Cypher 3D - Love this Heli!

[Cryptovariable]

Hello!

I've been away from the forum for a while (again).

I just wanted to drop a quick note to let you all know I test hovered my Cypher 3D with a 4 bladed rotor head tonight using no electronic stabilization. It was dark and I didn't have the finishing touches on everything, so I just hovered in the driveway. It was surprisingly stable. I mixed my aileron -> elevator and elevator --> aileron 100% on my DX7 so I could get the phasing 45 degrees out of whack. This enables the pitch links to run perpendicular to the main shaft for a more realistic look. I am running a 14 tooth pinion to slow the head speed down and used slightly over-sized tail blades to compensate for the increased torque. The tail was rock solid and responsive. The only problem is an ever so slight mechanical swash interaction, but it didn't seem to affect it's flight. Keep in mind this is only my FIFTH time flying an R/C helicopter! Yeah, I know I am WAY over my head. I think God intended helicopters to have 4 blades though... It just looks cool and the linkage actually makes sense! Sounds cool too!

This has been a really interesting and educational experience, I recommend everyone try it! Believe it or not, I did the whole thing for around $60. If anyone is interested in the parts, let me know. The rotor head was $35 shipped, and the blades were around $22. I had to buy some M2 x 12mm screws so I rounded up to $3 for extra parts. As usual, there is not ONE zip tie holding anything in place... and you probably wouldn't believe the ESC is held in place by friction. Sounds crazy but I'll post pics soon. :)

Hope everyone is doing well.

J

[Ah Clem]

Any of you going to the HeliFreak Fun Fly?

If so, please stop by at the Compass/Nankin/KBDD Canopy and say hello!

[maddog57]

Hey Ah Clem, I'd love to be able to go to a major fun fly, just not in the cards for me this year. Saw your post in the Compass forum about it. Maybe next year. I'm looking forward to seeing a Compass group pic.

Cryptovariable good to hear from ya. The 4 blade head is really cool and very interesting. And all for $60 or so bucks?!?! I have two Cyphers and may want to try it on one. You can start a thread on the Cypher forum page with all your info and pics if you want.

Chris :thumbup:

[kevinbattista]

1+ Chris = Ya Crypto , start a thread :YeaBaby:.. I would like to see some links on where to get the stuff , info and pics .. :thumbup: looks bad ass

Hey guys,
I was thinkin about putting lights on my spare canopy . has anyone got into night flight with the Cypher ( or at all.. ) ?

[irjamesm]

Im thinking probably not a good idea to fly with drizzle?
Got a different tail servo for the EXI500....(Align DS520) working awesome now, but was trying it this morning...and its drizzling here and had a weird glitch all of a sudden.
Pitch went haywire for sec.....got it down no damage, but it was weird...where ive been going also are some power lines fairly close, and was thinking...nope..I'd better stop!:shock:.
Dru...when we going to fly?
Chris, where are you?
Ah Clem, How was the fun fly?

[blvdbuzzard]

Funny you mention flying. I was thinking about that too. I did a build session with brother and brother in law. Did some flying and all is well with the world for that day. :)

I was looking at my dirty, dusty, neglected Cypher. She is pissed off at me. I have not touched her, charged, flown or even crashed her in a LONG LONG time.

I may try to get a flying session with the guys at Chollias. That way I only have to drive 60 miles to fly. It will be an "E" fest for sure. I have like 12 E powered aircraft to fly now.

Moisture can and will do very strange things to metal and carbon fiber. It could have been just a fluke or a real water problem. C|Glad it came down in the same number of pieces as it went up in.

I think we may need to re name this thread. I think the back around when we feel like Cypher thread.

Dru.

[Ah Clem]

The Fun Fly was great!

Not one Cypher there though, not one!

Next year you guys need to make your presence felt.

If any of you bring one, I will bring mine.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/vv227/RAK402/CompassFlyersGroupShotII.jpg

[irjamesm]

Well I figured it out, not a weather issue. Elevator servo, ground wire came off on cirquit board. As I throttled up, it would twitch badly, ground wire must have been connecting a little. Soldered it back on. Now all is good again. I hope. But were about to get rain tonigh and tomorrow....so Im grounded.

[maddog57]

Wow James, good find on the bad servo connection. How did you find that?! Chalk it up to experience I guess. Good for you.

Nice pic, AhClem. Which one are you? Not suprised there weren't any Cyphers there. Our heli never "took off" as far as popularity goes IMO. Too bad cuz it's a sweet little bird. Mine hasn't seen any air time lately cuz I'm enjoying my Atom so much.

Chris :thumbup:

[Ah Clem]

Chris,

I am not in the photograph-I was behind the camera.

I am far too ugly to be in photographs!

I cannot afford to pay for the camera damage...

[blvdbuzzard]

Ah Clem, I to suffer from exploded camera syndrome. It is not easy dealing with replacing cameras. It takes away from my helicopter money. :)

Dru.

[Cryptovariable]

Hi guys,

The Cypher is $119.99 until 10/18 at Hobby People. Not the $89 or $99 it once was, but better than $149 if you need one.

