What did you do to your 500 pro today?

[vtown nick]

Originally Posted by Xrayted

That is bizarre Nick. Savox makes Aligns servos, and just puts them in the Align case, so many of them are one and the same. I ran those particular ones at just under 6V and never had any issues with them.

Yeah I've known about the whole savox/align thing for quite some time too. I got really bored the other day and put them in to see if it would have any less slop. The slop is the same but the heli instantly flew better, then I for the first time ever put some flybarless blades on it and it flew even better than the previous flight! I'll run the radix blades once I get the talon 90 on there and it tuned a bit more. Scorpion is replacing the motor for $70 so I'll have a sweet motor for it soon too!!!

[Xrayted]

Very Cool!

[TR450ZS]

Ok thanks Vtown, yeah I would guess that at 5V nothing would really be working to it's maximum potential.

[vtown nick]

Put my Talon 90 on and a 13t pinion, running it at 3200 rpms in castle link using 4v per cell as the reference. It feels like it normally does with this setting only it doesn't bog! 3 min of abusive tic tocs and funnels and this thing just goes now!

Not having any luck getting the auto bailout setup, almost killed it in my street when I went to test it out. No spool up after hitting throttle hold haha

That said, I put 4 flights on it today before mounting the talon 90 and did my first ever high speed auto from about 50 feet away and 20 feet high! Was fun but I bent my skid pipe pretty good.

[Xrayted]

Originally Posted by vtown nick

Put my Talon 90 on and a 13t pinion, running it at 3200 rpms in castle link using 4v per cell as the reference. It feels like it normally does with this setting only it doesn't bog! 3 min of abusive tic tocs and funnels and this thing just goes now!

Not having any luck getting the auto bailout setup, almost killed it in my street when I went to test it out. No spool up after hitting throttle hold haha

That said, I put 4 flights on it today before mounting the talon 90 and did my first ever high speed auto from about 50 feet away and 20 feet high! Was fun but I bent my skid pipe pretty good.

Did you re calibrate your end points after checking the AR box and before dropping the TH curve value down until the head stopped turning? My TH curve was about 16% before mine stopped spinning if I recall, but the AR shifts your throttle endpoints a bit.

Also you must raise your head speed change rate up a good bit from the stock setting since that is what determines how fast it will throttle back up on your flip back out of TH. All of this can be tested on the bench without blades to verify its working as it should, and to dial in your desired return to spin rate.

[Digger1973]

I benched it in favor of my synergy E5. It gets flown when my 550 is down.

[vtown nick]

Originally Posted by Xrayted

Did you re calibrate your end points after checking the AR box and before dropping the TH curve value down until the head stopped turning? My TH curve was about 16% before mine stopped spinning if I recall, but the AR shifts your throttle endpoints a bit.

Also you must raise your head speed change rate up a good bit from the stock setting since that is what determines how fast it will throttle back up on your flip back out of TH. All of this can be tested on the bench without blades to verify its working as it should, and to dial in your desired return to spin rate.

I did the throttle calibration and the throttle hold setup as well 18% it turns on and doesn't turn off till 16% so I left it at 16% and the throttle change rate is 8 but my buddy said he runs his at 20 on his 700 but uses a dedicated switch. I don't thank that's an option on the el'cheapo talon. I'll play around some more with it. I set up the auto bailout check box before it's first power up so does that mean I should uncheck it- recalibrate throttle- then recheck the box possibly?

Thanks

[Xrayted]

I'm not sure I understand what he means by "dedicated switch" ? The dedicated switch you use is TH for auto rotation bailouts. 8 is much too low. I was also up near 20 with my setup. That's likely why it took so long for it to spin back up for you. You simply drop the TH curve one point at a time until the rotor stops, and then stop immediately at that position and leave it.

The only thing that matters is that you had the AR box checked at the time you first calibrated your ESC throttle end points. If not, and you calibrated it without it checked, then you need to redo it after activating AR, or again if you ever decide to deactivate it. The Talon has the exact same AR functionality as any other Castle ESC

As I said test it on the bench first. Remove the blades and spin the heli up, then flip TH on and it should shut down, but spin right back up again when you turn it off again. Experiment with the motor change rate setting until it spins back up as quickly as you would like. The one thing to make sure you understand using AR is that the heli will only give you one slow spool up per startup unless its sees zero throttle again.

For example, if you spool up to fly, and change your mind and shut can down for any reason before you take off, or need land mid flight make an adjustment, you MUST let the ESC see zero again, or the next time you flip TH off you will get that fast AR spool up and can rip the gears out, or the heli might piro a few times on the ground until it stabilizes. I activated throttle cut at zero throttle on another switch for arming the ESC and also to activate zero again in this situation. Some set zero at the bottom of a normal mode or governor mode curve, so low stick does it. It doesn't really matter as long as you get in the habit of zeroing it somehow. I just personally don't want a zero throttle value anywhere in any of my flight modes that can be accidentally hit while in flight and shut me down, so another switch is my choice. This is likely what your buddy is referring to.

Castle Quick Tip Auto-Rotation Throttle Calibration.wmv (8 min 0 sec)

[vtown nick]

Originally Posted by Xrayted

As I said test it on the bench first. Remove the blades and spin the heli up, then flip TH on and it should shut down, but spin right back up again when you turn it off again. Experiment with the motor change rate setting until it spins back up as quickly as you would like. The one thing to make sure you understand using AR is that the heli will only give you one slow spool up per startup unless its sees zero throttle again.

