Old Fart w/X-Cell 60's

[DavidH]

They were the best that was available... almost 20 years ago!

How long do you think Heading Hold gyros have been available? LOL
The Piezo sensor gyros were only available a couple years prior to the HH technology.

David

[TMoore]

Originally Posted by Michael211

I can agree to disagree here but...

I think it'd be plain stupid to put a mechanical gyro on something you want to fly today. They were the best that was available... almost 20 years ago! They do not compare to the current generation of gyros... they're far less accurrate, far more prone to failure, and consume gobs of electricity. You'd have to be a glutton for punishment to put one of those gyro's on a bird you intend to actually fly!

I'd guess that if you gave most drivers a vehicle without power steering and power brakes and sent them on a 500 mile road trip, they'd probably hate it. That doesn't make them less skilled drivers though.

Of course, if you're just trying to build a static model with period accurracy then by all means go for it. LOL!

Oh and please be sure to get an AM radio system for it as well... just to keep the machine accurate with the time period in which it was originally released for sale. Maybe some ancient S-128 Futaba servos too.

OTOH, if you want the machine to fly well then put a good modern head-lock gyro on it, an engine govenor, and a good set of digital coreless servos (I prefer Futaba 9252's myself).

But that's just my opinion... I thought John was intending to fly this heli after all.

Regards!

- Michael

Actually there is a lot here that is just plain wrong. First of all a motor driven gyro can be run on a 4 cell 1200mah pack if all of the servos are just coreless analogs. It's the digital servos, you know, those modern ones that consume great wads of power from batteries.

Ball bearing mechanical gyros with REV mixing can be surprisingly good. In fact the very best mechanical gyros of the day drifted a lot less than the first piezo solid state gyros when they were first introduced. I still have a shelf full of mechanical gyros from Airtronics and personally put hundreds of flights on them and never had one that failed. If they are setup up correctly you can do a lot of pirouetting and backwards stuff with them even now. In fact Curtis used to do a lot of the first backwards flights with mechanical gyros. Wire tail drives were more of a hinderance than mechanical gyros.

I'm not saying I want to give up the modern stuff but if you want an accurate representation of what it was like to fly an X-Cell back in the day. An old flywheel gyro won't keep you from flying it very well.

TM

[lmnelson]

This thread hasn't had any activity in a while so I hope a get a response. I recently got a Miniature Aircraft Xcell 60. I got it used, so the receiver battery is quite useless/old. What does everyone use for the receiver battery on their X-Cell 60's? I would like the longest flight time without having to recharge it within reason.

[Alfred]

That depends
I run 1700mah NiCads as I need the weight to get the CG at the right spot.
This will give me easily 4 flights and playing it safe.
Mine uses JR 8231 servos.
The X-Cell is a bit limited with radio space so it's a bit hard to add big regulators and batteries.
If you are using powerful digital servos, then you won't have a choice but to use one of the modern combinations due to their current draw.
You would hardly being doing hard 3D stuff like pirouetting loops, so keep it sensible on the servos.
Mind you, the heli is more then capable to do mild 3D. Flips/inverted/rolls on the spot and lots of other stuff can be done with ease.

[malleeman]

what a good set of cf main blades that will suit these helis weight wise per blade and brand.
xcell 60 1001 schooner
660mm blades 30 inch boom

[Michael211]

Klankster, how are things going Sir? Did you get your X-Cell 60 airborn? How's it flying?

- Michael

[one_coolone2000]

i have a wrecked one im trying to put together and need alot of parts do you or anyone have some for sale i need some plans to thank you paul

[one_coolone2000]

Originally Posted by Klankster

OK, yes, I'm a relic. I haven't been flying in years but I still have a couple of X-Cell 60's and am going to be getting them back in the air soon. I just went down to the big hobby show in Chicago this past weekend and got fired up about flying again.

The last time I flew it was dusk and unfortunately decided to take one more lap around the field before landing. Big mistake, as I lost my orientation on the bird and dumped it into the ground on approach. We had just bought a big old house and between work and the renovations on it, I had little time to rebuild and get flying again. I had two spare kits, one was half-built. I have all sorts of spare parts on hand that I had stocked up on (all the stuff that usually gets trashed in a crash) so I figure I'll fly these birds until I run out of parts!

Anyway, I had been out of the loop for a while and didn't see any MA stuff at the Chicago show, and was wondering if they were still around. Nice to see that they are. When I mentioned I flew X-Cell 60's, everybody looked at me like I had just knuckle-walked out of a cave or something.

Interesting that all these new helis are 90-sized. Looks like they are aiming toward heavy-duty acrobatics, something I wasn't really into (I had started getting into rolls and loops but nothing more extreme yet).

Anyway, I thought I'd say hello. If anybody has spare X-Cell 60 parts they don't need anymore and want to unload, please contact me. My cave has a lot of room...

i have a pro xl xcell 60 thats busted up and i need alot of parts if you or anyone have any for sale i need plans to thanks paul

[aerocal]

Originally Posted by one_coolone2000

i have a wrecked one im trying to put together and need alot of parts do you or anyone have some for sale i need some plans to thank you paul

Look around at www.ronlund.com They have pretty much anything that is available for xcells. I think there are links there to the plan sheets also.

[richwill1]

High my name is Rich, and I am an "Ole Fart" with an X-cell 60 graphite that I built in '95, but never flew it. I'm setting it up to fly after all these years with an FG8 TX, 520 gyro, the original 9202 cyclic servos, and a 9402 on the rudder. Can one of you email or post the P to R mixing settings for the X-Cell 60. I intend to do most all flying in AVCS, but have been told that the model needs to be set up in normal mode first. Also, do I need to assign the gyro mode change to a switch, or can I leave it always set to AVCS once set up? Thanks for all your help, Rich

[TMoore]

Pitch ro rudder mix is unnecessary with a 520 and I would assign the gyro gains to a switch so you can switch back and forth just for the setup of the gyro in rate mode. Save yourself the headache and get a digital for the tail like a 9251/9256 or BLS series tail servo. An analog will work but the gyro won't like it.

TM

[richwill1]

I thought that I would need some Pitch/rudder mixing only in rate mode so that I can get the linkage set up for 0 drift. If this is not correct, does the gyro also prevent torque tail swings in rate mode? The instructions seem to direct otherwise. Just asking. I do intend to upgrade all the servos. Not ready to spend the money yet. Just wanna see it fly a few circuits as originally built. I don't fly 3D manuevers anyway. Rich

[TMoore]

If you flew in rate mode for any length of time revo would be beneficial but no one does that anymore. You will fly all the time in AVCS mode.

TM

[richwill1]

Thanks for your help, TM