MiniTitan E325 flight time

[EricW]

In my case it may be a Newbie thing as these are my first real heli flying experiences, but I witnessed the influence of lubricating and setup of the heli and what impact it has on the flighttimes and the health of your lipo's.
Thanks cincyheli!
This also counts for the Minititan i Guess.

My Lipo's and motor got really hot and i had to put in more than 90% after my very last flights, got me pretty scared actually.

So i started with removing the training gear.
I took the tail-section off and lubricated the front belt pulley bearings with light silicone oil, took the two bearings out and pressed the oil in.
kept working on them until they were really loose and smooth before i put them back in.
Seems that the belt can be pretty loose without slipping, more than 5mm as suggested in the manual!
Also oiled the swash bearing, it's factory stuffed with thick(not really light)grease, this seems to be the standard filling of all bearings.
My LHS told me to use tobacco paper between the gears for the proper amount of play.
I forgot to check the maingears high and low points, so redid the play between pinion and maingear by eye and feel (much better method imo)
Kept adjusting until the rotor was spinning really smooth by hand.

My setup:
Stock motor and ESC, stock woodies
Flown on governor mode 85% flat, 13 tht pinion.

Came from:
- 2500mAh 3s1 15C lipo:
flown 6:40 min. really hot almost 2200 Ma charged back in.
- Flightpower EVO25c 2170 Mah.:
flown 4:40 min. HOT almost 2100 Ma charged back in.(not healty :oops: )

After adjusting:
- 2500mAh 3s1 15C lipo:
flown 6:40 min. warm, 1660 Ma charged back in.
- Flightpower EVO25c 2170 Mah.:
flown 4:40 min. not even warm, 1300 Ma charged back in.

So I had my first flights without a traininggear (flies great, had some kneeshaking moments :twisted:)
And got a little wiser.
I'm not ready though, think i can win some more so i can make longer flights.
I see a lot of people complaining about short flight times on the mini Titan and maybe in some cases it's just a setup issue.
Hope this helps others.

Eric

[usherwdp]

Hi EricW,

My E325 still a bit stiff, been oiling as you suggested.

You mentioned "My "LHS told me to use tobacco paper between the gears for the proper amount of play. " Have you got some instructions on how to do this? I'm not too sure on how to go about this!

Cheers,

Peter

[EricW]

Hi Peter,

Loosen up the motormount bolt, put a piece of thin tobacco paper between the pinion and maingear while you turn the motormount towards the maingear.
So you get a spacing between the gearteeth.
The only problem i had was that my maingear is not exactly round, so it was still binding in some spots.

I redid the procedure but this time by eye.
Turn the heli upsidedown (there's a viewing space)and look at the play between the pinion and maingear while turning the maingear at least 360 degr. and make sure it stays smooth without binding teeth.
if the gears bind, just adjust the mount a little.
after that i fully tightend the motormount bolt.

Eric

[cincyheli]

Gear mesh and belt tension are vital for runtimes. Glad to hear that the suggestions helped! :glasses2: :hug: . your batteries will thank you as well.

I was out hovering around in my backyard tonight.

10 minutes hovering = 1300mah put back in to a TP extreme 2070

this heli rocks :thumbup:

[usherwdp]

Eric,

Thank you. Great explanation, even I understand :oops:

Been looking at the Bob finless general maint Video http://video.helifreak.com/?subpath=finless/trex450&filename=maintenance.wmv Mine doesn't run that smooth, perhaps after I try your idea out it might help!

Cheers,

Peter

[EricW]

Np Peter :) ,
For me as a technical guy all seems pretty logical and still i overlook a LOT of things, but many people start heliflying without any technical background, so it never hurts to ask or explain things imo.
That's why Bobs videos are very valuable IMO.
Success

That's a lot of hovering with just 1300mah cincyheli!
I really can't resist to do some fast climbs between my hovering, really like speed :), almost had a crash yesterday while trying to slowly hoverfly turning against the clock, seems to be my weak side.
More practise needed :)


Eric

[djorkaeff]

Hello,

My flight times for hoovering are like this:

Flightpower 1800mAh 3s (13T pinion, 92% trottle): 4:30 minutes
Thundertiger 2200mAh 3s (13T pinion, 92% trottle): 5:30 minutes

until the 'light discharge protection' of the esc comes on.

if I don't hoover but fly around fast with some vertical tail circles etc, my timers (85% trottle) come on 3:15 and 4:15
(standard discharge protection, 2.9V almost there).

then i fly it like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5HoOQJz9sw

i think this are very short flight times? the belt is not so tight... has it al to do with lubrication? or should I use another pinion?