For example, if you spool up to fly, and change your mind and shut can down for any reason before you take off, or need land mid flight make an adjustment, you MUST let the ESC see zero again, or the next time you flip TH off you will get that fast AR spool up and can rip the gears out, or the heli might piro a few times on the ground until it stabilizes. I activated throttle cut at zero throttle on another switch for arming the ESC and also to activate zero again in this situation. Some set zero at the bottom of a normal mode or governor mode curve, so low stick does it. It doesn't really matter as long as you get in the habit of zeroing it somehow. I just personally don't want a zero throttle value anywhere in any of my flight modes that can be accidentally hit while in flight and shut me down, so another switch is my choice. This is likely what your buddy is referring to.

Think you hit it on the head! He was brief in text when he told me so maybe that was what he ment. Totally don't want to chicken dance a heli this size with a improper setup so I'll take my time and do it right. Most likely is the throttle change rate then.

Thank you for the helpful info!

[vtown nick]

Put 4 flights on the 500 today, was showing off with the auto bailout coming in inverted from the moon. Well I lost a lot more head speed than I had thought and turned off throttle hold and it spooled up in time to save it but it did the death piro about 5 times and scared the shat out of me!

Heli still flying awesome, did some right rudder funnels with my 2800 rpm setting for the heli of it and the tail sure enough held through it with this tail servo. But that head speed is boring!

[Gladius]

Finally got my 500 back in the air after a 2 month hiatus. Just a simple hover, and I think I need to adjust the gear mesh of the tail drive gear with the auto gear, but she's flying pretty smoothly other than that!

I like the look of the green frame, and it's very visible in the air (even on a dark morning like this one!) I had hoped the canopy would have been more green though. It's way too yellow, and doesn't match the frame. Looks like I need to shop for another canopy!

[TR450ZS]

Hey Gladius good to hear that your 500 is back in the air. Looks stunning too.
What tail blades have you got on there, and did you buy them painted like that?

[Gladius]

Tes, they came like that. They are RJX blades, that Helidirect was selling for $12.

[doubletap]

Originally Posted by Gladius

Finally got my 500 back in the air after a 2 month hiatus. Just a simple hover, and I think I need to adjust the gear mesh of the tail drive gear with the auto gear, but she's flying pretty smoothly other than that!

I like the look of the green frame, and it's very visible in the air (even on a dark morning like this one!) I had hoped the canopy would have been more green though. It's way too yellow, and doesn't match the frame. Looks like I need to shop for another canopy!

This green would be nice gladius

[Gladius]

First I need to figure out the tail wag I have.

I thought that maybe my tail gear mesh was too tight, so I bored out the holes in the frame so I could loosen it up. No change.

I discovered that I had a bad bearing in my motor. Fixed that. No change.

I want to get this heli back in the air!!

[vtown nick]

Originally Posted by Gladius

First I need to figure out the tail wag I have.

I thought that maybe my tail gear mesh was too tight, so I bored out the holes in the frame so I could loosen it up. No change.

I discovered that I had a bad bearing in my motor. Fixed that. No change.

I want to get this heli back in the air!!

Anything change recently on the heli?

[Gladius]

Last night I was checking out my tail grips (i2rc upgraded grips with the Pro hub), and noticed that the outer radial bearing is too wide, and the inner diameter is too big. The Pro hub has a step in it, and the Align bearings have different inner diameters to accommodate this, but the i2rc ones do not. Also, the end of the bearing, and the end of the hub do not line up. Just to check, I put the stock bearing in there, and the inner diameter and width is perfect but the outer diameter is too small for the grip. Has anyone else noticed this?

Stock bearing: 3x8x3
I2rc bearing: 4x9x4
What I really need: 3x9x3. (Did a search for these, and got 1 match on Boca Bearings, but it's an ABEC #1, and costs $8.95 each!)

Does the new i2rc hub have a 4mm diameter all the way to the end?

[vtown nick]

Originally Posted by Gladius

Last night I was checking out my tail grips (i2rc upgraded grips with the Pro hub), and noticed that the outer radial bearing is too wide, and the inner diameter is too big. The Pro hub has a step in it, and the Align bearings have different inner diameters to accommodate this, but the i2rc ones do not. Also, the end of the bearing, and the end of the hub do not line up. Just to check, I put the stock bearing in there, and the inner diameter and width is perfect but the outer diameter is too small for the grip. Has anyone else noticed this?

Stock bearing: 3x8x3
I2rc bearing: 4x9x4
What I really need: 3x9x3. (Did a search for these, and got 1 match on Boca Bearings, but it's an ABEC #1, and costs $8.95 each!)

Does the new i2rc hub have a 4mm diameter all the way to the end?

I would send the owner a email, he responds pretty fast and is very helpful.

[Gladius]

So I emailed Bob, and he clued me in to the fact that *I* had replaced the bearings in the tail with the wrong size. The 4x9x4 bearings should have been 3x9x4 bearings, and when I dug thru my broken bitz bin, I found the original 3x9x4 bearings that I had replaced after a previous crash.

Anyway, I'm going to mail my grips back to him. He's going to put in new bearings, and give me his new hub, which incorporates a 2.5mm screw and fixes the main gripe about the Pro tail hub. He's charging me $25 for the hub with new bearings.

So, embarassing and frustrating, but I'm going to get my tail fixed!

[vtown nick]

Put some Radix blades on my 500 after warming up with the align 3G blades first. There is a very noticeably difference running these radix blades. Cyclic seems just a touch slower but its much more locked in and doing tic tocs it is stiff and goes where I tell it on the spot. Guess I finally fly hard enough to notice stuff like this and I hit throttle hold from a good 30 feet up and backed it in real nice, the extra weight does in fact help