have the stuff in stock, just $10-$20 higher than others. Them raising their price $10 kinda supports the post that a price hike was planned(?) when SilverLit sold it off to Spinmaster. They kept their same profit margin, since all the others are going up $10. They have been decent to me in every problem I had with purchases from them. Many times they had me keep the old unit for parts. Not worth shipping back. They did have a heli advertized that showed a full colective head. If you looked at the box it didnt. Looking at what was visible in the box, it was not a collective head. I called them about it and they did change the ad pic.

Canada's WalMart are at $39. Now its the wait to see what TRU does.

Tony
ARS Software & Innovative Solutions
http://www.falcon1.net/~ars/rcmodels.html

mimoore67

My Feedback: (51)

My Picco Z is on the Fed-EX truck and should be here Friday evening! I checked our local Toys R Us , Walmart and Radio Shacks. I called several radio shacks and was told that they were all out, but were expecting more soon.

I ordered my online through Radio Shack and paid the extra 2nd day shipping charge, which I thought wasn't that bad, if I factored in the gas and time, it would take to track one of these little buggers down! $39.99 online at Radio Shack, plus $10.00 shippin and $3.00 tax.

Anyway, i'm new to this, being a scale airplane guy, with 4-strokes, this looked really fun and for 52.00 bucks, seems like cheap entertainment!

So, i'll re-read all the posts, here and over at RC-Groups. Sounds like this little guy can be modified, tweaked to be a awesome little performer.

renoscenic

I am looking for a good lubricant for my picco , micro builder uses liquid grapite , cannot find it in here but instead its a powder grapite , can i mix an oil to this to make it liquid , the man cannot answer me . Any suggestion.?

micro_builder

My Feedback: (1)

renoscenic, the dry graphite will work, no need to mix with oil. the liquid graphite is the same thing, except its in a liquid suspension that evaporates quickly, leaving just the graphite, so its basically the same thing. it shouldnt take much. did the dry graphite come with an applicator of any type? if not it might be hard to get it exactly where you want it, but trial and error should give some good results.

nick

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Hi picco people, do you think we should establish a mod page now? or wait a year or so? We are at 15 pages now, with maybe 24 mods. I have proved to be ineffective at this. tim

mimoore67

My Feedback: (51)

Start the mod thread, we can always switch back and forth! I'm lookng forward to all the cool things that you people are doing to this copter. I've learned so much and I haven't even gotten mine yet! Should be here tonight around 7 p.m.!

MegaByte-2

I dont really mind seeing the mods anywhere I look.
With newcomers coming in all the time the threads seems to all get "blended" anyway. No one want to drive them away being rude and saying "that post doesnt belong here".
It can be a difficult thing to say polietly when they dont understand the original intent.
I'd just like to see them sent to the ToolBox.
That was the main idea of it for the AA and the Z ToollBox to begin with. Put all the good working mods in one locaton to prevent looking through 1000's of posts to find them.
When a good working mod is posted, a reference that its being sent to the Toolox with the address.
Newcomers can be directed to do this also and this will give them the feeling that others feel their efforts worthy and they will do more.
Other than considering RacerX208(owner of the ToolBoxes) a modeling friend, I have no affiliation with the site other than he did post a link to my site for AA repair parts.

Food for thought.

Tony
ARS Software & Innovative Solutions
http://www.falcon1.net/~ars/rcmodels.html

Edit: Afterthought. Personally I'd like to see everyone read all the posts in a thead they enjoy. The discussions contain a lot of valuable information that will never make it to a mods area. Many don't like to do it I'm sure. But, they are missing alot. IMHO

renoscenic

i agree that we should have just one page for all the mods we have done to save people reading all the post , but reading to people experiences is a good learning too , we cannot just tell them this is what they need to do , some people might be happy for what they have now.

MegaByte-2

renoscenic

Looks like we had the same thoughts at the same time...................................

Tony

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Mega byte, I tried posting a the canard plan to aa toolbox and got returned mail. So I haven't tried again. Tim

renoscenic

the bottle comes with a long nozzle for application ( like CA glue tip ) , its like squeezy glue bottle , man said its for door locks . think i will get this one . thanks a lot.

gwhite1

Why don't they sell spare parts for the Piccoz? I am on my last tail rotor? Also, I wonder if they might just sell a helicopter without the controler? It would be cheaper and would help if you trashed the copter but didn't need another controller.
Does anyone know who makes this copter and I can call them?