Are Beltish CP's upgradable to FBL?

[Heli Yea!]

YES RED PLEASE TELL.

[sutty]

Originally Posted by jperkosk

@Chad: not worth converting Belt CP to fbl IMHO, too much slop on all of these links. Just my opinion. Want to fly it, put a decent tail gyro (they cost pennies nowadays) and fly as is.

Too late for me Jerry, the project is well under way. Then again I didn't have to buy anything, and the Belt was already DTS modded, so not much slop from what I can see.

Might be finished tomorrow. Haven't got any values from the MicroBeast yet to confirm resolution, but even if it's bad, it has to fly better than a normal Belt.

Just doing it for something to do. Passed an evening so far, fitting half decent servos, finding links of the right length, and adjusting, etc.

Cheers

Sutty

[copterboy]

Will be interesting to see the results Sutty. Can't wait

[copterboy]

Here's a link to the thread about it. I can still see it at the bottom of the first page!!

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=432329

You'll always be master of the living room here bro

[Heli Yea!]

Originally Posted by copterboy

Will be interesting to see the results Sutty. Can't wait

+1 Hurry up!

[Heli Yea!]

Originally Posted by copterboy

Here's a link to the thread about it. I can still see it at the bottom of the first page!!

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=432329

You'll always be master of the living room here bro

Thanks Dennis. I guess you still don't see anyone flying their 500's in the living room except me.

[sutty]

Sorry guys, I've let you down. Didn't get chance to do any further work on it today. Here is the content of the workbench, and the heli as it stands.




Sorry about the focus, but just a quick phone snap.

Everything was just thrown in a pile to go back to it today, but as I say things just didn't work out.

Bit of a late owl as you know, so am going to take a look now.

Cheers

Sutty

[sutty]

So, the good news is I found some old washout arms, and used the bend pins mod method as recommended by Skookum, in the document provided by Luke. Worked a treat. I found long link lengths that were just perfect from the remnants of the bits of a Belt. Probably the front elevator ones or something.

So now we are looking like this. EXI head block, with flipped grips. CopterX modified washout arms to act as a swash follower, with bent pins in the head block to grip it, will pop some CA on there too in order to be sure, but it grips it very well already. DTS mod, original V1 frame. Modified grips using long screws and a small brass bush from a smashed tail assembly, to bring the long links in line with the centre of the head to avoid phasing issues. Hitec HS65 analogue servos, and HS5084 tail servo, and of course the mighty MicroBeast FBL controller. When I put it back in it will be the original motor, which is still going strong.

Went for flipped grips because although it makes virtually no difference to the flight performance, if any, and it has the drawback of having to put the screws in from the bottom, it avoids the potential confusion for me of the swash going up for -ve pitch. Since none of my other helis do this, it could easily lead to error, so leading edge control it is.

None of it is perfect, but none of it is unacceptable. Here is a better shot now:



Resolution is not good enough, but I can come in a hole on the servo arms, which will get me near enough to be comfortably flyable. I know because I have a lot of experience with playing with the MicroBeast. Might still only be purple in their terms, but it will work well enough.

Giving up for the night.

Cheers

Sutty

[copterboy]

Some quality engineering that Sutty. Only the most hardened, purest belt-cp'er could figure that out

Looking at weather reports, earliest break in the weather will be middle of next week anyway!!

[jperkosk]

Hey, it's got to be a first truly Belt CP thread in at least a couple of years!

[sutty]

Originally Posted by copterboy

Some quality engineering that Sutty. Only the most hardened, purest belt-cp'er could figure that out

Looking at weather reports, earliest break in the weather will be middle of next week anyway!!

Weather windows look grim Denis, but you know me. Two minutes not raining, and this thing will be maidened, regardless of the wind. That's the point of FBL right?
You guys will see whatever transpires, even on the maiden, as the hat cam is charged.

Originally Posted by jperkosk

Hey, it's got to be a first truly Belt CP thread in at least a couple of years!

Mhh, do you think it counts. I suppose it is a bit Belt-CPish still. Kind of looks like a Belt.

I'll summarise it all properly with photographs after it flies, lol.


By the way, after the changes, believe it or not, the resolution is a perfect blue at 6 now, which is what the MicroBeast needs. I was like, woah, how lucky is that lol. I mean red or even purple would have been okay for this project, but you can't beat blue I suppose.

Final fixing now, tidy cables etc, will take an hour or so. Batteries on charge.

Cheers

Sutty

[ragge1]

nice work Andrew , looking forward for a video

[sutty]

Small set back, and maiden delayer. Test spool up in the spare room shows a serious vibration issue to which the MicroBeast is sensitive. All the threads I have been involved with helping people with the MB and vibes, and I have never suffered with them myself until now. Absolutely typical behaviour. Not surprised now either, because in reality the Belt-CP frame is effectively made of jello. I say not surprised now, because it has happened, but in fairness I never expected it to be a problem ahead of the game, because it's never actually happened to me before, much as I might have read about it.

