David867

I know, I would have too, but I went across the border to pick up the order, and I don't want to start shipping internationally to get this fixed. I'll just work with what I've got. It's nothing a good degreasing and repacking won't fix, that way I can make sure it's cleaned and greased properly. I was surprised it fell apart and was gritty too, hopefully it's just mine, we'll see what happens with flyerbug's swash. The rest of it seems to be top notch quality.

chris6414

My Feedback: (10)

Hey Jim,
When I mentioned "trimming right" I do it mechanically with about 7-9 degrees pitch right. I also remember reading about not using end point or travel on your radio as it will slow the piro rate down on a HH. Not quite sure which one as I don't mess with mine. I believe it was travel and when I tweaked it down the servo movement slowed down so I just left it alone. I'm in the process of making a rotating beacon out of an ole Lama servo motors. The one with the planetary gearbox on the end. I priced one at about $30 and figured I could make one instead. I am wrapping it in electrical tape and running two starnds of stripped wire around the can. Then I hope to glue the LED to the cog on the servo and run the leads so they run on the wires. I let you know if it works out. BP Hobbies finally got in there blinking LED circuit for 12 bucks! I will be using it for some flashing NAV lights on the canopy and upper and lower red lights. I was a radio shack last night and they had some jumbo 10MM red LEDs for like $2 which I might use. flightlights.net has some nice light kits but they are a little pricey. I love their strobing white tail light though. I have been researching how to fabricate my own strobe circuit as well. When I can afford it, I want to scale out my Hawk with a Augusta 109 fuse or Long Ranger. Century makes some very nice fuses but they cost as much as the helo. [&:]


Chris

matty_p80

hey Chris!

with regards to the Century fuses, it's like everything else, you gets what you pays for!! e.g. i was on x-heli last night and they've got an Airwolf fuse for a T-rex 450, et al for $118 and it looked atrocious! i woulkd be embarrassed to put something like that on my heli that i love and care for! it looked bad even in the advert!!!

i know not everyone can afford the best of the best of everything (believe me, i'm one!!) but i'm still a strong believer that you should get the best that you can afford to avoid 'flase economy' and not end up spending more in the end because you're having to replace broken things all the time! i'm also unusual in the fact that if i can't afford what i would like then i'll wait until i cxan rather tahn get something inferior!!!

just my views!!!!

Matty ><}}}}@>

Magic Hook

H Jim, Thanks again for your time. I find this problem interesting because the heli has been flying great for six months. I cant help but wonder what I might have done in this rebuild. I have three 401's. All have been easy to setup and have flown fine right off the bench. I have also re setup the 401 on this 450 a half dozen times without trouble. Okay enough whining! My ESC has the blue heat sink.The distance between center servo and the hole is 7mm. Gain on my DX 7 wont go negative. Gyro sens screen shows Auto, Rate: 0:72%, 1:72%. Red light on 401 glows solid, no change with gear switch position. Input Select screen shows Aux2 INH, Gear GYRO. When I try to fly it, the tail will just not hold solid, nose left pretty hard, tail wants to blow out in turns. I just went through the setup again the way you describe, which is almost exactly like the finless vid I learned from in the beginning. No change. The one thing I noticed is that the pitch slider is not migrating to one side like normal in hh mode. Cant help but wonder if my gyro is the problem. Just for kicks I may pull the 401 from my 600 and see what that does. Again, Thanks for your time and effort.

David867

Hey Magic Hook,
I have a twitch/drift in my tail, ever since I put the GY401 beside my 35X, the twitch changes with throttle, so I'm thinking it's interference, but I haven't had a chance to move it and try it yet How close is your GY401 to your ESC? I moved it on my last rebuild, I'm wondering if you did the same thing.
I used to have my DX7 set up with gyro mode like that, 0 to 50(Corresponds to -100 to 0 signal) is rate hold, and 50-100(corresponds to 0 to 100 signal) is head hold, I turned that function off so that I can change between rate/head hold modes using the gear switch. In gyro mode, the gear switch does nothing, instead you can set up different gyro gains for each flight mode.
Ya, switch gyros and see if that changes anything.
Has a GY401 ever broken from a crash, where it hasn't been hit directly by the flybar/blades?

