My 500L headspeed hack

[nabl74]

There area a few current threads on pinion upgrades 12T -> 13T and options around whether to slot the frame or the motor mount.

I thought id share how I went about achieving a 2900 head speed on my 500L without upgrading the pinion. First things first, I am certainly not advocating the approach below as anything more than something which i have comfort with based on my experiences.

Ill describe what I did now, and follow with the basis of my setup.

Its a well known fact that castle gov has more headroom than what typically comes up in the castle software when connected to your heli. Armed with this and also knowing a similar method was prescribed by Nick Maxwell for align 700's some time ago. I experimented with the castle hack on my 500L / talon 90.

Normally if you enter all information into the castlelink program as normal (i.e battery info entered as nominal volts 3.7v and 6cells)


you get something like this where governed headspeeds of 2400 / 2700 and 2900 hs (basically telling you 2900 is too fast)


However, you go into battery settings and increase the overall voltage of the batteries either nominally or overall (Again id advise incrementally doing this - for safety and also to allow you to get used to changing heli flying properties - agility / response change with increasing head speed). My final values don't go past 25.5V (I use an overall volts approach - Like below images), you'll find your head speeds can be tweaked on the main page.


Id strongly recommend however that with a 12T pinion you don't go past volts necessary to achieve anything more than 2900. If you do a MrMels calc check and use Castle output check, you'll find it recommends a 12T pinion for up to 2900 and has a maximum head speed of 2870 - 2900 based on a 12Tpinion / 134 slant tooth / 1600KV motor configuration.

Most people are also aware that the castle esc's don't like operating at lower than their 70-80% max head speed equivalent setting, anything lower usually results in less efficient esc operation / higher temperature build ups during flight. Just from what I have read from more knowledgeable people on the esc side of things. But ive validated this for myself in the past. A flight at 2400 for the whole flight usually results in higher motor temp and esc temp compared with 2700.

Over the last 6months of flying my 500L, I have kept my idle normal 2400 / idleup 1 2700, but gradually pushed my idle up 2 from 2750 to 2800 to 2850 and finally 2900. I have been operating on a 12T pinion and the same ESC on a 2900 head speed using the battery tweak approach for about 3 months now (thats well in excess of 100 flights).

In this time my motor has been coming back warm and not very hot (why I don't have any concerns). Ill do some temperature ray gun readings over the next week or so right after each flights and post these together with ambient temperature readings to provide some evidential data (given the talon 90 doesn't have logs).

My batteries also don't come down any hotter than normal so long as I don't run them down any lower than 30% (about 3.80V per cell on average). When doing lots of tic tocs / and hard pitch pumping during a single flight im finding flight times are around 4:30min. When flying big air style / speed runs / inverted funnel and more general precision flying though closer to 5min is what im getting with 2900hs and the above approach.

Governer readings using both optical head measuring and also electronic headspeed devices show my gov maintains between 2850-2890 head speeds with no problem and logs show headspeed and gov response is pretty consistent running good. Ill follow this post with some readings / photos.

Lets get this right though. HS at 2900 is all about getting more pop / excellent tail holding and doing more 3d flying. Im not at a level to warrant 13T pinion and hs over 3000 so 2900 does the job for me very nicely indeed.

Running 2900hs also results in your heli sounding very tuned and smooth also. She sounds so much better at 2900 than when I run her at 2700 (idle up 1).

The above approach is based on the following talon 90 overall settings (which have remained unchanged from day 1 of setup)


Also just some background info to people who want to know if I have anything different on my heli.
The only non standard elements are:
- the i2rc swashplate (zero slop even after 100+ flights after installation), much better than the stock align swashplate.
- i2rc tail grips which come with chinese weights standard for better tail response and balancing.
- bk7005 tail servo mini case and frame modifications to suit.
- tail hub frame modification (purely for speed fuselage purposes) - no performance reasoning.
- talon 90 (obviously) this whole post is about it LOL.
- Running stock tail blades but with the higher head speed using Rail 426 main blades.

Here are the associated pics of my heli. 14 months on from day 1 of build. 4crashes in all, 2 of which were due to dumb thumbs, standard rebuilds (not major), 3rd one was due to poor soldering had battery desolder mid inverted funnel, but managed to flip over and auto down with semi hard landing requiring skid replacement only, and last one (occurred yesterday). Took off in normal (forgot to go into I1 or I2) and went inverted after full collective backwards flip pushout (have been practicing nose in takeoff with full positive pitch to backwards flip pushout followed by fast half piro to upright nose out).

