DoubleCH's flight log

[DoubleCH]

While I'm at it, might as well post buddy codes for the ESC, motor, and battery. I'll still be the guinea pig for the ESC and motor (probably needs to be rewound because windings are loose and I might want better kV anyways) and splitting 6S in this case doesn't really save money but I just couldn't wait.

Nanotech 6S 45C 1300 $24.04 good til Mar 12th only 1 left
http://www.hobbyking.com/buddy.asp?c...A-74CDE7A306E2

Turnigy AE 45A ESC with 4A UBEC and governor (spec on the link is outdated) $20.24 good til Mar 12th
http://www.hobbyking.com/buddy.asp?c...4-94E700936EBB

330W Motor (looks identical to Wicked but HK is worse kV and winding quality) $7.02 good til Mar 19th
http://www.hobbyking.com/buddy.asp?c...3-01970E8E5A53

[GravityJunkie]

If this esc fits in the 300X, I would consider using this one instead:

http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store...dproduct=20690

It's a ripped off, older code YGE. It's supposed to have a very good governor. I purchased one to put on the Warp 360 when I purchase it. It's been getting good reviews in the Warp forum.

[DoubleCH]

Thanks for the link. Looks like a better ESC for sure. The sole reason I went for AE45A is that it can run BLHeli which I'm dying without it on my 300X since I have it on all my helis. It fits perfect in the 300X it's almost like built for it! Notice that the Turnigy AE45A ESC spec on HK site is outdated. It comes with 4A SBEC not linear BEC, switchable between 5V and 6V by BLHeli. The AE45A with all plugs is 51g. I don't quite like the 63g without plug for the YEP (for the 300X). Maybe I'll consider it for the 450pro DFC if the AE45A turns out not good enough, but then I already have Castle 10A BEC for that so...

[Gotham55]

Great more stuff to buy! So I stripped my heli down yesterday and the only damage was a blade grip. Servos and spindle seem fine as well as main shaft. I would say that almost ALL my vibrations are coming from the motor, so that will be next.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[DoubleCH]

It's not as perfect as my replacement one but I can lend you my original stock motor that I balanced to try out if you want. Or if you don't mind waiting a bit, once I have tested out my new ESC and motor to free up my replacement stock motor I can lend you my perfectly balanced no shaft-slop stock motor to try out.

[DoubleCH]

Update: Got my HK US package. Prepped a new Turnigy AE45A ESC and flashed with BLHeli 10.0.0.0. Works great just like the 1st one. I made some idle tests with my original wobbly stock motor (but I balanced it as best as I could) and the HK motor with this ESC before and after BLHeli. Stock motor consumes about 17.8W and HK motor consumes almost 30W! Either the HK motor is that much more power (I doubt) or the lamination and winding are not as good as stock motor. The HK motor however runs extremely smooth no vibe at all. Original software and BLHeli make no difference in power consumption.

[DoubleCH]

Flight #28 to 31. Looks like persistence finally pays off. The last Turnigy AE45A ESC was probably a dud. This one works fine. As with the 1st install, the Turnigy AE45A ESC fits in the lower tray like it's built for this bird.

Love that familiar BLHeli init tone on battery plug-in. With the stock motor, BLHeli can't really shine with its governor with stock motor/pinion. I thought about trying 10T with stock motor and governor but I remember someone saying stock motor bogs too much with 10T. So, I have my 10T installed on my HK Parkfly P2632 3800kV motor ready to try out. As I predicted, the 3800kV motor with 10T runs just a bit lower hover HS than stock but because of the bigger and slightly more powerful motor it doesn't bog as much. Run time with 10T is negligibly less (perhaps 5%). It was getting dark so my plan to try 11T and governor need to wait for next time. Besides, I can take my time now to swap the 10T from the P2632 to the stock motor and install 11T on the P2632 now, so I can easily swap between the 2 motors to try out between flights next time. I'm hoping the P2632 will maintain good enough torque with 11T and provide more power thru' the taller gearing and governor. I won't be running it higher HS without frame stiffening. I have a few frame-stiffening idea in mind but for now I just shimmed the 2 rear cyclic servos inside the frame which seems to help stiffening the frame a bit.

Here's a clip of 4 flights in compilation:
1. stock battery, stock motor 9T, stock ESC, external 3A SBEC
2. stock battery, stock motor 9T, Turnigy AE 45A ESC with built-in 4A SBEC
3. Nano 45C 1300, stock motor 9T, AE 45A ESC
4. Nano 45C 1300, P2632 motor 10T, AE 45A ESC
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-mF2a0frE[/ame]

[DoubleCH]

Here's my BLHeli setting for now. Haven't tweaked with governor PI gains yet. Need a motor/pinon setup with 10-15% headroom to be able to test out PI gains. Take note at startup parameters and PPM min/max values. Will post a YouTube clip to show how to calibrate PPM min/max values and use TX program mode.

[DoubleCH]

Uploaded ESC manual on HobbyKing product description (USA warehouse) page. Click on FILES tab as usual and you'll see the jpg scanned images of the manual.

