RC planes/jets/heli

ian - there's a thread on rcgroups that would probably be best for advice on this particular heli: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1314359&highlight=333&page=3

As a general rule, 3-channel co-axes do not have very impressive forward/back speed. The counter-rotating props act like a big gyroscope to resist 'tipping', which is what the small tail prop is trying to do.
The tail motor speed should be proportional to the stick input, most have at least 3 'steps' to the speed. Unless something is wrong with yours, the easiest way to increase forward speed is to add balast to the nose (will then always drift forwards), or put a larger tail prop and/or tail motor in.

 

Unbelievable Video - enjoy!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tzowQtqOM_I>

Dan

 

Thanks for that - Very helpful link and nice explanation.

Dunno if I'm imagining it, but the battery seems to be getting 'stronger' having had a few cycles and, at least for the first few minutes, is doing a better job. Maybe I'm also improving as a jockey too.... A very fun 'toy' - I can feel a bigger, 4ch (?) in my future......

Cheers,
Ian

 

You're probably not imagining the battery getting stronger. If you follow a proper charge-discharge cycle they tend to work a little better after a few cycles.

I had the 3-ch helis for 2 weeks before I had to make the change to 4-ch fun. Now I'm feeling the pull away from the coaxials and towards single-rotor machines... I see a Blade mSR in my future...

 

I love the mSR, but only for outdoors. Unless you have a MASSIVE indoor area there's just not enough space to open her up.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming mSRX (flybarless, so should behave more like a CP with less auto-correction than the 45deg flybar on the MSR, but still quite stable).
http://www.horizonhobby.com/products/msr-x-rtf-BLH3200
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TJbwmym1frs

I crashed my MSR quite a bit learning to fly it (indoors, not as careful as I should have been...), and although only a few parts broke for new-to-4-channel pilots now I'd recommend a MSR knock-off like this $40 guy instead of a $125 MSR. Free shipping coupons available by 'liking' xheli on facebook.
http://www.xheli.com/27h-9958-miniheli-purple.html

The MSR will have smoother control precision/resolution, but for learning the cheapo will be fine.

 

I'll go with that.

As for "proper" cycling I remember "back in the day" we had all kinds of weird and wonderful rigs to ensure the Ni-Cads were *completely* discharged before recharging - what a PITA!

My *understanding*, and please correct me if wrong, is that Li-Po's don't suffer from any of these weaknesses - Doesn't matter when you recharge (?)

I also remember the early Li-Po's with huge warnings about putting them in an ammo case or similar (someone sold a "battery bunker" for charging!) because they *would* blow up at some point!.... That leads me to suspect that, eg, the little charger for the tiny batteries used in these things is probably not getting close to capacity?

May have to find the Li-Po charger I have laying around somewhere - If it can be set to a low enough mAH it may improve things I think?

Cheers,
Ian

 

Firstly, as always, thanks for the helpful comments.

Playing "devils advocate" here though, is the above really true? - I'm thinking a "good" pilot will be a lot better at overcoming any "weaknesses" in the cheapo whereas a newbie would be better served with a higher quality unit? Assuming of course it can withstand the inevitable crashes!

Cheers,
Ian

 

Ian - in my experience, you DO NOT want to run LiPO batteries down all the way (i.e. below ~3.7V I believe on these tiny choppers). I try to stop flying BEFORE the low-voltage cut-off kicks in. If the heli doesn't have LV protection, try to stop before it doesn't have the juice to maintain a hover. The more you baby LiPOs the longer they'll last (and the main motor, and the tail rotor, etc) I also let them cool 5 minutes+ between charging and discharging.

If your battery 'puffs' it's been overloaded and there is a risk of fire if the pack ruptures. I've had a few LiPOs puff, it happens, just don't use them anymore, handle them carefully, and follow the proper procedure to dispose of them.
More info, and disposal procedure ( I soak dead LiPOs in salt water to discharge ): http://sites.google.com/site/tjinguytech/charging-how-tos/lipo-disposal

I use this charger , it was included with the used MSR I bought earlier this year. You can't make any adjustments at all like you can with fancier ones, but it does the job just fine on these tiny 1C LiPOs. Takes about 15-25 minutes to charge up to four 160mAH packs simultaneously, which is fast enough for me.

