FlyMentor Setup By Ivor Hill PLEASE READ FIRST!!

[Haggy7]

Hello Ivor,
Yes, 70% and 100% travel.
Thank you for your reply, I have it sorted. I was thinking about this at work and realized that when I was adjusting settings in helibal the start defaults were very strange and I didn't understand why things were set the way they were.
I have just loaded factory settings and started again and it is fine and the defaults seem logical. Some advanced setting must have been incorrect. Actually looks like it will work really well.

Another thing I've noticed is holding the heli tipped - the swash goes back to level and the heli still tipped! how does this translate to flight characteristics?

Looking forward to tomorrow, windguru reports a potential good afternoon's flying here in Bangor...

Regards,
Heggy.

[Ivor Hill]

It's normal for the swash to slowly return to level and does not cause any problems.
Good luck with your test flight.

[gordohigh]

Has anyone had a faulty camera, CCD? I have my FM mounted on a trex 450 SE V2 and everything is working correctly except the light never goes from blinking green to solid green in position mode. I have tried it in the sunlight from ground level to 6 ft high flying and just holding it with the motor disconnected and no joy. I tried with the software and the blue gain wire disconnected as well as on my tx switch where I can choose eithher mode or off so I know for sure what mode I am in. I have both position and horizontal gains set to 80 and when I switch from red green to green iit just flickers always. I am using all stock trex hardware and electronics and a gy401 for tail so I am not using any of the tail gyro wires from FM. I'm just wondering if my camera is bad or if there is a fix for this. If anyone has a suggestion I am willing to try anything to get this working as I would like to shoot some pics with my 450, thanks. PS, camera is mounted on the bottom of the heli pointing front same as my FM direction which is mounted on top at the rear of the frame.

[gordohigh]

Forgot to mention I was flying over grass and had good sunlight shining on to the grass.

[Felix the cat]

Originally Posted by gordohigh

Has anyone had a faulty camera, CCD? I have my FM mounted on a trex 450 SE V2 and everything is working correctly except the light never goes from blinking green to solid green in position mode. I have tried it in the sunlight from ground level to 6 ft high flying and just holding it with the motor disconnected and no joy. I tried with the software and the blue gain wire disconnected as well as on my tx switch where I can choose eithher mode or off so I know for sure what mode I am in. I have both position and horizontal gains set to 80 and when I switch from red green to green iit just flickers always. I am using all stock trex hardware and electronics and a gy401 for tail so I am not using any of the tail gyro wires from FM. I'm just wondering if my camera is bad or if there is a fix for this. If anyone has a suggestion I am willing to try anything to get this working as I would like to shoot some pics with my 450, thanks. PS, camera is mounted on the bottom of the heli pointing front same as my FM direction which is mounted on top at the rear of the frame.

Originally Posted by gordohigh

Forgot to mention I was flying over grass and had good sunlight shining on to the grass.

Yes, I had a faulty camera. Everything worked fine until the camera was plugged in. Then it would go berzerk. Not a big deal, positioning only works close to the ground. Eventhough it's a "nice" system.............. IMHO the QC is non-existing.

Had two of them, setup was on the spot, was able to lift-off on just collective and using the FM rudder gyro. Neither lasted more than three months.

[gordohigh]

Well Im happy to say that it is working great now. The only thing I can come up with is that this morning I was messing around with the linkages on the head and felt a little binding in one of the aileron servos and turned out to be a bad gear. after replacing them I took it outside, (windy), and hovered it and with a few clicks of trim it was holding position like glue, excellent!!
I am guessing that the binding from missing a tooth was causing a little extra current draw, (aside from making it harder to trim and fly), but now it locks in even when I hold it above ground with the motor off. Anyway, I hope this was my answer for a permanent fix and wanted to let others know that such a little detail can cause the unit to malfunction. Now I want the wind to lay down so I can try some circuits after i adjust the links so I can remove the trim.

[Bthirsk]

Ivor
I have a question regarding your instructions to leave the blue wire for the balance mod unpluged went you are testing.
Is there a specific reason that is is different than when you have it plugged in and the TX set to the same 70% gain. I am just trying to understand if there are any other functions that would be different in the two senerios.

[Ivor Hill]

Originally Posted by Bthirsk

Ivor
I have a question regarding your instructions to leave the blue wire for the balance mod unpluged went you are testing.
Is there a specific reason that is is different than when you have it plugged in and the TX set to the same 70% gain. I am just trying to understand if there are any other functions that would be different in the two senerios.

