an

I’m not too sure if this thread exists for the 4G6 yet so I am starting this one. I saw the new 4G6 was coming out and got it with the intent to modify it. I’m in college so time is tight to work on this little heli so the actual process took a very long time but it is now complete. The only camera I have is on my phone so that is why the pictures are not the best quality. There is already a thread on physical modifications for the 4G6 so I think this thread should remain on the subject of the DSM2 spectrum conversion. Many people feel that this I not a good thing to do base on cost but I think it is much better to use the radio I want vs. the radio they give and it’s fun to tinker.
Here is what is on my little heli.
Stock motor, servos, and mechanics (but a plastic rotor hub, reduces weight and vibration)
AR6300 stock receiver
Stock telebee head holding gyro
Modified stock speed controller
Dimension Engineering LV booster
Stock battery
Stock airframe

The AUW is 93.5 grams which is only slightly heavier then the stock. I didn’t weight it before I started, I think it was in the range of 88 to 90 grams (can anyone clarify?), to modify but the receiver and gyro is less than 3 grams heavier then the all in one and a gram (just a guess for the voltage booster. I’m thinking that maybe 3.5 - 4 grams added. I’m still working on ways to shed some weight too.

How everything works.
My servos and gyro are all plugged in to the AR6300 receiver and the ESC RX power lines run through the low voltage booster then to the receiver. This requires minimal electrical knowledge and basic soldering skills. The voltage booster is adjustable up to 5 volts and down to .5 volts. I am running it at about 4.3 volts on the output. The input from the ESC ranges from 4.8 to 3 volts depending on the battery charge, but a constant 4.3-4.5 is given to the RX which is above the 3.5 volts required for the receiver. I have taken the battery to the low voltage cut off on the ESC and the RX and gyro stayed on so power loss is not an issue.

I also have a vibration that is messing with my gyro and everything is evenly spaced and balanced. Any ideas?

eeeclaire69

Hi,
I have bought the 4G6 with the intension of converting it to use with my DX7 but after exploring the WK2801pro transmitter that came with my 4G6 I am not sure it is worth it. Having done the conversion do you think it is worth the cost and effort?
I must admit that I think the WK2801pro transmitter is superb, very easy to set up and feels good but I think the 4G6 is under powered with the supplied 500mah 20c lipo, do you know of a better power source?
Ian

an

I'm not too sure if it is any better. I have a vibration that I can not find so my tail is a little shaky and sometimes swings out on fast climbsbut for the most part holds pretty well (it could also be the gyro). How does yours fly completely stock? For me it was worth it for the fun of it and I just had the helicopter and already had the gyro and receiver and didn't feel like having another transmitter. I have noticed the helicopter being a little under powered. There is a thread about mods that make it lighter,cant find it at the moment. I am using the 600 mah 20c batteries. Also if you have an advanced charger I'd use that. I find the suplied chargers generally don't do a very good job at fully charging the batteries. you can get the batteries at wowhobbies.com and clubheli.com for $7.50 each. There is also an upgrade motor that is more powerful, but I haven't gotten it yet. Do you hava scale? I am wondering what the stock weight of the helicopter is.

eeeclaire69

The stock weight is 90.09g with lipo or 75.7g without lipo.
Ian

an

That's not much lighter then mine. I replaced the metal linkage with 1mm carbon fiber and it seemed to make a big difference. the tail is more solid and there is less tail wag. my AUW with 600mah 20c battery is 92.9 grams. Each time I make a change on this little helicopte I like my mods. How does the heli fly stock? and the gyro? does your tail swing out when you make a fast climb. The tail rotor linkage mod seemed to take care of a lot of the tail swing. are you going to keep you heli stock?

eeeclaire69

Hi, With stock set up the tail seems fine, not great but ok. It doesnt swing when i climb but it seems to piro faster to the right than the left! I am going to leave it stock for now but will try changing the pinion for more power but if that does not work then i will try a HP08-2 motor from wow hobbies.
When I put a load of collective in the rpm drops loads, about -50%. Does yours do this?
Ian

an

Hi, have you modded the linkage going to the tail with 1mm carbon fiber? It makes a big difference and takes .4 grams off the heli. Also I'd take out the motor connector. I took it out and shed .9 grams, and people also say that you get more power with a direct connection. I'll get back you on that once I test fly the heli and about the piro rate. Spinning faster to the right then to the left seems like normal operation for how th tail is set up though. It just doesnt have enough pitch to spin very fast. The higher the head speed then the less pitch is needed to hold the tail in a hover giving more pitch for piros bringing the left and right rates a little closer. How do you think a different pinion will affect the motor? It already gets very hot for me. I'm really thinking about getting the HP08-2 motor but I'm not too sure it will makea big enough difference right now. I'm still learning the micro heli thing (I mostly fly largers ones). I do notice that my rpm drops a good amount with collective punches. Im not too sure where it happens but I'd say it is about half way between hover and the top of the stick. I got it to be a little smoother by making the pitch curve a little less agressive and the throttle curve is really high past 3/4 stick. I think I have it about 80 or 90 for spot 3 and 100 for 4 and 5. I find that the heli likes to have a very high headspeed. have you measured your HS?

