Anyone try PS1/ Spinblades, Asymm. for AP?

[R_Lefebvre]

Originally Posted by madmcphil

I flew for a while with them and the spinblades asymettrical tails too. Great on no wind days.... But if there is any gusts of wind they baloon far too much for my liking. As for balance they are perfect out of the box. My ace one definatly didnt get on with them in wind.

Hope this helps.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

Interesting.

Do you think it's a physical problem? Or is it a case of your flight controller just not being able to deal with it? Maybe you just need to tune the gains, or can they just no go high enough on Ace One?

One way to maybe judge would be, can you fly with the SB's in wind in manual mode?

When you say ballooning, is it a problem just that the heli rises from translational lift, or it gets completely blown around?

I'm just wondering if they are totally hopeless in wind, or if it might be usable with the right flight controller.

[pc3associate]

That is the only problem with a-sym blades. Yes they balloon in wind. The heli stays level just shoots up during wind gusts. A trade off for lifting capability and longer flight times. With the a sym blades I am getting 160% better flight times using 80% discharge.

[R_Lefebvre]

Originally Posted by pc3associate

That is the only problem with a-sym blades. Yes they balloon in wind. The heli stays level just shoots up during wind gusts. A trade off for lifting capability and longer flight times. With the a sym blades I am getting 160% better flight times using 80% discharge.

Are you able to control it with negative pitch?

My flight controller can control the collective pitch very aggressively.

[pc3associate]

Not sure. I only do stills for now. So the ballooning is not an issue for me. I tell you one thing, with wind my heli climbs to altitude very fast with very little pitch. I am sure ps1 or cbergen could better answer that question.

[Goldenhour]

I'm reading about "ballooning" with wind.......I wonder how the Asymmetrical's performance would be if one had to do an emergency auto.

[PhotoShip One]

These blades are awesome for autorotations. Float down like a feather. Yes, they are susceptible to what is being to referred to as 'ballooning'. This happens because the blade efficiency increases with airspeed (translational lift). Even symmetrical blades suffer from ballooning but a little less than asym blades.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8se_fhuVejo[/ame]

[daruq7]

I have been testing a set of 710 semi sym Spins lately. I had to raise the headspeed from the 1300RPM (initial starting point for tests) up to 1500 to get enough lift (AUW about 8kg). In the wind heli is getting chucked about a bit. I think I will get a set of 800's, maybe Align to see which work out better. Anyone else has got any experience on a video ships with them?

[Goldenhour]

I'm waiting for a cobra 540kv for my SB 620's so I can use the lower head speed for trials.

[bioniclensman]

Originally Posted by R_Lefebvre

Would 105's be needed for 620 mains? I see they also make 95's. And can anybody confirm if I can run 620 mains on a Trex 600 without any other mods?

R_Lefebvre nice to see you're an awesome contributor here in addition to DIY drones! How did that combination work out for you? My 620mm spinblades w/ 95's just arrived for my Trex 600 AP rig and any advice you have would be a huge help! I'm using the stock 650L motor (1220 kv) with a 14T pinion, what are you running with your spinblades? Do you think I can just swap my pinion out for a 10T or 11T for a reasonable head speed? I'm not sure what I should be aiming for. Happy new year!

[Goldenhour]

I have 620/115 spinblades and 620/95 rotortech. One for 1400rpm the other for 1800. I use a 610kv motor for the spins and 740kv on the rotortechs. The blades are so efficient that wind pulls them up. They are quiet though. Wispy like real helicopter sound. Not the obnoxious sound of the 1800 rpm rotortechs. For calm conditions I prefer the spinblades for wind the rotortechs, at the higher rpm.

See the ReadyHeli "head calculator" by MrMel on the home page for general ideas about gearing and motor kv.

[R_Lefebvre]

Originally Posted by bioniclensman

R_Lefebvre nice to see you're an awesome contributor here in addition to DIY drones! How did that combination work out for you? My 620mm spinblades w/ 95's just arrived for my Trex 600 AP rig and any advice you have would be a huge help! I'm using the stock 650L motor (1220 kv) with a 14T pinion, what are you running with your spinblades? Do you think I can just swap my pinion out for a 10T or 11T for a reasonable head speed? I'm not sure what I should be aiming for. Happy new year!

