dooleyje

Axel: The nitro helicopters are actually easier to fly because of the large size. So if you can fly the little ones then the large .50 size will be a piece of cake. The down side is that now you have to learn about nitro engines and how to adjust to keep them in the power band but not over heated. You just can't use any muffler for the motor. Some are for pure sport and some muffler such as the Hatori's and Curtis Yougblood muffler are for high performance and some are design just for 3D flying. I am going to use an older Curtis Youngblood MP 2 Pipe. I want this heli for large air flying doing FAI stuff so this muffler will give me power I need since I am not in to heavy stick banging.

Jim

starcop

Howdy Gentleman! Just a quick hello and off to work I go! Hope every ones been doing well; I'm riding my new motorcycle all aover Gods creation, then I work all day. So haven't had much time for R/C, but winters just around the corner; so there will be plenty of time for play. Have a good one to all, starcop

Suzuki M109R 1800cc Monster Bike, cruiser. [8D]

axel8000

Jim,
How long can you fly a Nitro as opposed to an electric?

I used to own Nitro RC cars, so I know a bit about the engines.

matty_p80

Jim, i noticed that the sceaudo has mechanical mixing on it! is there any advantage to it being mechanical as opposed to electronic on a larger heli?

Matty >>}}}}}@>

dooleyje

Depending on how much you are in the power 15 minute flights are not out of the ordinary. We usually install a secondary 2oz tank that we call a header tank. The reason for this is that the main tank on most nito helis can form bubbles and the fuel pick up clunk can become dry and lean the fuel mix out burning up your motor but the header tank is always full due to the exhaust pressure from the muffler. So now you can add to the 15 min. of flying. I get tired way before the header tank gets empty so 10 mins is more than enough for me.

Matty: The Evo Sceadu offers both versions standard push pull and a CCPN version that is also push pull. The Scheadu I have is the old school control that uses 3 servos that control only one part of the swash plate. The CCPN or M uses three servos that are combined to control the cyclic or in other words share the load. The advantage of this is that you can run lesser quality servo and you combine the power of all three to help in all cyclic controls. The down side is that you will get swash interaction between the three servos. As an example the three servos will move at slightly different speeds so you would have some lagging. In the standard control since there is no mixing the servos are acting independent of each other so you do not haave the interaction. You need some good strong servos though. When the 2.4 radios came out we found that the speed of the transmitter action to receiver to servo was super fast and in some cases the AIL, Pich. ELE channels are closer to each other and you do not get the interaction. Some die hard guys are still using the PCM 72 Mhz and will want the standard mode on controlling. I will see you tomorrow and we will go over the ins and outs.

Starcop please don't be a stranger,

Jim

dooleyje

Jay I am glad your are coming around. Yes I know about the itching with the dog bites I got a while back, My hand is scarred from it. Do what the bone crusher says!!

You broke the recliner?!!!!!!! OMG Daddy has to have his man chair. Have fun in El Paso.

Tell Donica YABBA DABBA DO Y'all, she'll know what you mean.

Jim

axel8000

Well my dad saw my heli and I loaded the flight sim on his computer and let him play with it. He plays that thing all day! lol
Yesterday I saw a blackhawk 450, the same heli I bought, on ebay. It was used but in good condition with TONS of extra parts. Came RTF. Only $125. I figured what the hell? So I ordered it. Now I got one for my dad to fly too! Or worse case, a spare to fly while one is grounded! lol

The new one I got has an upgraded zoom gyro. It also still comes with the original gyro. So we'll see how well it flies when it gets here!

matty_p80

Hey guys!

Firstly a fantastically big thankyou to Jim, who not only put up with me all yesterday but has offered his services anytime I need for further ‘Guru Time’!!! he also put a new EC3 on the extra battery I ordered with the Blade as I haven’t travelled on holiday with my soldering iron (funny ol’ thing) !!??!! he’s saved my bacon by doing that as the stock battery is screwed and won’t charge! He asked me before we left the flying field if I’d learnt anything and all I could respond was “everything�!!!
I can understand people getting helis and just going at it on their own but the help from an experienced person, especially when first starting out, is just priceless!! Jim has BIG kudos from me!

