Starting the build on my 500 3D

[th3tick]

Nice O-ring handles, and pack armor

John

[EricW]

I was wondering, each time i see a lipo inserted in the LOGO frame,
The pinion is almost always above the fragile top surface of the lipo.
In this case i see some tape, not very strong imho.
Why don't just insert a small flat or u-shaped piece of plastic on top of your lipo and than put the o-rings on...

[zguy]

Wow, the 5350 is close to the pinion. The Evo25 5000 gives about 5mm more clearance.

[Flybar-less]

I use a counterbearing housing with 0.100" machined off the motor side and 0.020" off the bearing side. This gives 3mm more clearance and a little protection. Maybe a cap on the pinion end would work.

There is a thread about battery and pinion clearance somewhere

[BruceW]

Without the velcro there is more room so maybe I'll look at a side mount option. I'm not too worried about the pinion during flight as long as the battery is strapped down tight but hitting it during battery insertion/removal is more my concern.

[Flybar-less]

Something like a minature head button for the pinion. Anodized different colors!

[BruceW]

Originally Posted by EricW

I was wondering, each time i see a lipo inserted in the LOGO frame,
The pinion is almost always above the fragile top surface of the lipo.
In this case i see some tape, not very strong imho.
Why don't just insert a small flat or u-shaped piece of plastic on top of your lipo and than put the o-rings on...

That's a good idea. I think I'll look for a thin L shaped piece of plastic to mount on the end of the battery.

[BruceW]

Here are some more pictures of my setup taken after 7 flights. For now I'm using the Jazz 80 BEC (5V) until I switch over to the WR 3A (two in parallel possibly) at 6V. I have a CC BEC but I'm worried about using it because of the other reports I've been reading on the forum.

I'm really liking the EVOlite 6S 5350 because of the longer flight times (6-7 minutes) and the Spartan DS760 is just about perfect now. The tail holds really well and I've been bumping up the gain gradually. I've been using the mixing on the radio to add 10% gain with the flick of my Aux2 switch while in flight and there is no strange tail whipping action as reported by others when the gain is too high. Looks like there is more room to increase.

Soon I'll start painting my canopy but haven't chosen a paint scheme yet.

EDIT: In some of the pictures you may have noticed that I tie wrapped the antennae guide tube (running PCM) to the tail boom stabilizer. I think it looks better that way than on the skids and in case of crash it won't yank the wire out of the rx. It might even look better in black.

The last picture is the field 300 yds from my house (older pic). Today was around 65F with no wind and got two flights in.

[OICU812]

Nice Bruce, would you say the Spartan is pretty straight forward to setup? Now you have used it, any pointers before install on the heli itself as far as updates or things to do with pc prior to install?

[BruceW]

Originally Posted by OICU812

Nice Bruce, would you say the Spartan is pretty straight forward to setup? Now you have used it, any pointers before install on the heli itself as far as updates or things to do with pc prior to install?

When I first got the Spartan DS760 it was flashed with v1.02 of the firmware and the only things added since then were support for servos with 1520us / 250Hz (JR8700G and others) (v1.03) and now their on v1.04 which I think just added support for the configuration software. It sounds like there were no performance improvements or bug fixes so it seems the PC USB interface is not really needed but since I'm a software junky, I had to have all the latest toys.

Gyro installation:
Before installing the gyro, I played with it on the bench for a while but there are a few things worth noting. First, it comes with two types of foam tape - thick padding foam and adhesive tape - and its recommended to use the supplied metal plate between the two pads. I actually like the idea of the plate since it will protect the gyro if you need to pry it out the model (see pictures). Second, if you plan on getting the USB flashlink software in the future, you'll want to mount the gyro so the connection plug is accessible (see picture). Also, the tape seems very strong so I am not using a safety strap to hold it down.

Pre gyro configuration:
You will need to setup your radio so it can go between rate and HH mode by flipping switches since that is how you go into configuration modes. I personally like using the gyro gain on the gear channel as gear->gear instead of gear->gyro sense. This way my gain is independent of flight mode (more on this later and more reasons why) and allows more flexibility on the flight line or bench setup. Either way just make sure you can toggle before the two modes.

Configuration:
The manual is fairly straight forward but there are a couple of sections that are a little confusing (gyro reversing setup). The main thing is to configure the gyro for your servo before plugging it in. There is a list of servos and their specs. The gyro currently only has support for 3 servo types which I think covers every type (only digital type):

1. 1520us/333Hz
2. 760us/333Hz
3. 1520us/250Hz

There are two configuration/setup modes that the gyro can go into: 1. servo config and 2. operation setup. These are done with using the rudder stick and toggling the gyro gain mode. I'm not going to explain this part unless requested since its straight forward from the manual but there were some issues with Spektrum radios prior to v1.02 that you'll need to read about.

