Twister 3D Poor radio range - Help!!!

[comeflywithme]

Hi

I'm now getting sick of crashing my heli due to glitches and loss of radio signal

The heli I'm having trouble with is a Twister 3D (simillar to the Honey Bee King). Its a 400 size electric Heli with CCPM mixing and a shaft driven tail.

I'm using a decent J Perkins 25amp ESC and 1500ma JP LIPO. Gyro is an Airtrix 500 HH and receiver a Jeti 7 Channel single conversion with 4 HS55 servos.

In the past I found this fine to hover around infront of me but as soon as I'd get about 50meters away it would start to glitch badly- normally a one second loss of power during which it drops and dips to one side. This has now caused me 4 crashes.

Doing a range check with a non extended aerial I got to about 3metres untill it starts to glitch and get out of range. This is despite the receiver aerial running along the entire length of the heli with no contact to metal of electrical parts.

I really dont know what to do now other than maybe wrapping the receiver in tin foil (although I havent found this particularly useful in the past).

Can anyone help??

[Coolice]

Hey,

Personally I'd suggest changing receivers, not only away from Jeti but also to a PCM version.

You don't mention what radio gear you use, but Futaba and JR make nice small sized Rx's which will help you enjoy your model by filtering out the glitches.

Also radio gear placement around the model makes a big difference to interference rejection. Try to keep your ESC as far away from the receiver as possible and also the gyro from the Rx.
Easy to say so I know on these small electrics, but even the best you can is good enough.

With friends Trex's we chased around for ages finding and fixing glitches, in the end it turned out to be the seperate BEC we employed to bypass the Castle Creations inbuilt BEC circuit.
I don't know if you have heard of ferrite rings, but these small rings of ferrite act as suppressors almost by stopping as much interference as possible going past them. Fitting of a small one to the speed controllers Rx. connection will add another barrier, you basically coil the servo lead around the coil as much as you can to provide the filtering.

You may even find it's the speed controller causing the glitching, Aligns original 25/35amp units weren't all that clean and glitched. A change to the Castle Creations 35A unit fixed all the problems, this was done on a recommendation and worked.

Hope some of the above helps? Unfortunetly it's almost a matter of trial and error, money is always an issue and so you eliminate one thing at a time.
.

[comeflywithme]

Thanks Coolice

I will try both the ferrite ring and Fitting a PCM receiver as you suggested. I'm using a Hitec Optic 6 transmitter which does allow PCM options. Typically each crash costs me about £30 upwards ($55) which is almost the cost of a PCM receiver so I suppose it'll be worth it.

So I take it u dont use Ferrite rings for the receiver Aerial.

Some people were saying that the HS55 servos are quite amp hungry but I did two tests to elliminate that

1 - Disconnecting all servos except speed controller and doing a range check - no change

2 - Connecting Heli to a voltmeter - simultaneous operation of all servos did not cause any significant current drain (only 0.5amp).

I also wrapping the receiver in tin foil - no change.

[Coolice]

Hey,

No worries your welcome.

The ferrite ring and PCM receiver are the first port of call I think. Some do not like PCM on electric heli's, but I feel they are mandatory as electric is by nature interference prone and PCM helps eliminate any problems.
Ok it can mask them to, but if the problem is that bad normal FM is going to be a handful to fly :shock:

No, dont put ferrit rings on your aerial. What it would do I have no idea but it could stop some frequencys reaching the receiver I am guessing.

I'm trying to recall if I have heard that now about HS55's, I know the HS56 is the most commonly used servo in the Terx size range due to it's excellent quality and specs. The two guys I fly with now run them and the model behaves very well.
If it is due to current draw then the ESC could be at fault, what happens is if the current draw through the BEC is to high it will shut down. Hence no power to the servo's and down the model comes, unless your high enough for it to cool and kick in again. Another reason why the motor pulses as the power drops in and out.

Are you by any chance one of the many braving Charmouth fly-in this weekend?
If so I should see you there.
.

[comeflywithme]

No- unfortunately I wont be at the fly in... its about 200miles from me :-)

I will keep you posted on how the investigation goes though.

So far plan of action is:

-Do range check on receiver without model (seperate power source)
-Do range check on receiver with speedcontroller and LIPO - use Ferrite ring if range poor (will probably use ferrite ring anyway)
-Do range check on receiver on model with ferrite ring
-Range check Dual conversion receiver using same procedure as above

If this still doesnt work I will then go and get a PCM receiver.

Fingers Crossed...

Thanks again

[Coolice]

Hey,

Yeah it's 192 from me in Bedfordshire, but we're staying the weekend at the motel.

Sounds good, give it a go and see how you get on.
.

[comeflywithme]

Hey,

Yeah it's 192 from me in Bedfordshire, but we're staying the weekend at the motel.

Sounds good, give it a go and see how you get on.
.

Great idea to make a weekend of it- certainly makes it worth the distance. Besides I find it near impossible to go flying for anything less than 4 hours so if you're anything like me I think staying at a motel is a good choice :-)

[comeflywithme]

Wohoo looks like I finally have it sorted.

I changed the receiver to a dual conv Hitec one and coiled the speed controller lead around a ferrite ring. I was firstly quite disappointed when a range check indoors got me about 4 metres before inteferance but then that not really a good test due to the number of electrical items at home.

I took it to the club field and got to about 10 metres with the aerial down - still not ideal but I decided to do a range check with the aerial 1 third extended and got to about 100 metres which is pretty much the maximum range I would fly this little heli.

Then took the heli up and did a few circuits and there were no glitches at all :D

I can finally get onto developing my heli advancement now as I like to split this between my Raptor and the twister - Did my first forward/backward rolls and 900deg stall turns yesterday :-) + walked away with two intact helis :D

Thanks for everyones help- dont know whether it was the ferrite ring or receiver that did it but I pressume it was a mixture of both.

[Coolice]

Hey,

Brilliant, this is good new to hear.

As you say you can now go and enjoy the model safe in the knowledge it will stay in control as it flies away from you.
.