[DoubleCH]

Uploaded PPM calibration procedure for BLHeli which is important if you want to calibrate throttle value to governed headspeed translation. From BLHeli v9.4 and up, it's easy to trigger PPM calibration and TX program mode so there's no more excuse to not do it.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa-3SFJL6wM[/ame]

[DoubleCH]

Sneak peek at the field right now: tried stock motor with 10T and governed to 3000rpm HS. Full negative pitch on the ground shows 240W while stock 9T at full throttle was 180W. It's a little peppier but not much power gain. It's just not a powerful motor. Not much bogging though thanks to governor. OTOH, 11T with P2632 governed to 3000rpm is good. 3.75V for 4 min flight. Nothing is even more than barely warm. Will post video later tonite.

[DoubleCH]

Stock motor with 10T governed at 3000rpm
Turnigy AE 45A ESC with BLHeli 10.0.0.0
12* collective pitch
Nanotech 45C 1300
Stock 245 CF blades
3.77V after 4-min flight
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcsc2L-taPM[/ame]

HobbyKing Parkfly P2632 motor with 11T governed at 3100rpm
3.75V after 3:50 flight. Motor comes down barely warm, battery a little warmer.
Love this setup. Aileron tic-toc is fast now and seems to be limited by servo speed. Continuous power in big-air loop is good. Not a whole lot more power but just enough I can still fly 1350 and 1300 packs. That's the way it should come out of the box.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae_4QK6o9zw[/ame]

[DoubleCH]

Flight #34 to 50. Very nice warm spring-like sunny all day long and I couldn't believe I flew 16 packs in a day! I'm still not 100% sure if the ESC/BEC fixes the intermittent cyclic/throttle loss problem. To confirm that BX doesn't just freak out below 4.8V, the nite prior I disconnected ESC/BEC and powered up the 300X with a 1S 600mAh pack at storage 3.80V storage voltage from my mCPx. Gyro, servos, everything works! Running the BX with low voltage is one thing, having a sudden voltage drop from 5.0V to 4.8V could be a bigger problem to the BX. In any case, for insurance I added my $4 Turnigy 4A SBEC on top of the 4A SBEC built-in the Turnigy AE 45A ESC. My 300X is probably a pig to fly now but just to kill my paranoia of any potential sign of servo glitch or throttle glitch it's worth it. Today I had no fear of that putting in 16 packs.

I added some reflective stickers to the main blades for visual effects under the sun. Turns out pretty good. Just wish the stickers were bigger but in fear bigger stickers may throw off balance.



I find collective pitch range uneven between positive and negative. Even if I set more negative pitch I still get slower inverted climb than upright. The only thing more negative pitch help is faster initial response on negative collective. This usually suggests something on the mechanical side is loose. I confirmed there's no mainshaft up/down play. Servos are not excessively sloppy. The only other thing is head dampers. The stock dampers even when new feel pretty soft, probably even softer than stock 130X head dampers but then 300X is trailing-edge driven so it's not as hard on dampers on full collective climbs. I am at a loss at this one but it's not a high priority since it seems to affect only full pitch inverted climb. Anything below full pitch inverted climb collective response seems fine.

Unlike my 130X, I find aileron tic-toc to the right side on the 300X seems a bit out-of-axis so I disabled tail pre-comp and it seems a bit better. I don't have tail pre-comp on 130X and I don't miss it. Until I run a powerful motor, I don't miss tail pre-comp on the 300X that much.

Tried Gotham55's Gravity 30C pack today. Feels at least as strong as the stock pack but my fav is still the Nanotech which yields more voltage at start of flight slowly dropping down to stock pack voltage near the end of flight.

The whole flying day is quite uneventful with the 16 packs so much so I don't really have much to report. Just love the $21 ESC, $3 external BEC, and $7 motor. The only thing is the motor shaft seems to develop a bit slop like my original stock motor. Will take it apart and check and perhaps do the loctite mod on it.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrIZBRrCujo[/ame]

[DoubleCH]

Flight #51 to 58. It's probably one last dry weather flying day before a week-long rainy weather days to come. The bird was going well yesterday pretty much dialed in. Today I had a much better pilot testing it out and pointed out the cyclic limit might be too high causing some funky behavior at times. As I asked here before about the cyclic limit setting on BX (Parameter Menu L), people suggested just set it to make sure no binding. I noticed that's the way it came and that's like more than 14 degrees cyclic limit. I know that this limit is not to set how much cyclic at full stick but a combination of that AND stabilization required. That means even at just 100% D/R I may still get up to 14 degrees at certain maneuvers requiring BX correction on cyclic. As it turns out, 14 degrees cyclic is too much. I turned it down to 12 degrees and no more funky behavior on certain maneuvers!

Loving the $20 ESC, $3 BEC, and $7 motor even more! It's not substantially more powerful but just enough for even a good pilot to throw everything at it and I love it that performance is solid and I can run stock battery with virtually no reduced flight time.I have another $7 motor ready to be rewound for more power but I"ll have to stiffen the frame 1st.

I forgot to bring my memory card for the hat cam today so I used my iPhone for this short clip with my buddy (much better pilot) flying it.