The other brills news is I had the blade hovering about 4ft up this evening !!!!! was a little tricky getting it off the ground in my friends back yard as he hasn’t cut the grass for a while and the training wheels snagged slightly on lift off but once that was overcome it was pretty much plain sailing with the set-up Jim had helped me do, sorry, Jim did it and I just gawped whilst overlooking but I think I’ve got the link removal and replacement down to a fine art (took us about 7 or 8 trial hops to just get the tail dialed in)!

Another thing that isn’t told you in the mags and the adverts and you would only hear from experience, is Jim suggested an upgrade of a digital servo for the tail as the stock one can’t really keep up with the gyro but for beginning there wasn’t a need for upgrading the gyro!! Now if I read the hype I would have shelled out $180 instead of the $37 for just the servo! (I did actually shell out ‘bout $150 for spare parts at the ‘Hobby USA’ in Mooresville, very dangerous place, kinda just assimilates your money![:-] tee hee) Hopefully I’ll get to the stage where I will need to upgrade the gyro but this way it’s spreading the cost out!!

Am very excited ‘bout my new acquisition and would recommend the B400 to anyone but like anyone with any experience will tell you, there is no such thing as completely RTF, as I experienced! If I had tried to fly my bird as was, it would have been a constant fight which could have been avoided!

Anyways, enough of my spouting! Hope everyone is flying high and fine but if not, having fun whatever they’re doing!!!

Matty ><}}}}}@>

p.s. going up to the hobby shop again tomorrow ‘cos there’s always something you forget to buy the first time round!! My wife is probably going to really hate this hobby!!!

Oh, yeah, Donica! Keep with the sim it has really helped me and I was using the cheap and cheerful FMS!!

dooleyje

I tell what if you want to have a very pleasent day and have a really cool guy to fly with then Matty is your man. I had the honor of meeting his beautiful family. He is a natural for RC flying. I enjoyed his visit and hope he enjoys the B400 and his new found hobby. Matty my pleasure MATE.

The B400 comes with neverything to fly out of the box with just a charge on the batteries and a good place to fly.
I took Matty to one of my club fields and it is not as conjested as my other club and we spend the whole afternoon going through the helicopter. The pitch range we found was 2 degees off on 0 pitch when in idle up. As you know i always use Idle up to establish 0 degrees before setting the end points and other values. This is the reference. I then make sure that the end poits match in degrees. In other word while in idle up I am trying to get 0 at mid stick and 10-12 degrees at full pitch and neg 10-12 degrees at low stick. Matty's heli inded up being -11, 0, +11. All we did was to adjust the CCPM links out several turns to lower the mid stick to 0 from +2 degrees. This is very close and a pleassent surprised that the head was set that close out of the box. Kudos to E-Flight. The next thing was to go through the throttle curve and to see if anything was out of the ordinary and found everything cool. I did change 1/4 stick from 25% to about 34% to help in landing. A straight curve would be too harsh and you will have the tendency to bang the heli down. If you would bump up that point a little you will have more throttle and the heli will settle down nice and slow as you lower the stick. The next thing was to do a look over or pre flight also make sure the tail in controlling in the correct direction and mattys heli was cool. I have found that the B400s that I have flown are really sensitive on the controls. The first flight test verified this. I took the swash mix down on AIL and ELE to about 55% from 75% as it came out of the box. For learning that was a good setting. It was still a little crisp so I added +25%expo. You can also limit the end travel but I perfer the swash mix. The tail was super sensitive so I took the travel end point down to 80%. The tail servo had a time to keep up with the gyro. The tail servo is digital but you have to run it as a regular servo because it can not run on 275mhz speed that the gyro is running on. The manual explains that. I had to add some trim on the tail to keep it from drifting left. This was a temporary fix. It still drifts a little so I suggested that Matty purchase a Futaba 3154 mini servo. This servo is about 37 bucks and is designed for gyros. With this install we can switch the gyro to a DS setting for digital servo and remove the tail trim. The tail should hold nicely. I showed Matty how to balance his blades. It really is a simple process. I showed him the blade balancer way and the ink pen way. The ink pen way was only off by about a half bubble. I also explain the use of a gram scale to balance the blades. If anyone would like to learn the ways to balance and CG your blades let me know and I will post the ways here in the thread
All in all the B400 was set up pretty good out of the box . A seasoned pilot could take it out and just bang away but it was just too much out of the box for a new pilot to learn on. I did not fly the heli much just some test hoveribg becuase the stock battery was not acting correctly and his new battery had the wrong connector. Instead of replacing all the E3c connectors with Deans I suggested to just replace the new battery to E3C. E3C are good connectors and are very beefy. I would have no problem running them.