The 'cheapo' in the link will fly very nicely, maybe 80% as well as an MSR. Think of it like a Corvette vs. a Porsche. They lap a track at a similar speed, the Porsche just feels better
I mainly suggested the $40 one, since in case you (or a new pilot) just doesn't enjoy flying it much it's only $40 vs $140. Of course I can't imagine anyone not getting a total kick out of flying these things around... Plus, unless they're really taking things slow (and/or they have a HUGE place to practice) a brand new pilot will crash a bunch, and the cheaper heli also has much cheaper spare parts. But if you think you'll be in for the long haul and you have the extra $100 to spend, that's the one I'd certainly enjoy flying more.

I've put a few more battery packs through the Force co-ax gunships, and today the two $4, 150mAH EFlight batteries from Amazon arrived. They included tiny strips of velcro (which aren't needed with the Force helis since they slide right in the stock holder), so I stuck a piece onto one of the thicker Turnigy 160mAH batteries I had laying around and tested that out too.
If you haven't done so with your Force choppers, get either 150 or 160mAH and ditch the stock 125ers ASAP! Seems like double the run time (probably more like 7-8 minutes vs 4-5), more power and little if any noticeable weight increase.
The longer length of the 150s is nice because it allows you to slide it all the way forward for a fore cg, or slide it back more to bring the cg back if you wish.
I'm amazed at the control precision on these guys. The single-rotor MSR is similarly precise, but not QUITE as stable - but it's also capable of MUCH higher speeds.
For indoors, finding new and challenging tunnels to squeeze through, tiny landing zones to hit, and other obstacles is super fun. In a 'real' battle it would be cool to assign bonus points for challenges like these during a fight.
By the time Xmas comes around and we 'officially' open these they will be well broken in
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I didn't know it even had an LV cutoff!

+1 on (not) maintaining a hover - That's exactly the point at which I shut 'er down - Which is nowhere near to what we did with the Ni-Cads of course...... I suspect these little guys still have ~20% power left at that point......

With this baby at least, neither the battery or the charger gets anything above "very slightly warm" - I *suspect* it may accept a much heavier charge - And I'm worried that I may already have a suitable charger!

My analogy would have been Ferrari -v- Porsche, but "+1"

You're having *way* too much fun! Thanks for sharing the experiences and advice - Seems we've got our own little "community" going here [Hopefully, none of the real pilots mind their forum being hijacked ]

Cheers,
Ian

 

I ordered 8 of those $4 150 mAh batteries from Amazon a week ago and they still haven't shipped... Two days ago found a seller on ebay selling them 6 for $18.94, or $3.16 each. So I ordered some and they are supposed to be here tomorrow. I also got that 4-port charger. So with 14 spare batteries and a big charger There should be plenty of battle time available. If the batteries ever actually arrive.

The battle helis are pretty nice for the money. A Blade mCX2 cost more than the whole battle set and the look is very similar. But the mCX2 is faster, more manueverable, and has a nicer radio.

I broke the landing gear on the blue battle heli today, smashed it into the edge of the fireplace screen. This is the first thing that's broken on any of my helicopters. A tiny drop of epoxy fixed it easily.

 

I searched around for deals on 1s batteries, and this was the best I came across:

Turnigy 160mAh for $1.47 each. These are supposed to be pretty good batteries, a little better than the stock ones from Horizon/EFlite. I just ordered a dozen.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11893__Turnigy_nano_tech_160mah_1S_25_40C_Lipo_Pack_Kyosho_E_flite_Parkzone_Etc_.html











Oh, and I just ordered 4 of the Force battle helis. Got to have something to use up all those batteries with! Going to keep one for myself, and give one each to my two brothers and my brother-in-law for Christmas. The living room is going to be a regular war-zone this Christmas!

