Progress Report

[ChopperNoob]

Hmm, im not sure what to do now. I was hoping to sell the 3gx as new if I was to sell it as I'd get a bit more to put towards a different FBL unit as I didn't really want to deal with the hassle of trying to get it right. I'm sure there's many people with a lot more heli experience than me that have given up on the 3gx so I figured to swap it out right away. I suppose I could wait to see if HH sort the ar7200bx update dilemma first as I really like the look of this unit. However if you say I only need one sattelite with the microbeast I may try one of those instead of waiting.

I'd sooner go with something that can be set up relatively easy than struggle with something and then lose heart in it through frustration. The 450's are a pain to work on as it is, I'm looking forwards to building the pro when I eventually get it but I know how fiddly they can be!!

I'll think about it some more but I'm tempted to just swap the 3gx out soon as. Thanks for your advice Sutty, no doubt I'll be asking some more questions when it comes to setting up the FBL unit

It's amazing how much longer the days feel now, not as much pressure to get everything done in the small window of daylight I'm used to. Glad you had a good flight

I took the 450 and 500 out today and flew all 4 packs through the 450 and 2 through the bigger bird. Today's flying was the best I've ever done. All packs flown in idle up, 90-100 percent throttle fast circuits, figure eights and a bit of inverted, loops and hover practise. No crashes, not even a close call. Brilliant fun, I need more packs for both helis though, I didn't want to go home today!!

Anyway, hopefully I'll have the pro soon, I may even get a surprise heli related item off the mrs for my birthday in may

[dauste]

Maybe Chris can tell us what he thinks of the 3GX on his 600. He has flown vbar as well. I had a quick go with it and it seemed fine to me and I know he has only set up using the default settings. Judging by how he was flying today, I'd say there is nothing wrong with them. Can you believe he was doing piro-flips on the 600 already!! (not jealous) lol

[ChopperNoob]

Yes, I'd be interested to hear from someone who owns one.

So if someone can get it to work fine and someone else struggles what's the cause? There must be a reason why it won't works for some and not for others. Any thoughts?

[sutty]

Yes I can believe it, as his progress has been truly monumental. Grantish in his rate of improvement. Great news though and I look forward to your next video. Hopefully you'll include one of your flights as well.

Could be right about the 3GX, maybe the new ones are better. I haven't had one, I just wanted to report what I had heard from those who had clearly had problems. Just an impression, or feeling that I have, but I think it is more tricky on smaller helis. I know this is true of the MB too. You can literally throw the MB on a 600 and just take off without altering any of the flight parameter settings and they fly amazingly. This is not the case with a 250. Not that it is hard to get this right, it is just that they won't fly with default settings on smaller helis. 450 needed a few tweaks too. 550, nothing, 600, nothing.

Cheers

Sutty

[chansen1953]

hi guys, I did end up getting the 7200Bx unit, because of the Receiver/beastx combo ..

I can report the following ... ( given that I have never had a FBL system before, never seen one up close, or even vaguely aware of how they actually work !!)

1. unit would not bind to my DX7 till I fitted a normal Satellite receiver.. ( Iused my normal one I had on the AR72000 !!)
2. the thing took me quite a while to get my head around how to program it using the LED lights and TX stick... ( so it would be nice to see Spektrum bring out some software to connect via usb ? )
3. I could not get to the second (or RHS ) menu, and the instructions vere a bit vague.. finally got there, and found out that a lot othese functions should have been done before the first menu settings.. so a bit confused as to the correct order to program the settings.
4. the setting to set the pitch endpoints for full pos and full neg pitch, which causes all of the servos to move till they hit the hard-points...can actually cause a lot of current to be drawn .. in fact after a good 10 mins of trying to get it right.. POP and my 10A align volt reg blew and the AR7200BX went a bit funny.

After the overvoltage , it would init and bind ok, but not let me enter any prog. states..
I have sent it back, and my supplier sent it on to Spektrun.. now over 4 weeks ago and I have heard nothing !!!

so , I have a bit of a bad taste regarding this unit.. but I will persevere as I have already put a few hundred $$ into this FBL conversion... so I would like to see it thru !!

[Tomstoy2]

Damn Chris, I know your frustration! Having 7 different controllers, one of which I haven't even started on yet, it's hard to not only wrap your mind around what you need to do, but to keep it all straight as every single one of them is different.
Plus, all my fbl controllers are now behind on the software upgrades, too!

