Need a Favor, Help a Noobie!

[automap2002]

After watching videos on here (Love the videos FamilyMan67) and noticing how smoothly they lift off, it makes me wonder if I have some settings wrong in the transmitter. I created a simple spreadsheet with all of the settings in the DX6i and the K-6 that came with the heli.

Would someone here let me e-mail it to them and have them make their suggestions? PM me if you are willing. It is in .xlsx format so you would need Excel 2007 or higher.

Going to take the heli to the LHS tomorrow and have them look at the mechanical side of things.

It just seams like I'm fighting it too much, might be the training gear is too heavy or just affecting it too much. If that is the case I'll probably buy some of the cheap training gear they sale.

I did find one issue today, when the motor came loose a few weeks ago I noticed that the main gear had the teeth worn down so I changed the gear today.

Now that the weather is getting better I just want to fly!!!!!
Thanks for your help!!!!

[Znybar]

Auto,

your heli shouldn't be struggling at all to lift the training gear (if you got training gear of the right size that is).

It sounds like your heli hasn't been set up with enough pitch/throttle. You should be at mid stick, at the most at two-thirds, to take off in normal mode with training gear. If you're having to get near full pitch, then you don't have the correct settings or something is wrong (and flying with that little pitch is dangerous, you wont be able to pull out of dangerous positions).

If you have a DX6i, your throttle curve in normal mode should be 0 start to 45 at mid stick, then 45 to ~75 at full stick. Pitch setting should be ~40 start to 50 mid stick (you need some negative or you wont be able to descend in high wind), and then full pitch at full stick.

If you're having oscillations and lots of vibrations on spool up then your mechanical setup is wrong: either your tail, head, or blades are not setup/balanced properly. Issues with the main shaft and gear can also cause vibrations. You should NOT fly with heave vibrations, they can confuse the gyro and lead to unexpected movements that can cause crashes. That and they can dislodge/unscrew loose things and cause a crash.

Also after every crash/motor issue you should be checking the main gear, it's usually the first thing to go. I'd strongly recommend giving your heli a quick once over before every flight: rotate the main blades, have a look at most screws, see if anything is loose.

[automap2002]

Znybar,

If you look at the posts made my own training gear.
No vibrations just fighting the tail it wants to spin and I really think there is too much sub-trim, the main gear change made a big difference in blade speed. It wants to lift but want to get the tail problem fixed.
Maybe the guys at the LHS will see something that I'm missing.

Thanks for your reply.

[Znybar]

You should not be using subtrim if possible. If you need that much you should be readjusting the links so that they are centred (subtrim should only be used for minor, precision adjustments).

Have you increased your tail gyro gain significantly? That's how you avoid tail drift.

Did you replace the main gear with an identical sized gear? Changing gears shouldn't be changing your headspeed. If you've replaced with a larger gear you might have decreased blade speed significantly.

[Ghostflyer1]

If you want we can do a skype video call and I will try to help you sort it out. Just let me know. It has been a while since I have played with a FB unit. I have taken everything here FBL

[automap2002]

Replaced the main gear with the same size, the reason for more speed was the teeth were worn down on the old one and I do not think they had motor pinion set for the correct distance from the gear, 0.1mm is what I have been told, it is now set for that.
I'll check the gain on the gyro today but can try to fly it today too windy, should be a much better day tomorrow.

[Ghostflyer1]

You also need to put a pitch gauge on it to see how much pitch your getting both pos and negative ...

[automap2002]

-11 ~ +11 on the pitch gauge, that was one of the first tools I bought.

[Familyman67]

Hi Automap,

I have worked on the DX6i settings in your spreadsheet. I did not touch the K-6 settings since I have no clue about that TX.

I left your original settings as is and added an new tab with my suggestions. I sent the file back to your e-mail address. The values that were changed are marked in yellow.

I have decided to put the comments into the forum so that others have a chance to verify and also add to it. (after all I am just a noobie as well - I started flying helis 11 months ago)

1) dual rates and expo

you had only switch position 0 listed. with the DX6i you can switch between two different rates - every axis (roll pitch yaw) has their own switch on the TX. If you want to always switch all three rates simultaneously (like I do) then the DX6i offers an option to combine all three in one switch - I have dedicated the rudder(yaw) switch for that, but you could also use the other two. I am not to certain how it works on the DX6i since it's been a while that I had one. I think this combination function is called "D/R combi" or so - I guess you'll find that.

so back to topic. I added a second set of settings for the switch position 1. ("second set of settings" - how cool that sounds )