Our day ended going to a LHS where we played with the G4 simulator the store set up. Its more fun the crash on the SIM. Matty bought a lot of spares and I would say he will go back before going home. LOL

Matty I had a grand time and i hope we can do it again real soon.

Jim

F18

hello flying rappie 90-3d all day love the ys 90-st Adjusting the motors on 90 class engines you have three needles but tuning in smoke trail . i noticed if i turned in hover needle to much a clik at atime a lost some head speed! Some wig-wag!!!well eveyone enjoy fall flying bye!

Corwin38

My Feedback: (2)

Hey Jim,

Thanks for the info on changes made to the B400 OOB. I'm going to try those today.

What do you think about going to a B400 right after a Blade CX? My nephew (13 years old) has been flying a CX like crazy and he is ready to step up by X-mas. I was suggesting the CP but I think he is determined on the 400.

Thanks for any suggestions.

dooleyje

It will be a great step up. Please do not be mad when he whips all of us flying helis. LOL I highly suggest it. The B400 radio is bar non better than the CP.

Jim

Jim

flyachopper1

Hey hey bird ranchers,
Back from El Paso and finally settled into home for awhile. The old place seems kinda empty without my little nursie here. It was a very good trip and we all had a bunch of fun. Flew into some rowdy weather over the panhandle of Oklahoma and that scared Debi and Donica some. We managed to skirt most of it and get above some of it. Donica and Debi had never seen a thunderstorm from above and the wind and lightning scared them. Ames is a good pilot though and we slipped through real nicely. It was a lot of fun to watch Donica and Debi on the trip. They're not as seasoned to flying as Ames and I. They were amazed with a lot of things and like a couple of kids at their first carnival. The flight back was perfect and the black beauty performed in her usual magnificent manner. I thought I would be jonesin' to take the controls but actually it was nice to sit back and relax as a passenger for a change. Feels like I've put a lot of miles under my butt lately and I'm ready to stay home for a while. Poor Donica had to drive from El Paso to Baton Rouge to boot. She's there now and already back to work. She's a pro road warrior though and I don't know how she keeps going like she does.

Had another visit to the "knuckle cracker" today and got a work out from her. I think she's still a little miffed about my skipping out to go to Texas.

Fiddled around with the Copt. X last night for awhile. Started laying out the paint scheme on the canopy. I read Donicas post about seeing me reading the label on the can of pink paint. She's right you know. It's going to be hers and have a pink scheme on it. I told her on the trip to El Paso and now she's all excited about having her own heli again. Maybe I'm just an old softie, but I think she's more than earned it. The Jessica Rabbit artwork will have to come later when my "drawing hand" is better healed. JD has called her the "EverReady Rabbit" because of the way she keeps going. Maybe I should draw that on there instead.

Have seen you guys talking about some good inexpensive batteries on here lately. Where do you buy them. I could stand to lay in several more packs.

Sounds like JD and Matty had a good day. It's great when forum members can actually meet and pursue our addiction. Matty is already flying I remember the rush when I finally got my first flight. Took me a long time as I'm out here in the "boonies" of heli flying and had to make all the mistakes on my own. Good on ya Matty. Won't be long and you'll be whipping that heli around like it's part of you.

Axel,
Cool that you and your dad are going to get to crash, fix and fly together. I wish both of you all the success possible. Yah- more than one heli is nice and actually is what happens to all of us once the addiction sets in. I could never go back to just one heli again. Gotta have one to fly, one to fix and several to pet and talk to. Welcome to the dark side AxelLuke. Won't be long untill you're setting them all out at the field and just standing back and staring glassy eyed at them like the rest of the HeliJedi.

Time for sleep and dreams of my personal flying clone army.

See you all later.

P.S.-JD I got the recliner fixed. A salvaged and remodeled cable off an old bicycle saved the day. Problem now is my chair now has twelve speeds. Kinda foncusing.

dooleyje

Jay now that you have a twelve speed man chair you need to get the "bottles" to put your man drinks in.!!!!