Honestly, the worst experience was the BeastX. I only got thru that with Sutty's help. Not that it was hard, just I had preconcieved notions from other experience clogging my mind up! Not to mention being mentally incapacitated from all the drugs the doctors had me on.

The DJI Wookong M was a hell of a lot of fun, too! But damn, that thing is worth every penny I spent!!! Just ordered some 8" Graupner props for the Hexa today, too.
What I need now is a government grant to afford the Waypoint navigation system to accompany it.

It's good to hear from you, though. Been too long, my friend. Hope winter isn't treating you too bad down under in Oz?

[dauste]

Originally Posted by sutty

Could be right about the 3GX, maybe the new ones are better. I haven't had one, I just wanted to report what I had heard from those who had clearly had problems. Just an impression, or feeling that I have, but I think it is more tricky on smaller helis. I know this is true of the MB too. You can literally throw the MB on a 600 and just take off without altering any of the flight parameter settings and they fly amazingly. This is not the case with a 250. Not that it is hard to get this right, it is just that they won't fly with default settings on smaller helis. 450 needed a few tweaks too. 550, nothing, 600, nothing.

Cheers

Sutty

I think you are right, these things seem a lot more critical to set-up on a small heli. You can get away with the geometry not being quite right on the bigger ones. Also we have modellers with greatly varying mechanical/electrical and fault finding skills, so that needs to be accounted for when you get people saying they can't quite get things to work properly.

Originally Posted by sutty

Yes I can believe it, as his progress has been truly monumental. Grantish in his rate of improvement. Great news though and I look forward to your next video. Hopefully you'll include one of your flights as well.


Sutty

Yes, I would say Grantesque! LOL

As for a vid of me flying... well I have this special technique that I employ when ever anyone gets a camera out to film me. Basically I fly around so fast with such mad stops and turns they find it impossible to keep me in frame. That way there is no evidence of how bad my flying is!! After such a flight on Sunday, Tommy commented that he couldn't believe the blades on my heli don't just get ripped off!

[sutty]

Grantesque, so much more eloquent than I.

Blade splitting, flitting around like a dragon fly, is exactly what I want to see. Tell your mates to learn how to predict what you are going to do next.

Cheers

Sutty

[chansen1953]

hi tom, yes, winter has not really hit us yet.. just slowly getting colder and less and less flying days..
I did bag out the Spektrum Ar7200Bx in my last post.. and got home yesterday to find that the unit has been replaced by spektrum, and is in the post and should be here today !!
also.. I have not really even got the heli spooled up once yet with the AR7200BX.. so cannot really complain that much...

I have just had bad luck with voltage regulators blowing up my avionics !!\

My quad is flying fine, and I use it to let off steam when heli flying is out... but I still havent got around to too much camera work... my good quality camera is too heavy for it and my el-cheapo is just that... too cheap to really be any good !!

It is a public holiday tomorrow..(ANZAC DAY - remembrance day for war heroes !) so
hoping to get out to LMAF if weather is good, and get come batts thru the 600 that is working ( one with CPII !!)..

[redbird300]

A first test of that new Voltron GPS data logger today, on the relatively slow Logo500SE, which is in fact a 500-550 stretched to a light 600. Simply a flat run, figure eight wise, not even starting from a high dive. A modest 1900 RPM and 12 degrees pitch at most, not really that bad, not ?

[sutty]

lol, you're just a speed freak!

[Tomstoy2]

Mount it on the end of the boom, see how fast it moves during piro-flips!

[Tomstoy2]

Had my first 'under the goggles' flight today!

Got my fpv gear on my f450 FlameWheel. Did a 6 minute flight, only wrecked twice!

The first one, well, the sky, you see, was overcast. I had my eye glasses inside the goggles and that caused them to kind of sit wierd.
Ok, these are excuses. It was all me, hit a weed and flipped over. No damage.

Second one, I'm up there, getting used to the stick from the cockpit experience, thinking, 'this ain't so bad'. Noticed I was up kind of high so brought it down and back, getting a little more comfortable, wishing the sky was clear though, kind of dark under the goggles.
Doing good when I hit another weed. This one broke 2 props, so I was done.