The reason I say this is that many set the TX up incorrectly or don't understand how to set it up to change and set FM modes and gains. Fm works reasonably well with the factory defauls and connecting the blue wire can change that. One step at a time.
BTW % settings in TX's are typcally higher than in helibal so if you are going to control gain via the TX you should start with the setting a bit lower, try 60.

[armon]

Hello, I have another question again. I have noticed the f.m. green light is on steady but, when I take-off the heli wants to still move around a lot here are the settings I have it set to; gyro sense= 0 yaw rate= 9 yaw expo= 7 pitch to tail mix= 0 servo travel limit= 100
Servo gain= 10 tail delay= 6 heading hold= 6
Advance settings; balancer gain= +70 attack angle=5 total sensor gain=8
Stick sensivity gain=5 position sense gain=8 freewheel=8 manual override=5
Elevator gain= 7 stick response= 8 positioning speed= 8
Thanks again for the help.

[Michaelpowell]

When you say 'moving around a lot' do you mean:

1 Dancing on the Spot - Your sensitivity is too high. It defaults to 70, and you should reduce to 60 and try again

2 Drifting Across the Field - This is because the CCD camera is not seeing the ground. The view might be blocked by undercarriage, or the ground is too smooth to give a good picture, or some related issues.

Don't expect perfection, this is a simple device, you should expect drift in wind, and the CCD camera effectiveness is disturbed by vibration and poor light.

[Michaelpowell]

Perhaps I should retract what I wrote about not expecting perfection!!

It was windy here in Wales yesterday, 20mph and gusty. Too windy for my flying field. So I flew in my garden where the trees and bushes protect from the strong wind, but not the swirling gusts.

The Flymentor in a HK450 was perfectly happy. It held steady and drifted so little that I could do the usual 'hold-the-transmitter-to-the-camera' trick for a minute at a time. Even when I climbed to roof height with a camera on board, it was fine. Six batteries, 40 minutes hovering.

In fact I was more concerned about small branches falling onto the helicopter.

For comparison I took another ordinary HK450 out and it was blowing about wildly in the same conditions, and promptly flew into a hedge!!

I had been thinking that it was cheating to use a Flymentor and I would resist putting one in my other 'copters. But I first flew when there weren't any tail gyros available, and I remember feeling the same when the first Kavan mechanical gyro arrived, that it would soon be something we'd put aside. Back then the cost was significant, but a HK401 gyro works brilliantly at $10.

I expect I will buy more Flymentors!!

[Michaelpowell]

Sorry, should have said that there are other reasons for drift, usually the swashplate is not level when Flymentor thinks it is. Even if the helicopter was fine before adding Flymentor, you may well have some tilt now.

Neutralise all transmitter trims and then adjust the swashplate using the servo links to eliminate drift. You can also do this in Flymentor, at your choice. At the flying field, the links are usually easier to change than the software.

Lots of people advise starting up the system with the helicopter level. I've never been too concerned about this, but certainly let the software start up with the helicopter as still as possible. You need a few seconds for this and the servos jump into position when you are ready to go.

[armon]

Thanks for the Info. I had a crash, got everything going again but, its like starting all over again, there is a lot of adjustments I need to go over again before I try flying it just seems like, everytime I go out something else is out of adjustment??

[knight2000]

Hey guys, i just hooked everything to the FM, but when i connected the battery, and turn on the Tx, none of the servos moves, i try binding the Tx to the Rx but nothing happens, please help me with this problem of mine.

[knight2000]

HI guys i hooked up everything this post said to do and when i connect the batt to the heli the servos doesnt move I tried binding the tx to the rx still nothing, what im i doing wrong?

[Ivor Hill]

Not enough information. What colour is the LED on the FM moduel showing.
Have you tried pluging the servos back into the reciever without touching anything else to see if they then move.

[knight2000]

the FM led light blinks red, until i pick up the heli then the led turns blinking green and when i point the camera into direct light, the LED on the FM turns steady green, the only wires that are not hook up are the Blue and Orange wires

[knight2000]

oh btw I hooked up one of the servos back into the reciever and that servo did move!

[Ivor Hill]

LED red and then turns to green when you lift the heli ? are you sure because thats a new one. But the orange wire must be connected, channel 6 on most recievers. During set up blue and green should not be connected.

[knight2000]

ok now that the blue and green wires are disconnected, when i power up the heli the red light flashes on the FM and no matter how much light i have under the heli, it still flashes red, still no movements of the servos.