 

Even with $3 shipping that is a great buy! I use these exclusively for the MSR, excellent batteries but thicker than the Eflights so you will need to modify the battery holder on the Force helis to get them to fit.

Gotta get Amazon Prime my man! $79/year, free 2 day shipping on all super-saver items (most of what I order), plus, another main reason I got it, 1 free Kindle book per month from the huge "lending library" (reading Moneyball now).
How is the MCX2 transmitter any better than the force? I still use the stock tx with my MSR (too cheap to get a DX6i), and it seems to function exactly the same as the Force ones, except for the gun triggers.

One of my Force helis took a hard drop to hardwood floor yesterday from 6+ ft, that I was sure would break the landing gear, but no. The skids on my MSR break if you look at them the wrong way, shame EFlight never beefed these up. I should have just bought HD gear from this place, but with S&H they're pushing $20 vs. $5 for replacement stock ones (on my 2rd set...) http://www.micro-flight.com/BLADE-MSR.htm

BTW - it's not a plane or heli but this morning I put the Battleship Bismarck in the pond for her sea trials. You'll note that craft's speed is not quite to scale. Will be a fun winter project to crack open the hull and see about slowing down the prop speed.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ_mUneUUnk[/ame]
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As I said above, you're having *way* too much fun!..... Looks like you need an icebreaker there as well! [We don't do freezing round these parts ] Very cool.

Anyway, I think I must now have broken something - With a full pack I can get a super stable hover and super responsive yaw. But, forward & backward no longer do anything at all - As noted, it was never the best, but it did respond slowly - In fact, going back generated the killer "whop, whop, whop" noise so famous in choppers - No more!

I guess I have a couple of options;

1 - Pull the cover off and have a look-see - Problem there is I'm non too sure what I'm looking for but guess it may be obvious if something is broken (?)
2 - [Advantage of buying locally] - Take it back to the store and see what they have to say.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Tried that, and as suspected didn't reveal anything - In fact, I can't see any "moving parts" at all!...... Inputting yaw (which works) doesn't seem to move anything in what I'd call the "traditional" manner, ie, a servo going back and forth......

The next stop........ I'll report back.

Cheers,
Ian

 

I thought about Prime but shipping is free if you spend $25, I can wait a few days to save $79. Or pay $7 or so for 2 day shipping if I really need to. Most of the time my stuff arrives in 2 days even with free shipping. This one order took longer than usual. I think one of the items ran out of stock so they held up the whole order for that. I don't know how to read so the kindle thing isn't an enticement for me

The mcx2 transmitter is a standard DSM2 unit that you can bind to other toys (can't tell if the Force one is or not). It also has 2 control rate settings, slow and fast. It's not programmable like the expensive radios but slow/fast works for me.

Smashed the hell out of my blue Force heli again today. Broke yesterdays landing gear repairs plus put a big crack in the front canopy. I lost control, panicked, and went full throttle instead of off. Flew straight into the wall at max warp. Poor thing was flopping around on the floor like a fish.

 

3-ch helis don't have any servos.

Yaw is generated by changing the relative rotation speed of the co-axial rotors. That is controlled by the mixer portion of the electronics. Pitch is generated by the tail rotor.

Does the tail rotor spin when you input a forward/backward pitch command?

 

I bought 15 batteries and shipping was $10, so my total was about $32. So about $2 bucks per battery.

How did you modify the battery holder?

I love the battleships!!

 

Ian - I believe yours is a 3-channel, so it has a vertically mounted tail motor that tips the whole heli forward or back to move. Is the tail motor not spinning at all now? If it's not you can try taking it back but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they won't refund/exchange after it's been flown (i.e. crashed). Ask the question on the RCgroups
thread if you haven't done so, other owners will likely have a source for (very cheap and easy enough to swap) replacement trail motors, if this is what the issue is.

The MSR can also change rates from lo/hi by pushing 'in' the right stick I believe, but when I tried this with the Force TX it didn't beep or seem to do anything. I did move the rotor-head links to the longer balls on one of them to increase speed in all directions, and shorten the 'elevator' link a bit (by giving the servo end-link a few turns in) to increase forward speed.

