Weaning of Expo

[clicky]

I've set up microbeasts with V2.0 software and started looking at my expo and D/Rs on Tx... Also, test flying Protos I realised that current settings are not really ideal - 65% Expo and 90% D/R on Ail/Ele - if I move sticks bit more I end in zone where small stick deflection causes much bigger changes (big expo trade off).

I tried to remove expo (lower it to 30%-ish) but then heli is too sensitive for me: with 60% - I can easily control it with slightly bigger stick moves heli does nice small and precise corrections - with 30% small stick moves makes heli too sensitive - too eager to move even when I'm not that keen it to do much...

Now - which path for weaning of Expo is better:

a) to keep big expo and near full D/R - having nice controlled hover (piros, precise movements) and imprecise stick throwing moves (tic/tocs?) and then slowly to start lowering Expo bit by bit until it gets closer to linear (maybe varying D/R slightly through the process)

or

b) to ditch expo now and go wtih much bigger D/R (smaller range) and then slowly increase D/R until I get it to appropriate cyclic speed deliberately hampering stick throwing moves and make heli being much lazier on rolls and flips...

or something in between? Just put it to some reasonable, amount (small Expo and wide D/R range) and just bear with very sensitive helicopter for a while (which will slow down progress - what I can do with helicopter until I get used to extra sensitivity?

BTW - I use constant pirouetting (slower - 1-2s to 3-4s per pirouette) for testing of my capabilities/helicopter sensitivity - if I'm comfortable with it - I can keep rotor disc pretty steady and horizontal and if it is too sensitive it usually has some inclination (that, of course, rotates )

[pitchp]

Damn brother you have an msh protos? That heli was bred for 3D. I wouldn't be able to handle that kind of bird. That's Tareq's favourite bird. Doesn't the protos have programmable paddles for soft flying, look into it more?? if not you may need some weight collars. over 50% expo is too much. you need heavy paddles with weights or something. Sorry man I don't know anything about that heli, but i'd sure would love to fly it!

[clicky]

Originally Posted by pitchp

Doesn't the protos have programmable paddles for soft flying, look into it more??

Yes - it has!

Originally Posted by pitchp

if not you may need some weight collars. over 50% expo is too much. you need heavy paddles with weights or something.

Answer is first post quote:

Originally Posted by clicky

I've set up microbeasts with V2.0 software

So no flybar to put paddles or weight on

[pitchp]

omg you put the BX into that? I don't know what to say. I missed the bx part. That would be one very wild bird to fly. Talk to these BX lovers I guess. Ah Clem is a nice guy, he'll help you out. He's like you a 250 owner with BX

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=249805


Compass Head Bird

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhJWmnjMx_Q&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

[slamdance]

My advice is to do whatever is comfortable at your skill level. However, stick with ONE SETTING. When you start inverting it will be very tempting to toggle back and forth to more responsive and less responsive. Everything is more responsive when inverted, because the weight of the heli is on top of the blades acting like power steering on your cyclic. Versus, flying upright where the weight is under the main rotor. I have been able to progress with "one setting" flying both upright and inverted. As, you progress in skill it's ALMOST AUTOMATIC THAT YOU WILL DEMAND more heli response with less stick throw. That means more - expo for jr/skec(...or, +expo for futaba's). Don't rely on toggling back and forth when switching to upright and inverted. Trust your fingers. They will get lighting fast, so when you do inverted rolling circles, you don't need(and it's impossible) to toggle back and forth as you roll from invert to upright. STay safe keep simmin.

[clicky]

Thanks! I'm measuring level of control in pirouettes. If they turn ugly and I have hard time controlling them then inverted is scarier too. But, yesterday I decided to give it a go as it was nice and calm (virtually zero wind) and sunny (and quite warm for the time of the year) and lowered my Expo to 30% and D/R to 85% (tried to with bigger D/R but it didn't work well) and it worked for me far better than last time I tried it! Even inverted went without any problems - I was able to do slow and tight inverted circuits with them.

