ORIGINAL: k_ogre

this might not be the place for this but ...... anyone know if theres a good FMS falcon3d out there (mines in the mail and I want to bone up) thanks
p.s. really need to make a falcon forum 127 pages way to long

ORIGINAL: sgomes

I have just put up a new thread "Falcon 3D - Glitches Help Thread" in the hopes we can get experienced and knowledgeable input in one spot dealing with probably the most expensive problem we have faced with the Falcon.

I am going to email HL for their suggestions, as well.

I would encourage everyone to read the new posting and to responsibly contribute to this effort.

Thanks to all of you.

Steve

ORIGINAL: bjett80

WARNING - NEW FALCON OWNERS

I was very surprised when my replacement Falcon was delivered today ! My first one was returned when the ESC failed and I've been waiting like the rest of you for 3 weeks.

So I take everything out of the box, first thing I do is plug in the charger and start charging the battery. Nope ... no LED here either. Maybe you charge it until the battery explodes ... I guess that would indicate a full charge, huh ? I did notice the second time I charged it today went I went to retrieve it (I charge outside now ... too many scary stories) the charger was cold. Could be there is an internal cut-off ?

Anyway, I remember Gary's advice and with screwdriver and allen wrench I go over the Falcon from stem to stern physically tightening everything. I did notice all the servo screws seemed a little loose to me.

A few hours later, with the blades balanced and every nut and bolt checked, I hit the garage for the first hover. Ease up the power, the Falcon spools up nice and steady, then pops up about a foot in the sweetest hover I've ever seen. Nice and stable and sounding like it's got power out the wazoo !

I sit her down and catch my breath, ease up the power and she pops right back up about a foot. Nice hover ... very little drift, I let her fly for 15-20 seconds and slowly bring her back down. Just before she touches dirt something breaks off the tail, wiz's over my left shoulder and hits the wall like a bullet !

I kill the throttle, shut everything down and give it a look-see. One of the rear blade grips is missing, the tail rotor assembly has rotated about 30 degress and the rear guard looks like something nibbled about 1/8 inch off the edge.

So I spend an hour looking for the tail blade amongs all the crap on the wall of my garage. I find it intact and showing no damage.

Long story short ... looks like the Art-Tech people didn't tighten up the tail blade grip screw. You have to remove the tail blades to get to this screw, so I missed it during the pre-flight check. Remove the tail blades and you have a hex-headed screw holding the tail blade grip to the gizmo that rides on the tail rotor shaft. I checked the other one and it was loose as well.

You might want to check those screws ... if that tail rotor blade had hit me it would have penetrated skin !

Everything's put back together, and except for the minor damage to that rear rotor guard I think I'm ready to try again. Course, I'm looking at another hour moving all that crap off the garage floor and back against the wall so I can fly again. Looks like flying will have to wait till tomorrow !

Good luck everyone ... let us know how your first flights went.

Barry

ORIGINAL: xplorur







How do I get to that Thread?

ORIGINAL: Es-R-Gr8

First thing I noticed with mine glitching was the antenna wire was actually tied in a loose knot around the landing gear beside the body of the heli... this knot to me basically shortened the antenna wire from its original length to a lenght of about 1 inch.

I untied the knot, ran the wire so it was not wrapped around the skids etc... and haven't had a glitch in the reciever since....pictured below is what I did to mine.

hope it helps ....

Holy Moly, I started going over my Falcon to get it ready to fly, and found exactly the same thing wrong. One of the tail blade grips is loose, and not just a little loose either. I can move the blade grip in and out about half an inch along the shaft it's mounted on! So it can't just have moved a little in transit, it was just never tightened. The other blade grip is tight. I guess we really need to the think of the Falcon as an ARF or kit, rather than an RTF, given the slipshod assembly. Anyway thanks a lot bjett for posting this. You surely saved me from having a similar incident.

Adam

ORIGINAL: xplorur

I still have that glitchy up down thing going on,,,,Question, if you where going to replace your ESC, would you order the stock ESC?, or a diferent one, that you could just connect to the falcon WITHOUT any modifications to any thing else?
Peace
X

ORIGINAL: Taz_man

Well, I made my first mod for my falcon... I really wasn't happy with the head and read about how a closed flybar was much better so I added one to mine. There are more Trex parts that fit the falcon without any real mods. I picked up part # AGNH1116 (flybar control set) and #AGNH1117 (flybar seesaw holder and mixing lever) I used the original control rods and turned the blade grips upside down so that everything would line up. So far everything is much tighter and seems more stable. Here are some pictures. it only cost me about $26.00. Oh and now my flybar paddles and blades come no where near my tailboom

ORIGINAL: Taz_man

My wife thinks i'm a nut for doing mods when i haven't had it a month. But she's dealing

ORIGINAL: devmode

Speaking of canopies ... I modified mine so I don't need to take it off to put in the battery. I found that pretty annoying, so I cut a piece out of the bottom so I can easily slide in the battery without having to take off the canopy every time. Anyone else find that to be an issue? I reinforced it after I cut it with some packing tape - mine was already cracked anyway when it arrived so I figured that area was a bit fragile ... just cut out a notch and then reinforced the edges with some clear packing tape. Battery slides in pretty easily once you cut it back far enough.