i just bought a fun piccolo and i finished trimming it. a couple of days ago i tried to fly it for the first time, the mixing and the gain on the board where fine. when i put just enough power to slowly lift of the ground the tail motor works just fine but when i apply more power to get higher the tail motor does not have enough power to stop the heli from spinning and it starts to spin. no matter how much power i put on the tail motor with the transmitter to counter act the problem it still spins until i reduce power on the main motor and then it straightens its self out. i have tried moving the mixing pot and gain but it does nothing to fix the problem. i called ikarus and they said that it could be that the tail motor is not getting enough power from the battery and i should buy a better one. i have the standard battery with a hump.
i need help
thanks

Here are a few - good - links that should help get you going.

Possible cause is a slipping pinion on the tail motor. A dot of CA on the end of the shaft may help (don't let it run into the motor). Do you have the gear mesh set properly?
Do read the pages from the links above. They do have a world of good information in them.

Good luck. Let us know how you do.

yea, everything is set good.
the tail looks perfect.
i dont know why it spins like that.
could it be the battery?

Which way does it spin? Can you spin the tail around without the main blades turning. If the battery has enough power to lift the unit off the ground it has enough power to keep the tail where you want it. I doubt its the battery

yea i can spin the tail around when its on the ground or just hovering. but when i make it go up to rty to get more alttitude i starts to spin counterclock wise, like the tail does not have enuff power. could it be that the main motor is sucking up all the power.
i really need help.
please help.
thanks

could it be that your piccoboard is fixed the wrong way? i mean it shoud be fixed vertically. i have an aerohawk and it got that same problem before i found out that the board is fixed the wrong way. you should check for piccolo pics on the net. but then the aerohawk and the piccolo are the same bird actually..

what sort of remote do you have i had the same problem but found out that the rudder mixing was turned on in the remote when it should of been of. when i put i to zero it flew perfect.

i have a futaba remote and it has no mixing functions. the piccoboard is set the right way.

need help please!!!!!!!!!

Set the heli on the ground, plug in your battery, let the electronics initialize, then with the transmitter sticks at nuetral turn the heli by hand and see if the gyro tells the tail motor to spin, this would verify that the tail motor is receiving the correct information. It should speed up when you turn it one way and then slow down when you turn it the other way.

yes the gyro works.

the thing is that the motor works when i get the heli to hover a bit but when i aply more power to the main motor than just in a hover it starts to spin.

Ok Mr fizzman I am running out of ideas, mine does not have the picco board, it has seperate speed controls and a seperate gyro so I dont know how to set the picc board. If the tail is not staying put obviously the tail rotor is not spinning fast enough. This could be due to a bad motor or a bad picco board. After that I dont have any ideas except to change out parts one at a time until you find your culprit. Good luck

Hi there,

Sorry to jump in on the thread...

I assume that you have set the "mixer" on the Piccoboard ?

Tim

yes

i had this problem and it was down to pushing the tail rotor rubbers on to tight
and not allowing the tail rotor to spin freely

mine are good. do you guys think that it could be that the main motor is using up to much of the stock battery's energy?
or could ir be the picco board

it was happened to me too, and i found out that the two gears on the tail section was so tight....
if your tail motor is a new one or still has not so many flight times..then try to check the gear mesh..dont too tight but dont too loose
let see what will happened

HB Flyer

its not too tight or too loose.

Im having the same difficulties with my hummingbird. When I first got it I never really flew it with the stock configuration. I actually at that time couldnt do more then scoot it around on the ground do to lack of skill. A month has gone by and I eventually got it up in the air. I noticed that the tail didnt have much power. I went to the LHS and was told I needed a direct drive tail setup. Thats where you use a high authority tail motor with a small orange prop stuck right onto the motor. It made all the difference. I flew for a few weeks with that setup. I was addicted to the little heli. It flew great. I went through 2 main motors in that time. Eventually the tail motor started to fluctuate and loose power. The LHS has been out of stock of the larger tail motors so I went ahead and bought another stock tail motor and set everything back up the way it came. The darn thing can hover but if you apply power it spins and it very difficult to control. I have tried everything but it just wont fly with the stock setup the way I want it to. Im just putting it away until they get the larger tail motor back in stock. Im so dissapointed. I want to play with my toy but its to frustrating. Try using a direct drive setup with a larger tail motor. You will find that will solve most of your spinning problems. But as you upgrade things you will create new problems. Such as when I bought a Graupner 300 speed motor to replace the stock main motor. When I tried to fly it the main motor was sucking to much power and the tail would start to spin. I wired up seperates and uses indepedent batteries for the tail and main motor. That fixed that problem. With a stock setup you dont need seperate batteries. I should also note I am using 7.4v lithiums. The birdseed battery is 8.4v or something close to that. That may be why the power wasnt enough when using larger motors.

I had the same problem with my Fun Piccolo, shortly after the tail motor completely quit working. I replaced it with a high authority motor from Helihobby.com, then a few weeks later the main motor went out, I replaced it with a Orion Elite Modified motor from Helihobby.com. After checking with some friends that bought their FP after I bought mine we all have had some kind of motor problem. I realized that the motors used in the Fun Piccolo are really cheap and won't last long. After replacing mine it has flown great, the Orion motor is a huge improvement, it is lighter, smaller, longer flight times and the performance is incredible!

Patrick

Is your heli over weight? The heavier the heli is, the more power it needs to take off. This also means that the tale motor needs to be more powerful. Solution: choppe odd the tail assembly, and replace it with the direct drive gws motor and a 3*2 prop Works great!!!!!

thanks for your help guys.
i bought the high authority motor and the heli does not spin like crazy anymore. thank god.
the only problem now is that the heli is too heavy and will only lift about 10 inches off the ground.
i bought new batteries but have not tried them yet.
do you guys think that the new bat. will help?

thanks

What battery are you using now?
How heavy is your heli with batteries?
Have you looked at getting Lithium Polymer batteries?
These offer the highest energy density (most flight time for the least weight).
If your heli is not grossly over weight, a 2 cell pack should be fine. If for some reason it is heavy (scale body or something like that) then you might need a 3 cell pack.
Kokan 1020, Etec 1200 or something along those lines. Oh, you would need a LiPo charger.

i have a power ex batt but dont know which is + and which is -
one wire is black and has a white stripe runing along the side the other is just black

can anyone help me out?

I would love to help, but you have to help us help you.

What battery are you using? We need to know if it is NiCad, MiMH or LiPo. How many cells and what capacity.
The answer to this should be in the form of (manufacturer) - (chemistry) - (cell count) - (capacity(in mAh))

How heavy is your heli? Weigh it with your battery. If you do not have a scale, take it in to the post office. Our local Office has a scale in the lobby for people to use for letters. It will give us a rough idea of your all up weight (AUW).

Have you considered going LiPo? This is not necessary, but it is a good way to get more power and less weight, two of the issues that often contribute to limited flight capacity like you describe.

There are many more factors that can contribute to the inability to get out of ground effect (OGE). But before we start delving into those, it is best to check the simple ones.

Oh, tell us what charger you are using. Make and Model will help. Is it a peek detect charger, or a wall wart style?

Help us help you. Answer these questions, or ask if there is anything that is not clear.