Furthermore I was shocked when I saw that you had all three values set to 100%. I mean if you felt comfortable with that, then ok - go ahead with it.
For my taste however, this is a brutally sensitive setting which would cause ME to constantly over-control on the sticks. I have therefore entered significantly lower values for position 0 and moderate values including some Expo for position 1 - you need to play around with that, and depending on how long your servo-arms are on the bird, these might be to low - you'll find out and you can always increase these if the controls become to soft.
I'd recommend that you start off with position 0 on all switches (= 50% dual rate and that means that 100% stick movement will only let the servo-arm travel 50% of the maximum way) and if it is to soft for you, then switch to position 1

2) Gyro

you had 50% Gyro gain in position 0 and only 60% in position 1.
If you were actually flying in position 0, then the Gyro was switched off and I would assume your tail did whatever it had on its mind - huh?

The Gyro gain is the setting that controls sensitivity of your tail-hold-gyro. The logic on the DX6 is as follows:
the scale is from 0% to 100% - anything below 50% is the so called "rate-hold-mode" and anything above 50% is the so called "heading-hold-mode" (which is what you want and need) - but now it comes: a setting of exactly 50% means your gyro was switched off - and you don't want that to happen at all!

So I have entered two values above 50% which will bring your Gyro into HH-mode (heading hold). You do however need to evaluate the right settings for each and every heli individually. So start with setting 1 (70%) and watch what the heli is doing. if you increase pitch and let it climb, then watch closely what the tail is doing.
if the tail turns away once you increase torque then the setting is still to low. Land the heli and change the setting in the TX to maybe 72% - you do that, until the tail holds when you increase pitch.
if the tail wags right from the start, then the setting is to high. land the heli and switch to position 0 (65%) and see what the heli does. if the tail wag is gone, then this is your setting. if it still wags, decrease the gyro-gain to 63% and test again.
You do this until you have found a gyro gain that makes your tail hold without wagging.

if you cannot find the right setting, then something is wrong mechanically - usually the tail-servo pushrod, the ball-links, the pitch-slider or other components of the tail mechanics are not moving easily enough. Work on that until you can move the tail pitch by hand without any resistance at all.

By the way, when you change throttle curves in the future, you might have to re-do that over again.

3) Throttle curve:

the first thing you need to determine is, if your ESC does have a governor mode and if so, if you have switched it on or off.
I have added two different sets of throttle curves. one for a setup without governor mode and one for a setup WITH governor.

furthermore I have entered two beginner friendly curves both for the NORM and the STUNT setting. please be aware that the suggested stunt setting is not 3D capable. I have therefore added an alternate stunt setting that would allow you to do 3D in the future (next week or so ? )


4) Pitch curve:

the curves you had set here were a bit strange - so also here I added two beginner friendly curves for the settings NORM and STUNT. with these, even you as a beginner can switch the flight mode to STUNT and then still have a beginner-friendly setting, but with a little more "oomph".
Also here, please do not use the stunt setting for 3D. For that I have listed an alternate stunt setting (which you can re-program "next week" then )

Another strange thing was the fact that for "HOLD" you had 100% (just this one value) - while it is correct for the throttle curve to have just one value (0%) you do want a standard diagonal curve for pitch in "HOLD", which is what I have listed there. This curve will allow you to autorotate.
100% throughout is very dangerous, if you land the heli and switch to throttle hold while the rotor still turns (which you should) then with a 100% flat setting, your heli would jump up and might crash.
(If you ever did that with a larger scale heli (such as my 550) then the heli would not only jump up a bit – it would climb up to 10feet before the remaining rotor energy will be used up and it goes down again)

6) Throttle cut:

This setting is for nitro engines – it is not needed for electrically driven helis. While it does not make any difference, I changed it to “INH” anyway (I am German – you know – “precision” is our second name )

7) all the other settings

All other settings look reasonable. Whether or not the servo reverse settings are right, you have to test and confirm. Since your heli already flew – I guess you got that right.

The settings under “swash mix” and “sub trim” should be values you have set based on your CCPM setup process – right? If so, then you’re in good shape.

Should these be only “standard values” copied from the internet or from another TX, then you might need to re-do those. How did you do your CCPM setup?

I can strongly recommend John Salts e-books about – well just about anything you need to know about rc-helis. When I did my first CCPM setup last year, I basically bought all of his e-books which you can download from his homepage (http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/).
The one you want to have is this: http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/swashplate-setup.html

Now don’t get me wrong – your heli might fly with those standard settings but it might offer some funny and surprising behavior that you might not desire for. So it’s all about precision (again – I am German – you know)

Well anyway – sorry for boring you (and everyone else) to death with my long essay here but I thought this is not something that can be told in a short story without losing the required attention for details and for the (German) precision.

