T-Rex 450 se V2 fpv build and set up

[l14m]

I'm running a futaba 9c. I'd have a look on rcgroups in the Thomas Sheerer tlrs thread and search for your radio, just see if anybody has been able to use it. I know it's not the ezuhf thread but I guess it's worth a look.
Liam

[l14m]

The wind in the UK has been really bad over the last three weeks bur there was a break in it last Thursday. So dicided to hit the skies.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFWTkEYy4Q4[/ame]
Regards Liam

[l14m]

I've had a nightmare with my 9c fx over the past few weeks. The rudder stick wouldn't return to centre, so me being me I took it apart lol. I pulled the hole stick out and greased it back up to get it working correctly. All good now I took it to an fpv meet and went to take off. I flipped the throttle hold off and all of a sudden the heli blades spun up *#*## I hit throttle hold again and re tried but the same thing happened. It turns out that when I pulled the stick out I moved the throttle pot and so had to get a friend to re calibrate it. All is good again now but it was a right pain in the azzzz.
Regards Liam

[l14m]

Met up with a few friends yesterday a for a fly. Had a successful first flight with my heli and managed to hit 1k with still good picture, came back and landed. Not forgetting I did a few fly bys with a couple of rolls and even managed a loop . Waited for an hour and decided to have another fly with the heli, took her up and was flying just short distances and did a couple of dives from 250m but then decided to investigate some people on the edge of the field. I looked at my lipo and it was approaching 2000mah out of 2450 on 4s and was only pulling 12-14amps while hovering but I didn't take into account that when I decided to return home I'd be pulling 20amps. I managed to get within I think about 50-100 feet of base and then the picture started to show vertical lines and then a wash of brilliant White came over the screen. S*** what do I do other than panic, I held it in my head for a second and then hit throttle hold and tried my best to imagine what height to flare but alas I got it wrong.

Oh well it's part of the course and will give me something to do in the evenings. Damage thus far=
main blades
Feathering shaft
Boom (bent)
Main frame base (snapped)
Battery tray (snapped)
Motor mount (bent)
Swash holder lock (plastic part on rear)snapped
Servo ball connector (snapped)
2450 4s lipo (squashed)
And the video tx needs soldering back up.

This is what's left that's good minus the main shaft and feathering shaft. Oh and the gorrila skids are ok
I have most of the parts in stock and as long as I can sort the video tx, the total I would say is about £100 main blades are about £50.
So I guess this can be a re-build log now lol
Regards Liam.

[hockeymonkeymark]

That sucks Liam. You are getting good at hovering. The ground sure sneaks up fast. Looking forward to seeing her rebuilt.

[Windbreaker]

I've been following this thread for quite sometime now.

Got my T-Rex 450 set up with a Skookum Robotics FBL system and re-started the learning process for the past several weeks.

I can hover line-of-sight and do some very basic maneuvers. I refer to the video screen occasionally to correlate what's going on with the helicopter and how it looks through the camera.

Today was very windy, with tradewinds blowing up to 20 mph. After I got comfortable with hovering and doing some basic reference maneuvers, I put on a fresh battery and got it flying.

Was tough getting keeping it where I wanted it. Winds kept wanting to shove it southeast and the helicopter had a hard time keeping its tail from weathervaning.

At one point I got it pretty high in a last-ditch effort to avoid trees (missed them this time) and barely managed to get it back to the field without planting it in a tree. I gave up trying to land it near me and just picked a convenient spot in the middle of the field.

I'm going to upgrade to a better camera. This one's noisy and the exposure is all over the place. Makes it a little more difficult to see what's going on with the sun at a low angle.

Anyway, here's a view of Hawaii, occasionally showing a new marina being dredged, as well as a glimpse of Diamond Head in the distance.

http://hawaiigoesfishing.com/videos/fpv_20110803.mov

[l14m]

Windbreaker that's a nice place to fly and looks like your doing well.
Well I ordered the replacement parts for my rebuild tonight, or at least the parts I don't have. Should hopefully have them by mid week next week which will give me s few days to get her up and running again. The only part of my fpv gear that got damaged was the vtx and I'm hoping a friend will have the part so I can get it working again.
I've re watched the video of the crash and if id just focused s little more I would have realised I wasnt going to make it back and then I could have easily picked a point to land. Hey ho these things happen, one good thing came from the flights and that is I can now roll with confidence and also pill nice smooth loops fpv also I did a couple of sweet dives from about 250 m up straight down and there were no vibrations even at nearly 80 mph.
She will be back better than ever.
Regards Liam

[l14m]

Well all spares have arrived and the rebuild is going well, I do how ever need to get a new choke for the vtx as it got torn apart during the crash. I also need to order some new Spinblades but they will have to wait untill I return from holls. Heres a vid which was taken 1 flight before my crash.
[ame]http://www.vimeo.com/27601280[/ame]
Regards Liam.

