You boring gits!

[Tomstoy2]

Well actually,,,, I've gotten in quite a few flights.
All backyard stuff. Trying to get this gimbal dialed in.
Almost there! Did a quick test flight just now before work. Results are a lot better. Got to analyze it for awhile and decide what parameter to try next.
Been one hell of a learning curve.

[chansen1953]

thanks sutty.. I'll see if I can get those values tonight when I get home....

by 3d mode, I mean the Bx flight modes... I started on normal, and then sports.. but seemd to be too slow to respond.. so I went to next, and now it responds too quick...
by twitchy , I meant it responds too quick near centre stick... as I am used to some expo

no I do not have the Bx in Tx mode...

I will see if I can get these setting recorded tonight.. I do remember have some issues getting the step J at 6' anywhere close !! and I will see if I cab re-do and record when it goes blue !


any ideas on the sudden "twitch" in the air or jump up when landing issue ??

[jperkosk]

Chris, my understanding is you can't have any expo in the Tx with Beast X unless you're in the Tx mode, otherwise you need to adjust the expo in the Beast X itself, using microsettings software, I think,

[sutty]

You shouldn't use any expo whilst using any of the stock modes, as it can lead to extremely unpredictable stick behaviour. It won't confuse the MB, but it will confuse the pilot. Low values can theoretically be used, but only with the most aggressive of the canned modes, pro or extreme, since at this point the built in expo is small, but 70% is not a low value. Probably easier just to say expo cannot be used with the built in modes other than Tx mode.

In my experience there wasn't a dramatic difference between the built in modes, more of a safe progression of slightly improving performance. No expo, and 100% travel and dual rate, and you should be absolutely fine in Sport or Pro mode, especially if you found it to be too slow in Normal mode. I can't believe there is such a difference such that you find it difficult to control in Pro mode, however, if this is the case it is very easy to tame it down by just working your way down through your travel adjust values.

Again, no expo, adjust your travel adjust downwards from 100%, until it has the sensitivity you like. Don't forget to do both sides, and don't forget to do both aileron and elevator. If you need Tx based expo then you will have to try Tx mode.

As far as I know jerry there isn't an expo tuning feature in the MicroSettings software, but I never did get that software as I never got a Horizon Hobby version.

Cheers

Sutty

[jperkosk]

Not sure about this expo adjustment with microsettings, read it somewhere but very well may just be a case of confused Jerry here, wouldn't be a first time

All my Beast X units still sit on the shelf waiting for installation, one's even on the bench as part of the 600N fbl conversion job in progress, in the meantime I'm flying 2 AR7200BXs on B450X and B300X (putting some serious stick time on the smaller one) but haven't got a clue what mode they're in, just left everything on factory settings and programmed Tx as per manual. The expo on the Tx is 40% I think so I assumed they were in Tx mode but I very well may be wrong. 300X flies beautifully with these settings, that's why it gets most stick time, about 50-70 flights so far with no incidents other than scraped blades once. 450X is a bit jumpy on the collective, I may have to re-do the setup on AR7200BX, but I may have too many heli projects and too little time...

And all these multicopter, apv and fpv ideas steal away at the little available time there is

[sutty]

RTF Blades are in Tx mode by default, so adding expo to the Tx is appropriate.

As for jumpy on the collective on the 450, well it seems to be fairly common experience on FBL set-ups from what I've read and experienced. Blade choice makes a huge difference according to the guys from BeastX. Originally the MB had expo on collective in the firmware, but it was removed after many complaints from early adopters. I could barely put my 450 down when I first fitted the MB, especially when windy, which I know you suffer from a lot Jerry. It was something I just had to get used to as with the 5 point curves in the DX7 you can't realistically flatten the collective curve whilst at the hover point. I guess I could do it now with the DX18, but there's no point. I'm completely used to it now, and anyway the 450 is in the middle of an FPV testing phase. (Read, waiting on you telling me how good the Arducopter is, lol.)

Cheers

Sutty

[jperkosk]

That's a good idea: for B450X I could activate 7-point pitch curve on DX18, turn pitch curve expo on to smooth the transition points and it should do the trick nicely
Not necessary at all on B300X, I guess it's just underpowered by comparison.