I took apart the CopterX swashplate to see how serviceable it was, looks like you can easily change the swash ball guides, but doesn't look like they can easily be ordered. If you can get your hands on something similar (Align?), maybe you can fix the play in the swash without having to buy a BEAM.

Anyone know where to order align swash ball guides?

Magic Hook

Hi David, I ordered the Align swash from Modefo's and it was here on the second day. I just decided to stay with Align only because the parts are so easy to get. The symptoms you describe is exactly what I have going on, getting worse. My 401 is under the tail boom mount, the esc is on the bottom plate, in the back under the gyro. I thank you much for describing why the switch is not used in gyro mode! That was making me crazy. I understand that below 50% is rate mode, but now I get why there are more than one choice. Thanks for that! From that I now get why in Auto or F mode that you can sellect different gain in idle up modes. I am slammed with work through Monday. I will make the switch and see how that goes and let you know.

dooleyje

Check and make sure your gyro is not reversed. (No Really)The rudder may be going the right direction but the gyro may not. If you have a solid light then the gyro is in HH. Just for grims switch your gear switch and see if it goes into rate mode. If not then the programming is lacking. Also, and you won't want to do it, but at 100% rudder travel is way too much take it down to 80%. The tail is way to sensitive at 100%. I wish you were here, we would get it dialed in . I flew today my newly rebuilt Trex SA with all metal everything. I actually had to increase the gyro gain to stop the tail wag and the tail was so sensitive you couldn' touch the stick. I had to tame the rudder down to about 75% now I can fly it. It too would blow out in ff turns, now it is sweet. I don't know what the difference is other than I put a 2.4 Spektum in it and everything has sped up 5 fold. Don't blame the gyro just yet.

I put a 220mm fly bar with the weights and it is way too slow even for me. I will take the weights off. I only had the 220mm in stock. I am used to the 190mm and have ordered some.

David try the beam balls.

Jim

flyachopper1

Hey seekers of a higher dimension,
Got back today from my exile in the wilderness of Colorado. Set up the campsite in a nice secluded clearing near a stream, caught some nice trout and lived like a 'mountain man' for a few days. It was good to get away from all the civilised world for awhile. I'm now refreshed and feeling real good.

Flew three packs out in the T Rex in my daughters back yard (more like an acreage) and it is still performing excellently. Needed some minor tweaking due to the rebuilding of the tail drive and new blades. But, that was all. Had one close call with a rosebush and the railing on the deck. Got it way too close, hammered the throttle, kicked in max left with slight forward and a very small amount of left rudder. It flew out of trouble real nice. It did a real impressive left slide, climb combo with the nose turned slightly up. The tail came around slowly causing just enough turn to make it look natural. I'm going to remember that move and add it to my bag of tricks. Got a nice shot of adrenalin out of it too. My grandson watched the whole thing with his mouth open and a sparkle in his eyes. I think the kid is going to be a bonified heli nut. Of course, I gave him the look of 'I meant to do that'. It's great how all the practice flying pays off at a time like that. It was all just reaction. I had to set it down, take a few deep breaths and let the adrenalin fade some. I think I quit breathing during the maneuver and my legs felt kind shaky. I'm glad my daughter didn't see the incident. I was way too close to her favorite rosebush. Rotorwash blew a few petals off which my grandson and I promptly made dissappear into the dirt in the rosebed. My daughter stepped out while we were burying the petals and said "hey, what's going on here?" We both jumped up like guilty kids. I'm proud of my grandson. He looked at her and calmly said "we thought we saw a big bug in there". Apparently he has been 'lessoned' by his mother about not fooling with the favorite roses before. We shared a big 'high five' and a laugh after she went back in the house.