Well, when I went inverted and naturally full negative pitch, esc saw zero and soft started inverted. Was close to ground and had a soft landing on head button in long bushes. Only cracked a ball joint and was back in air within 1 hour (After double checking the heli and feathering shaft) LOL.

Here are installation photos of the non standard components.

i2rc swashplate


BK7005 tail servo with mods


i2rc tail grips


Talon 90 (install with just enough clearance for battery lever)


AS you guessed by the detail and length of this post, today is 500L love day LOL. Going to finish it all off with a following new thread post on my speed fuselage setup. Looks great with speed fuselage.

[kiosk]

Man luv those tail grips, I want that but it's a bit pricey, nice job

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[Ignatjev]

Nice, what batteries are you running by getting such a long flight time at 2900?

[nabl74]

I'm using 3300 60c batteries.
Atom 3300 60c
Also use nanotech turnigy 3300 45-70c batteries. With the nanotech ( which are about 1 year old) get a bit less flight time).

[gixerfien]

still if your looking to get over 3000+ you have to do one of the mods.

HUGE overlook on Aligns behalf, how they missed this when every previous 500 version had adjustability.

I'm the guys who posted the pics of slotting the motor mount on the cnc machine instead of slotted the carbon which i didn't like that idea.

I'm running 3200 governed with 13t on a yep90a!!!!

[nabl74]

Originally Posted by gixerfien

still if your looking to get over 3000+ you have to do one of the mods.

HUGE overlook on Aligns behalf, how they missed this when every previous 500 version had adjustability.

I'm the guys who posted the pics of slotting the motor mount on the cnc machine instead of slotted the carbon which i didn't like that idea.

I'm running 3200 governed with 13t on a yep90a!!!!

Nice

Just installed my 13t and upgraded my speedy to a hobby wing 100a platinum pro

Cant wait to test her at 3000

Also followed your lead and filed out the holes on the motor mount. Didnt need much though



Sent from my SM-G928I using Tapatalk

[gixerfien]

Originally Posted by nabl74

Nice

Just installed my 13t and upgraded my speedy to a hobby wing 100a platinum pro

Cant wait to test her at 3000

Also followed your lead and filed out the holes on the motor mount. Didnt need much though



Sent from my SM-G928I using Tapatalk

NICE !!!

She screams pretty decent at 3200!!! lol, been running that since I had it pretty much over a year now.

Cool, ya I think it's defenetly the better route longating the motor mount holes instead....and ya you don't need much, I just made sure when I did mine that I had enough room if I were to ever need to go to a 14t for any reason like changing the motor or anything.

[nowler]

the motor holes in the mount are 3mm. if you drill them all to 4mm and push the motor as far forward as possible before locking down the screws you should be in the ball park for correct mesh. the 13t pinion is 0.6 mm in diameter bigger than the 12t so the 0.5mm gain from the 1mm bigger hole is about there.

14t is insane fun but a lipo killer

has anyone tried the new align 530 & 535 hv servos in a 500L?

[gixerfien]

Originally Posted by nowler

the motor holes in the mount are 3mm. if you drill them all to 4mm and push the motor as far forward as possible before locking down the screws you should be in the ball park for correct mesh. the 13t pinion is 0.6 mm in diameter bigger than the 12t so the 0.5mm gain from the 1mm bigger hole is about there.

14t is insane fun but a lipo killer

Don't think I really like the idea of drilling the holes out to 4mm..this will give you side to side adjustment as well which you DON"T want!!

also I did it do mine, and would assume it's needed especially if using a 14t, but I also elongated my pinion hole in the motor mount as well

[nabl74]

Originally Posted by gixerfien

Don't think I really like the idea of drilling the holes out to 4mm..this will give you side to side adjustment as well which you DON"T want!!

also I did it do mine, and would assume it's needed especially if using a 14t, but I also elongated my pinion hole in the motor mount as well

Agree

i slotted mine rather than making hole bigger

Sent from my SM-G928I using Tapatalk

[nowler]

Originally Posted by gixerfien

Don't think I really like the idea of drilling the holes out to 4mm..this will give you side to side adjustment as well which you DON"T want!!

also I did it do mine, and would assume it's needed especially if using a 14t, but I also elongated my pinion hole in the motor mount as well

it's only a 500, i wouldn't do it with anything bigger, but 100 plus flights on 2 helis and it's not a problem for me. blue loctite and 4 m3 bolts with big washers tightened down and they've never moved a bit, nor do i expect them to. do what suits yourselves though. 13t pinion should have been standard with this heli.