[chansen1953]

sorry sutty, Jerry, my bad leading you astray !

my comment about "any ideas on the sudden "twitch" in the air or jump up when landing issue ??" was referring to my previous post, ( with the 600 flybarred + CPII ) when I had experienced sudden servo movements whilst flying.. or a "twitch" and the sudden pop-up into the air on landing.. (when I did not switch between modes.).. so it could be the same flying twitch, just occurred when landing.. anyway.. this 600 Flybarred unit seems to have a glitch I am trying to diagnose..

- so far. have considered..
- CPII probleem - -> disabled via CPII switch, but still occurred..
- static from tail belt -> earth tail to frame & batt -ve (yet to be tested)
- power loss to servos -> make up a power dist. cable to more than 1 power dist wire (yuet to be tested)
- rx intermittent fault -> no idea how to detect if this is the case, unless use a known good ar7200 Rx. ( I have a SUSpect one, as experienced same issue on a plank ? )
- DX7 - tx fault or loss of signal -> so far, has occurred both near and far range ?

so my return to heli flying is still fraught with danger and stress !!

[sutty]

Originally Posted by chansen1953

sorry sutty, Jerry, my bad leading you astray !

Lol, you didn't lead us astray, we managed that all on our own. Our collective discussion resulted from Jerry's comment about twitchy collective on his 450.

As for your issues on the CPII 600, I haven't anything I can add to your checking process other than to say good luck with your tests.

Having said that, if it occurred on a plank with the same suspect Rx, then maybe you need look no further?

More unlikely to be the Tx, as you must be using that on all sorts of aircraft I should think.

Last thing you need. Like I say, good luck.

Cheers

Sutty

[jperkosk]

Chris, what Rx do you have on the twitchy 600?
The newer ones that have bind/data port instead of batt/bind have a radio link data log capability. You can either connect there the telemetry Tx TM1100 and receive the radio link data on your DX8, or you can also use this simple unit:


http://www.horizonhobby.com/products...ht-log-SPM9540

HH reduced the price of this unit now to $30, I have it mounted on two 450s and occasionally scroll through the screens after the flight. The logger will tell you lost packets, frames, and data holds so it could be useful in determination if you have radio link issue.

Also, you don't have to mount it permanently on the heli; all you have to do is plug it into the data port on the Rx after the flight before you power the heli down and all data is wiped out, as the actual data is stored on the Rx rather than in the logger, the logger is really nothing but the reader of the radio link data stored in the Rx.

[ragge1]

now the ikon is onboard my Trex 500 , had some issues at first , the program froze acouple of times , no sure if it was the program or just my computer , but now all good , so had the gov set but nothing worked damn , with help of a friend thro' FB found out I had the wrong value on the sensing divisor
bench testing ok , but now I feel like the spoolup delay is qiute long, any ideas

ikon spoolup delay (1 min 40 sec)

[sutty]

Delay seems to be 2 seconds, well it is according to my stopwatch, and one of those things on the screen says 2. Try it at 1 and see what happens?

Why would it matter though, auto bailout I suppose. Wouldn't bother me as I never auto, but I know you do.

Cheers

Sutty

[ragge1]

thanks Sut gonna try tomorrow , its late

[chansen1953]

jerry, hey thats cool !! .. I am using ar7200 on the 600 flybarred with CPII and I have a spare ar7200 that I suspect of also having "outages"... so this device is just what I need..
thanks.. i'll get one asap !!

[ragge1]

update :
couldn't get spoolup as I want it to be but no biggy , but after a flight test I'm happy with the result , the gov worked very nicely with align ESC and the bailout was great

spektrum log

[ragge1]

yesterday my belt G700 exploded in mid air , doing some soft 3D and sport flying never fly her so hard , was actually at a hover and talking to my friend and then it happed , damn WTF just happen

[jperkosk]

Nooooooooooo!!!!!



Any clue to what happened?

[chansen1953]

sorry to hear it ragge1 --- just hate the unsolved incidents ... did you find out what caused it ??

I am really pissed off-- I had just started to resume heli flying, after a 6 month hiatus.. but have been having an unexplained "twitch" -- see earlier in this thread..

last Thursday, I took a day off work to go fly, (weekend looked like wet weather !!)

and has just spooled up on the suspect 600 heli... ( I had found nothing so far , and no amount of testing revealed anything !!)

it was just in the air by a few feet when it suddenly zoomed straight up by about 10 feet.. all by itself.. almost like I pumped the pitch suddenly... I got control, and TRIED TO LAND, BUT IT AGAIN JUMPED TO THE LEFT.. and then just as I got to the ground, it did it again and tipped over.. WHAM bang -- boom smashed...skids went flying, blades smashed, link popped and gone.. !1. bottom plate is wrecked, but skids ok..
boom and fitting wrecked.. flybar bent..

