Total Frustration!!!

[acbuilder]

I bought the Reflex XTR program. Installed and it starts up fine. Problem is heli just goes wild and rolls over. I've tried different ones like Raptor 30 and Logo. (that's the one I need) I am using a 9CHP, all mix set to INH.

So far my old G2 beats this German thing.

Any Clues?

[mevigavant]

try starting it at half stick. this helps on my friends xtr.

[Dan Lewis]

Make sure the radio is set to PPM mode. In XTR, go to the help menu (top right '?') and select "Quick Start". Also, I've heard that a few people have had faulty connectors where the soldering points were not done right.

[WillJames]

I had the faulty connector problem. once I soldered one of the wires on the interface worked fine and I really enjoy flying Reflex. Thanks Dan and Shannon for helping me see the light.

[acbuilder]

The heli I choose is sitting idle when the program starts. As soon as I hit F4 to run the sim the heli will go full throotle and crash. I have tried setting center and re-doing calibration. No luck. I will test wires in the connector. Any other clues?

[WillJames]

You are running PPM right? What radio are you using?

[Dan Lewis]

Once you make sure you're using PPM, then we need to make sure your channel assignment is right.

Make sure you use a new program - to be used only by reflex. Call it 'reflex' or something - that's what I did. Then open up the channel display and channel assignment windows (off the radio menu F7 & F8). Let's take a look at those first. Please post a picture similar to the one I've attached here.

[Laurens]

Change throttle or pitch into -

[acbuilder]

I am running a Futaba 9CHP and I have it set to PPM. Dan I will look at how my chanels are set up and report back.

[acbuilder]

Dan, Thanks I got it working. Just can't find a way to turn off the govenor. hmm... still not as easy as the G2. Background graphics are great but without being able to accurately adjust radio how do you get the feel of you own heli? Frankly for a sim I want realism in handling and I do not care what the backround looks like. :?

[Dan Lewis]

I agree that great cool graphics aren't essential but realism in physics are. I don't think that any two heli's will act precisely the same, but you can get them really close. Consider that your reflex heli is just really close. This sim is a big improvement on handling over G2, but maybe not G3. I don't know because I haven't had an opportunity to try G3. I hear other sims are great but I haven't tried them. XTR, with some help getting it setup, can be a great tool for learning - one of the best. RealFlight sims are definitely easy to use out of the box and that's a tremendous advantage to newcomers. No sim will entirely reproduce real life yet. However, the little bit of setup you learn with XTR will be a big help with your real heli. For example, the channel display window is an accurate representation of your servo travel. You adjust your real radio the same way you setup XTR. You can make a change to your radio program and you'll get an accurate and appropriate change in the simulator.

I'm not sure where you're at as far as learning, so this may not apply to you: Focus on practicing orientation to start - get a somewhat stable hover. Get it under control. Then progress to side and front view hovering. When you're bored, fly around in circles and get a feel for inverted. It takes weeks or months of practice and repetition to get where these orientations are automatic. The details of heli setup will come and you'll continue to tweak your reflex heli the same way you'll make little adjustments to your real heli's. If you get too bogged down in setup then, for some, this can be discouraging. The little bit of setup you do in reflex is nothing compared to the hours/days/weeks of setup with your real heli's.

Now about the governor... At first, in order to not have to set the pitch curve in the radio, consider using the governor all of the time. If you want to try out the heli with no governor, then you'll need to learn how to setup your radio's collective and throttle pitch curves in normal flight mode and idle up. To start, make sure that under model > modify model params, or F5, you have the governor unchecked and mixing checked (like in the attached picture here). It might help to skim over the help file on that menu real quick too.

Again, I'm not sure how much experience you have, so maybe you already know this: For a basic starting point to learn with XTR, your radio should have a linear (bottom left to top right) pitch curve in normal and idle up. When you switch to idle up, your throttle curve should be closer to a U or V in shape, or somewhere in between. As you advance, this will change, but I think this is enough to get started.

[WillJames]

Look around the FREAK, there is a killer Evo 50 uploaded here. There is also a site in Germany that once you register you can download a bunch of good flying Reflex Models. http://www.rcsim.de/

[acbuilder]

Dan Thanks for the words of wisdom. You're absolutely right setting up the sim is nothing compared to the hours we spend setting up the RC heli. I think I was expecting a more sophisticated sim that would allow me to program various curves etc. in the actual radio I use at the field.
As far as experience, I fly an Excel Gasser, Raptor 30V2, Logo 10, and Hornet II. I believe the simulators are great teaching tools for those just starting out. God knows my G2 saved me thousands! However as we advance and want to fine-tune our set ups, experiment with various power systems etc. this generation of sims although capable of realistic graphics does not reproduce a real world feedback experience.
Thanks for your insightful information. This is what makes these forums so great! I'll keep plugging away at the sim.
:cool:

[heliplt]

Originally Posted by Baja170

I had the faulty connector problem. once I soldered one of the wires on the interface worked fine and I really enjoy flying Reflex. Thanks Dan and Shannon for helping me see the light.

Hey Will, mine to had a faulty connection in the socket where you plug in the interface on the radio......... it's a 8U radio


I think I have it fixed now

[WillJames]

GREAT!!! Glad to hear you figured it out. I feel your pain, I struggled with mine for hours before Shannon talked me into opening up the interface!! Glad you got it working!!

[TMoore]

However as we advance and want to fine-tune our set ups, experiment with various power systems etc. this generation of sims although capable of realistic graphics does not reproduce a real world feedback experience.

I don't know what you have heard but sims are for one thing and it isn't practicing your setup skills, it's for flying. That's all any modern sim is going to do for you. Setup skills are best practiced on the real thing.

TM

[the collective]

Originally Posted by acbuilder

I think I was expecting a more sophisticated sim that would allow me to program various curves etc. in the actual radio I use at the field.

acbuilder,

Reflex will allow you to do just that if you like. I have two different setups in my 9C for Refles. One is a bare bones setup, nothing at all programmed into the transmitter, and I use the built in Reflex governor and setup functions with it.

The other is set up just like for an actual heli. To use this one, I turn OFF all the built in Reflex stuff. No governor, no throttle-pitch mix, etc. I set the Reflex model to have a range of +12 to -12 on the collective, and then do everything in the transmitter, just like I was setting up an actual heli. Pitch curves, throttle curves, cyclic-throttle mix, the whole shebang.

If you're interested, PM me and I can go through all the gory details of this method with you, or if there's enough interest maybe I can write it up and post it here... But to be completely honest, Terry is right... I find it much more rewarding to just fly the simple setup and let Reflex handle everything, and just use it for hand training.

David

[WillJames]

I would be very interested to see a writeup David. I have just started to experiment with tweaking the radio and it had not ever occurred to me to turn off all the built in stuff in Reflex itself to... I am still flying your EVO, it is the best most realistic flying Reflex Heli I have flown to date with Reflex.

Very cool!!!

[the collective]

Okay, I'll get to work on it... I should have it ready in a couple of days.

[WillJames]

Sweet thank you!!