Review before I maiden (again).

[dtfeld]

Omerco

Thanks for the assist.

I could not find a Cyclic Expo in V4.09 software. You wouldn't be referring to the Cyclic Gains (adjusted via transmitter end point)?

On the Cyclic 1 Tab - I turned the Base Gains and rates down to 150 deg/sec and that gave me a Bell gain of 29 for both the Elevator and Aileron.

On the Tail 1 Tab - I turned the Control Rate down to 180 deg/sec and made Control Expo 45.

To much wind to try this tonight, will re-hover in the morning. Hopefully this is good enough to do a full battery hover with a little FWD flight to re-adjust the tail gain (currently 48, and get that rock solid before trying more aggressive moves.

See Screen shots...

[dogbreath]

Gravity is 9.8 m/s^2--that should be average acceleration in a hover. Your RPMs look great so far--when you start doing pitch pumps is when you'll see if you need more precomp. That small negative spike in servo buss voltage (down to 3.6V) is likely a logging error--your sticks weren't doing anything crazy to load servos when that occurred and the event log showed no error.

Dan

[dtfeld]

"Gravity is 9.8 m/s^2--that should be average acceleration in a hover."

Ah ha! Now it makes sense. I was thinking in terms of g's. 9.8 m/s^2 = 1 g. 10 g's would have been pretty high. Lots to learn on this FBL...sure hope it's worth it.

Hoping to get the basics worked out, them move on to the auto level and gps functions. Calm wind predicted for tomorrow, so I'll get a good hover in and report back.

Got another setup ready to go into a new 550L

Thanks all!

[omerco]

Originally Posted by dtfeld

Omerco

Thanks for the assist.

I could not find a Cyclic Expo in V4.09 software. You wouldn't be referring to the Cyclic Gains (adjusted via transmitter end point)?

On the Cyclic 1 Tab - I turned the Base Gains and rates down to 150 deg/sec and that gave me a Bell gain of 29 for both the Elevator and Aileron.

On the Tail 1 Tab - I turned the Control Rate down to 180 deg/sec and made Control Expo 45.

To much wind to try this tonight, will re-hover in the morning. Hopefully this is good enough to do a full battery hover with a little FWD flight to re-adjust the tail gain (currently 48, and get that rock solid before trying more aggressive moves.

See Screen shots...

There is no expo in the gui for cyclic, you should do it in your tx. I personally use only the expo in my tx also for the tail with zero set in the gui.

But if you have lowered your rates so much you need much lower expo than the ones I stated before. I think your rates are too low now. Normal start numbers for cyclic would be in the 220-240 range and 350-400 for tail

[dtfeld]

Omerco:

I was thinking the same thing as I did it, but still trying to get a feel for how all this affect the heli, so on my end I'm "guessing" based on prior FBL units. I appreciate everybody's input. I'm going back and do as you suggest.

Along the same lines of trying to "tame it down"...

Stick Dead bands - I thought about this last night...I have 2% Stick Dead bands on all 3 axes (default setting). I expect that the first 2% of stick travel produces no output, then as stick deflection increased beyond that 2% I get a large change in control output, especially considering I had linear control curves. Expo should help, but I don't think I need the Dead bands with the Expo.

I think I need to turn Dead bands OFF, or to 0 and use Expo in the transmitter instead. Anybody else use stick dead bands or turn it OFF?

[Xrayted]

Originally Posted by dtfeld

Omerco:

I was thinking the same thing as I did it, but still trying to get a feel for how all this affect the heli, so on my end I'm "guessing" based on prior FBL units. I appreciate everybody's input. I'm going back and do as you suggest.

Along the same lines of trying to "tame it down"...

Stick Dead bands - I thought about this last night...I have 2% Stick Dead bands on all 3 axes (default setting). I expect that the first 2% of stick travel produces no output, then as stick deflection increased beyond that 2% I get a large change in control output, especially considering I had linear control curves. Expo should help, but I don't think I need the Dead bands with the Expo.

I think I need to turn Dead bands OFF, or to 0 and use Expo in the transmitter instead. Anybody else use stick dead bands or turn it OFF?

The stick deadband setting is there to account for any small stick centering errors seen from your TX at bootup. This can change as temps change. Use the Expo in your TX for tuning the stick center feel, not the deadband in the SK.

1-2% deadband on the SK side is typically fine

[omerco]

I use 0.5 dead and for cyclics with my dx9, which is very accurate at centers. You want it as low as possible.

The tail is a little different and I leave it with 2 to prevent erroneous tail movement on quick collective inputs.

[dtfeld]

Originally Posted by omerco

I use 0.5 dead and for cyclics with my dx9, which is very accurate at centers. You want it as low as possible.

The tail is a little different and I leave it with 2 to prevent erroneous tail movement on quick collective inputs.

I put a battery through it, trying to get the tail to "stick". Has just a slight side to side wag, and I set the tail gain from 50 down to 40. Tail wagged no matter the tail gain, and had a slight tendency to blow out on an easy pitch pump with the gain around 40. However, I think there may be something mechanical...the trex 500 tails always have a little slop in them, and that might be an issue here. Gotta go back and read.up on that.

Next item on the agenda, get Self Level & GPS functions working. 2% Deadband minimum for the self level to work...gerrrr. Any recommendations on the initial GPS Alt and Self Level Gain?

Currently:

GPS Alt Gain = 30

SL Mode = Center Stick, Gain =100

[omerco]

Slow wag is almost always mechanical, and usually related to binding somewhere. Less to slope.

[dtfeld]

I'm thinking it might be the push rod...a lot of up down movement as it goes through the guides.

I have 2 guides on the tail, may remove one and place other one slightly off center to avoid harmonic.

However, did get a second battery through it and settle on the tail gain at 45%, seems the best for now.