Servo configuration:
Setup start: Left rudder and toggle of gyro gain after gyro power up.
Do this before plugging in the servo. Once in the mode, push rudder switch to the left to go to first servo type and then each push to the right will go up one type (2 and 3). The LED will flash (1 flash, double flash, triple flash) to let you know which servo choice you made.
NOTE: If you do this step then flash new firmware you'll need to do it again since flashing clears out everything.

Operating configuration:
Setup start: rudder neutral and toggle of gyro gain after gyro power up.
As of the current version (v1.04) there are only 3 things to setup for operation mode.

1. Gyro reversing
2. Low endpoint adjustment
3. Hight endpoint adjustment

Gyro reversing is the confusing section of the manual. If you have the gyro mounted right side up, you will push the rudder stick to the left (normal direction) to configure it. If you mount the gyro in an inverted position on a helicopter like the T450 under the boom, you will need to reverse gyro direction by moving the stick to the right. This is still not clear in the latest manual. Think of it as flipping the direction switch on a 401.

End point adjustment is a really nice feature since you don't need to put the slider in the physical center of the tail rotor shaft. Just set the two endpoints and it will figure out where center is based on that.

Other notes:
A recommended starting position is to set the tail blade pitch to around 8deg with the servo horn around 90. In my case, I added subtrim to get my servo arm to 90 but I could have left it off center with no subtrim and everything would have been fine. The instructions say no subtrim but after numerous discussions over in the Spartan forum it was determined that it will work just fine. I personally like using subtrim to center my slider because I don't want my tail pitch slammed to one side in case I accidently left it in normal mode. Another thing is that I used the Mikado servo arms and they don't setup at 90 with no subtrim with the way I positioned my tail servo. Yes, I could have used the supplied servo wheel to get to 90 but just chose not too.

One thing I have done with the software configuration tool is to slightly turn down the acceleration/deceleration start and stop settings for the tail so it isn't as hard on the tail - it was only a slight change and I'm not sure if I can tell the difference yet. The start/stop gains were left to default and there is no bouncing. The tail seems very crisp but I'll probably play with more settings later. Compared to my 401, this is a very accurate gyro and the rotation speeds in both left and right direction are equal and consistent (the 401 is not). Inverted tail down funnels now seem to hold better than on my T450 but it could also be because of the no slop tail on the Logo.:wink:

Overall I would buy this gyro again for any other model.

[Mercuriell]

Thanks for the very complete notes Bruce - this should get posted as a reference somewhere - I haven't gone into the depth you have, just plugged and played but been very happy with the performance and can't see me buying a 611 again.

[Mathias]

I have now built my 500 3D. I did get the Trex 600 440mm flybar, but I can't see why you guys are recommending it? It is exactly the same length as the original one.

Other than that it was missing some parts from the kit. Four screws and the decals for the paddles.

[BruceW]

I held the T600 flybar next to the Logo flybar and also noticed it wasn't much longer so I stuck with the Logo one for now. At least there are a cheap set of flybar rods ready for a future crash.

Mathias, the clear flybar wrap came on two smaller pieces of paper backing stapled to the decal set.

[Mathias]

Originally Posted by BruceW

I held the T600 flybar next to the Logo flybar and also noticed it wasn't much longer so I stuck with the Logo one for now. At least there are a cheap set of flybar rods ready for a future crash.

Mathias, the clear flybar wrap came on two smaller pieces of paper backing stapled to the decal set.

Yep, I did also think that the T600 flybar's would be a nice crash replacement.

Yeah, I know where they should be, but they wasn't included in my kit. There were also big holes on two on the bags, so it was plenty of parts floating in the part bag. I think someone has picked on my kit after it left Mikado...

Edit: Here are some pics. You can see the new heli on the market. Alikado Lo-Rex 450 3D.

[zguy]

Originally Posted by BruceW

I held the T600 flybar next to the Logo flybar and also noticed it wasn't much longer so I stuck with the Logo one for now. At least there are a cheap set of flybar rods ready for a future crash.

Logo 500 = 400mm
T600N = 440mm

You guys seeing something different?

[BruceW]

It looks like I ordered the wrong ones and got the 400mm version for the T600 (H60012) instead of H60108T (440mm). Oh well, I'll pick up a set of those on my next order of misc stuff.

[Mathias]

OK, I did just order the right one (hopefully).