Progress Report

[Heli Yea!]

QR X'ed for ya Tom. Slap that Wookong Belt in it's minerals.

[Tomstoy2]

Ok, went back over everything. again.

WKM appears to be fine!

It's the uhf receiver. Reviewing the bind results file, it's bound fine, but it's not outputting.
I verified this by plugging in a servo into one of the channels.

Easy fix, and a hell of a lot cheaper than another flight controller.
Nice knowing I'll have this ready for the meet.

[Heli Yea!]

ROCK ON!!

[jperkosk]

I knew you could do it

[Tomstoy2]

Yeah, thanks guys. I was so disgusted with myself I just couldn't be bothered with it, but decided today was the damn day.

Got the hdmi cable added to my ground station. Now I can watch movies and such off my phone, or, run the live tracker app.

[copterboy]

Finally, my parents are back from their 2 month tour of Europe in the campervan

So, time for me to move all my stuff back outside, get organised again and get my new internet connection properly tested Hope I crimped those wires the right way round!!

[copterboy]

Finally got the internet wire tested and it failed

Checked wires are right way round, and checked they are crimped properly, and they appear to be good. Will check again tomorrow in proper daylight (as I'm colour confused between brown and green ), so that could well be the problem.

Whats strange is when I plug into the main AP, the light for port number 3 doesn't go solid. It just flashes about every 3 seconds. Not sure if this is indicating a fault, so will check the main router manual tomorrow.

If that fails, then I will have to get myself one of those cheap cable testers, to try and sort it out.

Just hoping I haven't damaged the cable unknowingly. It was bad enough it wasn't long enough in the first place and I had to do it again. Really hoping I don't have to dig it up and do it all again!!

[copterboy]

Just pulled the trigger on an ethernet cable tester, so should be here Friday and I can find out exactly what the problem is this weekend. Wether or not it's a quick fix, I'll have to wait and see!

[sutty]

Damn Denis, that sucks. I presume you tested it over land before you buried it? If so then maybe it did suffer some damage during the burial.

I hope not. Good luck with the tester. Hopefully it will just be a punch down or wiring issue at the ends.

Cheers

Sutty

[Tomstoy2]

Ahh, f*** me!

Good news, bad news.

Bad news first.
The new receiver did not do the trick for the Hexa. Back on the shelf it goes.

Good news, and good news indeed!
I heard back from Jim, got a whole new set of files to try out. I swear, this man is a workaholic.
So far I've taken out the rest of the trim mechanically. Changed out the servo on the tilt to get rid of the damaged tooth causing the jitter.
She's all ready to go, except the weather is not playing nice!

[copterboy]

@ Tom - That sucks. I've been missing the footage of your garden Hope your not back to looking at a new WKM then?

Originally Posted by sutty

Damn Denis, that sucks. I presume you tested it over land before you buried it? If so then maybe it did suffer some damage during the burial.

I hope not. Good luck with the tester. Hopefully it will just be a punch down or wiring issue at the ends.

Cheers

Sutty

I did with the first 30m cable as it had connectors already included. The 2nd 40m cable didn't have connectors included. I thought it was safe to assume the cable was intact, so I went ahead with the install without testing for reasons stated below

Due to cashflow, I needed to build the 2nd cable as I went along, because if I waited to test it, it would be another 2 weeks before I could afford the connectors, crimp tool and a tester. And because of the delay having to buy a 2nd cable, my mum and dad were due home, and I promised them any disruption would be sorted by the time they returned (I'd already dug up the patio for the first attempt, so needed that sorting out asap). I figured even if I did wait and test it, i woud have to cut the connectors to get through the walls, and then test it again. So I assumed the cable would be intact, and as long as I was careful installing it, and it should only be the connectors if I do have a problem later. So fingers crossed, as I found it hard to avoid getting a couple of kinks in it due to the quantity of cable I was handling!

Got an early finish today, and I maybe able to get access to some transport later. If all goes well, I should get out this afternoon after a few more test flights to see if I can resolve the tail wag. Least I won't have to hang around to long to charge my packs up now Almost time for a test of all 4 packs in parrallel, then I'll test all 4 at 2C, just to see how PSU1, the wiring and connectors handle the Amps.

[Tomstoy2]

Nothing is ever easy, Den. In your case, you can ring the cable from one end and change the other to match the pin out you need.

Me, somewhere in that rats nest is a short, Chasing it is a huge job, could involve a tear down. Got to rule that out. It's a job best left for winter.

Funny you mention flight controller. I pulled the trigger on a EagleTree Vector tonight.
It's out of stock at the moment but still at the intro price. Times have changed fast, there are better controllers out now than the WKM.

The problem is,,, which aircraft to put it in?
I hate to strip out the WKM until winter, and may not need to, so I think I may just put it into the Penguin for now.

The Ruby, well, Jim has done a firmware upgrade, and my instructions are to remove all my files and replace.
I got my buddy Greg coming over tonight and we'll do a little evening flight, see how this thing goes. Supposedly, the weather is to clear up and be nice.

[Heli Yea!]

I sure hope the weather clears 2 days off so far and woke up to rain again?

