Power outage ?

[LCHelilover]

I'm flying a new Ion with Actro 23-3 and the hacker 77 ESC using a HV BEC and TP 8000 batteries.

I've only got a half dozen or so flights on my Ion. Today I was out at the field and a friend wanted to try the Ion, so I put fresh batteries in it and we went out to fly. As per Chris's suggestion I told him to go ahead and click into "V curve" as soon as the head spooled up. The ESC seemed to be "surging" around mid stick (zero pitch)....this was noticeable as it resulted in a tail kick as well as head speed change. He landed and I unplugged the battery and re-initialized everything...seemed better but still surged a little as he moved through zero pitch...wasn't as bad in the hover, so he flew it around a few circuits...very gentle flight for 4 minutes or so....Then he landed and I took off and flew around with a little more aggressive flight. I did a few tick tocks, loops and rolls and then flying down wind, I did three rolls and as I turned back up wind, the headspeed decayed to the point that I could see the individual blades...I did a quick forced autorotation just clearing a fence line and landing in the bottom of a ditch- with no damage whatsoever- it was a miracle!

So now I'm a little gun shy! The motor, batteries and ESC were warm when I got to the ditch ( about 100 yards from the flight line). Recharging the batteries took less than 4000 mAh.

Is this and ESC problem? Any way to diagnose this without risking the heli?

[BobbySmith]

Do you have a hacker program box? Try reprograming the esc( make sure it is not in governer mode) and try it again in a hover if that dont work try a new esc i have seen the same simular thing happen

Also take a good look @ the motor is it a new motor and esc?

[WillJames]

Use the programmer and take it out of GOV mode. Did you by chance switch on the heli when you had the TX in another program? If you do this one time, it will be in GOV mode, at least with my experience. It has happened 2 times. Once it went to GOV mode and motor running the wrong direction. :DOH

How many mah's did you put back in the packs and how old are they?

[LCHelilover]

The motor and ESC are both new and were sent to me set up by Chris. I haven't reprogrammed anything intentionally. The batteries have maybe 3 runs on them- never more than 50% discharged and I put 3000 mAh or so back in after this flight.

I don't have a hacker program "box"- is there a way to program without the "box"? I have a Jeti plus program card, but it doesn't have a "governor" function on it.

This really acted like the ESC shutting down due to a "low voltage" or overheating situation....The battery voltages weren't low when I started charging them...19.7 volts or so and the ESC was warm but certainly not HOT...nothing smells "smoked".

[WillJames]

You can program it withthe stick, but it is somewhat tedious. The box makes it easy. Best 40.00 I have ever spent. The problem with the hacker is if you ever turn on your heli withhte wrong model in teh TX, it can reporgram it the second you turn on teh heli. I have done this 2 times. THe surging you mention sounds like governor mode as Bobby said, the 77-O does not surge in my experience in normal non-GOV mode at all.

The only time I have had my Hacker ESC shut down is it completely shut down and killed the motor. This has happened 2 times with one 77-O and never with my second. If it thermals, which I have never done, I have heard it shuts down completely, but I could be wrong on that since it has never happened to me because of over temp.

[BobbySmith]

If you have never programmed the Esc you need to that is the problem

spend the 40.00 bucks it is well worth it as Will said! To this day i think the Hacker 77-0-h esc is the best 10S esc on the market for the money

I have had one that had software issue and HACKER took care of it immediately

[LCHelilover]

Any suggestions as to a source for the Hacker "box"? BTW, Chris programmed it before he sent it to me (at least I thought he did-- everything ran fine until yesterday)

G

[bob00]

I recently saw some odd behavior (intermittent power drops in AIR mode) with my 77-O / Actro 32-3. Are you using a Futaba 5014 G3 Rx?

- Rob

[BobbySmith]

http://www.fxaeromodels.com/product_info.php?cPath=94_96&products_id=1402 here they ship fast as well

[LCHelilover]

I recently saw some odd behavior (intermittent power drops in AIR mode) with my 77-O / Actro 32-3. Are you using a Futaba 5014 G3 Rx?


No, the RX is a JR PCMS

[ChrisS]

Yeah, it sounds like you are in governor mode. I do program those here before they leave, partly to make sure they are set up correctly and partly to test them.

As Will said, it only takes the briefest period of time with the throttle stick in anything but fully down when you plug in the control to change things. We have some of the prog box's here if you want to go that route, which is recommended as some of the programmable parameters of the control are not accessible through stick programming. Plus, stick programming is just not a lot of fun.

It sounds as if two things have been changed, the LVC and governor mode.

Chris

[LCHelilover]

I ordered a "box" which should be on the way today. Will it tell me what the "current" settiings are before I reprogram the ESC? I checked the MA website first but couldn't find any there, so I ordered it from the link cited above.

It did act like a low voltage or overheating shut down by the ESC, but as I said, the battery voltage was over 19.5V on each pack and the ESC and motor were warm but certainly not 230 degrees. It was quite spooky; I heard the engiine slowing down as I truned back upwind from doing three rolls going downwind....as I had time to think "Oh Sh@T" and saw the blades slowing down....I was about 200 feet in the air and 100 yards away but heading back into the wind....I quickly pulled negative collective and was gratified to see the blades speed pick right back up but at the cost of all my altitude. I stretched the glide over a fence line and flared just as the body disappeared below the edge of a ditch.....I was amazed to walk to the ditch and find the model sitting on the skids in the center of the ditch with no damage whatsoever. It is now a "free" helicopter.

On another thred there are "recommended settings" for the hacker box...posted by someone else. Any changes to those recommended?

Thanks,

George

[MinAirChris]

No, the ProgBox will only change settings, not read them from the control. This is a bit misleading as it does save the last data you left in the unit (ProgBox) and it is easy to believe this is what is in the control.

Those settings should do fine.

Chris

[WillJames]

The other thing to be careful of, is that the programmer box MUST beep to signal storing your settings. You may need to jockey back and forty between the settings to the right setting to make it beep on certain settings. The beep signifies that the setting was stored.

Other than that, the 77-O-H is a GREAT ESC, VERY reliable.