Only problem, now, is that I think I'll regress back to at least 40% expo as soon as breeze/wind returns as everyday's (read every Sunday's) reality...


BTW - I never ever had idea to toggle switch(es) between upright and inverted. Completely agree that it would be bad thing to do...

[povern]

Why do you think you have too much expo?

It is a personal feel or preference, no one says you need to have a Expo of x% or less...

But like one of the posters said above, pick one and stick with it while you are learning.

On my FBL protos I'm at 50%, on the FB protos I'm at 25%. But that is where I feel comfortable.

[johnpotter82]

You really shouldn't use more than 30-40% expo. Expo is not only to slow the bird down. its to make the sticks more linear. Your servos are quicker around center. So to make the controls more linear or constant they slow them in the beginning and speed them up over the part of the throw where they need to cover more ground. Your better off using dual rates. Especially if your not trying to do hard 3d. With 90% expo the ends of your controls must be totally unmanageable!!!!

[helinovice]

i think we're missing the point here.

If you're using over 50% expo to soften the centre, then you have waaaayyyy too much cyclic for you to handle.

You should be aiming for +/-10 pitch and 5degrees of cyclic as a good starting point with about 25% expo on all surfaces (FUTABA= negative, JR=positive) to soften the centre stick

if that is too much to handle, then reduce aileron and elevator travel to suit.

[clicky]

Originally Posted by helinovice

You should be aiming for +/-10 pitch and 5degrees of cyclic as a good starting point with about 25% expo on all surfaces (FUTABA= negative, JR=positive) to soften the centre stick

I think that's the problem - I don't have cyclics deflection in degrees anymore - it is handled by FBL unit - so I have only speed of rotation over elevator and aileron. And without expo and D/R only I end up with:

a) manageable heli where small stick movements translated to tiny heli movements, but quite slow roll rates
b) very quick flips/rolls, but very sensitive mid stick movements

Expo is giving me softer, not so sensitive mid stick and still quite fast cyclics on the edges. And problem was that when I got nice, controllable mid stick value, I ended up with very coarse control on last quarter of the stick movements and vice versa.

Anyway - I realised that I have to learn to fly very sensitive (around mid stick) heli in order to keep fast cyclics to the end...

Maybe it is just matter of getting used to sensitive sticks from now on...

[johnpotter82]

Using Duel rates electronically limits travel. Honestly your setup can be tamed, but its kind of like buying a Porsche and filling the trunk with bricks and trying to make the steering slower and putting in an automatic transmission. Just saying Protos + FBL = performance. I fly the flybar so i don't know how to tune a flybarless but you should post this question on the beast X forum. Isnt there a way to tune the flip and roll rates through the beast x. You may have to do some detective work. But trying to learn to fly with 90% expo is wrong. You will hurt your development in the long run. Like I said ask the FBL guys they will be of more help.

[helinovice]

Try sending Bobby Watts an email asking for some pointers as i do remember him using the beastX FBL units before the CGY701

Hope u get her sorted mate

[clicky]

Originally Posted by helinovice

Try sending Bobby Watts an email asking for some pointers as i do remember him using the beastX FBL units before the CGY701

Hope u get her sorted mate

Thanks! I was just curious what would people say what is better path as I asked below. Since then I started deliberately lowering EXPO (and D/R in some way) and making it more linear, more sensitive and just putting some time to get used to it. Also, last two months we, here, were quite lucky with the weather - I can't remember when we flew in the wind. And that helps a lot!

[Arclight338]

No shame in using expo. If you fly well with expo-you are still flying well. I don't think its a crutch. Don't argue with success.For me,I'd prefer to use D/R. +Expo(Jr/Spectrum) does indeed deaden a lively stick-but I don't like the way it feels. When you get out of the expo the controls get very fast, that's why I prefer a linear response.

[pitchp]

Originally Posted by johnpotter82

You really shouldn't use more than 30-40% expo. Expo is not only to slow the bird down. its to make the sticks more linear. Your servos are quicker around center. So to make the controls more linear or constant they slow them in the beginning and speed them up over the part of the throw where they need to cover more ground. Your better off using dual rates. Especially if your not trying to do hard 3d. With 90% expo the ends of your controls must be totally unmanageable!!!!

