OK - I've got my HB King 2 pretty well set-up mechanically, BUT - I've read LOTS of posts in regard to main blade balancing, tracking and pitch. I've got the blades balanced, and I'm awaiting on my pitch guage in the mail. I have asked this question before, but I still don't understand (sorry) -

Since you use the same link adjustment for both pitch and tracking:

1) What should be done first - pitch or tracking adjustment, and,

2) please explain why whichever one you do first, why won't doing the next step affect the first (i.e. - if I set the pitch, and then turn the links for tracking, won't that change the pitch (or vice versa)?? I know I'm not seeing the forest for the trees - please help with an easy explanation! Thanks, Ken

You set the pitch first (checked with a gauge when the blades are at rest). That gets the blades mechanically close in the same range together. It doesn't take into consideration the play in the entire head which might make one blade or the other "off" as it rotates.

The tracking is fine tuning .. just another small pitch adjustment that you make when the blades are at rest, then observing the blades as they are spinning at different rpm's - with continued adjustments to one blade or the other until the blades appear to look as one when looked at horizontally.

Both are pitch adjustments, but tracking is tuning the blades a little bit (usally less than one full turn of a ball link end) so they track well together (by using the same adjustments that you use when setting the initial blade pitch). Tracking tape can then be used as a visual marker to fine tune them perfectly. (Thanks Cactus Hopper)

Thanks, xodarap1 - now I get it! Thanks for (all) the help with my endless questions! Ken

No problem Ken.
May your landings all be planned ones.

I might be wrong but I don't use the link to fix tracking. Anytime you change the linkage length you are changing pitch. I use tracking tape to fix balance and tracking. If your blades are balanced they should track.

Your right man. The tape is needed as a visual marker for the final step. As long as you don't fall into making one blade way out of balance using tracking tape to get them tracked. Doing that can defeat the purpose of blade balance in the first place. I've never had to make adjustments adding tape weight to get my blades fine tuned though because they are already balanced before they go on the bird. One turn either way gets them right in, but I do that by making adjustments to one blade's pitch or the other.

Hey Ken when you get your pitch gauge in and you want to set the pitch ranges on the blades you will need to use the 3 rods going from the servos to the swash plate. Remember disconnect the motor so it will not spin up. Set the idle up switch to stunt mode or flight mode 1. Set the throttle trim to the low position and the throttle stick to the center position. The blades should be at zero pitch. Move the stick to the upper position and you should have between 9 and 11 degrees positive pitch. Move the stick to the lower position and you should have 9 to 11 degrees negative pitch. You will be basically be setting it all to the center. Now you need to spin it up and set the tracking of the blades and you need to use the upper links in the rotor head to adjust the tracking of one blade. Mark one blade with some sort of colored tape and when you spin it up you can see it in the light. One will be higher than the other. If you need more pitch in the positive direction add pitch to the lower blade with the linkage in the head to make them track the same. If they are way off you may need to adjust both of them a little bit both directions. When you get them tracking close recheck your pitch adjustments so you still have the settings above. 10+ and 10- roughly. When you get this close the flight mode Normal will be correct. Have Fun and Good Luck Gittle

here’s my .02 on tracking…first, as previously posted, balance the blades…use red/black/blue balancing tape…at a hover, one blade might be flying higher than the other, i.e., the red blade is higher than the black blade (you can see it clearly under the right lighting conditions)…you can either increase the pitch of the low blade or decrease the pitch of the high blade…i recommend lowering the high blade by shortening the pitch control link, which will decrease the pitch…it’s safer to shorten the link, so that you’re assured that you won’t run out of threads…the engineer who designed the hbk2 specified that the link have a nominal length of about 57mm…us pilot/mechanics shouldn’t deviate from that too much…
-ken

That is a good point Ken and I agree. What I do is to make sure the control links are not over extended is to look at the head after I am done with pitch and tracking and make sure the bell crank arms at the top of the head are not sticking up beyond the flybar. If the links are protruding then something is out of whack. All or most all heli heads should have the control arms pretty much level at zero pitch after all is said and done with pitch adjustment and tracking. Kind of a basic rule of thumb. That should keep your head linkage within its limits. I failed to mention that in the post above. Glad you pointed it out. Thanks Gittle

Is it OK to use electrical tape for balancing? It's all I have at the moment. I used a single strip on the bottom of the lighter blade. There is a slight wobble but I don't know if it's the blades or the slightly bad spot on one side of the main gear. The tracking looks good. The gear is on order.