I really hate how flimsy Blade LG are, I should really beef mine up with some carbon fiber at the weak points before they break.
So far though no broken parts on either after ~25 total flights and ~15 fairly light crashes.
Put one of the spare canopys that came with the $99 deal on my Blade MSR. Really like the look! Weighs a bit more than stock but easy to fix the by leaving the battery a bit further back.

Thanks - took the Bismarck out in the pond again today, ice is all melted so have more room to speed around. The Koi were like U-Boats darting around underneath

Ah, I only put 3 in my cart to check for shipping, $2 each is ridiculously cheap but what are you going to do with 15 of them?!

I didn't mod mine (yet) to accommodate the Turningy, just tested one attached to the bottom of the LG with velcro as you can see in the pic up higher in the thread. The CG was really too far back; even with full forward trim it would slowly drift backwards with no input (which isn't really a bad thing, in a battle staying in one place isn't a very good strategy...)
They are pricier, but unless the 150mAH Eflights die a quick death I like them better for the Force helis since you don't need to mod the LG (which I wouldn't have a problem with, but the IR gun and receiver is also mounted to the gear/battery mount).
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Well, I was planning on giving one or two each to go with the 3 Force helis I am giving folks for Christmas. Then I have a whole fleet of the Parkzone 1S powered micro airplanes to use them in. Plus I only have a couple of decent batteries currently, my other ones have been dying off rapidly. I'd like to be able to charge a pocketfull of batteries and go fly without worrying abotut recharging as I go.

However, if these are not directly "plug-and-play", I may just keep them and buy some other batteries for the gifts. At least, that will be my justification when the helis get here and I am forced to open them to do the proper research and development before giving them as gifts. Strictly as a professional evaluation deal just to make sure they are up to proper gift standards, you understand.

 

Finally got my turbine NH-90 RC by Graupner/Heimstarted today after 8 long years of
collecting dust. Took about 9 hours to get things together ( radio communicating with the ECU )
and glow plug change.
Also found out that having the tx so close to the heli interfered with the exhaust sensor
causing a faulty temp reading and prevented the tx - ECU bonding process. That was
a b-tch.

Started it in the basement (smart move, lol) since its already dark.
Airing out the house of the JP smell.

Will post pics once I get it hovering.
Still waiting for radio. JR 11X, voltage regulator since the swash is a 4 servo x 90 deg.

 

8 year old turbine heli?!? Cool! I'd love to see pics/videos of this.

I put a Graupner electric motor in my fastest RC motorcycle back about 15 years ago - could lift the front wheel.
Getting a couple of these together on a course makes for incredibly fun racing....
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Thanks for that - Now I "get it"!...... And you're correct - Seems the tail motor is toast.

The tail rotor is horizontal, but other than that, spot on - I wasn't expecting them to exchange it but they claimed to stock spares - Seems they *don't* have the (obviously broken) tail motor however - I actually got into a pissing contest with the guy (not my buddy the owner) who said my only recourse was to buy another complete setup!

I'll go ask on RCgroups, thanks.

Cheers,
Ian

 

This was on display at our event last month. Built by a fellow chatter. Had a gas turbine engine. I am hoping to make it to the first flight.
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Holy crap!

That is going to be stupidly fast. Please get some video if you get a chance.

On a much slower note, I got my two sets of Force helis in last night. Man, these things are great! I am very impressed with the quality. I think they fly a bit better than my original MCx, and the range on the IR guns is impressive. We are going to have a blast with these at Christmas.
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+1 on the video request, what a gorgeous plane!

The Force Helis are freaking great aren't they!
I just found out my parents are coming out for Christmas so me, my wife and Dad will be having aerial battles for sure
Take some videos of yours!
BTW - a guy on RCGRoups had a 5-in-1 PCB go bad on one of his first few charges. Even with a fresh battery it wouldn't turn the rotors. He called Horizon Hobby and they send him a new PCB board, no charge. This is typically a $50+ part. HH stands by their product!