Got a call today to meet some friends at the airport and join them to take delivery of their new toy. American Eurocopter delivered a rather unique helicopter to Kim and Jill Wolfe. The EC120, which will be used as their personal aircraft, has a real cool Nebraska Cornhuskers paint scheme-something that they thought long and hard about. Kim and Jill Wolfe are the owners of Midwest Medical Transport Company, an EMS transport company that serves all of Nebraska and western Iowa.

Kim told me When they decided to buy a personal helicopter, they wanted a unique paint scheme. He said "We are Cornhuskers fans. They are the closest thing we have to a professional sports team and it just made sense". American Eurocopter did a great job with the paint scheme and their helicopter looks amazing. They did have to get approval from the University of Nebraska to use their logo, and he says he is excited to fly his new bird.

Their company is also scheduled to take delivery of an EC135 in late 2009, which will serve Great Plains Regional Medical Center in North Platte and expand the offerings and services of the company's fleet.

I'm very proud of Kim and Jill. Kim is a former US Navy EMT/Corpsman from the Vietnam era. He served in 'Nam for two years and certified as a civilian EMT once he was out of the military. He, like me, fell in love with helis during his service time and got his license shortly after coming home. As the owners of Midwest Medical Transport Company they have grown their company from one used ambulance to become Nebraska's largest EMS provider adding 3 helicopters in the last five years. R/C flying buddies may be rare here, but I'm gaining in the 'full scale family'.

Below is a photo of their new toy as it was flown in by a courier pilot from Eurocopter.

It's late and I need to sleep off the travel weariness.

See ya soon.

David867

Hey Jay, we all use our heli's as gardening tools at one time or another, glad the rose bush didn't get the best of you. I put my heli to other uses as well, there's been a heat wave over here, and I've been using mine to keep me cool. I was flying about 30 ft away, and noticed a breeze, that's when I noticed it was wind generated by the heli! I was like WHOA! But I guess there's a lot of power, and it moves a lot of air!
Sounds like you had a great trip in the bush! Now time to get back at it.
That's a nice heli they ordered. I don't know how real heli's work at all, but how does the rudder work on that? What exactly powers those rudder blades?


Went flying yesterday with flyerbug, I moved my GYRO from my ESC and wow, the tail is solid, and doesn't show any twitch, so I conclude that the ESC was interfering with the GYRO function a lot, it was still flyable, but pretty glitchy. Placement of components is KEY to a solid flying heli! I never thought it'd be a problem since we're running 2.4ghz, and the gyro is solid state, but I guess it's still something to watch out for.

Learn something new everyday!

Still need to install the BEAM. I cleaned out my BEAM and the bearing was still gritty, packed it with grease and will give it a run. Flyerbug opened up his BEAM, it was flawless and the bearing was smooth, the bearing cover was also tight, so mine must be an isolated problem.

flyachopper1

Yah-placement of the electronics is real important and sometimes it's hard to decide just where to put everything. You have to consider EMI problems as well as cooling and balance. The precision and challenges of these little birds is what makes me love them. I'm looking at a completely new set of ?s with my scale project. It's gonna be fun.

That rudder design on the EC120 is called Fenestron. It's a ducted fan that is shaft driven by a variable speed transmission/clutch assy. that is powered by the main engine. The difference from a tail rotor is that the pitch and speed both change. It speeds up and slows down independant of the main rotor in coordinated amounts with the pitch to change the antitorque thrust. It's the newest technology for rudders on helis and has been proven to be very powerful, efficient, effective and vibration free. Being enclosed like it is it's not affected by rotorwash and creates a strong thrust of air that can be more precisely controlled. The blades you can see in the photo I posted before are the stationary vanes on the outlet side of the fan. The fan itself spins so fast that not even a fast camera can capture them. Below is a photo from the tech manual that better shows the fan assy.

matty_p80

guys, how do you get a photo on the forum?