[jeremy cooksey]

Originally Posted by l14m

Well all spares have arrived and the rebuild is going well, I do how ever need to get a new choke for the vtx as it got torn apart during the crash. I also need to order some new Spinblades but they will have to wait untill I return from holls. Heres a vid which was taken 1 flight before my crash.
http://vimeo.com/27601280
Regards Liam.

Caint see it

[Windbreaker]

Looks like you've eliminated all the vibrations and have (had?) it flying smoothly. Good luck on the rebuild. I'm doing the same here...

[Windbreaker]

Originally Posted by l14m

I had 1.5 miles a couple of times on futaba 2.4 fast system but on each attemp I crashed on return at about 500 meters out.

How did you have your antennas set up for that?

I have mine pointing upward, each splayed out 30 degrees from the vertical, a couple inches below the main rotor blades. They resemble insect antennas.

There's no canopy for this setup. It's mostly for the sake of carrying a miniature camera and learning FPV flying.

[l14m]

I had my futaba 2.4 fast rc antennas hanging out the back of the main frame and they were fine for normal los flying but as soon as I started flying rc the range beacame so unreliable I gave up with it. Harmonics between 2.4rc and 1.2g video didnt play nice together. I have since changed to Thomas Sheerer long range rc system (near range) which on my plane is capable of 15-25k. On my heli the furthest Ive tested so far is 1k but Im sure it can easily go to 3-5k. 2.4rc is not a good idea for fpv its just to unreliable.
Regards Liam.

[l14m]

The Crash ....... although you can only see the loss of picture at the end of the vid, im sure you will feel the pain lol.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osgecbn5Kbw[/ame]
Regards Liam.

[Windbreaker]

Originally Posted by l14m

The Crash ....... although you can only see the loss of picture at the end of the vid, im sure you will feel the pain lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Osgecbn5Kbw
Regards Liam.

Liam...

The same thing happened to me this past week. I was flying with an old battery and lost power. My video signal "died" the same way yours did. I think your case was the same as mine: Exhausted battery.

Notice how your battery level was way low right before the picture started to fade.

So when the picture fades, there went everything. Camera. Transmitter. RC receiver. All hope of control.... ! :-)

Here's the last few seconds of my last flight where the batteries gave up.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXKesYy3n4Q[/ame]

[l14m]

Yeh same as, my lipo was a 4s 2450 and I new I was getting low at just under 2000mah. As I was hovering I was only pulling 12 amps or so and as soon as I started my way home it was pulling between 17 and 21 amps which just pulled to much out of the cell which my video gear was attached to. I'm now going to switch back to a separate battery fro fpv gear because I would have been able to auto easily from where I was. Either that or use a voltage regulator, although I don't like using them as most of them are spu electronic noise out.
Hope you didn't have as much damage as mine.
Regards Liam

[l14m]

At last my heli is re built and has had it's first test hover to check for vibrations. Yet again it's 100% vibration free or at least visable vibrations. Before my last crash I tried one of the hd key chain cams but I was picking up high frequency vibrations and concequently had the jello effect. A friend fixed my vtx which saved me a fortune and now all that is needed is to revert back to a 2 battery system for safety, unless someone can recommend a low noise reg. I've got an fpv meet next weekend so hopefully I should get some good vids to post.
Regards Liam

[SENTRY 62]

The 2 that are the best for me is :

http://www.readymaderc.com/store/ind...roducts_id=138

and

http://www.readymaderc.com/store/ind...roducts_id=533

[Windbreaker]

Another source is Dimension Engineering. All sorts of robotics-related electronics, too.

http://www.dimensionengineering.com/index.html

[l14m]

Cheers Sentry, I already have the top LC-filter but from dpcav which works very well.
Windbreaker does the any volt give good results as I can't afford any reduction in range.
Cheers for the links and I may try the regs way after a few flights.
Liam

[Windbreaker]

Liam... Don't know what your voltage requirement is, but I have one on my helicopter to provide 6 volts to my RC system and servos. It's been very stable. It's a switching BEC and more efficient than a linear one.