New addition to the hanger (Walkera 4G3)

[Ampdraw]

Originally Posted by Steve Joblin

Wow... Am I reading that correctly? $14 (including shipping) for 5 pairs of blades? That is a pretty good price! How good is the balance on them?

Identical in quality to the wk foamies...so the balance, track etc just as well. One slight mod has to be done to the root to allow them to fold in the grips...just round with a file. I add a little white band to the tips prior to balancing as they are hard to see but nicer to look at!

Construction is the same just the casing is a teeny bit thicker.
Amp

[KCMike]

Well, I've installed a few parts (new main tail gear, blades, and the head piece that broke). It seems to be flying much worse. It's requiring full right rudder trim, which is obviously issues with the tail.

[Dusty1000]

So the tail is going to the left, which indicates too much power from the tail motor - the usual complaint is not enough power

You should be able to fix that by turning the ''mix'' screw on the 4 in 1 down a fraction.

Dusty

[KCMike]

Actually the tail is going to the right (nose to the left).

I fixed it last night after a really good inspection of the heli. The issue? The tail wasn't holding due to a bent tail shaft. It was barely bent but noticeable. The issue went away after I straightened it out.

In the midst of all the down time, which is caused by me crashed it, I've actually learned to hover quite well. I was able to hover in a pretty small area in between some cubes last night with a fair amount of ease. Flying does take a ton of cyclic input, but once she's flying well it is more stable then I thought. It just drives me nuts when it looses tail control.

The other aspect I find interesting is I've yet to fly a simulator. I attribute my hovering ability to RADD's lessons and the mSR.

[Dusty1000]

Oh yeah, looks like I had my directions mixed up :o

I've had a few bent tail motor shafts when I had the brushed tail - happens easily, glad you got it fixed.

I learned to hover with my HBFP without a simulator after 2 months with coax helis, IMO sims become more useful once you want to learn stuff like the inverted orientations, pity Radd doesn't include that in his flight lessons too

Dusty

[cleansho93]

Originally Posted by KCMike

Actually the tail is going to the right (nose to the left).

I fixed it last night after a really good inspection of the heli. The issue? The tail wasn't holding due to a bent tail shaft. It was barely bent but noticeable. The issue went away after I straightened it out.

In the midst of all the down time, which is caused by me crashed it, I've actually learned to hover quite well. I was able to hover in a pretty small area in between some cubes last night with a fair amount of ease. Flying does take a ton of cyclic input, but once she's flying well it is more stable then I thought. It just drives me nuts when it looses tail control.

The other aspect I find interesting is I've yet to fly a simulator. I attribute my hovering ability to RADD's lessons and the mSR.

Glad to hear you got the tail issue worked out! I wonder if it was bent when I had it and I never noticed? Though I was not having the tail issues that you described.

Sounds like your are progressing very quickly with this heli! Thats great because this will most likely be the hardest CP heli you will fly do to its size. They only get easier as they get bigger! Wait till you fly a 600...

Good luck and happy flying!

[KCMike]

No worries, cleansho, I actually bent it. I actually bought a replacement gear (which comes with a new shaft and the rubber piece). I banged the hell out of the tail at work and must have damaged it.

I'm a bit surprised at how well I'm doing. Typically it takes me quite a while to learn new things (guitar anyone?). I'll see about getting a video this weekend.

Once I was past the nervousness, I did pretty well overall. The part I'm struggling with is bringing it back down safely. I'm so used to throttling down. Now, I'm working on just staying out of trouble or flying out of trouble instead of just cutting the throttle like I do on the CX2 or mSR.

[KCMike]

Update -- Now I have no lift. Even at full throttle the 4G3 barely gets light under the skids (even using different batteries).

Is the main motor perhaps going out?

[jgupton]

Originally Posted by KCMike

Update -- Now I have no lift. Even at full throttle the 4G3 barely gets light under the skids (even using different batteries).

Is the main motor perhaps going out?

Check your blade tracking and ensure that you have positive pitch. Sometimes a crash can cause a lot of chaos in this area. I've had crashes where the control rods to the mixing arms pop off and I didn't realize until I tried to take off w/out any luck.