Checked the motors and esc's, all on a luke warm side. I'm out of 9 inch props so will try the 10 inch instead. I suspect this might be too much for the small 330xs motors and esc's, but worth a try.

My impression, pretty cool! I can deffinately see getting into it more. Looking forward to experimenting more with it.
I do need a spotter. If for no other reason that to mark where she goes down. Under the goggles, unless you have reference, you have no clue. It took about 5 minutes to find it behind the big weed I hit.


Also, put the 8 inch props back on the Hexa to try after my dynamic balancing of all the motors.
Quite a difference!
It's blowing about 10 mph and 75 degree's F, and my gains are a little on the low side. Still, the motors sounded very happy in flight! GPS was pretty stable, but needs more gain to hold position.
I'm trying to find a happy medium to fly between wind and calm without having to resort to putting gains on a dial on the radio. Just another damn thing to keep track of, in my opinion.

So, last day of vacation. The roof is done, I got a little flying done. No fishing, though. Was way too sore after the roof to do much, still am, really.
Looking forward to going back to work. Next day off in 16 days!

[chansen1953]

Hi tom,

great to see you are finally taking the goggle view.. sounds awesome.. !

I am still working on my AR7200Bx..

finally got some time to sit down, and all of the programming via the stick seems to work work ok.. I now have a fairly good grasp of how to set/change the settings , so can do even at the field, which will be handy..

I seem to have only one problem I need to solve , which I can not seem to find a way..
I finally got all of the servos moving the right direction , at least for AIL/ELE directions, and I have set the cyclic PITch range, top, middle and bottom..

but..

The middle seems to be a fair way from zero pitch.. but maybe that is not really a problem..

The Pitch seems to be reversed.. ie I push up on the stick and the Swash moves UP but the blade pitch is actually going Negative.. So this must be normal for FBL...
I don't see that it is a problem which way the swash actually moves, as long as I get POSITIVE pitch when I push the Stick UP and Negative when stick DOWN..

I just cannot seem to find the right settings in the AR7200Bx.. any suggestions or should I go look for Forums devoted to Beastx or AR7200BX ?

[Tomstoy2]

Are you sure you have the blade grip control arms on the leading, not trailing side of the grip? Sounds to me like you actually have trailing hooked up to the links.

FBL works the same as fb.

I'm sure Sutty can get you all straightened out. He'll pop in as soon as he wakes up.

[ragge1]

chris , when i parameter G , seting 90° , you set the head so you have 0 pitch ,

IMPORTANT:

Menu point (G) does not have a time limit.

- Adjust the cyclic/swashplate linkage rods according
to your helicopter manual. The swashplate should be
centered and the main blades should have 0

° of pitch.

Always make rod length adjustments from the bottom

(servos) to the top (blade grips).

when this step in correct , at K you adjust the max and min trottle range and you will have 0 pitch at midstick

[sutty]

Hi Chris

You can just ask in the FBL forum for MB here on HeliFreak. Every answer is in there, I promise. Including a load of videos and a bunch of set-up stickies. If you don't want to ask in there then you can just ask me. I am almost an expert as I have read every single post in there for about the last two years, and I nearly remember them all, for some strange reason. Interest I guess.

HF MB Forum

As Tom said you may have trailing edge control, which is not accpetable. It does make a difference. If you do have this configuration, change it to leading edge control by flipping the grips, and then select reverse on the pitch channel in your TX servo reversing screen. Then continue with the rest of the set-up.

Cheers

sutty

[jperkosk]

Just out of curiosity: why the trailing edge control is not acceptable?

Obviously Chris has something reversed in his setup but if his blades go to negative pitch with upward stick movement then it's enough to flip the swashplate mix pitch setting to the opposite, isn't it?

[ragge1]

when I had two trex500 , one was trailing edge and the other leading edge and I didn't have any issues what so ever , had both beastx and vbar and they worked just fine

[sutty]

Originally Posted by jperkosk

Just out of curiosity: why the trailing edge control is not acceptable?

Dunno Jerry, it just isn't, lol. I think, and I am by no means certain on this, but I believe it has to do with the chord wise balance of FBL blades and how the system control loops are optimised to deal with this. It you like I will find out officially?

I have no doubt that it would work, it is just my belief that it will not be optimal, otherwise why would it say it must be. Probably a little like using none FBL blades, or analogue servos. They work, but just not at its best.

Cheers

Sutty