Anything else? Don’t hesitate to ask!

Ruedi

[Ghostflyer1]

No its good information... Thanks for taking the time to post it.... Someone will be able to use it...

[automap2002]

Originally Posted by Familyman67

Hi Automap,

I have worked on the DX6i settings in your spreadsheet. I did not touch the K-6 settings since I have no clue about that TX.

I left your original settings as is and added an new tab with my suggestions. I sent the file back to your e-mail address. The values that were changed are marked in yellow.

I have decided to put the comments into the forum so that others have a chance to verify and also add to it. (after all I am just a noobie as well - I started flying helis 11 months ago)

1) dual rates and expo

you had only switch position 0 listed. with the DX6i you can switch between two different rates - every axis (roll pitch yaw) has their own switch on the TX. If you want to always switch all three rates simultaneously (like I do) then the DX6i offers an option to combine all three in one switch - I have dedicated the rudder(yaw) switch for that, but you could also use the other two. I am not to certain how it works on the DX6i since it's been a while that I had one. I think this combination function is called "D/R combi" or so - I guess you'll find that.

so back to topic. I added a second set of settings for the switch position 1. ("second set of settings" - how cool that sounds )

Furthermore I was shocked when I saw that you had all three values set to 100%. I mean if you felt comfortable with that, then ok - go ahead with it.
For my taste however, this is a brutally sensitive setting which would cause ME to constantly over-control on the sticks. I have therefore entered significantly lower values for position 0 and moderate values including some Expo for position 1 - you need to play around with that, and depending on how long your servo-arms are on the bird, these might be to low - you'll find out and you can always increase these if the controls become to soft.
I'd recommend that you start off with position 0 on all switches (= 50% dual rate and that means that 100% stick movement will only let the servo-arm travel 50% of the maximum way) and if it is to soft for you, then switch to position 1

2) Gyro

you had 50% Gyro gain in position 0 and only 60% in position 1.
If you were actually flying in position 0, then the Gyro was switched off and I would assume your tail did whatever it had on its mind - huh?

The Gyro gain is the setting that controls sensitivity of your tail-hold-gyro. The logic on the DX6 is as follows:
the scale is from 0% to 100% - anything below 50% is the so called "rate-hold-mode" and anything above 50% is the so called "heading-hold-mode" (which is what you want and need) - but now it comes: a setting of exactly 50% means your gyro was switched off - and you don't want that to happen at all!

So I have entered two values above 50% which will bring your Gyro into HH-mode (heading hold). You do however need to evaluate the right settings for each and every heli individually. So start with setting 1 (70%) and watch what the heli is doing. if you increase pitch and let it climb, then watch closely what the tail is doing.
if the tail turns away once you increase torque then the setting is still to low. Land the heli and change the setting in the TX to maybe 72% - you do that, until the tail holds when you increase pitch.
if the tail wags right from the start, then the setting is to high. land the heli and switch to position 0 (65%) and see what the heli does. if the tail wag is gone, then this is your setting. if it still wags, decrease the gyro-gain to 63% and test again.
You do this until you have found a gyro gain that makes your tail hold without wagging.

if you cannot find the right setting, then something is wrong mechanically - usually the tail-servo pushrod, the ball-links, the pitch-slider or other components of the tail mechanics are not moving easily enough. Work on that until you can move the tail pitch by hand without any resistance at all.

By the way, when you change throttle curves in the future, you might have to re-do that over again.

3) Throttle curve:

the first thing you need to determine is, if your ESC does have a governor mode and if so, if you have switched it on or off.
I have added two different sets of throttle curves. one for a setup without governor mode and one for a setup WITH governor.

furthermore I have entered two beginner friendly curves both for the NORM and the STUNT setting. please be aware that the suggested stunt setting is not 3D capable. I have therefore added an alternate stunt setting that would allow you to do 3D in the future (next week or so ? )


4) Pitch curve:

the curves you had set here were a bit strange - so also here I added two beginner friendly curves for the settings NORM and STUNT. with these, even you as a beginner can switch the flight mode to STUNT and then still have a beginner-friendly setting, but with a little more "oomph".
Also here, please do not use the stunt setting for 3D. For that I have listed an alternate stunt setting (which you can re-program "next week" then )

