Blade CP Pro Flight Log

[Yancey]

Flight Log
8/23/6 – Bought through eBay, a Blade CP Pro Helicopter for $197.50 with shipping.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=009&item=190023837780
The battery included is Apex MK3 3S 11.1volt 1350mAh 15C Discharge Rate.

His configuration did not have a charger so I bought one for $89.99 with shipping.
Dynamite Vision Peak Ultra AC/DC Charger DYN4053 from Viper Hobbies.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=020&item=300020897236

Running Total: $287.49

My heli experience is ~20 hours of sim time, 3 months flying the Blade CX and reading Helifreak.

9/8/6 – Inspection of the helicopter
I removed the canopy to fix the lower right grommet. A piece of the punch out was still there so I cleaned the hole.

I made sure everything was tightened on the bird and did a control test as outlined in the manual.

As I was putting the canopy back on, I noticed the canopy mount rod was at an angle. In fixing it I broke the glue bond.

I needed the correct connectors between the battery and the charger so a trip to the LHS for that and some glue. $6.20 not including gas in my 9gpm 1971 Ford truck.

Running Total: $293.69

Battery 1 – Spin up testing - I am somewhat following Radd’s School of Rotary Flight.
http://www.dream-models.com/eco/fieldManual.html

After 15 minutes the heat readings are Motor 88, ESC 91, and Battery 75.
Battery was at 12.01 and I charged at 2 amps for 18 minutes. 12.55 peak

Battery 2 – Spin Up
10 minutes Ambient 88 Motor 105 ESC 96 Battery 87
Battery was at 11.82 and I charged at 2 amps for 21 minutes. 12.55 peak

I also increased the throttle trim to learn where the spin up/down was at mid-trim.

I wanted to put the canopy back on so I was using the canopy mount rod to push through the grove and dislodge any old glue. As I was pushing it into the grove, it caught. I might not need the glue. I found it easier to put the canopy mount rod into place by pushing it in from the side rather than snapping it down from the top. One of my servos is right there so the rod is not horizontal. The rod is pressing on the wires to the servo so I will leave it at a slight angle rather than press too hard on the wires.

9/10/6
Battery 3 – Tilt the Swash

I did get more used to the swash from all the tilting. I’m operating on my driveway and I think my neighbors believe I am crazy as they looked out on me laying down watching my blades. I watched the relationship between the flybar and the blades, the amount of movement on the servo arms and the amount of travel of the blades.

I contacted the seller to see how many amps he charged this battery with. BTW, he had recommended the charger I bought. He said he would charge at .8 but I could use 1.2 however he thought it better for the battery at .8. I had been charging at 2 amps.
(The battery is Apex MK3 3S 11.1volt 1350mAh with a 15C Discharge Rate.)

20 minutes Ambient 68 Motor 95 ESC 82 Battery 77
Battery was at 12.01 and I charged at .8 amp for 20 minutes. 12.56 peak

After watching the FunScale.com videos on the Blade CP, I would like to see if my blades are balanced.

http://www.funscale.com/cpg148/thumbnails.php?album=8
or
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8172940920636541436
1 Radio, 2 Rotorblades, 3 Pitchcurves, 4 Ready to Fly, 5 Final Adjustments

I did NOT make any changes to the Proportional Trimmer Pot or Gain Trimmer Pot, … yet.

I went to my LHS and got an Align Balancer K10289TA ($4.92) but after trying it I think it is for another type of blade. It was suppose to fit through the hole in the blade but it does not. Bummer. I rigged a crude way of balancing the blades but I am not happy with it. I also had to get a hex handled tool for removing the blades, $3.20.

Running Total: $301.81

9/11/6
Battery 4 – Throttle Up
I did this from all perspectives, tail in to nose in and everywhere in between. I walked around the tail held bird and I also stood in one place and let the tail move then hold as it went around.

25 minutes Amb 64 Motor 103 ESC 86 Battery 78
Battery 11.64 .8 amp for 20 minutes 12.66 peak

Battery 5 – Throttle Up

I worked the perspective again as I tilted the swash at faster speeds. I watch my skids very closely and when ever one lifted I would power down. I found it lifted with forward stick the easiest. In other words, I must be most careful when I gave it forward stick. I only lifted 4 times.

I was called to the phone and did not get the heat readings. The reason I am getting the heat reading is to set a baseline so I can tell if something is heating up too much. I also found with the Blade CX that if I flew then stopped for a few minutes, the motors would cool enough to not get them too hot to fly.

Battery 11.57 .8 amp for 45 minutes 12.56 peak

[Yancey]

9/12/6

Battery 6 - Training Gear Tilt the Swash
25 minutes Amb 70 Motor 106 ESC 92 Battery 83 Tail Motor 85
Battery 11.41 .8 amp for 56 minutes 12.55 peak

Battery 7 - The Scooter
All right! A little fun. I took a yard stick and chalk and marked out 5 points that were 12" apart. I then took the middle point and used the yard stick to draw a straight line perpendicular from the points. From the end of the line I drew back to the other points making a fan design.

I had 5 tracks, 6 o'clock to 12, 6 to 11, 6 to 10, 6 to 1 and 6 to 2.

I quickly "scooted" down the 6 to 12 track 3 times. I went to 6 to 11 next, I turned the nose and went down directly above the line with the nose. Next I went from 6 to 11 with the nose always pointing at 12.

I found 6 to 10 a little harder and did it twice with the nose on the line and once with the nose at 12.

