Guess what came in today?

[dunkonu23]

It's the FBL version!

Scott

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[Jerrymac]

Congrats on the new heli bro. I have heard many good things about Miniature Aircraft helis. Hope to own one myself some day. I am gonna quit buying anymore helis till I learn to fly the damn things better, lol.

[dunkonu23]

You know, I know it, too. I need to learn to fly better, but here's the reality... I love building them.

Scott

[gauiman]

Feb 26, 2011 1:37:44 GMT -5 dunkonu23 said:

You know, I know it, too. I need to learn to fly better, but here's the reality... I love building them.

Scott

+1 on building helis, Im thinking about building an Outrage 550. ;D

[Doozer]

Nice heli Scott. I want a Fury 55, but I'm waiting until they drop a bit. I watched Finless' build on it, MA makes some sweet helis.

Yep, building is the better part of the picture for me. If you like a very detailed build, LAheli makes a couple of great builders builds in the MaxIR and the Ricco. Their 550, the Sniper is a great heli too. But my last electric for a while is going to be Scott's HH. While it was touch and go for a while, incorporating an engine into the build and diagnostic process really makes Nitros fun. Tuning is interesting, but the mess, engine repair price, and smoke suck. However, I'm liking Nitro a lot. A lot more than electrics.... at least for now.

[dunkonu23]

Thanks, guys! It's a sweet build. Everyone could take lessons from MA. Here's a picture of how far I am so far...

Scott

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[dunkonu23]

This is as far as I got today. Turns out I don't have a 7mm nut driver. MA chose to use a 7mm locknut to hold the grips to the pitch shaft, so I'm dead in the water. I also noticed the pitch arms on the pitch slider are pretty tight in their holder so I'm replacing the entire pitch slider with the MA upgraded assembly.

Last night after I got through with bag 1, I discovered that with an ESC buried in the undercarriage, there's not going to be enough room for a separate electronics battery, so I'm going to have to use a BEC. I'm looking closely at the Western Robotics Hercules BEC. We'll see if I feel brave enough to use a Castle BEC Pro.

Scott

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[Jerrymac]

Lookin good bro. You want me to e-mail you a 7mm hex driver, lmao.

[dunkonu23]

Well, all of the electronics are either modified or installed. Wiring this helicopter isn't as easy as one would think.

First, depending on which flybarless unit you choose (I chose a mini Vbar) you may have to use servo extensions. I had to use servo extensions. Then you have to find places to put the wires and how to hold them in place because there are almost no holes in good places for wires. I'm using these:

www.experiencerc.com/store/b006-micro_cable_clips_self_adhesive-p-4751.html

Those clips hold well. I bought two packs.

When I was wiring the helicopter, I thought, "No big deal, I'll just wire the servos and satellites and be done with it." No such luck. My rust in full builds is showing. I figured I'd just have a wire from the BEC and a wire from the ESC. Well, you have to use the two wires off the BEC, so that brings it up to three. Good luck. With the mini Vbar you have only two power ports you can use, and one has to be for the ESC, so... I've not seen anything to reduce two wires down to one for BEC's and didn't really want to make one, so I soldered the two wires, positive to positive and negative to negative, near one connector, thus eliminating the second wire's connector. A little application of heat shrink and a new plug--the ones with the BEC are crap, they break no matter how gently you pull up the clip--and I was done.

Another issue was the BEC pro itself. I did some asking around and found that you can eliminate concern for the thing burning up your equipment (even though I have a V2) by wiring it into your series adapter using only one of the batteries. This is the recommended way from Castle, so that's what I did. This file shows you how to do it:

www.castlecreations.com/support/documents/cc_bec_multi-cell_iInstallation.pdf

It's for the BEC and not the BEC pro, but it works fine and there are no worries.

So, with the additional wires, I will have to rewire, again. No biggie. Now, that I've got batteries, I know there is extra space.

That all said, I've stopped for the day. We have company so it's best.

Weather holding up... it will fly this week.

Scott

[dunkonu23]

Well, I flew it today... I had the throttle curves set up wrong for Castle's RPM governor, so that caused very low head speed, but it was fun anyway. Until I landed. I found one of my new batteries has two cells that are weak. One of the two cells is really weak. So, I called ExperienceRC and ReadyHeli (they're Voltz batteries) and lucky for me it was 6 days after I bought the battery so they're gonna replace it for me.

Scott

[Jerrymac]

Wow, that was a pretty fast build bro, well, at least for me anyhow. I still haven't had time to finish the HH build yet. Glad to hear it went pretty well.

On the Voltz batteries, I have been waiting to hear some comments from people who tried them and yours is the first. Don't sound so good for a first experience with them.

I bought a Voltz 23A power supply over the winter but haven't used it yet, so don't know how good the quality of it is either.

[dunkonu23]

Well, this is odd... I went to ExperienceRC, Tony didn't have the battery in stock, but offered to replace both with Hyperions. Now, Jerry... you know me an Hyperions... well, Tony and Steve do, too. LOL! I didn't do it. I told Tony that I would just fly with the one I have and wait. He agreed, so... now for the odd part... After one flight, the battery started balancing perfectly!!! Now, it actually charges faster than the other one. Go figure...

