Losing my mind w/ gt5.1

[danny ranchero]

Hi everybody
Just swapped a gt5.1 from one machine to another, and am having a hell of a time getting things to function properly.
Any nice guys out there, with an understanding of this little bugger willing to walk me through some of this over the phone? If so, you'd be saving me from certain insanity and/or losing interest in this hobby. Send me a pm, and let me know if i can call you, or i'll give you my #.

Have servo speeds and frequencies set, and some of the other obvious stuff. Can't seem to eliminate tail servo binding, can't sort out swash servo directions, etc, etc - ready to burn the manual. I'm not a very experienced pilot, but don't know how i ever will be with these long winters and getting stalled out on the bench.....

[Bladecpnitro]

Originally Posted by danny ranchero

Hi everybody
Just swapped a gt5.1 from one machine to another, and am having a hell of a time getting things to function properly.
Any nice guys out there, with an understanding of this little bugger willing to walk me through some of this over the phone? If so, you'd be saving me from certain insanity and/or losing interest in this hobby. Send me a pm, and let me know if i can call you, or i'll give you my #.

Have servo speeds and frequencies set, and some of the other obvious stuff. Can't seem to eliminate tail servo binding, can't sort out swash servo directions, etc, etc - ready to burn the manual. I'm not a very experienced pilot, but don't know how i ever will be with these long winters and getting stalled out on the bench.....

To get rid of tail servo binding go into the programming menu and select the servo image, select |A-------B| which is endpoints, select the tail rotor. Move the rudder to fuLL left and see first if A will shorten the travel by reducing the numbers. It not move to B and reduce the numbers sometimes it takes a lot of reducing to see anything happen.

Another thing when the gyro first boots up, are the tail rotor blades strait?
They should have about 7 degrees of right rudder mechanically adjusted into them.
You also might have too long a servo arm if its not the round one.

For servo directions the first thing you want to do is see if the swash moves up equally when you move the collective up.

I believe servo number 1 is r aileron, 2 is elevator, 3 is L aileron.
Go into the servo menu, select the arching image and reverse the out of phase servo from the current selection.

When you go into that menu pay attention to which is highlighted already Rev or Nor. That can be confusing there because you think you changed it and it really stayed the same.

Then you want to see if it rolls right and left equally, then backwards and forwards equally.

[gwright]

The “cliffs notes” <G> on initial setup (tx/rx selection automatic on the newer firmware)
-default GT5
-set rx/tx type
-set servo freq (and speed on the older firmware)
-check collective, reverse individual servos until collective follows the stick properly
-Reverse ail/ele in transmitter if needed for correct movement of swash to tx stick
-set 8 degrees of cyclic in each direction (servo travels in GT5, the ail/ele menus don’t affect travel, just agility)
-set collective range (the pitch menu does affect physical travel unlike the ail/ele agility menus)
-Set travel endpoints for no binding (both swash and tail)
-set sensor directions (ele/ele/rud)
-set piro comp direction
-fly and set gains

5 minutes on the workbench and then the first half of a flight for P gains and it’s roughed in. Can tweak from there over a series of flights. If not using the GT5 tools software for setup it may take 10~15 minutes on bench instead of 5 because it takes a bit longer to navigate the menus on the GT5 versus using a mouse <G>

On a recent model I got in the air I’ve done this numerous times as I wanted to achieve some default numbers with a few servo arm lengths to provide a “starting point” for people with a particular model. It’s literally a 5 minute job with the GT5 tools software, a 15 minute job using the menus on the device.

A Few mental notes I think of when setting up/tuning
-Tail endpoints in the vicinity of 200 indicate the servo arm is in the ballpark for correct length. If below 150 or above 225 I’d change the ball on the servo arm till you’re in that range.
-if pitch travel requires reducing the number in the unit below 80ish, the swash servo arms are too long.
-If tail P gain must be below 90, servo arm probably too long. With all the tail setup components not in perfect “harmony”,..i.e. too long servo arm resulting in too low P gain, too long or too short tail blades,..etc. you usually see a tail kick with hard collective and/or cyclic commands. Although ther e are precomp features (dma cyc/dma pitch) specifically for this, I find it’s ALWAYS better if I get the tail length/rpms/servo arm correct. No tail correction for cyclic or collective should be needed if everything else is correct in the setup, and you’re spinning rpms in the range the helicopter was designed for.

[tonyastro]

I had a problem with tail binding even with travel set to minimum. I realized the servo arm was connected at the 3rd hole so I moved it in to the 2nd hole. Fixed it!