6 to 1 with nose on the line was easy but with the nose at 12 the helicopter needed more power and would lift above a scoot to make the angle. It did the same for the 6 to 2. I finished off practicing these as they were the hardest for me.

25 minutes Amb 87 Motor 121 ESC 100 Battery 93 Tail 99
Battery 11.52 .8 amp for 48 minutes

[Funky]

Wow... that is one really complete flight log. I thought I took pretty good logs, but all I do is keep track of batteries and crashes. Keep up the good work, you'll be buzzing around before you know it :D

[Yancey]

Thanks Funky, I could have done this in a personal log but was encouraged to blog it here. Any comments are welcome.

Battery 8 - Your Batteries
18 minutes Amb 63 Motor 94 ESC 75 Battery 72 Tail 77
Battery 11.59 .8 amp for 43 minutes

I used this battery to practice hovering where the skids came off the ground but not the training balls. I also played hover craft and "drove" around in an oval.

Battery 9
20 minutes Amb 94 Motor 121 ESC 103 Battery 97 Tail 87
Battery 11.68 .8 amp for 37 minutes

I practiced ball touching hovering. There was a wind and several times I was hopping but I kept the stick the same so it gently bounced down.

Battery 10 - True Hovering Practice
10 minutes Amb 95 Motor 152 ESC 107 Battery 96 Tail 93
Battery 11.71 .8 amp for 36 minutes

Sweeeet. I am in the air. As I start hovering about 2 feet I am jerky as I learn the anticipatory dance. I'm staying within a 5 foot square with no problem. I got air time of 60 seconds several times. By the end I had slow sticked the dance from a techno to a waltz.

As I was keeping her in the air, I noticed that I was at the top of the throttle. When I got this with the CX it meant the batteries were about up or the motors were heating up. Out of conditioned reflex I stopped flying. Time was only 10 minutes but I didn't want to push things. As it was the motor was at 152 degrees 30 seconds or more after shut down.

Next: I'm following the Flying Lessons on LittleRotors.com
http://littlerotors.com/flyinglessons/index.aspx
Starting with hovering then figure eights and nose in.

For those of you reading this that are past this, here is a little gift for you;
A cat attacking a CX.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlDKrMcrGNU

[Yancey]

Battery 11 - Hovering Practice
25 minutes Amb 69 Motor 129 ESC 94 Battery 88 Tail 82
Battery 11.21 .8 amp for 1 hour 14 minutes

The wind was gusting up to 10 mph so I had to clean out the garage. I was able to hover the bucking bronco with out incident.

Battery 12 - Hovering Practice
SMACK!!! Within 5 minutes I had a hard fall off to the left and WAM the blades hit the metal leg of a table. Both blades are beyond repair.

I got some extra blades with the auction win and some are not too bad especially if I'm just going to split them. However I know they are not balanced.

I can't blame it on the wind, I had closed the garage door. I have to say this one was "misjudgment."

[Funky]

I have found the blades have to be pretty far out of balance before they are too bad to fly with. If you can get them close to balanced they should work ok for basic hovering. I wrecked so many times when I got my Pro that I was tired of re-balancing chipped blades all the time. If I was feeling lazy I would just bolt the 2 blades together and balance them while holding the bolt with a finger and thumb. Definately far from precise, but good enough for me to hover around with.

This isn't good practice though and I wouldn't reccomend it. The better your blades are balanced, the less current your motor will draw and the more smoothly your bird will fly. For the correct procedure check out "Blade Balancing" on this page http://www.helifreak.com/viewtopic.php?t=12455 Balancing the blades this way will give you a perfect set of blades to fly with.... just takes a little time.

[Yancey]

9/20/6

I removed the two ruined tipped blades. The auction came with several used blades. I found two that were almost all right and put them on the CP.

Thanks for the info Funky. I should have done your bolt and nut idea. I had already bought the Align blue one and it does not fit on the CP blades. The LHS said they used it all the time on their CP blades. I don't think he knew.

I ended up making the 'cup hooks in wood' blade balancer as described by bladecprepair. http://www.bladecprepair.com/man_mr_setup_and_adjustment

I ended up putting 5 big pieces of tape on one blade to get them to balance. I revved up and everything looks good, these blades are more balanced then the last!

Battery 12 continued - Hovering practice
20 minutes Ambient 80 Motor 114 ESC 96 Battery 94 Tail 85
Battery was at 11.19 .8 amp for 1 hour 17 minutes

It was quite windy so I did a hover at about 2 feet and "surfed" the wind. Occationally, I was blown out of the hover and had a hair raising few seconds as I successfully landed not too hard.

[Yancey]

Battery 13 - Hovering practice
11 minutes Ambient 57 Motor 99 ESC 85 Battery 73 Tail 73
Battery was at 11.65 .8 amp for 39 minutes

As I was hovering I was getting a yo-yoing without my input. It was not too much and I choose to keep on flying. After about 11 minutes, it got away from me and as I was trying to land softly, the tail hit tall grass and did what it is suppose to do, come apart. Nothing broke, but I lost the Tail Rotor Drive Dear (059) and the Tube Section. $4.28 at the LHS.

Running Total: $306.09

I've now read on BladeCP Repair what it could be.
http://www.bladecprepair.com/cause.php?symptom_id=3&curr_category=All%20Categories

My first guess is that it could be the Retaining Pin (035) as I had to remove and put it back when I balanced the blades. I'll remove it and put it back again and see if it helps. I hope it is not the motor or a servo.

And get this, I also lost the disc at the center of the training balls. So I am going to take the trainers all the way off and see how she handles.