Matty ><}}}}}@>

Magic Hook

Its hard when good news for us means bad news for someone else . After finishing five days with some clients from Ft. Lauderdale today I planned to start securing things for FAY, that had us in the center of the "Cone". The five pm forcast moved the track West of here enough to keep us out of the bad stuff. Just a big rain storm and some enviromental issues along the beach. Its still a hold your breath deal until its North of us but we all just made sigh of relief. Now, we pray for our neighbors to the North that FAY will somehow weaken.

Took advantage of a pretty evening after I got home and flew the 600 once. What a great heli, gotta love the sound of that machine in the air! No practice for anything great. Just ff and and slow piro's. It really makes a pretty flair on landing. This would make a great scale platform.

flyachopper1

Hey Matty,
At the bottom left of the reply box there is a link that says "upload images and files". Click that and you will get a small pop up that allows you to browse for images or files on your computer. Click one of the browse buttons and it will let you select a file for upload. Takes a litle bit and then it will say upload sucessful. Click ok and it will add the image to your post. You can't see it until you 'ok' the post and it will show up at the bottom of your post.

You can imbed the images directly into your post by clicking on the 'image' button in the menu at the top. This will cause {image} to appear in your post. Then you copy and paste an image file right after {image}. Then click the image button a second time to cause {image} to appear right after your pasted file. Once again, you won't see your images until you actually post your message.

Works best if you use your publisher program to shrink large images to a smaller size. And, I've found that jpeg files work better than bitmap. I don't know what publisher program you use, but in my windows paint I can load bitmaps and resave them as jpeg to use on the forum.

Have you noticed that you can click on the posted images to see the full sized versions?

Hope this helps.

David,
Myself, I would return that Beam swash for an exchange. It sounds defective and flying it may cause you more expense from a crash. Gritty sounding bearings are just imminent trouble. All the grease in the world won't fix a bad bearing. I just don't want to hear of your heli eating dirt because of a defective part. Your heli is kinda like a beautiful woman. Give her the "good stuff" and she'll do anything you want. Try to sneak by the 'bad stuff' and she can turn on ya and break your heart.

Magic,
You have my best wishes that the storm misses your area. And, I'm sure the other members are hoping for minimal damage for the rest of good ol' Florida. During my military time I experienced the rage of a hurricane in South America and it was no fun at all. Scares the peewaddins (one of Donicas southern words) outa ya and causes a lot of misery. Florida is one of my favorite parts of the world and I hate to see it beat up. Yah-the 600 would make an awsome scale platform. After I master some of the 'tricks' required in building a scale with my 450 project I would like to build a bigger one and go all out on it. There are some real nice kits out there for the bigger helis. I saw one of a squirrel fuselage that looks like my black beauty that was for a bigger Raptor nitro. Nice stuff.

JD,
I'm assuming your busy with your music business. Hope it's going well for you. I'm back to work the first week of Sept. Back in Okie City for a week flying some more "missions" for the highway dept.

Been a long day out at Ames' shop getting the new tail system built into the black beauty. We got most of it done by 7 PM today. By then Ames' wife (Debi) was pacing around in the office ready to go home. We decided to call it quits for the day. I'm off to bed so I can be up early and at it again.

Later friends.

David867

Hey Jay, thanks for the description of the rudder system, it's an awesome bit of technology for heli's.
Ya, you're right about the swash, I'd hate to crash because of swash coming apart too, but I'll give it a shot first, and if it starts to get the slightest amount of play, I'll take it off. Bearings can get pretty loose before they start falling apart, so I'll give a run and see what happens after a couple flights. It's really not worth it for me to ship internationally. It's probably best to order a $7 bearing locally than to try and return the whole swash. But ya, you're right, a bad bearing could cause a lot of problems, but I'll try it out carefully.