[copterboy]

I've definately solved the 450's tail wag, with tidying up that motor wire Just done another 3 packs in the garden along with some more tweaks inbetween. I still seem to have a small bounce back in the CW direction of my piro's at full rudder. It's get's better with more headspeed, Ie. In idel 2 than in idel 1. So I've adjusted my throttle curves up, so instead of straight 90 and 95 curves, I now have 95 in idel 1 and 100 in idel 2.

After everything I tried, I can only think now it would improve with better/bigger tail blades to counter the torque of the main rotor blades, or possibly a more tuneable gyro (hinting at my CSM again, but don't think I'll bother and skip to the FBL conversion next).

Between flights, I've installed the new V2 battery tray and added more velcro to my packs. Also, swapped out to the titanium turnbuckles and adjusted my tracking. Tracking must have been slightly off before, as I can tell it sounds smoother in the air, so very happy with that. Also, I'm sure I levelled my swash when I installed the beam E4 swashplate, but that seemed to benefit from a tweak also. I needed a heap of LH AIL trim to keep level, so dialled that out mechanically too, with an extra turn on my ELEV link for good measure. Now seems well balanced CoG and as smooth as you would like it in the air

Overflew my last pack a little, but it still said 30% when it came off, so will have to see what goes back in. ESC does seem hotter, but not too hot. That could change once I been back to the field with it, so will have to keep an eye on that.

I've now completed my log for the first 5 cycles of each pack, so now I will start some parrallel charge tests to ramp up the power on the charging station.

At the moment, I just feel like enjoying a few days to try and get some flights in, then maybe next week I'll tackle the FBL conversion

[Heli Yea!]

Tom this is the last time I tell you. DO THE RESET!!! NEXT REBOOT FW. If that fails try an older FW. Ive read that the latest FW is not always the greatest and it is usually better to wait and see how the new FW works for others. As you probly know DJI puts out new FW what seems like daily. I would go back to a FW version when you had positive results. just MO. Other than that go over ALL connections cause you fried your last UHF RX.

[copterboy]

Damn the rain

Packs all freshly charged, charged my TX last night as it was getting low, and charged my video phone to try and record a flight for the video progress report. I literally just picked up my coat and car keys, then as I'm picking up my heli and TX, I see my mum run out to bring in the washing My mums off out in the car soon, so that means I can't go down to the sports club. So, if there's a break in the rain today, I'll see about walking/cycling to a local park, but there's a few too many tree's for my liking

Ah well, least it's done and ready!!

[copterboy]

Well for now, it seems to be working That is my range extender Soon as the tester showed up (I got a PP3 battery for it yesterday in anticipation), I got it plugged in and the sequence on the remote went 1-2-3-6-5-4-7-8, so a quick cut and recrimp and all is good I can only think I got the wires mixed up before I gave them the final cut before inserting into the connector.

So now I can now freely move my laptop around the outbuilding (currently lay on the bed as thats the furthest point) and I'm no longer fixed to the windowsill or precariously balancing my laptop on my printer, on top of a sideboard that has to be pulled out from the wall at an odd angle, so it protrudes in line of sight of the house through the window to get the signal Finally, I can tidy that corner of the room up, and then clear up some space on the workbench with the 450 and charging station finished, move my laptop over there, get a comfy stool and maybe a small plug in cooler for the workbench, and get stuck into sorting some better office space out. Time for another spring clean whilst the rain continues!

[sutty]

Nice one Denis. Happy it was just a miscrimp after all. It's all coming together now. 450 done, tail wag sorted, batteries charged, new charging station completed and internet up and running. Good job for the last item, because right now there is sod all else to do other than stare out of the window, podering if I will get a flight in today! Hence my recent activity in here for the last hour, lol.

Looks like it's backing off now. Hope to get out before pub at 7:30 PM.

Cheers

Sutty

[sutty]

lol, should have kept quiet. Absolutely hammering it down now! Maybe when it stops the sun will come out.

[chansen1953]

Hi guys, Just finished (finally) my winter projec(s) to rebuild both of my HK600 FBH clones to a DFC head FBL clone.
1. had heaps of trouble with shaft length and anti-rotation elev links (parts from the 600e pro with DFC) .. but finally I found a solution using a mix of parts from various 600 models..
2. both helis are now nearly the same, #1 has AR7200Bx fitted and the other has Ikon FBL with 2xdsm2 satellites, and seems to work fine. The range on this is yet to be tested.

I think I have 95% of the head setup done correctly on both units, however I am about to run them up on the lazy susan to check blade alignment, tail control etc, before I commit to a test flight.

I have one question, before I ever flew my FBH helis, I always used to spin them up and check blade alignment using a red marker on one blade. I cannot seem to find any forum talk about doing this for a FBL unit ??
Is it necessary, or is it negated by the zero-pitch setup for FBL that is necessary during FBL controller setup ?

If I do need to do it, I presume the same procedure as FBH would allly.. ie. spin up to 2/3 speed on a lazy susan, and with a marked blade, use a torch edge-on to see if both blades are tracking in the same path.. if not adjust the head-to-swash link on whatever blade till both blades track ok.