Hi, who is this? Just wondering as I don't recognize your handle.

I haven't actually tried these yet at all. I did order a bunch just before Christmas, and waiting for them to arrive. I ordered 325's for my 450, and I think 600's with 95's for the 600. And 700's with 105's for another custom airframe I'm working on. But that will be a while yet.

I plan to try the 325's soon, but the 600's will be a while because that heli isn't finished being built yet, as it's not exactly a "kit" either, but all off-the-shelf.

The main thing I hope to figure out is how well our new Z-axis controller will work to eliminate the ballooning problem with these blades. So far it looks good. The controller flies the 450 better than I can, with less Z-axis movement in gusty winds. I'm actually regularly landing in Alt_Hold mode now, because it's much better than I can do.

For speeds, on the 600, I've got the 112 tooth slant gear mains, and I'm planning to run it with the smallest pinion I can get, IIRC, it's 11 tooth. This will be with a 480kv motor running on only 8S. So headspeed should be around 1200-1400 I think. The 700 will run similar, but it'll be 10:1 belted.

On the 450, I'm running slant cut main again, and I've got whatever the smallest pinion they offer is. Then I simply run 80% flat throttle on my ESC Governor and the headspeed is... whtaever it is.

[Goldenhour]

Z-axis controller?

[R_Lefebvre]

Yeah, not a big deal. Basically, think "FBL stabilization on altitude". We used to only use the barometer for altitude control. It was OK, but you could expect an error up to 1m. So it was OK holding an altitude if you were up high, but trying to land with it, or hover at 2m or something, not so good. Also, it was not responsive enough for fast forward flight. You'd lose and gain lots of altitude.

Now we are using the Z-axis gyro to control vertical acceleration, and the baro just sort of "trims" the height control.

This is nothing new, all the DJI controllers are similar. It's just that we've finally accomplished this in ours.

Anyway, point being, I'm anxious to try out the Spinblades on a heli with a flight controller.

Whenever this topic comes up, people say while the Spinblades sure work well, the ballooning problem makes them unusable for AP. But it seems to me that most of the guys doing AP have *no* flight controller, other than maybe a simple FBL.

I don't really get this. They help so much, and here's an example. I can fly in Alt_Hold mode, which means it has automatic height control, but manual swash. So you are still flying manual, but the controller is damping the Z-axis. It is much better than I could possible fly myself, because it reacts instantly. I'm flying me little testing 450 in a fairly good breeze. I have a lot of trouble landing it manually because it just bounces up and down. But in Alt_Hold, it looks like a pro.

And this would be true of any good controller, I'm not trying to promote ours.

So we've got this working very well. It's taken about 1-2 months of our 3 best guys to get it working, and now they are going to try to do the same for the GPS position. Currently it's fairly good, but not nearly as good as DJI's. And in case anybody is wondering, that does not mean we are copying' DJI's program. We have absolutely ZERO insight into their code. That is locked down. Nobody outside DJI can see it. All we are doing is using their performance as a benchmark based on videos people post. I consider it to be best in class and won't be happy until we match it.

[madmcphil]

I used spinblades with the Dji ace one (fbl)... Ballooning was a major issue....

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

[R_Lefebvre]

How good is the Alt-Hold on the Ace One?

On my 450 with symmetrics, I can have it hovering in Alt_Hold, pitch it forward 45°, accelerate to full speed, and then pitch it back 45° to slam it to a stop, without touching the collective, and the altitude error is less than 1m through the whole manoever.

Still awaiting the asymmetrics.

Just had my first in-flight mechanical failure. Tail pitch slider broke. I managed to get it down with only busted landing gear.

Flight Controllers are really helpful.

[Goldenhour]

I use an hc3sx. No z as you describe but it sure makes flying. If that unit had a z axis control that would be great. If only +/- 1 meter.

[R_Lefebvre]

Ok, it doesn't eh? What does? The DJI units and?

[outofphase]

I love my 800mm Spinblades. Super quite in flight, look awesome in matt black.

[R_Lefebvre]

But those aren't Asymmetric right? I didn't think they had 800's?

[Exposure]

Originally Posted by R_Lefebvre

Now we are using the Z-axis gyro to control vertical acceleration, and the baro just sort of "trims" the height control.

Please explain to us mortals how a Z-axis gyro can help in any way with altitude control.