Man.... it is cold here today and calling for rain. Well..cold for me that is. David would be sweating. No flying today except on the sim. I asked David where he got the Zippys battery and he never got back to us. If they stay cooler than the FP EVO252170s then I would like to try some my self. I think they are named something else now.

For all the B400 owners look at this www.slyster.com/heli/


Later

Jim

axel8000

Well I got my parts.. fixed my heli. Put the training wheels back on.. Those training wheels suck! The plastic thing that holds em together keeps breaking! I didn't even set it down that hard. It's ridiculous! Anyways, broke my main blades

I need to get something to balance the new blades so it flies correctly right? I also broke the rear tail grip AGAIN! good thing I bought 4 of them.. I think i'm going back into my garage to hover for a while.. Every time I take it outside I break something!

My battery takes about 2 hours to charge with the charger I have.

Jim, You have a suggestion on a good charger for a pretty good price? the local hobby shop has some but they are pretty expensive. I just need to charge my LiPos. I don't have a need for anything other than that. Also, is there a place online I can pick up some new batteries? I know I've seen them for like 35 bucks somewhere. The Hobby shop over here wants 70 bucks for a 11.1v 2200mah.

matty_p80

hey Corwin!

don't be cautious about going from a CX2 to a B400, i have quite literally jumped from an Airhogs Reflex 'toy' to a B400 and if anything he has the jump on me as he already has the feel for the throttle, etc. from a hobby grade heli!!

Matty ><}}}}}}@>

matty_p80

hey Axel!

you don't want to be spending excessive monies on the training gear as you won't (hopefully) be needing it for long! our Jedi Master took me down to the local Lowes before we went to his flying field in mooresville and i spent the grand sum of $3 us on a dowel rod (approx. 1/4" dia.) and some ping pong balls (they don't sell them in 4's so had to get 6!!), all held together with zip ties, 2 cross bracing the centre and 2 each side for the skids!

et Voila!

this is why it's sooooooo great to go with someone who's already been there and done that, even just for one day!!

Matty ><}}}}}@>

cajungirl

Well hi there practioners of the force and jedi protectors of the valley of the heli people,
Looks like Jay has already told of my being returned to warrior status and rewarded with my very own heli once again. Hoo-haw, I'm very excited and tickled clear to my toes. I'm honored to be once again a member of the army of the force and looking forward to participating in some of the missions for the greater good. Whew, really got off into the Star Wars bit. I'll try and calm down some here and not bring disgrace to the council of elders.

Yep, yep, yep-the Copter X is mine all mine and is gonna be pink. Now I'm gonna run the sim to pieces so I can get her flying for real as soon as possible. Played on that sim today at lunch for about 1/2 hour. That was all the time I had today. I'm almost brave enough to try some nose in again and some of the sideways stuff JD suggested. I can hover pretty good tail in and kinda sorta can move the heli aorund in an almost figure 8. I'm getting used to watching the nose instead of trying to figure out where it's goin' by watching the tilt of the rotor. For some reason my eyes want to go to the rotor everytime. I'm slowly training myself to watch the nosie end. I'm finding that if I know where the nose is and going I already know where the tilt is on the rotor. This is a lot of fun. Gives me a feelin' that I've accomplished somethin' when I get it to go where I want it to. I'm beginnin' to see what y'all like so much about bein' in control of these things. It's like an extension of yourself. It must be part of ya. It sure takes a lot of your energy.

I'm back to work now and very busy. I got spoiled on hanging out with Jay for so long. I need to get used to the work thing again and I'm kinda lonely. I'm in familiar territory here in Baton Rouge though and gosh, I even speak the language. I'll be back in shape in no time.

JD,
Gotta be honest, you got me on the yabba dabba do. I'm not sure what that one means. Energizer Bunny huh? That's funny. Do I have to carry that big ol' drum? Isn't that bunny pink? I don't remember for sure. Y'all only hear about my goin' times. You don't know that at the end of the day I collapse in on myself. I'm still road weary from all the travellin' lately but now I'm back on a schedule and when I sleep I really sleep. A few more days and I'll be caught up on regular rest and up to speed. I tried a coupla those energy drink things when I first got here but wow, do I crash when those wear off. I felt like my feet were stone and got a killer headache. Those aren't what they're hyped up to be and if they let you crash like that they can't be healthy. I won't use those again. I'm thinkin' a good ol' V8 or a good glass of milk and sensible eatin' would be better.