I am so upset, it is still sitting on the desk after 3 days, and I haven't even pulled it down to check for further damage.. !!

I then tried to lift off with my other 600 - flrbarless with ar7200bx, and despite many hours of setup and alignment-- which at home looked perfect.. it failed to have enough pitch to take off...
I think I will have to get someone local to help me .. its my first flybarless.. and I cannot seem ot get it setup correctly.. either it is too slow to respond, or too twitchy and unmanageable.. I cannot seem to find a setup that is flyable !!

ma\ybe sutty has a doco on a woe to go setup.. starting with mechanical setup thru to final test for a ar7200bx ..
I think the mechanicals are ok, I seem to have all of the bx setting ok, except for the mid-point (G) and the (J) setting - cannot get better then about 9-10 degrees.. no where near 6 !!

I have ordered a new ar7100 for the flybarred one.. and put that receiver in the bin. !! must have had too many crashes and now has random and serious sudden pitch changes.. should have done this weeks ago. and saved myself the crash plus wasted time chasing a gremlin !!

I am about to give up on the ar7200bx... it is just seems too hard to get it to fly.!1

[sutty]

Hi Chris, Well 9 or 10 degrees at J is wholly unacceptable, and is going to be the answer as to why it won't fly well and why it is almost unajustable.

Here is what you need to do. Don't worry that this will be a long post, just follow it step by step and it will be over within minutes.

Step J is absolutely critical, and has to be set to 6 degrees, regardless of the colour. However, when you get to 6 degrees and see what colour you get at J, it must be red or blue. The light being off, or purple is not acceptable, and shows you that your geometry is unacceptable for flybarless control. This would be the case with all flybarless controllers, because they have to have an appropriate balance of resolution and travel for accurate regulation.

Underpinning step J, is step G, in other words you cannot do step J until step G is perfect.

Before we re-visit step J, to make appropriate changes to get you red or blue at 6, we need to get G to be perfect. It is not as difficult as it might seem, if you follow these instuctions precisely.

Enter step G, the servo light will be off. Before you do anything, and whilst the light is off, you now position your arms to be as near to 90 degrees as is mechanically possible using the splines on the servo output shaft. Swapping the horns around here can sometimes help to get you as near as possible. It does not matter however if it is not perfect, and indeed it will likely not be. By 90 degrees, I mean the appropriate angle for your heli which will be mid travel. All helis are not 90, but the majority are, and for the sake of simplicity I will just refer to it as 90 degrees from now on.

Having got the arms close to 90 degrees, they should now be 'trimmed', using the MB to electronically adjust their centres. This is achieved by selecting each servo in turn. Press the rudder once, and a light will come on on the MB. The colour doesn't matter, other than it represents which servo is to be adjusted, but you can tell which one is to be adjusted as it will twitch when you hit the rudder.

Watching that servo arm, adjust its position using the elevator. Very small adjustments are possible here, as it moves very slowly for small elevator movements, and your aim is to get it to be perfectly 90 degrees. Once you have 90 degrees on this servo you can move onto the next using the rudder.

Press the rudder once and another servo will twitch. Repeat the process with the elevator and again adjust this servo arm to be perfectly 90 degrees.

Finally press the rudder once more and the last servo will twitch. Adjust this servo in the same way.

Now, and this is important, if you hit the rudder again, all servos will jump back to their unadjusted centres, the place that you positioned them on the splines without adjustment. If you set the links up now based on this off centre position then it will all go wrong. Make sure before adjusting your links that you have a servo light on, i.e. that one of the servos has twitched. Do not touch the elevator at this point or you will unadjust what you did before by moving that servo off centre. In fact, with a light on, all three servos will be at their adjusted centres, those used for flight, and you should put your transmitter to one side for a while, so that it cannot be adjusted accidentally.