As I spool up it trys to apply a serious amount of right aileron, (standard MB vibe related behaviour) once the headspeed starts to get up. Holding in left, 3/4 stick, stops it, and eventually it spools up through it, and I could centre the stick again and indeed I hopped off the ground, for about half a second, because I'm brave, lol. However, that is not acceptable, and there is no way I can actually maiden if it pulls right like that a certain head speeds. Did it on spool down too.

Now where are those threads on MB vibes.


Cheers

Sutty

[sutty]

lol, maybe not such a difficult problem. You may or may not know that everyone says don't use the MicroBeast stock tape, it's too soft, use 3M. So that is what I was using. Anyway, following the same advice I've read, and given, a number of times, and is what is written in the manual anyway, I switched to a different tape, the stock tape.

From tha manual.

- Try other types of gyro pads

Problem solved, apparently. Well put it this way I was able to spool up smoothly to about 75%, with no pulling off to the right, and I was able to hover gently within about one cm of the ground for 5 or 6 seconds. Whether the vibes will come back when I select an idle up speed I don't know, but I doubt it. Didn't want to do that indoors, especially whilst there is some doubt.

Not wanting to cheat the official maiden any more than that, I'll call it a night for now, and anyway I'm off out and I'm running out of time. Hopefully my hangover won't put paid to the chance of a proper maiden tomorrow. We'll see.

Cheers

Sutty

[Heli Yea!]

Sorry Andy, red purple blue micro beast are all words I dont know. Are they French? Ive missed out on all the lengthy discussions for that topic. every thing is looking good though. We'll get through this. Its gotta be a simple problem, like back in the day when Ronnie (the other Andy) had that stupid voltage alarm. It took us all months and he got frustrated ,quit, came back a month or two later, took off that damn alarm and viola problem solved.

[copterboy]

Sometimes a relaxing break and fresh set of eyes is what you need.

Weather forecast seems much better for 2m afternoon from about 4pm, sunset is getting to about 5.30 now. Hope the hangover is gone and you can figure it out for this window

[sutty]

Did I say the new tape had done the trick? Well if I did I was wrong.

At least I know where the vibes are coming from now. even with the head off I get the vibes, and the swash leans badly in idle up. These are not just run of the mill vibes though, they are Belt-CP ish in their magnitude, or at least I thought they were.

My fingers and hands all feel funny now after having run it at high speed so often whilst holding it in my hands. At one point the vibes were so bad and at just the right frequency, that the boom brace started to resonate and actually snapped in two at the boom clamp end. That made me panic I can tell you. Throttling back when in idle up didn't help much either. Took me about a couple of seconds to do throttle hold.

Holding the heli it is deffo from the tail, plus, as I said before, the head is off. Also from general MB experience on the forum, and from flying with bent main shafts etc, it is rarely the head. I tightened the belt, but it made no difference. Next, I thought, tail blades, nah, it won't be that, but easy to take off. So I removed what were in effect an undamaged and new set of 450 pro tail blades. No vibes at all. Wtf, how could they be so bad, and make such a huge difference. I mean seriously when they were on it was painful to hold onto the boom at the tail end.

So, was it the blades, or the tail bahaving differently in the absence of blades? Stuck on the set of bat wings that came with the EXI, and lo and behold, problem solved. Almost no vibes at all. What on earth is up with those pro ones though. They must be a few grams out. Don't know how to check them though, and no point now anyway. Might as well just get on with the project now using the bat wing ones.

Gotto find or cobble together a boom strut now. Not strictly necessary, but I want to do the Belt look justice.

Update and hopefully maiden video tomorrow.

Cheers

Sutty

[Heli Yea!]

Booya I knew it was something simple. Cant wait to see her fly. You have surely put a lot of effort in to this nice work.

[sutty]

So the project is complete, and a success, eventually.

Below you can see the Belt-CP tail boom, fins, and standard tail, but with pro grips and EXI bat wing blades. The boom support struts are also EXI, but after using them I found a brand new in a bag set of original Belt-CP ones, but couldn't be bothered changing them.



In this next shot you can see the MicroBeast mounting, wiring, and the left hand servo DTS mod and the gorilla gear.



This next one shows the original motor, the right hand side DTS mod, and the ESC as supplied by Denis. Thanks Denis.


This last one shows the EXI head more clearly and the brass bush extensions that I used from some tail slider assembly or other, to bring the long FBL links to the centre of the head. You can also make out the flipped grips with the nuts on top.



And finally, here is a video of the whole thing in action. During this flight I had a problem with my collective range. I had very little up.

GOPR0001 (4 min 11 sec)

Afterwards, after eventually giving up on why the MicroBeast was giving odd results, I went with a tried and tested approach of just giving two turns on each long link to see what happened, and here is that video. Much better, because middle was middle now, and I had enough +ve and -ve collective to fly properly.

GOPR0002 (4 min 3 sec)

Videos are cooking, so call back in a few hours.

Cheers

Sutty

[copterboy]

Had to wait for the 2nd to cook last night, so not had time to comment until now. Whats your overall impression Sutty, as your the one behind the sticks?

I have to say, that is probably the closest I have seen a belt-cp flying in a similar way to the original marketing ad Job well done