Here's the setup:
Turnigy AE 45A ESC with 4A 5.1/6.1V SBEC with BLHeli 10.0.0.0 governed to 3100rpm
Turnigy external 3A 5.1/6.1V SBEC
Parkfly P2632 3800kV Outrunner running E-Flite 11T for B400
Stock battery
450X One-Way-Bearnig mod
Stock 245mm CF blades
+/-12 degrees collective pitch range
12 degrees cyclic pitch limit
BeastX Dial1 and 3 at 1.5 marks above center, Dial at 2.5 marks above center
Gyro gain 58% (range of -100 to 100)
D/R 100/0 on aileron/elevator, 100/20 on rudder
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDVRwsqQwqs[/ame]

[wadders248]

Originally Posted by DoubleCH

Here's my BLHeli setting for now. Haven't tweaked with governor PI gains yet. Need a motor/pinon setup with 10-15% headroom to be able to test out PI gains. Take note at startup parameters and PPM min/max values. Will post a YouTube clip to show how to calibrate PPM min/max values and use TX program mode.

Glad I spotted this, I've just flashed one to try in my 450x. Are you using an external BEC? Did you try the BEC in the ESC?

Thanks for sharing your info,

Paul

[DoubleCH]

I know my thread title doesn't get attention enough.

You mean the exact Turnigy AE 45A ESC? If you have the new version v3.0 it comes with 4A SBEC which I think is more than enough with stock servos (I've tried). However, I still haven't ruled out my sudden lost of cyclic/throttle problem is due to AR7200X crapping out or bad ESC so I run redundant setup by adding an external 3A SBEC for now. Once I ruled out BX for sure or have a replacement for it if it's indeed the culprit, then I may remove the external 3A SBEC.

[wadders248]

Originally Posted by DoubleCH

I know my thread title doesn't get attention enough.

Well I've rated the thread and subscribed... when people who haven't been used to using BL Heli realise how good it is, they will be asking to sticky this!

I've used exactly the same ESC and it's the latest version. I'll be running it at 6v and looking at the testing that EEngineer has done in the 450x forum, the four amps should be plenty for stock servos.

I already run my tail servo with a step-down diode and the stock ESC at 6v. I swapped to a Scorpion-6 after only a couple of flights on the 450x, so that motor should give the Turnigy ESC a good test!

[DoubleCH]

Thanks for the appreciation.

Stock 300X ESC has been working good for the 300X but since I have BLHeli on all my helis and I'm used to it that I just felt like the stock 300X ESC was missing something. Haha!

I've always wondered if the stock servo can handle 6V long run. Good to know that they work fine in the 450X. What actual BEC voltage the stock ESC is putting out? I know that the AE 45A is putting out 5.3V with the 5V setting so 6V settting may be a bit higher than 6V.

The AE45A running my $7 3800kV 330W motor with 11T (should top out at 3400rpm+) governed at 3100rpm runs cool with barely any temperature with very little bogging (thinking to get 12T and govern it higher). I cut out the heatshrink to expose the heatsink undeneath the bottom frame)

[wadders248]

I like the heat shrink trimming idea... might just have to borrow that!

My stock servos have been running at 6v for about a year now, with at least 200 flights. I like to throw it around too, so they've been working hard.

If you've seen the page below, you will find it interesting. I had a brownout before switching the stock ESC to 6v and running the Scorpion 2221-6. After the switch I've not had another brownout.

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=421511

[DoubleCH]

Thank you very much wadders for the link. Really!

I remember reading that thread before I had loss of cyclic/throttle problems but it didn't cross my mind once I'd started experiencing the problems. What EEngineer found PERFECTLY (to the T) explain my findings. I was 99% sure it was BEC dropping voltage below min norminal operating voltage of AR7200BX causing it to freak out. Base on what EEngineer's detailed investigation and all the findings from the different things I've tried (including adding a cap to try smooth out voltage ripple causing the situation even worse), I'm now 99.99999% sure it was BEC dropping voltage causing my problems. If this problem doesn't happen to any of you with stock 300X ESC and AR7200BX, consider yourself lucky. I know for one thing this problem doesn't happen above 10C ambient.

BTW, I had a peek inside the stock 300X 25A ESC. I don't see any sign of a choke which is a critical component of an SBEC circuit. Instead, I found what seems to be 2 5V voltage regulators. That is BAD because that suggests it's probably running linear BEC not SBEC.

I'm going to find a suitable diode (from my pile of electrical components) right now to drop voltage to the tail servo and then run up my AE 45A ESC BEC to 6V. I'm so confident I'll even remove my redundant 5V/6V 3A external SBEC. The only reason I still have 0.00001% doubt is because I often jinx it when I say I'm confident on something. Really!

BTW, HH is replacing all of my crash damage mechanical parts but not the canopy. Although I'm not entirely happy with that, I'm just happy that I'm 99.99999% sure it's not the BX that's defective and I can breathe easier now. That's because once everything in my setup is proven to be working in good order, (sorry folks) I'm going to do some heart transplants. The BX will go to my 450 Pro DFC which will also get my other AE45A ESC but keeping the 10A CC SBEC and the 300X will get the 3GX and sticking with this AE45A ESC.