Hope the best for those in the path of FAY.

ginnz

My Feedback: (2)

i believe ive said it before.... be carefull with the swash. if you think its defective at all, don't run it. i had a swash come apart on my blackhawk 500 se pro, that was a mess... ;-)

chris6414

My Feedback: (10)

Hey guys, Had a good weekend and took the Hawk up for a few flights on Saturday morning with a pretty good breeze. Didn't seem to bother it too much. I had a close call on a high speed pass at about 6 ft when the wind did giver a nudge down to the deck. I had to pull her a bit to keep from carwheeling in a ball of parts[X(]. It was a nice rush. I messed with the pitch a little and the Idle 1 setting. With the OS .32 I need to keep the throttle at 60% at half stick to stay in the power and keep the headspeed up. Any more than 10 degrees pitch then she bogs a little on full throttle climb outs. Coming in for approach I really let off the collective and she rotor wops pretty good in the turn into a wind The sound in a hover in the wind sounds real nice. I finished my crude rotating beacon and she works good. She isn't perty but she is functional. The best part is I just made it up as I went along from spare parts. I'll get some pics of it tonight and maybe a short vid. The flasher circuit from BP Hobbies is a nice little unit. LEDs work best with it. I mounted a bright white one on the tail and colored it with a red sharpy. It flashes nice with a nice strobe effect. I then put two red and two green on the canopy to get better visibility in the twighlight flying. I mounted a seperate switch to run the flashers and run them from receiver power and the flood, constant nav and white tail marker from a small 2S lipo switched from the transmitter. I will eventually re-wire so they are both switched from the transmitter independently but for now it works pretty good. Maybe tonight I can test hop it at dusk to see how it looks.

http://www.bphobbies.com/view.asp?id...24&pid=W482218

http://www.bphobbies.com/view.asp?id...24&pid=V360528

dooleyje

Hey everyone,

I just got home from a pretty long road trip. Not much flying this weekend but lots of music. I am going to spend all day in the shop and finish some helicopters belonging to other posters and get them back in the mail to them. I get quit a few people who send me their stuff to set up or trouble shoot. I do not charge them for my service. I had some great pilots to learn from who gave me their time and I am just paying forward. I enjoy helping folks in this hobby that my dad started me in way way way back in the early '60's.
Dang, I broke my set of Pro325s. My luggage fell on them in the car. I have had that set for over a year. They were perfectly balanced and were used to do the first test hops of a heli and to use when I break my CF's. I will just cut them off to about 3" and use them for set up with a pitch guage. I had taken them off after I test flew my newly refurbished TrexSA and they were on the floor of my van. I forgot about them and didn't put them in my tool case.

Jay: Mountain Man!!!Hope you had a good time. I would love to go to the woods in that part of the country. Yes I have been busy but it is the best job in the world.

Hook: Did you get your tail problem fixed? My heart and prayers are with you and the other folks in Fla. Here is hope that the storm will be nothing more than rain and a bit of wind.

David, Don't use the swash as is. Man: I will buy you one and mail it to you if you want.

Chris: The switches would seem to be the way to go for the flashing lights. The .30 will be able to carry the extra weight with no problem. Century makes some great scale bodys for .30 size helis.

Hey Matty: Did you decide on a heli yet?

Bug: what are you into?

I have to go for now and get in the shop,

Jim

Magic Hook

Typical of the unpredictable nature of steering currents, FAY is moving back East again now putting us back in the cross hairs. Just finnished up outside getting boats secured, shutters up, and anything that can fly that shouldn't picked up. Heading out to fill the truck and the spare LP tanks for the grill. Still not bad, looks like the mountains in Cuba kept her from picking up steam over night. Cant tell exactly for sure because the hunter aircraft cant fly over Cuba. We all expect her to get it going over the warm Gulf water. Thankfully its only a couple of hundred miles away so hopfully will stay Cat 1 or less. We are lucky here with a higher elevation with no chance of flooding.

I did take time this moring before the winds kicked up to fly the 600 and the 500. Finally getting better on the nose in hovers.

