armycopter

Go to the walkera site and download the instruction manual for the WK-0701 TX. It's better than the DF37 manual. It explains a lot more...

armycopter

Well i've been messing around with my 37 again. I've been having this problem where I would get one or two great flights, then all of a sudden (without having adjusted anything), it wouldn't even pick up off the ground. You could hear the throttle increase as the collective was applied but it just sat there. As it turns out, there are two little black plastic nubs that had broken off on the piece of the head where the flybar passes through. The little nubs each have a bearing on them. The bearings are screwed into from the sides. I disassembled the whole head and found that the nubs hadn't broken away completely (must have happened during my last crash a month or two ago) so they would catch the bearings part of the time. Anyway, I had a spare so I replaced it. It's flying absolutely perfect now. Blades are tracked perfectly. I had close to a 10 second hands off hover today.

The only thing I think I need to work on is my pitch. Right now I have about +2 at the halfway mark and only about +7 at full collective. (I'm always in normal mode, not 3d mode). I'm sure this is not ideal but I don't really know how to fix it. I'd like to get about +10 at full collective. It flies great and seems to have a very strong climb, but I can tell that I would need more collective pitch if I really wanted to do some harder flying. I say this because if I bring it down from a high hover quickly and try to arrest the stop, it doesn't seem to stop as fast as I'd like. It stops pretty good but I think it should stop on a dime.

Maybe I'll take some video a little later and post some flights...

Anybody else out there doing any flying?

Heliwannabe

Well I received my tail kit, lipo, esc and motor but the motor was completely wrong (output shaft at the wrong end) so I have to contact them tomorrow. I did mount the servo on the tail and which works perfectly and installed the lipo battery. It has so much more power now but the poor stock motor gets pretty hot. I made the adjustments using dip switches 10, 11 and 12 and it hovers perfectly now with the gyro set at about 75% and the AVCS set to norm. I guess I shouldn't mess with success but the manual says that once these setting are made you should set it back to AVCS for normal flight. When I do it continually creeps clockwise or the same direction as the main blade rotation. Should I just leave this set to norm and forget it? Is your set to norm or AVCS?

This thing is incredibly stable now but I am afraid to lift more than a few seconds at a time because the motor gets hot and began to smoke at one point. Not that I care about this motor I just don't want to destroy the machine before I get the brushless motor installed. Man that bruhsless must be awesome. Held to the bench even stock 400 brushed motor pulls hard in lift at full throttle.

I know I need to quit experimenting until I get the proper motor and esc installed but its hard to resist when its flying so perfectly.
Jim

armycopter

I keep mine set to AVCS. What do you mean the shaft is at the wrong end?

Heliwannabe

Crud I was afraid you woud say that. I suppose it is more stable with it on but I can't get clockwise creep to stop.

The spinning motor housing is attached to the output shaft and the bearing is on the back (or what should be the front) of the motor where the mounting holes are with no shaft protruding. It's like its made for an airplane. Once I get the right motor I will try to set it up again with AVCS on.

W37 Cepeda

Ok. Here's another replacement ALING part you add to your COPTER.

Tired of breaking the Main blade holders? How about metal blades holders? Never break them again.

And you dont even have to wait for them. You can do it know.

Here is what you need.

ALN METAL MAIN ROTOR HOLDER Part #: ALNHS1065
ALN BEARINGS 3x8x4mm Part #: ALNHS1029
ALN LINKAGE ROD SET/CDE Part #: ALNHS1130
ALN LINKAGE BALL Part #: ALNHS1027

Ok. Basicly you will change 2 ball linkages on the fly bar control arm, you will make 2
short linkage rods (the same size as the the ones you remove from the blade holder arm ball linkage).

You will not need the 2 fat spacers. That's it.

VOOM!

armycopter

That looks super cool. Thanks for the tip! How does it fly?

Heliwannabe

Really really nice. Thanks for the tip.

W37 Cepeda

Very very staple.

As matter of fact...i have this thing so right on, it needs very little triming.
You apply power, and it goes into a 8 foot perfect hover with little intervention
from the control.

Plus it made the copter feel more docil during precision flying, but yet,
it felt more tight.. and not as loose.

W37 Cepeda

I got the brushless motor kit and ESC.

But It does not work. Brand new from the box, and I can't
get the motor to spin.

Can you please tell me what wire is hooked from the
controller to the motor? i may have some mix up.

I feel though it got a bad motor or controllter.

Heliwannabe

Is your 006 gyro set to AVCS or norm? I suspect AVCS with a purple led display on the control.

Heliwannabe

Sorry no help with the brushless and ESC. I received my set but the motor was wrong (airplane style). They were happy to take it back so I re-ordered. Have you been using the stock 400 brushed motor so far? Mine gets way too hot with my new lipo 12C 2200 mah battery so I am just going to wait for the proper brushless motor (outrunner 400DF) before I destroy my machine with a seized motor or something. It is so tempting to fly with the new lipo but I am going to resist.
Jim

Heliwannabe

FYI the Shuttle is again a go for tomorrow at 2:38 EDT. Yea I'm a junkie for this stuff..

MikeU

I just received my DF37 and need to adjust the main blades. The instructions say to adjust the control linkage. Now for the dumb question. Which one is the control linkage? How do you properly adjust the main blades? I am new to this hobby and not sure which linkage does what.

I would like to do some upgrades, Brushless motor, tail servo, lip etc. Is it easy to install a new motor and electronics? Will it have the same safety start button?

Any help would be great.