Every time I've had the symptom you've described has been a blade/head issue.

As an aside, does your motor sound like it has less power when spinning? If it sounds like it's spinning like normal, I wouldn't start there. If not and if it's the brushed version, I've heard that they don't last so long. If it's brushless, it could be the motor or it's possible that the esc is starting to go bad. An option here is to remove the connector between the motor and the esc and solder the motor wires directly to the esc. In fact, after I did this I got a LOT more power from both of my helis (4g3 and 4g6).

[KCMike]

To be honest, I'm not sure how to check that. Also, I think it might be the motor. It doesn't sound right or like it's spinning as fast as it did before. I've ordered 2 new brushed motors from wowhobbies.com.

[jgupton]

Originally Posted by KCMike

To be honest, I'm not sure how to check that. Also, I think it might be the motor. It doesn't sound right or like it's spinning as fast as it did before. I've ordered 2 new brushed motors from wowhobbies.com.

If there's enough of a problem with the blades, it may sound like the motor isn't running as fast due to bogging (too much pitch slows the motor).

Short and quick on tracking, hold the heli by hand so that it cannot escape or injure you or anyone nearby (I usually hold it firmly by the two rear servos) - spin up the blades and eyeball from the side whether the blades are in the same plane. If you can see one or the other being higher or lower (this is where the red and blue tape at the tips comes in handy), you need to adjust the rods that come from the swash plate up to the mixing arms (the piece connected towards its center to the blade grip as well as to the flybar rods on the outside and to the swash plate rods on the inside).

You need to check/adjust tracking every time you replace blades (even if you take off and replace the same blades). You should also buy a balancer as every set of blades I've ever gotten required at least some balancing - and without it, the heli's going to vibrate and the tail is going to get more difficult to handle.

There's a lot more to this and I think the finless videos on this site dealing with setup and maintenance might be a good place to start. The guy at my LHS has also been great at helping me learn as have the folks on this forum and over at RCGroups.

Bottom line, without making sure these things are right, there's a good chance the heli is going to fly poorly - or possibly not at all.

[KCMike]

I see what you mean regarding pitch. I understand the principle but when it comes to the settings (p+ @ 40%, etc.) I don't really understand that w/ the 4G3. Perhaps I need to read the manual more thoroughly in order to gain that knowledge.

Last night at work I watched the Tracking 101 video. The little guy has a pretty big tracking issue to be honest. In the video Finless talked about corrected it on a T-Rex. What's the best option for correcting it on the 4G3? Blade balancing?

[jgupton]

Originally Posted by KCMike

I see what you mean regarding pitch. I understand the principle but when it comes to the settings (p+ @ 40%, etc.) I don't really understand that w/ the 4G3. Perhaps I need to read the manual more thoroughly in order to gain that knowledge.

Last night at work I watched the Tracking 101 video. The little guy has a pretty big tracking issue to be honest. In the video Finless talked about corrected it on a T-Rex. What's the best option for correcting it on the 4G3? Blade balancing?

Actually, I'd remove and balance the blades as the first step. I got a cheap balancer for about $6 at my LHS - probably the best $6 I've spent on the heli. If you do minor damage to the blades, you can try and do a little repair with scotch tape (also what I use for adding weight to the lighter blade) and then rebalance - every little change can affect the weight. Also, if you have damage to your blades, this can really screw up the lift characteristics, so you have the decide when you want to replace.

On the tracking, I like to figure out which blade is higher and seek first to lower it. The reason being is that to lower the blade you are shortening the connection rod from the swash plate (I figure shorter is less likely to pull out of the threads). Look at the mixing arm on the front (leading) edge of the high blade and then shorten that connecting rod - reattach the connecting rod (you'll disconnect/reconnect at the swash) and recheck the tracking. You'll have to do a bit of trial and error to figure it out, but you should see the impact pretty quickly. Your objective is to have both blades in the same plane to where you can no longer distinguish between one or the other.