Jim, No I have not worked on it at all. Like you working kept me from it until late yesterday afternoon. Tired, I just decided to fly and enjoy flying just for the fun of it.

Chris, I love your lights. I have saved that info and will add that to one of mine in the future. Really cool.

Question: Has anyone tried the Logictech 2100T Gyro? If so how do you like it and was it much trouble to set up? Thanks.

I am a long way with my skills to build / fly a scale bird. When I can I would love to do one of the old UH-1 (Huey's).

Gotta run and go see what NOAA's dart board says about the storm strength and track. Its just started to rain steady.

matty_p80

David: in response to your earlier post (way earlier!) i did a very rough diagram of a jet engine for heli application (hopefully at bottom of page) to help with your understanding of how a jet engine works on a heli!! instead of the thrust from the exhaust being used to push the aircraft along it is used to drive a turbine which connects to the g/box which, in turn, can be translated in whichever direction is necessary. unless it is a NOTAR (No Tail Rotor) which ducts the exhaust gases further down through the tail boom to use instead of a tail rotor, there is a shaft drive from the main g/box down to the tail g/box with poss. an intermediate g/box before that if the shaft does not go straight to the tail (e.g. Black Hawk, Dauphin, Seaking, etc.). if there are 2 engines, they go into a coupling g/box before the main g/box which acts similar to a differential and compensates if one engine is running a little slower than the other, or even not at all in the case of a flame out, to enable a constant drive to the g/box, which is essentially 'the' helicopter and everything else is bolted on around it!!!
if you look on the first picture Jay posted, at the 3 o'clock position you can see the t/r drive shaft coming into the 'Fenestron'. the g/box is also supprted at the 11:30 and 6:30 positions! absolutely superb design with little or no maintenance required, just keep the fluid level topped and it keeps on going!! i used to service Flag Officer Naval Air Command's little run about Gazzelle which had the same system

Jim: i'm pretty much set on the B400, it was just a little brain fart that i was considering the BH (must have been all the bling on the rotor head) hopefully will have it when i come and visit in Oct.

Jay: thanks for the advice on piccie posting! i'm hopefully going to be doing what you did, only not on my own! my friend in NC (not Jim this time) has bought some land in VA which we're going to go up and see and we'll have to camp as he hasn't bult a cabin on it y!et!!

matty_p80

woo hoo! i've impressed mesel' !!!

i'll get the hang of this newfangled technology yet!!!!!!

Matty ><}}}}}}@>

matty_p80

David: i didn't go into the indepth working of the engine but if you do not have any idea or would like me to explain i'm more than happy to or indeed you can tell me to mind my own business and stop being such a know it all!!

either way it's all good!![8D]

matty_p80

Magic : hope you're ok! it's gone straight by us (but we did get a snow day yesterday out of it threatening!!!). be safe

Matty ><}}}}@>

Magic Hook

matty, I was watching it slide by you down there. Snow day? In the Cayman's? I havent been down there in three years. Climate must have changed a whole LOT since I was diving out by Stingray City.

matty_p80

magic, we have a lot of Canadians here and it's what they used to get when the roads became impassable due to the snow and it's just sooooooo not what we get down here which is why we use the term!!! (as if you couldn't guess)lucky to get 1 maybe 2 snow days a year where we don't have to go to work and have a bit of a party!!!

Matty ><}}}@>

David867

Hey Matty, thanks for the description! Na, here, we like to hear what everyone has to say, we feed on knowledge! It's what keeps us going.

You guys are right about the BEAM swash, I should just buy a bearing and throw it in there, and it'll be 100% smooth and good to go. It's a good thing the BEAM is so easy to service!
http://www.advantagehobby.com/produc...cat=958&page=1
There's the bearing, it's bigger than the Align bearing just by a bit.

Flyerbug's gone again, he was back in town for 2 days, I met up with him to give him his BEAM swash, and we had a quick flight session, and now he's gone camping for a couple weeks. He brought his bird with him though. How good is that? Some nice summer camping with the Trex!