Hey bubbas-gotta get some of that rest mentioned. I'll be back later.

Y'all pester that Jay 'bout gittin' my heli finished for me will ya?

Bye now,

Donica

dooleyje

Hay Matty if your still in town we can go again and fly at the other field on the pavement. Just call me. I am off work till Sat. Fri looks to be clearing off.

Donica: Now I can't believe ya'll don't know what Yabba Dabba Do means. Fred Flintstone says that when he is happy and when he blast off in his feet powered car. Yep the bunny is pink. I am goofy enough so I do not drink the power drinks. I would be vibrating for days on all that sugar. I flew my CopterX for a few minutes when Matty was with me. It is silky smooth and flys nice. You are going to like it. I have the CD done and will send a copy to Jay.

Axel: I use the Cell pro4S charger. about 35-45 min charge from a 80% discharge. You can get it a FMA for about $70 The also have a good set of batteries. David and Magic hook are using Zippys or what ever they are named now with good results and hope fully thay can give us the web site. A cheap battery is usually just that, cheap. A lot of the offerings are a accident waiting to happen and have been know to burn houses down. Be carful!! I use FP 2170 evo25 and I have 5 that I use. I use 2 chargers so that I have three ready to fly while 2 are charging. I use a marine deep cell battery as a power source for the Cell pro chargers. My batteries barily get warm to the touch on a 7.5 to 8 min flight. I get then at my LHS for 69 bucks. About $10 cheaper than on the web. David says that the Zippys run cooler than the FPpacks but I do not know which packs of FP he is using. You need to get a good charger period! To cheap here will do nothing but ruin your batteries and David can testify about that. The Cell Pro 4s are plug and play and are safe.

Jim

Jeremy1981

Hello all!

New B400 owner here, have some setup questions and maybe irregularities noted during pre-preflight. Please stop by my post in the 'Beginners' thread to see if you can help!
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8032302/tm.htm

Thanks!

Jeremy

chris6414

My Feedback: (10)

Hey guys and Donica. I finally got around to bring the Hawk to work and find a spot to fly at lunch. Too small for the plane but plenty for the Hawk and my Jato. The speed limit back there is 35 and I blew by the MPs the other day doing almost double that. [>:] They just waved. I am going to gear that thing down because it is just too fast for my liking. It is on the base I work on, which doesn't have much air traffic and I was told to keep it below 200ft which is not a problem. I took it out yesteday and flew a tank to practice the flight pattern. It has some 40-60ft trees at the end but my approach has a clearing to come in through. If I boo boo, at least the trees will catch me.[&:] Just like coming into a hot LZ!

Chris

axel8000

ok.. So I went to Home Depot and picked up some 1/4" dowels. I made some new training wheels that work much better! I fixed the tail rotor (again) and I put on some new main blades.

There is another problem I'm having now. When I hover up about 5 seconds into the hover my heli starts to shake like crazy. Is that due to the training wheels maybe being off balance? or could that be the new blades?

dooleyje

Loosen the blades a little. and yes the blades could be unbalanced. Make sure you didn't bend a main shaft,

Jim

axel8000

I bent the main shaft. wow, doesn't take much to bend that thing huh? I barely crashed it!

I stood about the heli and turned the blades a little and I saw the swash wobbling back and forth.. So it's obviously bent. Man, it's going to be rough taking that whole assembly apart to fix that shaft! I did order an extra when I ordered all my parts, so I'm set there. I just hope I can figure out how it all goes back together! lol

axel8000

Well.. Mission accomplished. I'm glad I bought this thing RTF. I'm very good with putting things back together if I'm the one that takes them apart. I successfully replaced the main shaft in a period of about 30 minutes. It wasn't all that hard actually, just looked intimidating.

I can't see a bend in the main shaft I took out, I roll it on a flat surface and I don't see it wobble or anything. Must not take much of a bend to throw that thing off because with the new one in there I have no problem. It hovers nice and steady without a problem! Thanks for the help! I knew I'd find the answer to my problem here!