Thanks in advance,
Mike

armycopter

Cepeda,
I'm not sure if these pix will help you but maybe they'll be a start. I have a brushless outrunner that has red, blue, and black leads coming from it. I installed gold female connectors (not sure of the type of connector) on each lead. I then installed their male counterparts on the ESC leads. The ESC has red, yellow, and black leads. You would think red connects to red, black to black, and yellow to blue, but that's not the case. I had to connect Black to Black, Red to Yellow, and Blue to Red to make it work. (I think it spun the motor in reverse the other way).

My ESC gives audible beeps when the battery is plugged in. It won't give the correct set of beeps unless my TX controller has the throttle (collective) all the way down.

-Mark

armycopter

Hey Mike, great to have you aboard! I think a lot of us are all still figuring a lot of this stuff out, but here's what I can tell you... If your bird is anything like mine, it was setup pretty well from the factory. The only thing I had to do was balance the blades and set the tracking. To set the tracking you'll need to adjust the one or two of the control rods above the swashplate. (The swashplate is the piece that is connected to your three servos).

Get a pair of safety glasses first and make sure all screws and nuts are tight on the aircraft! This can be dangerous.

1. Turn on the TX.
2. Then plug the battery into the aircraft.
3. There are varying methods to check tracking but what I do is hold the bird by the landing gear at arms length. I fire up the throttle on the transmitter with the other hand. I can then turn the aircraft (very carefully, the blades will now be spinning) so that I can see edge of the blades as they spin. If you think of the blades as a disc (or a plate, or a frisbee), you'll want to be looking at the edge so that you can see the colored tape on the ends of the blades. If they are tracked correctly, the blurred tape will combine and you will not see either blue or red tape. If they are not tracked, you'll see one color above the other color.

Lets say for instance your red blade is tracking higher than your blue blade. You'll want to adjust your BLUE blade UP. To do this, take the control link that I have pointed to in the picture. Use the one that connects to the blue blade (you can see this if you move the control link a little). You'll want to unscrew the linkage from the bottom and pop the top connector off. Then you can twist the ends so that you lengthen the rod. You can try one or two complete turns (and then make sure it's lined up the way it was when you started). Put it all back together and check the tracking again. Keep doing this until the Blue blade tracks perfectly with the Red blade. It sounds complicated but it's not too bad.

-Mark

W37 Cepeda

mine does crap.
I think the controller is bad. It wont even make a sound
when I plug it.

MikeU

Thanks Army,

I will work on the adjustment over the next couple of days. I only get about five min. with the stock battery.

I will provide an update when I am done.

Thanks again,
Mike

Heliwannabe

I only got about 4 minutes with the stock battery and it was very anemic power wise. Did yours ship with the 400 motor and the green 12v 650 mAH battery like mine? If so you will probably want to invest in a lipo battery at least. I put a 11.1v 12C 2200 mAH battery on mine and it runs for more than 14 minutes at hover power and has lots more power. The stock motor gets pretty hot though. I probably should have gone with the 1800 mAH. Its lighter and runs plenty long from what I hear.

Army is right on with his explaination of the tracking adjustment. I had to adjust mine after changing a blade and it came in perfectly exactly as he explained. I had to adjust one arm 1 1/2 turns. Yes wear saftey glasses and be careful not to bump switches and levers. The results can be pretty dramatic. With a few modifications these appear to be a pretty good machine.

Jim

armycopter

Well, I took my heli over to my sister and brother-in-law's house today for a fourth of July BBQ. They have a pretty tight backyard ringed by large trees. Had it at about a 25 foot hover when the giant earth magnet turned on and sucked my heli into the ground at a high rate of speed. Lovely fourth of July fireworks display... pieces everywhere.

Luckily I had almost all pieces to replace everything. I lost a set of blades, blade holders, feathering shaft, main gear, a few pieces off the head that I can't name, and my tail boom. I got it all back together with new stuff except for the link between the blade grip and that Z shaped thing. I can't believe I have to wait a week or two for one small part. Oh well, it is the beginning of the month and I haven't done my bit yet to support the Chinese economy

armycopter

Oh yeah, I did order parts for my DF4 last week so I should be getting those soon. At least I'll have one heli to fly before the week's out!

Heliwannabe

Ouch so sorry to hear that. What happened to cause it to loose lift. I'm glad you are able to repair it unilke embpic1. I wish I could help you with that part but that's one I don't have. That will cure me of trying to fly mine with the smokin motor. Seems you are becoming the resident expert on these machines. Keep us posted on the repairs.
Jim

armycopter

Hey Heli -

Far from expert! The crash was due to my trying to perform a nose in hover in front of about 20 people in a tight area with lots of trees. That will teach me to try new stuff in front of lots of people!

Anyway, is that your bike in your gallery? It looks nice, what is it? I've got a '95 CBR1000 with about 10,000 miles on it. I haven't had a chance to ride hardly at all this summer. I'd love to get some hardbags for it and do some touring but alas, no time...

Heliwannabe

Yea the bike and heli are part of my mid life crisis at 51. It's an 05 Honda Goldwing I bought new last year. I have just over 10K and loving every minute. Its 105 here every day now so its pretty much garaged for a while. It just dawned on me that may be part of my problem with the hot motor and loss of lift, da. A co-worker had the same bike as yours, not sure of the year. Thats a nice machine. Good luck with the repairs.
Jim

armycopter

It's usually mid 70's to mid 80's here. The weather is perfect (when it's not raining). You're right, 105 degree heat is probably a bit much on the motor. Mine stays plenty cool (motor, esc, and battery), however, the stock motor would get extremely hot with the lipo no matter what I did (and when I did use the stock motor, it was winter here and probably about 20-30'F outside).