Anyhow... I've got about eight flights on the helicopter and I'm fighting the governor. I'm going to call CC Monday to see what's up with it. That said, a flat 100 percent curve is WAY to high a headspeed. So, I'm using a curve for all the flight modes. I do like what the governor does as long as I don't do a hard climb out. So, I think it's worth tweaking on.

Other than that... Insanely high headspeed isn't happening on my HeadHunters anymore. I'm certain now that I'm experiencing gear vibration/noise that's resonating. I know because at a flat 100 percent throttle curve the exact same thing happens on my Furion! So, I'm regearing for around 2500. Should work.

Scott

[Jerrymac]

Scott, I have had batteries that did the same thing. I have been using the cheaper GForce batteries from Value Hobby almost exclusively now. The first ones I bought will be going into their 3rd season now. Going to start charging some today to try to get out to the field tomorrow.

I bought 4 of them for my 550 a couple years ago and one had what seemed like a 'dead' cell. It only came up to 3.9 volts while the others were 4.2 volts. After one flight the low cell came up to 4 volts, then 2 flights, 4.1 volts, then 3 flights, and 4.2 volts. It has about 30 flights on it and still worked fine the last time I used it in the fall.

On the head speed. I only run about 1900 to 2000 on my 550mm bladed Hurri and it flys pretty well for mild sport flying, which is all I am capable of right now. My 425 is a rocket though with a head speed of close to 3000.

I have never used the esc's governor mode on any of my helis. I just use different throttle curves in different flight modes. I set mine up like this;

normal= 0-40-80-90-100
idle 1 = 85-85-85-85-85
idle 2 = 100-93-85-93-100

[dunkonu23]

Thanks, Jerry. I ran into a couple of other issues early this evening. One is related to the throttle curves.

Torque compensation. I noticed if I used a U curve, when I backed off the collective at the end of a hard collective climb out, the tail would kick. Flat curve, no kick. Odd, huh?

Second problem is V-Bar software related. If you only use VBar Express, you don't get to adjust the endpoints of the collective to make it level throughout its range. I think this is a horrible oversight. I noticed the helicopter wanted to come back a little during climb outs, so I went in and found the endpoints weren't level. I leveled them and it's perfectly straight, now. So, if you're gonna get a Vbar, don't stick with Vbar Express for too long. It'll get you in the ballpark, but if you want to fine tune things, Vbar Pro is the way to go.

I just got back in from doing a Trim Flight. That's where you set up the software to autotrim your helicopter in hover. It has to be done in calm conditions, so it got calm, I went and did it. Hands off hover now. It's very cool. The only thing I haven't checked was the medium speed piro to see if it rocks back and forth. I'll get to that soon.

Good information on the battery. I've never had that happen. But, the battery is solid now so, I'm happy. I have a GForce battery that I used on my BH500. I've also got a lot of Outrage Orange batteries that I wish I never bought. I never went the Hong Kong route. I was tempted, but backed off.

Scott

[Jerrymac]

Glad to hear that you are getting it sorted. I don't think I will be ditching any of my flybars anytime soon. Sounds too complicated to me. I like simple, you know, set up head at 0 degrees, set total pitch and cyclic, and set endpoints at full positive and negative pitch, then go fly, lol.

Got some batteries on the charger right now for Sunday. I am hoping to pencil in 'heli flying' on the honey-do list for tomorrow. Think she will notice? ;D

[dunkonu23]

I hear you, Jerry. I think in 90 percent of the cases, people don't have these kinds of problems. I think this is because it's a large helicopter and very powerful. I dunno.

Good deal on flying today. My flying is probably going to be disrupted today, we have company coming over. Oh, well. Have fun, though.

Scott

[dunkonu23]

Bad news... The Castle ICE HV 120 in my Furion6 caught fire one minute into a flight... The day was bad, though. First problem was that I found the cause of the tail kick. I used the holes in the grip the manual said to use with the stock grips. Stripped the right hole.. new grips, quick trip to ExperienceRC... fixed that, no kick, but the belt slipped. Adjusted that, flight.. fire. Great day. I hope I don't have too many of those.

Scott

[dunkonu23]

I have all the replacement parts! You have to love it when the people you support, support you. ExperienceRC rules!!!!

Scott

[Jerrymac]

Sorry to hear about your esc catching fire Scott. Glad the damage wasn't too bad though. It is nice that you have an LHS to help you get back in the air quick. No RC hobby shops within 50 miles of me, except a couple in Eastern Ohio but they only carry E-Flight helis and parts.

I have checked ExperienceRC's site a few times when I needed stuff, but, about 95% of the time they didn't carry what I was looking for. The few things they did carry that I needed, their price was about 20% to 40% higher than everybody else, so, I have never done any business with them yet.

Hope you get to enjoy your new heli this summer.

[dunkonu23]

Jerry,

They'll price match. At least that's what Chris told me.

But, yeah... they're not really that local to me. They're about 50 miles away and I usually go there after work if I need something right away. They don't have Gaui stuff except for the 200.

I got my F6 fixed today... well, the parts installed, ESC programmed... now the weather sucks. Ice storm last night, snow forecast for tonight. It was 67 earlier this week.

Oh, well... it's spring!

Scott