As for throttle/pitch settings, these tend to vary by pilot. I'm still figuring out what I like, but the key is to have the blades exactly level (0 degrees pitch) at 50% throttle in idle up/stunt mode and ensuring that there is equal throw above an below this point (i.e. the swash can move up/down without hitting the head at the top or the stop collar at the bottom). Getting this setup will help you to know that the pitch you think you're setting is really what you're getting.

Incidentally are you using the 2801 computerized transmitter, or do you have the stock version? I don't have the stock one, so I don't know how any of the settings are managed, but the 2801 is pretty easy to do (somewhat graphical in nature).

[KCMike]

I believe it's the 2801. The heli is at work so I'll have to check later on this afternoon/evening.

This is the type of stuff that confuses me with the 4G3.

dip 10 - v1 = 80% / v2 = -20%
dip 11 - v1 = 0% / v2 = -20%
dip 12 - v1 = 75% / v2 = 40%

Is there a process for setting this up? Do I turn on, intialize, add the settings, and then turn everything off and back on? I don't really understand what types to take in order to make changes (like with the E-Flite line).

[jgupton]

The dip settings (presumably from the manual) are for dip switches on the standard radio - I've never dealt with it (thankfully ) so I can't advise you how that translates.

The 2801 is computerized with a small led screen at the bottom center. All of the pitch and throttle (and tons more) settings are handled through menus as opposed to dip switches. Kind of like using a GUI interface on a pc today vs a punch card type computer from the 50s (overstating it a bit - but you get the point).

Focus first on the blade balancing/tracking and then making sure the swash is level (which it maybe already is since it sounds like it was setup by someone from whom you bought it) at 50% stick/idle up1.

[KCMike]

I think it's setup fine. We'll see here in a few days when I receive a new motor. I also wanted to add, I don't have the digital radio (as I'm sure you can tell from my dip switch comment ).

I have a DX6i, which has REALLY spoiled me.

[KCMike]

Well son of a ...

I'm $200+ into this bad boy and it's driving me mad. I finally recieved in my new motors and after I installed the new motor I wasn't getting any power. After further inspection I found out the battery connection cable going into the 5-n-1 had come completely off, or un-soldered.

Holy hell? How did that happen? It's right up against the board so it'll be about impossible to fix. The cheapest I found the the 5-n-1 for is $28, including shipping.

I hate to poo-poo Walkera & Novus, but I'm beginning to think I should have stuck wit the E-Flite products. I'll try and take a picture of the issue this weekend.

[Beckler]

You should be able to resolder it unless the board is damaged itself.

And yeah people don't like to admit it, but Walkera is junk quality. I recommend patience. As an avid 4G3er, once you get it all working just right (not that hard) it's quite excellent, and is unique for its size. If Align made something the very same size, I wouldn't even consider Walkera.

[KCMike]

I'll have to take a picture of it. I have a few soldering skills but this one is gonna be harsh.

[jgupton]

Originally Posted by KCMike

Well son of a ...

I'm $200+ into this bad boy and it's driving me mad. I finally recieved in my new motors and after I installed the new motor I wasn't getting any power. After further inspection I found out the battery connection cable going into the 5-n-1 had come completely off, or un-soldered.

Holy hell? How did that happen? It's right up against the board so it'll be about impossible to fix. The cheapest I found the the 5-n-1 for is $28, including shipping.

I hate to poo-poo Walkera & Novus, but I'm beginning to think I should have stuck wit the E-Flite products. I'll try and take a picture of the issue this weekend.

If you've got the brushless setup, the battery connection going into the receiver isn't used. The power goes through the esc and its connection to the receiver provides the power. When you say you're not getting any power, do you mean that the receiver light isn't coming on (i.e. absolutely no power), or are you saying that the bird was the way it was previously and was not powerful enough to lift off (sorry - not getting any power could be interpreted in several ways).

If it's not brushless, you may want to consider that if you're in the position of replacing the 4in1. I believe there is a newer recevier (2605a I believe) which outputs a brushless signal. The brushless is supposed to last a LOT longer and also has more power. If you do go this route you're also looking a new motor and esc (cheapest I've seen the motor is $16 or so at rotorfever - I think he's got the esc for $9 right now).