+1 I'd check the bird, to see if there is anything else mechanical or electrical, that needs tweaking. Something is definately not right there. i'm very sure there is something that can be done to prevent this 90% expo. That's not right somehow. This is a big bird we are talking about, it's not a micro.

Also we have to take into account, that this is his first protos. If I was given a protos I would hang out where the protos pilots are hanging. learn the bird.

clicky is a more experienced pilot than me, and I fly my 250s with 5% expo!! so that must say something about his protos. Something is definately in need of tweaking. Learn the Bird

[clicky]

Originally Posted by pitchp

+1 I'd check the bird, to see if there is anything else mechanical or electrical, that needs tweaking. Something is definately not right there. i'm very sure there is something that can be done to prevent this 90% expo. That's not right somehow. This is a big bird we are talking about, it's not a micro.

Also we have to take into account, that this is his first protos. If I was given a protos I would hang out where the protos pilots are hanging. learn the bird.

clicky is a more experienced pilot than me, and I fly my 250s with 5% expo!! so that must say something about his protos. Something is definately in need of tweaking. Learn the Bird

And that's Microbeast. It made a monster of my beloved Protos (and MT and Hk250GT). Actually HK did have tendency to enjoy bigger expo and D/R before as small twitchy bird (as 250s might be before FBL)...

Good explanation would be:

With microbeast you can much wider range of cyclic rotation speeds. With flybar you can get 1.5 rotation a second (I'm just inventing figures here - they might not be 100% accurate) in 'normal' setup (whatever 'normal' is - and it is opposite of 'crazy' where cyclics are maxed out and head speed is 'crazy'), while with FBL it is controlled with FBL system and can easily go 50% or more up.

Also, with flybar you have some inherited non-linearity (read 'expo'), while FBL system gives you linear rotation speeds. That, at 100% of D/R translates to very small stick movements causing much bigger than expected deflections. For instance tiny mid stick movement can cause heli to lean 5 to 10 degrees to one side. People, like me, who didn't get use to such sensitive helicopter had to do something about it. So Expo was natural choice. I didn't put too much D/R because I started enjoying really fast, precise rolls and flips but didn't like the trade off. So I put lots of expo.

Lots of expo means nice and not-so-sensitive mid stick and still crazy roll rates at the edges. But, consequence of it was that near the edges control was very grained and it didn't help with tic/tocs... Restricting D/R didn't help as I would lose rotational speed, so I had to just go and try to learn to fly it being more sensitive...

While writing this something else came to me - something I didn't consider before: stick lengths? If I increase them I can decrease sensitivity in the middle and increase stick top travel => keep the range Hm... I might go and try it!

[Arclight338]

Instead of using expo to calm the model down- take your ptich gauge and really measure and analyze your cyclic rate. Alot of guys set up a heli with all the attention paid to total collective pitch and leave the Alileron and Elevator settings at default in the Swash program.

If you find you need so much expo to fly-there is a good chance you have excessive elevator and aileron. +/- 5 degrees on aileron and elevator is going to be a big improvement of +/- 10 degrees. For instance if in your swash menu you have +60/+60 you can pretty much guarantee you have too much cyclic range for a new pilot.

[clicky]

You didn't read the whole thread :

1. it is FBL so - we're not talking about absolute pitch ranges here, but roll/flip rates
2. I wanted to have good roll/flip rates and yet it ended up being too sensitive around the middle of the stick.

FBL makes sticks being quite linear unlike flybar head, that, on its own introduces some expo (and some fliers started adding negative expo to counter it ).

Also, absolute values you're talking about work for some helicopters but not for some others! For Mini Titan (and even Protos) I was quite comfortable with +/-7 deg on cyclics with very little expo, but the same helicopters with FBL unit I needed to increase expo until I got used to such sensitive sticks around the middle...

BTW - what defines 'a new pilot'? :o