eeeclaire69

Hi, I have read some horror stories about some stock brushless motors on the 4g6 being faulty. Some are under powered and some over heat very quick, I am not sure but I think I may have an under powered one as even after only a couple of moments hovering It starts to lose power and when you jab the throttle it bogs down realy badly. So I have ordered another one http://www.wowhobbies.com/turboace81...kera4g6-1.aspx
After reading some reviews it seems to do the job very well and I have seen the 4g6 available with this motor pre installed. Maybe there are some issues with the walkera motor?
Ian

an

That does sound like your motor is faulty. mine can fly a while pack (about 6 min) and still keep most of it's power but it is very hot and bogs when I punch the collective. When you get the motor I am very curious to hear how it performs. I was hearing that some caused vibrations. After you test it out, would you recomend it as an upgrade that really helps out? how much power it has, how much it bogs, flight times, weight, and so on. It wouls not surprisse me if there was som issus with th walkera motors, but for 20 bucks they seem to work okay. Also how does the new motor start with the stock ESC? Also have you tried the carbon fiber blades from wowhobies?

eeeclaire69

Have done some more testing and I neew to upgrade the motor. On a fresh charged lipo lifted in to hover, hit idle up 2 (st2) and flipped it over to hover inverted, even with the throttle curve at 100% flat it still lost power and dropped with not enough power to get it right way up. The result was broken blades, broken tail gears and a very pissed off Ian.
The new motor is stated as being ok with 99.9% of esc's but I will need to solder the wires directly to the esc.

eeeclaire69

Ok. I received my new motor today and as instructed I soldered the wires directly to the ESC. When the battery was connected it did its usual beep beep thing and all was good. However, when I opened the throttle my esc went up in smoke [:@]. So now I need a new esc but other than the Walkera one I am having trouble finding one for 1s. There are loads of budget 10A esc for 2-3s but not many for 1s!

an

I went out and got the motor. after getting it and getting everything ready I realized that there were not threads which put me a little behind, does yours have threads? I hooked mine up the the walkera ESC and everything seems to works fine. Sometimes it is a little slow to boot up but the heli has a lot more power then it did. if you get an ESC other then the walkera one then if you ever decide to convert to spectrum and the ESC has a BEC it'll make it a lot easier. I'll try to get some pictures up soon. also my AUW with the 600 mah battery is 89.5 grams.

eeeclaire69

What do you mean by "threads"?
Is it true that a non Walkera esc will not work with the 4g6 rx? What make and model is you gyro, where did you get it from? Did the servo wires plug in to the Spectrum rx or did you need to modify them in any way?
Sorry for all the questions but here in the UK Walkera are not popular and there are no dealers that I can find so I am having to source components from USA. Wow hobbies have been very helpful and offer a very good service but I want to order everything I need at once as it take about 10 days to get here!
Ian

eeeclaire69

Has any one tried to seperate the gyro from the 4g6 receiver. I have been looking for a gyro small enough so it would be great if the standard one could be used as it is very good.
Ian

eeeclaire69

Hi an, when you say you moddified the standard esc what did you do? was is just a case of swapping the wires around to connect to the rx?
Ian

an

Ian,
threads that the screws srew into. I think I just got a defective one.
For my gyro I used a telebee and you can get then all over hobbyking.com has then for 35 US dollars. I'm not too sure about the ESC thing but I think you have to modify them to work. M servos plug directly into my AR6300, but I had to replace the connector with the spectrum connectors.
I don't think anyone has seperated the gyrp but I could b wrong.
For the moddified stock ESC I added a voltage booter on the positive and negative wires between my ESC and RX to get 4.3 volts to my RX so it would not turn off when the battery got low. I added another compent and didn't really modify the ESC board itself.
I am going to put a how to thing together this weekend for this mod and what I did to make it work with parts needed and how I did everything. I'll also post some diagrams and hi-res pictures.

GenkiDesu

I have a 4g6 but I am too new to the hobby to really know the difference.

At this time, I have a heard time hovering... It moves leftevery timeI get into the air or even when I am ground hovering(skidding) on the floor.