Chris

Chris it is OK just cut a thin strip about like pin striping 1/8 in or so and wrap it around the leading edge fo the blade. A big piece might make the blades out of balance. Wrap the center of the tape over the leading edge and it will not try to blow off when tracking. Should be just fine. Gittle

This Forum is Great,I have learned a lot just ready other peoples posts. I just got my pitch guage and to be honest I don't know how to use it,also how do I balance my main blades? Never did any of this with my HeliMax AXE CP, that is why I went to the HBK2, better feel and hovering with it. Thank you all for being here

Hello slotdr how is Las Vegas today. Wish I were there. LOL I have been to Vegas 3 times over a 15 year period and had a Great time every time I went there but, I believe it is one of those moderation things. HEHEHE Ok lets get down to buisness. Your new pitch gauge is a valuable tool for the RC Heli. If you ever have a crash and you will I promise. You will need that trusty little critter. The way you use it is slide the little v block looking thing back and slip it onto the blade about 1/2 way down the blade and let the spring close against the trailing edge of the blade. Now it doesn't matter where your blades are set the pitch gauge is gonna tell you what pitch you have at a particular blade setting. After getting it on there take one hand and hold the flybar level and from the end of the blade peer down the length of the blade and align the top of the pitch gauge with the flybar. You want them to be the same levelness so you will have to adjust the pitch gauge where the screw is up and down. Once the flybar and the pitch gauge are the same your pointer will tell you how much pitch you have at a given point. Simple enough if My explaination makes sense. Look up on this post where I was explaining to Ken briefly how to adjust your pitch settings at the given stick positions and there you have it. Follow each step precariously and you will achieve the proper pitch setting for the King II heli.

Now on to the blade balancing. To do this properly you will need some tools. You need some fairly accurate scales. I used Triple beam gram scales for years. My good friend was a sheriff and he had confiscated many sets of these things and one year they decided to clean out the evidence room. Well the county Judge new that I flew helis and ask Me if I needed or had any use for the triple beams and I said most definitely. So out of the many sets they had I got one of them for free. Cool story for the scales now I use electronic scales that weigh in grains. They are a little more accurate. You will also need a balancer. There are many out there or you can improvise by using a razor blade or some sort of sharp edge to balance on. I bought a balancer because I use it on everything you could imagine that spins. The first thing you need to do is weigh the blades and make sure they are the same weight. Grams will work if you can weigh in tenths of a gram. Grains is better.
Get them the same weight and most of the work is done. Now the blades have a center of gravity lenght wise and chord wise. Most people just cg the blades length wise and doesn't worry about chord wise. If you have a large heli 60 size nitro or bigger you probably need the chord wise balance also.

How to cg the blades length wise. Take a blade and set it on a blade edge and balance it. Put a small mark on the blade at the edge point when it is balanced. Now do the other blade too and mark it (temporary mark). Once you mark both of them. Compare the marks on the blades and see if they are the same distance from the bolt hole. If they are you have a set of blades that have the same center of gravity. If the marks are different then the cg is off. You will need to make the blades the same. You can make the marks move by adding small amounts of weight or removing small amounts of weight on either end of the blade that you wish to modify. Pick one and modify it to match the other blade and there you have a balanced and CGed set of blades.

Now this is pretty indepth and there is alot here so read carefully and don't miss anything. I will get some pics and put with this to help you. You can see where he balanced the blade and then balanced the other and then compared. Then he achieved equal cg in the last pic. In the last pic of the gauge you can see how to peer down the blade and get the gauge level with the flybar. Have Fun Gittle [sm=thumbs_up.gif] PM me if you have any questions.

The pics of the blades brought to you by courtesy of the Codfather from a previous post. Maybe he will not mind if we use them. The pitch gauge is one that I took of My King II heli.

lemme throw my questions in here while i can guys ...'preciate it much.

Just got thru balancing my blades and then setting pitch (as best as possible) but my heli still has a wobble - and it also seems that when she flies she does weird things like not responding well to the sticks. I guess i shoudl say i was in a crash (IPO it was not a bad one) i changed the feathering shaft that was mildly bent.....what else could i check to see why she is wobbling.

oh i looked at my main gear and it seems that it does not spin uniformly (king of up and down a little) - could this be wobble somewhere?

...hope i gave enough info for the help i need


thanks in advance guys

I don't know what heli so I'm going to guess it's the HBK2.

There are a lot of things it could be.. or a combination of things..

A couple quick, easy checks:

If you replaced the blades and they are wood, check to see that the blades are installed correctly and that they aren't warped.