Now adjust your servo to swash links. Don't worry about the time taken in this step, you have all the time in the world, it will not exit this step. The only thing you need to be clear about is that a servo light is on, i.e. that all three arms are at their MB electronically corrected and stored centres, that you have just created. Your aim here is to get the swash perfectly level, and roughly mid travel on the mainshaft. If you have a swash tool then you should use it here. If you have a good eye, then you can use your eye, but if you have a tool I would recommend using it. You can even use a cable tie around the mainshaft. A thick cable tie pulled tight around the mainshaft will stick out at a consistent height, and can be twisted around to compare it to each of the swash balls, and has the advantage of allowing you to leave the head on.

Having got the swash level, you can now go on to set zero on the blades by adjusting the long links to the grips. Use whatever method you prefer to adjust for 0 degrees on the blades, but I find that folding the blades back along the boom, checking for the tips being level, and the blades being parallel to the boom, works best. If your links are a little sloppy, at this point, you can dangle the heli from its nose, to take the strain off the links, and look at the blades in the mirror, to increase the viewing distance. If you do this step accurately and the blades match well, you will have no need to adjust anything later in terms of blade tracking. Since going FBL, and using this method, I have never had to adjust the tracking post re-build.

Once you have these steps accomplished you can move on to step J.

To re-cap.

Servo arms roughly 90 degrees, as near as possible. (Servo light must be off.)
Adjust each servo in turn for perfect electronically adjusted 90 degrees. Select with rudder and adjust with elevator.
Adjust the servo to swash links for a perfectly level swash. (A servo light must be on.)
Adjust the swash to grip links for 0 degrees on the blades. (A servo light must be on.)
Move on to J.

It doesn't matter if you move on with a light on or off, but if you move on with a light on the servos will not move. If you move on with the light off, as you press the button, the servos will all jump from their unadjusted reference position to the perfectly aligned centres that you have just created. If the swash is not level when you get to J and you do not have 0 on the blades, then you have done something wrong and cannot adjust J until you correct it.

Step J should now be adjusted using a pitch gauge. A light cheap plastic one will do perfectly well here, as you can be remarkably accurate with one of these, and they certainly prevent the possibility of there being any confusion over what might be happening, as can happen with a digital gauge. You will need one of those head tools though, those that allow you to put a flybar accross the head to compare it to the pitch gauge. Use the aileron stick to adjust the blades until you have 6 degrees. At this point it is critical you have 6 degrees. This step has nothing to do with setting the cyclic limits, or the agility of the heli, or the collective pitch range, it is to teach the MB, and you, about the travel ratios, or geometry of your swash and head.

Once you have 6 degrees here you should look at the colour on the MB, and see what colour you have. At this point it has to be red or blue. If it is purple or off then you will likely have issues.

If you have off or purple you will need to move the balls in on your servo arms. One hole in will get you closer to blue. Don't forget it is the 6 degrees that is most important, and you should always set this step to 6 degrees, whatever colour you get, it is just that if this step is not red or blue then you will have problems. You will have more problems though if you do not set it to 6 degrees, whatever the colour.

To give you an idea of how far out you are, you can press on until it goes blue, and note how many degrees you have here, but you should always set it back to 6 before you move on. There are other things that can be done to modify the geometry of your set-up, but the ball position on the servo horn is the most coarse and will get you near enough very easily. Fine tune this step at some point in the future, using other methods, if you are after perfection, but as I said, red will be fine here, it's just that blue @ 6 will be perfect. If you want to adjust it to be perfect, I can also give you details of what can be done here in terms of fine tuning.

After you have J correct, red or blue at 6, you can then adjust steps L and K to complete the swash set-up, after which your heli will fly well, assuming all other aspects of the set-up have been completed correctly.

Good luck with it, and give me a shout if you get stuck at any point.

Cheers

Sutty

[sutty]

Originally Posted by ragge1

yesterday my belt G700 exploded in mid air , doing some soft 3D and sport flying never fly her so hard , was actually at a hover and talking to my friend and then it happed , damn WTF just happen

Wth. That has got to be depressing. I hope the costs aren't too high. Along with the other guys, any idea what might have happened? Very odd when you were only hovering. Having said that, if there is no issue, 3D'ing your heli wouldn't cause an issue anyway. Mine get thrashed around due to my lack of smoothness, but nothing like that has ever happened. If it did I think it could happen at any time, hover or not.

Cheers

Sutty