I would like to ask everyone, what are your settings on the controller?
Im using a wk-2602
PIT REV
PLT/PIT about 50/50... can be used at 0/0.
Gyro(big one) 70% been trying to find a good settings. If at 0, the heli tips over.

Btty runs for about 6 to 8 minutes.

an

GenkiDesu,
The reason why the helicopter moves to the left when you are taking off is probably from the thurst of the tail rotor which tends to push the heli. Once you get flying and in a stable hover this should not happen. once you get out of ground effect (I forget how high but 4 feet should be good) trim out the heli for level hover. Are you using the controller that came with the model? Or a different one. I' not too sure how to set up the walera radio, that's one of the reasons why I changed radios to the DX6i. but nature the 4g6 is going to be a bit squirelly. the smaller they are the more difficult they are to master, but they are also cheaper to crash and will teach you really good control.

an

Mavrick220,
To get the walkera servo to plug into the receiver I took the white plug off of some spectrujm extensions and put them on the wires of the servos after taking the walkera connectors off. There are little white tab that hold the wire on the connector and if you lift them up you can slide the wire out. no soldering needed. another wa would be to solder the wire directly to the reveiver of solder the spectrum connectors to the walkera servos. The reveiver that comes with the walkera will not bind to a different transmitter than that walkera ones (different coding in the signal). to use a spectrum or any DSM2 TX you will need to put in a different receiver. You could probably make the AR6110e work but you would need to strip it down. the best RX to use would be the AR6300. let me know if you have anymore questions or a skipped something.

Heres how to mod the heli:

Items required for the modification:
The part numbers are for amainhobbies.com but you can buy the items from any website you want, this is just to say what is needed.

3 x Spectrum 1" JST Adapter Ultra Lightweight
[SPMAJST1UL]
1 x Spectrum 3" JST Extension Ultra Lightweight
[SPMEXJST3UL]
1 x Spectrum Remote Receiver Antenna Extension 12"
[SPM9012]
(can be any length, you just need the connector with 2 or 3 inches of wire, this is the best deal for this site)
1 x AR6300
1 x LVBoost from http://www.dimensionengineering.com/lvboost.htm
1 x gyro (I used a telebee and G401B from cnchelicopter.com)

All the other parts are stock

If you don’t want to bother with the connectors then you can solder the servos directly to the AR6300, but connectors are more convenient.

To start off take all of electronics off the 4G6 with the exception of the tail servo.

Next bust out the parts listed above.
Always make sure you have the correct polarity!!

Take the remote receiver cable and take the connector off of one end by lifting the little tabs on the plastic connector up and sliding the wires out. Then take the other end and cut the wired so they are about 4 inches or so long with the connector on one end. The end with the connector will be the ESC to RX wires.

Next for the 3 inch extension cut it in half. On one of the halves take two wires out of the connector leaving the signal wire. This goes to the remote gain on the gyro. The other half will replace the gyro wires so just splice the ends of the wires.

For the 3 adapters take the plastic connector off like described above.

Now all the wires and connectors are ready.

Next step:

Take the shrink wrap off everything and the casing off the gyro.

Servos:
On the 3 cyclic servos take off the walkera connector like described above and replace with the spectrum ones from the adapters. Make sure you get the polarity connect. It is (signal, negative, positive) for the AR6300 RX.

Gyro:
Figure out how long your wires need to been based on where you are going to place everything before cutting.
Take the wires off and replace with the ones you made above and replace the signal wire with the single wire and connector but cut them to length first. Either take a connector off the stock RX from the tail servo or solder the wires directly to the servo output

ESC and LVBoost
For this look at the wiring diagram and cut the positive and negative wires on the remote receiver extension so the signal is the longest. Figure out where you are putting the ESC an LVBoost combo and cut the positive and negative wires to length (keeping the signal longer)
One the ESC cut the wires that go to the RX to about a half inch.
Then remove the wires from the LVboost on the input end. Solder the positive and negative wires from the ESC to the LVBoost. On the output side remove the wires and solder the positive and negative wires form the remove the signal extension with connector you did above. Cut the signal wire to the three wires are the same tensions when parallel with the signal wire running along the side of the LVBoost. Solder signal wire from the remote receiver extension to the ESC (after removing the stock wire from the ESC.
After everything is soldered and connected remove the wires that go to the motor if you are upgrading to the HP08-2.

Once everything is done put some double stick tape along the entire length of the LVBoost on the bottom and then fold over and take to the ESC.

RX
Take the wrapper off the RX so it is a bare board.

Now put the servos back on and then the new electronics, plug everything into their correct location and test.