Check to see if feathering shaft is even and isn't tightened too much. The blade grips should turn easily and smoothly when the linkages aren't connected.

A quick check to see if the flybar is straight and that both paddles are level.. then check the tension for both blades in the blade grips so they are even and loose enough.

If those things don't help ya at all, then you can move on to other parts being bent like tail shaft, main shaft or alignment issues like gear mesh right on down to bearings etc.

sorry [sm=75_75.gif] ... had a brain bubble there for a few - it is a HBKII .... i dont have the bird here w/ me at work (although it should be - i would "so" much more productive with it here

when i go home i will try all these things and see how it turns out and let you know.

truthfully i have been dreading it being the main shaft .... that seems like MAJOR SURGERY to change (in the event it is it) .... is that the case?

No problem with using the pics, feel free to use anything I post here! It is the least I can do as a newbee to start paying back all the good info you have all shared with me! My technical background has helped me a lot to understand how each head system functions and how it relates to controling the machine. It definitely gives me a leg up on the non-techie newbee, when it comes to figuring out how I can fly this thing. Fly it??? I'm still having trouble just keeping it in a 4X6 ft box at 2 ft.

Hang in there Codfather and you will get the hang of it. The blades look good. I have built some blades for the cp2 out of aluminum. I will post some pics of the here before too long. I have most of it down but the weight. They are a little heavy right now.

hi guys...your enthusiasm for microheli aerodynamics brought back memories...i used to test fly hueys and cobras after maintenance,,,we did a lot of blade balancing and tracking with tracking poles, reflectors on blade tips and strobes...i thought you might be interested in one of the latest innovations in blade tracking -- inflight track adjustment! check it out...sorry for getting so far off topic...i'm outa here...ken
http://oh1ninja.la.coocan.jp/details...ell214ST_e.htm

In flight blade tracking....WOW!!! Thanks for the link Ken. Sounds like a great job you had. I had some friends that worked for Okanagan Helicopters (bought out since then) and used to watch them tracking the blades on the Jet Rangers and Sikorsky S-61. Pretty finicky chore!

notice the pitch change horn and push-pull tube is on the trailing side of the grips -- just like our hbk2!...also notice that the main rotor blade has trim tabs on the outboard and inboard trailing edge...those are bent up or down with a simple tool to fine-tune the tracking...when the shrink wrap on our hbk2 wood blades start coming apart, it affects the airfoil - like trim tabs, and the blade would want to fly up or down...ken

tried it all - even tried new blades - changed feathering shaft again, balanced my swashplate, balanced blades, and still when bird lifts she shoots left and back.

how do i know if my main shaft is bent?

hi rc...please clarify a couple of things...
'balanced my swashplate' - what exactly did you do (using names of parts from the manual)?
'she shoots left and back' - do you mean that the nose turns rapidly to the left, and when the tail rotor takes effect, it turns to the right? if so, that's normal until you learn how to control that from your transmitter.

here's my suggestion...apply throttle verrrry gently...if the nose turns left, use your rudder to skid the heli until it's tail-in again (while increasing rotor rpm to get it light on the skids)...don't lift off...just try to maintain light on the skids and tail-in...maybe you're well beyond that phase of training, but i don't know that...hope that helps...if not, come back to us...

about the main shaft...if the main gear has a bad wobble, the shaft is probably bent...i keep a sharpie fine point metallic silver pen in my toolbox...put a silver dot on the very top of the flybar bridge, and you can see very easily if the top of the main shaft is wobbling...some guys can simply hand-spin the rotorhead assembly and see the wobble...ken

what i meant was i made sure all servo arms were in the middle (sorry newb at work here ) ... i have been doing good at hovering and also compensating for lift off "spin" but now when i try to lift she just literally flys back and left as though i yanked the sticks to do this.

i think i will try your trick to see if main shaft bent - i see the main gear rotating out of the plane i.e almost like it is bent (is this possible/normal?)

i will take it out to the hobby store where they fly on sundays and see if anyone can lend a helping hand if i can figure it out.

thanks for all advice though guys.

peace and happy flying

ah, ok....hope the guys at the lhs can help you...i think you have a simple rigging problem...if, on trying to pick up to a hover, it 'shoots left and back', you need to adjust the linkages so that the swashplate is tilted right and forward...in other words, shorten the right and forward links...or increase the right aileron and forward elevator trim on your transmitter...btw, you get the same effect on a full-scale helicopter...if the cyclic isn't centered, and you pull collective and try to jerk the heli off the ground, it can flip over in a millisecond...ken