[EricW]

Nice flying after just two months!
I'm not sure how much difference there is between hovering and flying around, but I thought that hovering is pretty heavy.
It's pretty complicated to predict the load you generate during a flight.
4 to 5 min. of hard 3D is "normal" for 1 lipo as i read in many other threads.
But the hover times you get are kinda low imo.
Than I also understood from others that once you get more experienced you will fly with better cyclic management, and that also will reduce the load on the motor during flights resulting in longer flight-times.

I have not tried a smaller pinion yet (11th.), it results in a lower headspeed if I'm right and don't know the effect of it, maybe someone else can make a comment on this.
But It wouldn't hurt to look at the play between maingear and pinion, if this is really smooth and not binding, and recheck the belttension (a very small adjustment made a lot of difference in my case) and the smoothness of all bearings driven by your motor.
It's not such a big deal to pull it apart and put it back together again, also a good check if everything is still in place :).

Success
Eric

[kdii02]

I had major heat problems and short flight times too. I cut a nice teardrop shaped hole in my windshield, and flipped my ESC over so the heatsink is facing out of the bottom canopy holes. loosened the belt, lubed everything up and realigned the gears and pinion. Now I have been consistently getting 10-12 minutes of hovering and minor ff before the Esc cuts me off (mid battery cutoff / align 35x esc) with the FP2170 Evo 25's and the medusa motor running a 12T revco pinion. Batt is just warm after my flight and esc is cooler. Motor is still on the hot side but possibly because I am just hovering and not getting it cooled by flying around. hmmm...

Still fighting the tail/nose bobble issue though.

[EricW]

Not bad :)

I'm getting about the same results now, 8-10 Min. should be easily possible.
Had some nice flights just a moment ago about 6:30 each, the weather is fantastic over here.
I seem to develop a good timer in my head so it didn't cut off, kinda scares me after the last time, have to because the futaba TX timer beeps (F8us) are way to soft to hear.
For me that is...Am i getting deaf (Walkman ears)or is the sound soft?
I now fly without the governor, and throttle curves.
With the FP Evo25 it performs great overall, in normal and idle-up.
With the 3M 2500 it performs bad in normal (tail wag) once in idle up mode it's flying fine but not as agile as the FP of course.
Guess I have to change the Gyro-gain setting in normal-mode to the same setting I use in Idle-up.

[kdii02]

Cool. I flew continously all weekend and man those new FP Evo 25's are damn impressive. I'm gonna grab 2 more. Plenty of power and long flights and they run cooler. I think for me anyway using the 12T pinion is a good setup for what I'm doing right now. I get great performance and a long enough flight time to actually practice my hovering and slow ff and get into a rythmn for a few minutes. Less charging and more flying time!

[henrik04]

All has been said and I second the checking of the main gear and pinion. My local dealer recommended a ceramic grease for the bearings and the ball links. So I gave it a go and was surprised of the difference before and after applying it. Amazing! Some links (such as the tail rudder servo) were 300% better after applying this ceramic grease.

After many crashes, I did rebuild the bird from A to Z and pushed same grease in all the bearings. Gee! What a difference both on consumption and on flight characteristics!

Now all has to be done again to place the metal bits in place..
Ah well that all fun anyway.. :D

[EricW]

It's really fun to work on this heli,
Can't wait to make some replacements, still didn't crash though :?
Once i buy new blades, Radix or TT CF not sure yet, maybe I also upgrade the head.
Curious what blade spacing TT and others will use in the metal head btw.
Success with the upgrades!

Eric

[kdii02]

I put a set of Radix 325mm on and I love them so far. Very crisp response and the heli seems more stable. Also put a set of hyperion cf tail blades on and they did improve the tail performance.
I havent lubed the tail bearings yet but I did loosen and lube up the belt as we do on the Rex 450's. I think I will get into the tail bearings tonite and get some tri-flow in there. I have lubed the main shaft, swash, and washout with tri-flow spray lube and my head setup is pretty smooth. Still looking forward to the metal head and aluminum upgrades. Hopefully we can do away with the spacers on the new metal blade grips. :roll:

[henrik04]

Kdii02: I use SAB 325 mm blades on my E325. Of course the width of these blades isn't 6 millimeters but 4.68 (measurement at center insert point on the blade). I place 2 x 0.6 mm thick washers on each side of the blade. 16 mm od and 3.1mm id. That rocks :mrgreen: I mean tracking is good. I don't know about the radix ones. I guess that if the blade is centered on the grip that is the main point.

Next experiment is Z-power 450F 3500kv or Z-Power 450TH 3300kv (New Version) or Z10 motor. Have enough of smelling cooked varnish after each flight. :lol: The blessed stock OBL does the job but I want lifting power (within reason).
Will probably use the 11 or 12 T pinion to lower the rotor speed (3500 kv a bit too much). That's what I'm going to play with.. :mrgreen: