I am a total noob in this, so this question might seem stupid, but...I recently got a protech (shogun) zoom 450 electric heli in RTF for (ready to fly so to speak), but it's not nearly ready. The assembly manual, that came with the heli is so vague, that I don't understand at which step I am currenly on. It doesn't even say how to connect the battery or the receiver (there are those pin connectors for channels, but how should I know where to connect them?). Is there some decent generic manual for this?

Thanks

Heli manuals are notorious for being too vague at best or completely indicipherable at worst! lol I am a newb and you are not alone! You say the heli is RTF so what assembly is there to complete? Is it infact ARF(almost ready to fly)? Ie. you have to add a gyro, receiver/radio & servos to complete?

I would think you should need to check manuals for specific components if there are no markings on the receiver itself.

Unfortunately, from what I have read here, the saying "you get what you pay for" seems pretty true. I bought a mini titan and don't have much bad to say about the manual. The kit was good, though the parts bags could have been labeled a bit more clearly.

You say the heli is "RTF" form which to me means you shouldn't even be screwing with servo connections. That should have been done at the factory. If it wasn't then maybe you want to contact whoever you bought it from and explain the situation. RTF should mean, charge the batteries, add batteries to the tx, throw the canopy on and fly.

You would still want to check items for loctite, make sure links are good, check blade balance etc but you should not have to be doing a whole lot of assembly other than install the blades, maybe training gear if it was included.

hmm, well, to reply to the message about getting what I paid for: this thing wasn't exactly cheap. Only the heli itself cost $550 + I had to buy a receiver, a transmitter and the batteries (one battery costs $90). So it isn't that cheap crap that people mention here. So for absolutely everything I paid something like $1200 (if converting to USD) (I got a good transmitter for $400 and 2 batteries).

And it says on the label: RTF Version and says, that servos, gyro, brushless motor and this voltage controller thing for the the motor are installed. Basically the only missing part on the heli is the receiver and battery + plus blades and a lot of some small parts which I don't know how to put together...

What the manual does say, is that I have to check the blade balance for vibrations and so forth, but how do I get it to the state where I can balance the blades I don't know...

Too bad I will have to go through absolutely every manual over there, I have expected something more comprehensive.

1200 wow, how do those compare to the trex 450SE v2?

Well, it's pretty much the same as the trex 450 you mentioned. But I think if you buy the whole trex package (including transmitter, batteries, charger) it will also be something like 1200. Good electrics are not cheap. By comparison I could have gotten some kyosho nitro training heli model (500 size) for around the same price. Nitro is just not an option for me right now.

But yeah...now on the only thing left is to assemble it

i know about the price of good electronics, after upgrading everything on my falcon

kusok :

Tell us what kind of radio you have with the helicopter. If it is any of the top brands, (Futaba, JR, Hitec, Airtronics, Multiplex) sobody here should be able to tell you how to do it.

For this type of helicopters, the term Ready-to-fly refers to the airframe being assembled, not the servo connections being made. This is not the cheap type of helicopters that come with their own radio.

Rafael

try posting some pictures of the servo locations and the receiver. depending on the receiver type we can probably make some good guesses. For instance on a futaba receiver, ch3 is the throttle connection so the esc should plug in there, ch4 is for the gyro (rudder servo should be pluged into gyro)... etc.

take some pics if you can and post them, we'll try to help you get it up.

The radio brand is Hitec Optic 6.

I have taken pictures of the receiver, that came with the heli (they foo-bared with it and sent me a 35MHz receiver and a 40MHz transmitter), so I will be using the receiver, that came with the radio system. btw are the receiver and servos supplied by a separate battery pack (this sounds somewhat fishy to me because I wasn't told anything about having to buy extra batteries)? Their voltage rating is 3.5-6.0V, but the main battery is 11.1V. If this is the case, then I will probably be able to use the stock receiver, that came with the radio system, right? According to google, the servo 'Micro Servo B205' has a 4.8V rating, so potentially it could be used with the receiver.

Ok, so the photos are here (had to make them big, so you can zoom and look at servo positions):

http://www.torqhost.com/heli1.jpg
http://www.torqhost.com/heli2.jpg
http://www.torqhost.com/heli3.jpg <- the receiver I should have used
http://www.torqhost.com/heli4.jpg <- the receiver I hopefully can use.

In case those pictures are not enough, you can look at the heli page http://www.protech.be/html/t0502450ep.html

Ok first of all it looks like you have everything you need. but before I go any further did the gyro realy come installed that way? seems wierd to me.

charge your battery

If you look on page 22 of your manual you'll see where each item should be connected to on the receiver, this is for futaba/hitec radios so it should work on yours. once you have the esc, servos and gyro plugged into the correct ports of the receiver. don't connect the motor at this point but connect the battery to the esc and check to make sure all the servos are doing what they should, if they are opposite then go into your heli radio and change that function to "reverse". once you've done that you can start leveling the swashplate and programming your throttle and pitch curves.

I suggest that you get together with someone locally who has your radio and get him to help you program it. there is a lot involved.

forgot to mention, you don't need a separate battery for the receiver, the esc should have an integrated bec (battery elimination circuit) which reduces the voltage from 11.1v to 4.8v for the receiver).

Wow, I wasn't even remotely aware that the shogun came in that price range.

I would think the rx would have some indication of how the servos plug in. Check out helifreak.com on the top of the page over there you should be able to find the "finless videos" that Bob puts out. Great info in them that will cover almost everything you need to know.

The way it should work is your speed control will connect to your battery pack (lipo I assume without checking back in your post) and from your speed control you will have a lead that plugs in to the throttle position on your receiver. Depending on the receiver, it should be able to accept the voltage from the esc without problems. I have a dx7 with ar6100 and I can't remember exactly what the range is, but I know there is an input voltage range (maybe 4.8 to 14v or so) and it should work anywhere in there so you shouldn't have to have a seperate pack for your receiver/servos.

Looked at your photos, the larger rx should work just I would figure a bit of added weight.

What batteries did you buy? 90 bucks a piece seems a bit high IMO but can't be sure.

I use the TP 2200 and Flite power 2500 on a mini titan and I think the two are similar in size. 75 bucks or so for the TP packs and a few bucks more for the flite power. Both are good packs.

The three swash servos generally plug into the elev. aileron, and pitch channels, tail servo goes to the rudder channel (with the gy401 you plug the gyro into rudder channel and the servo plugs into the gyro, don't know how your gyro setup is.)

Check the radio's manual and see what they say in it about heli setup and channels in the radio.

Most of this will just require a bunch of reading and you should feel knowledgable afterwards. Check out the finless vids though. I figured you were talking about one of those 300-400 dollar rtf setups because I just haven't seen that many higher end helis come off calling them RTF when they are ARFs

Yeah they should change that. IMO if you have to buy anything seperate to get the thing in the air, then it is ARF. RTF is charge the included battery, add batteries to the tx, check blade balance and tracking, then put it in the air. $1200 for everything, that seems kind of expensive to me considering you can get a complete t-rex package with the metal frame t-rexS v2, the new futaba 2.4g tx/rx, fut gy401 HL gyro with digital servo, hitec hs-65-hb servos with karbonite gears, lipo battery, and deans antenna and ultra plugs for $695. They also have the carbon frame version for $735. It's the t-rex matrix package from helihobby....oh well, to each their own.

I stopped counting how much I had invested a while ago, I figure if I don't know the dollar amount then "she" won't be able to dope me up with Sodium Pent some night and get the truth out of me.

But, I can tell you that I bought the dx7 with ar6100 a mini titan kit, 3 hs65s, a gy401, s9650, couple nice packs and a cellpro charger and I was at around the 1k mark. Maybe a bit less or a bit more as I bet I have forgotten items that I bought.

I know I don't have more than 1600 in it at the moment and I have a ton of stuff...takes me about three trips to get it all in and out of the truck.

Druss:

Yes, the gyro was installed like that, but since you asked I am not also concerned about it, because on the protech website the gyro is installed differently...maybe I should try and re-mount it as indicated on the images?

I am charging all the batteries now. The Hitec manual says it requires at least 12h charge (it is charging at low charge current), so I will be testing everything tomorrow after work.
About the manual it's really weird, but the online document is different from what I got printed out. This one does indeed have some tips on how to connect everything. I will still test all of it with a multimeter for correct voltages before plugging it in (don't want to fry the only usable rx I have and wait 2 weeks for shipping). The radio setup will be difficult indeed. I have tried going through the manual, but something like half of the terms is not directly clear to me (because english is not my native language and avionics terms are uncommon to me). I think it would make sense to just plug everything in except the motor and just do it step by step looking up terms on wikipedia. It seems that the manual explaining those setup parts is a bit more detailed, than the assembly part, so I hope it will be easier.
About the battery I was somewhat confused because Hitec shipped an rx battery. I don't know for what reason did they do it, but I think it's good, as I now can use it for testing without worrying about frying the servos, as the pack is 4.8V.

redvtr1000:
This price is mainly due to my location. We have all these nasty taxes for when you import stuff, plus I made a mistake ordering it through a local company, which (I presume) wanted profit from this and inflated the price. I know that in US (looking at online shops that ship to US only) you can easily get the same heli for something around $400 as you mentioned.

I will definitely check the videos you suggested. I think any info will be of help to me at this starting point.

The ESC handling the voltage makes sense. Since the required components listing on the website for the RTF version didn't include the rx battery pack, it should be the case, that the esc is cutting the main battery voltage. The rx battery pack would have added a lot of weight. It's something like 150 grams.

The batteries I got were 2 flight power 2200. I thought I actually got them for a decent price, because I seem some online shops in Germany selling them for 89 euros without shipping. This would have totaled a lot more, than $90. But yes, like I mentioned, the price was likely to have been increases by this local dealer I ordered it from. I will need to find some online shop shipping in all european countries (I actually tried ordering from US and got $180 for shipping estimation ).

I was reading the tx manual (I got tx only today, but the heli got shipped 2 days ago...thats when I had a shock while reading the assembly manual) and it seems more comprehensive actually. For the most part it described plane setup, but the heli part is good enough, at least it shows how to plug in the Hitec supplied rx into the model, so hopefully I will be allright. I think nothing bad will happen if I connect a servo into the wrong pins as long as I don't try to fly like that (and flying is a long way from now).

I think I understand the most important parts now and I will try connecting the cables tomorrow and see what happens. Combining the Hitec and the online version of zoom manuals started to make much more sense than the bare zoom manual.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help and tolerance to noobish questions. I'll post an update tomorrow.

You can definitely use the included rx battery if you want for testing but I wouldn't suggest it for when you're flying, it might add too much weight. The reason it's included is that many people fly nitro heli's and there is no battery required for a nitro engine so something else needs to power the receiver and servos, the rx battery.

Just take your time and make sure that all the servos are acting like they should before you connect the motor. Once the motor is connected ALWAYS turn on the transmitter before you plug in the battery, once you plug the battery in, don't move the heli at all until you know the gyro has initialized (either by led or you can hear it). When you're done you want to reverse that and always unplug the battery before turning off the transmitter.

I'm not saying the gyro won't work the way it's installed, just that it's a weird way to do it.... I wouldn't want that wire coming out the top just in case of a blade strike.

You will find all the info you need on these forums.

I use rcuniverse.com, helifreak.com, rcgroups.com, and wattflyer.com if you are not already aware of them check em all out. Someone has usually done the same thing or asked the same question.

Once you get specific questions you can get specific answers.

I didn't even notice your location, I must say your typed english is clearer and better written than half of the folks who attended school in this country. You should be proud to know english that well as a second language.

The flite power packs are good and you should like them. RX battery will allow you to set curves without having to worry about throttling up, later you can go back and program the esc.

See ya