The ESC is supposed to be $19.99 on sale, but when you add it to your cart, it still shows $34.99. I guess you could call if you want one.

http://graphics.hobbypeople.net/gifs/FullDiscSaleBottom_02.gif

[kevinbattista]

Thanx Crypto :thumbup:


So I took the Cypher out today ( It's been a while) It's fly'n nice, got her all tuned up, only one problem= I'm a chicken sh1t ! I've been doin fine with my sim flights but one i get the "real deal" in the air all my confidence goes out the window :thumbdown:
I'm so afraid to crash it that I just kinda hover around tail/side in and do some ff / bf.
My Blade mSR and cpp2 are "out of order" so I have no other heli's to play with:(
I have been tryin to find a teacher at local indoor club for the winter but all planks around here, no heli's , sigh, looks like i better open another savings account;)
ok, i'm done whining now, :roll:

[maddog57]

Crypto thanks for the heads up on the Cypher sale. You couldn't buy all the parts individually for that price so it'd be great if you needed the spare parts or for a 2nd Cypher to build with different components than your 1st Cypher! Was hoping you'd have given us some info on that 4 blade rotor head you showed us. What a tease, hehehe!

Kevin I'm in the same boat as you. That pucker factor gets me every time. It all boils down to getting enough stick time IMO. I don't get anywhere near the time I'd like. I'll never get to FF it seems sometimes, but I WILL prevail, damn it, LOL!! I just got a new sim, Pheonix, so I'm gonna pound it all winter and hopefully next summer I'll be able to actually really"fly" my helis!!

Chris :thumbup:

[blvdbuzzard]

Pucker factor, pucker factor, pucker factor. Did you know the pucker factor is what is holding you back. It is the mantra of the heli pilot. The ones who do not have it, get free stuff or are just so damn good they are past it.

Now here is the strange part for me. I can put a plane in the air without ANY pucker factor. Yet when any helicopter goes up, I am a total wreck. Just a strange deal for me.

Kevin, I used to get so much pucker factor my knees would shake and I would have to land. I was a quivering mass of jello. It was not pretty to say the least. I still get it when I fly. Just not as bad and can maintain control. Besides, when flying on the sim, hit space bar and you have a new heli, real life, not so easy.


Dru.

[kevinbattista]

Ya , I love the "reset" feature of a sim . I fly/crash the snot outta my Phoenix sim.
Of course hearing " DON'T CRASH" come out of my wifes mouth everytime i go to fly adds to the pucker factor +100 so the sim is my best friend , i try to get atleast an hour a day in.(usualy 1:00-2:00am before bed)
some times my impatience gets the best of me..
i just want to know how to fly already!!! :arggg: :lol:.... so..... how long does it usualy take one to learn the baics? and please dont say "it's different for everyone";)
I started april/may and can tail in hover, left side in hover, kinda right side in hover, ff ,stop,bf , and, tail in land on a dime... and of course "glide around " right, left ,forward and, backward. Is this a "normal" point i'm at ?
I know it's kinda stupid but i just want to make sure i dont "suck"at this ;)

[blvdbuzzard]

There is no set rule to how long it will take. There are ways of getting better faster though. They usually end up costing money for parts.

If you set out to do certain things every flight, it will help you get over the rough spots. You can hover left side in, well you need to work on the right side then. Try this. lift off, hover left side in for a 30 count then without moving the helicopter use the tail to rotate it 180 degrees to right side in for 30 count.

Another good one is to get some flat plates, cones, or other things you can hover over. Put them about 30 or so feet out to the left and right of where you stand. Fly to one then hover both sides in then fly to the other one and hover both sides in.

After you have that down, then comes the all mighty nose in. I could not learn this close to the ground. It will also help if you can do piro's. Lift off, get it up about 2 to 3 mistakes high. Hover there, nice and steady. Now swing the nose around, hold it for a 1, 2 or 3 count, piro back to tail in. Keep doing this until you get to where you can hover there nose in.

When I get mine back in the air, I will be doing just this to get back to being able to hover nose in. One trick to this is move the left stick in the direction the helicopter moves, this will cancel the movement and keep the helicopter stable.

There is something about the time on a sim not transferring to real life. In the sim you do not loose money, time and or effort to a crash. I remember a thread a long time ago talking about sims. They came up with a bright idea. Link you account to the sim. Every time you crash, a calculator would figure out how much the parts were and then deduct that amount from your account. That way it would be more realistic :shock::thinking:wow2:

Dru.

[kevinbattista]

Dru,
Ya , I try the little tricks to get better... and i know everyone's different in the time it takes to learn.. i was just tryin to get an idea where i was. my uncle have been flyin planes for YEARS and just picked up a heli (T~Rex 500 ) 2 years ago, he can do circuts and tail,side in with a quick nose in.. and thats with a stablizing set up.. so i feel pretty good about where i'm at ..:YeaBaby:

I agree with a way to keep tabs on the "sim account" also :thumbup: i would LOVE to see how many THOUSANDS of $$ i've crashed :)

So on another note ; I had my 3rd ALIGN servo failure today:thumbdown: lucky for me it was on the bench .. though it may have been my own fault.:roll:
I lubed the swash last night with TRI~FLOW and i think i may have dripped onto the servo. when i took the cover of it seemed abit "wet":oops: the servo clicked and spun up and just went nuts specially with stick input.. think if i hit it with contact cleaner i can save it?
either way i'm getting another servo..
~~OH , do i NEED to get all 3 servo's the same? or can i upgrade/change them out one by one? :thinking
thinkin Airtronics this time..