Another strange thing was the fact that for "HOLD" you had 100% (just this one value) - while it is correct for the throttle curve to have just one value (0%) you do want a standard diagonal curve for pitch in "HOLD", which is what I have listed there. This curve will allow you to autorotate.
100% throughout is very dangerous, if you land the heli and switch to throttle hold while the rotor still turns (which you should) then with a 100% flat setting, your heli would jump up and might crash.
(If you ever did that with a larger scale heli (such as my 550) then the heli would not only jump up a bit – it would climb up to 10feet before the remaining rotor energy will be used up and it goes down again)

6) Throttle cut:

This setting is for nitro engines – it is not needed for electrically driven helis. While it does not make any difference, I changed it to “INH” anyway (I am German – you know – “precision” is our second name )

7) all the other settings

All other settings look reasonable. Whether or not the servo reverse settings are right, you have to test and confirm. Since your heli already flew – I guess you got that right.

The settings under “swash mix” and “sub trim” should be values you have set based on your CCPM setup process – right? If so, then you’re in good shape.

Should these be only “standard values” copied from the internet or from another TX, then you might need to re-do those. How did you do your CCPM setup?

I can strongly recommend John Salts e-books about – well just about anything you need to know about rc-helis. When I did my first CCPM setup last year, I basically bought all of his e-books which you can download from his homepage (http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/).
The one you want to have is this: http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/swashplate-setup.html

Now don’t get me wrong – your heli might fly with those standard settings but it might offer some funny and surprising behavior that you might not desire for. So it’s all about precision (again – I am German – you know)

Well anyway – sorry for boring you (and everyone else) to death with my long essay here but I thought this is not something that can be told in a short story without losing the required attention for details and for the (German) precision.

Anything else? Don’t hesitate to ask!

Ruedi

FamilyMan67 thank you for taking the time to go over my settings and making your recommendations, I put them in the TX today and when the wind calmed down I spun it up, what a difference!!!!!! Way easier to handle, I still think the training gear is having an effect but it was controllable with minor stick inputs. Yes I couldn't get it up as high as I would have liked to because of the size of my backyard.
This weekend heading out to a bigger area and see what it does! (might be posting about my first crash)
I'm starting to figure out the TX settings/mechanical set up and how it all relates, there is so much in the beginning for your brain to absorb.
Going to download a few more of John Salts e-books tonight.
Thanks again for your help!

[Znybar]

Let us know if you're still having tail-holding issues.

[Ghostflyer1]

Training gear is going to make it feel mushy and sluggish ... You need to make sure they are centered with the center of gravity or you will end up fighting the training gear ...

[Familyman67]

I entirely agree to what was stated several times. the training gear (as useful as it is for a beginner) also adds weight and has the tendency to bring the Heli out of CoG if not applied correctly - especially on a flybared one.

Your training gear looks cool and seems to be very sturdy - however (without having touched it) I would suspect that it is pretty heavy and it also has arms that are much longer than you need (believe us!).
It might be a big advantage for you to either build a simple one made from carbon-rods and table tennis balls - or spend a few bucks more and get one of those ready made versions from your LHS.

Then you need to make sure you balance the training gear, so the Heli has the right CoG. You might be able to compensate a bit by moving the battery back and forth, but it is essential that the Heli stays horizontal, when you lift it by the rotor head.

[automap2002]

Broke down and got the training gear from the LHS, much lighter than my DYI gear, lots of wind and a storm coming in, it is just rain and not snow! Sunday is really looking great for a lift off!
KDS forum has the best helifreaks, you guys rock!

[Familyman67]

Glad to hear you went ahead and got yourself a lighter training-gear. I am confident you won't regret that (on the contrary!). Make sure you balance the CoG as precisely as you can. Also make sure you fix it very firmly to the skids (ziptie) so that it does not induce unneccessary vibration.

Yes - I am hoping for Sunday as well. currently the weather is nice in Germany, but I am hangin' out in Sweden til Friday night .
No time on Saturday - so all hopes are for Sunday, but there is another winter weather supposed to turn in over Europe some time on the weekend with signifcant temperature drops - so I can only hope it'll come in late. can't wait to test the new camera mount.
Let's keep our fingers crossed for each other

Agreed - helifreak, and the KDS subforum in particular, rock!

[automap2002]

Had time today and read the e-books that I downloaded, checking the swash plate leveling tonight and checking all of my pitches with the gauge.
I must say after reading the books a lot more things made sense!!!! Learning more and more everyday. I will not be one of those that leave this hobby/obsession!
Off to check the swash plate and hopefully the wind has died down enough tomorrow to lift it up and HOVER