Update: i cleaned it out with contact cleaner.. no help:thumbdown: still clicks and skips when i raise the sticks.. must be gears or somethin.. i dont know about that stuff:dontknow another servo added to the junk pile.

HA ! RE~ UPDATE = after watching some very informative video's ( thanks Finless) I have rebuilt my first servo !! ok , i know, .. "no big deal" "it's easy" but the money i just saved :YeaBaby: good thing i keep my "junk"
Still thinkin bout NEW servo's though ;)

[Ah Clem]

"OH , do i NEED to get all 3 servo's the same? or can i upgrade/change them out one by one?
thinkin Airtronics this time.."

All three servos must be identical.

[maddog57]

As AhClem says, all identical Kevin. In the Cyclic Servos thread, I've just posted a link for Airtronics 94809's for $31.50. Looks like a great one for the $. Metal geared digitals. Worth a look for your replacement servos. Should be a Cypher drop-in.

Chris :thumbup:

[blvdbuzzard]

Yep, they need to be the same or you will have a real bad time.

Kevin, I will be 45 this December, I started fly R/C planes when I was 9. When I started helicopters, It took me 3 months of hovering 1 to 2 tanks of fuel every day!!! I would burn up a gallon of fuel on Saturday alone. I was on the sticks as much as possible. After 6 months I had nose in down cold, figure 8's both ways, stall turns with 720 degree piros :wow2::woohoo:WOW I was just starting to do inverted. I would do 1/2 a back flip, hold it for a 3 count then finish the flip. Things happened and I did not fly for almost 3 years. Yeah it sucked BIG TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am no where near where I was back then. There are big problems going from fixed wing to rotor wing. Flying a plane, if something happens, cut throttle and hold up elevator. When you do that with a helicopter, it makes a bad thing even worse.

That is the reason I crashed the first 3 times. That alone cost me $350.00 So I learned not to do that in a hurry. I learned on a 30 sized helicopter. They are by far easier to fly then the Cypher. They are also a lot easier to see. If you get a wild hair, build a 500 sized helicopter and see how much easier they fly. Or get a 30 sized nitro helicopter and see how much smoother they are then the little twitch monster the Cypher.

I have a 450 sized helicopter that is as smooth as silk. My brother could hover his AXE CPII for about 30 seconds before it got out of control. He tried my MX450SX and flew it like he knew what he was doing. He called it a balloon compared to the AXE. The Cypher is a good helicopter, yet it is twitchy. I like it because I like the SNAP!!! But learning on this helicopter, I give all of you tons of credit. Not sure I could do it.

Fly, fly and then fly some more!!!!

Dru.

[kevinbattista]

OK , I figured all the servos had to be the same but i was hoping i was wrong ;)

~Dru, thanks for sharing and the vote of confidence :thumbup: It makes me feel better about how i'm doing . I know there's "no rush" to learn , and everyones different but knowing that I'm taking the "harder route" ( twitchy bird, no expo, no added flybar weight ect..) and still doin ok makes me want to do this even more, ya know?
once i can "fly" with out crashing , i think i'll start building a bigger bird .

~Thanks for the link Chris:thumbup:

[blvdbuzzard]

You really do not need to go bigger to have a less twitchy machine. I built one of these for a friend at work. I was surprised at how stable it was. He had some way off brand servos in it that he got for cheap, the gyro did not work with his high speed Align servo so he bought my 401 gyrd gyro and it was a good setup. When I brought it into work to give to him, we test flew it in the parking lot. It did a 10 second hand off hover. It just sort of floated around like it knew how to do it.

http://www.xheli.com/exi-450-arf-rc-helicopter.html

The 500's are getting lower cost. I am tempted to get one of these for my Christmas present.

http://www.xheli.com/18h29-exi500-carbonheli.html

I am going to do a little flying this weekend if it kills me. I want to get my MX450 in the air, just need to program the radio, and i want to get the Cypher back up before it decomposes into a pile of stuff.


Dru.

[Ah Clem]

Dru, Kevin, Chris,

Why don't we set up a session on Phoenix sometime and fly?

[irjamesm]

Hey Guys, I switched gyros on my 2 helis to see what would happen, and the 500 is flying fine...4 packs so far.
But the cypher is flying a little weird with the logictech gyro.
So im not sure whats going on, if I havent set it up right, or its defective...cause im almost positive I have it set up correctly.
A good note, the Airtronics servo that fried, I sent in, and yesterday the mailman brought me a brand new one!!!! The invoice just said "Bad motor, Replaced servo"