Zero-G CCPM upgrade - Problems ?

[Janek]

One of the guys at my field purchased the Zero-G CCPM conversion kit, and installed it on his Raptor 50.

He was extremely disappointed to say the least.

He can only get 9.5 degrees of collective pitch, as any more means that his servo's start maxing out, thus totally buggering up the cyclic pitch movement of his swashplate, making it "interesting" to fly.

Using bigger servo arms is NOT an option, as this would totally mess up the CCMP geometry, and the front link to the swashplate is fixed, by the design, at 20mm, and cannot be changed,

Has anyone else used this upgrade, and suffered similar problems, and what fixes did they use.

[WillJames]

I know a guy who had similar problems. There should be some people here who can help to solve all but a little of the problem. I'll make a few contacts to try to help.

[TerryBelanger]

I set mine up and ended up getting a max mechanical collective range of 13 -13
the main problem you'll run into is interaction t full aft and forward cyclic when passing 3/4 stck collective a the top, and 1/4 collective at the bottom. The swash will not maiintain angle of attack. I gave up on it and sold it. I have heard that the Quick UK swash fixes the problem. It doesn't need the ring around the swash. the added distance from the center of the swash to the ball link is what most people say creates the interaction.

You'll endup noticing that with the stock swash the elevator is were all of your problems will be. It's the only belcrank on the copter and is not adjustable at all.

Try the quick swash.

[Janek]

Terry,

The guy concerned does have the Quick UK CCPM swashplate !.

And you're spot on about the elevator crank, this not being adjustable means that the whole system is fixed. . . . . and unfortunately seriously flawed by the looks of it.

Zero-G should have received their email by now, my mate was pretty miffed at the weekend, so I doubt he took any prisoners :shock:

[WillJames]

I am pretty sure there have been some other mods that help this situation. I have PM'd a couple of people who might know more, hopefully they will respond publically.

[Laurens]

The only thing I can think of is, are all servo's centered? I don't have a R50 but when I flew planks I didn't even know if it was necessary :mrgreen:

[TerryBelanger]

I talked to a couple of guys that talked with the guy that designed the kit about the problems. He acted like it wasn't a problem. I would try contacting him directly about it. I'm sure someone here on the freak knows how to get in touch with him. It's a great kit and the copter flys wikid quick. The interaction just scared me. I'm not a heavy 3der now but I figured it would cause me some problems later on down the road.

[Hitch-Hiker]

I have one of those...

Yea, I have seen some areas for tweaking... I need the tail boom supported better in the frame.

As far as the ccpm....

there is alot to truth to both sides.

With a 13/13 possible amount of pitch... this will hugely limit the cyclic inputs...

I ended up with my machine set up to +/- 9 and the max cyclic I could get. I do wish there was more cyclic to be found... I am still using the outer ring, and moving the balls closer to the ms will definately give more throws... I need a quickUK swash myself to try out.

there is a vid on the vid forum of my machine flying at ircha this past year.

Its a really nice package in general

Jeff Swartz

ps

Barron is the person at XeroG that did the development.

[ScotY]

Hmmm...interesting conversation here. I setup my XeroG frame kit Raptor with +/- 10 degrees collective and 6 degrees of cyclic pitch without any issues.

A while back, I went to visit Todd Bennett and he suggested the above setup for me, as well as most people flying 3D. He went into great detail on the reasoning behind his setup theory and it all made sense.

If set up this way, it's possible to have a maximum of 16 degrees of pitch on the blades at any given time which should prevent any overloading of the motor/rotor system for those with less than perfect collective management (like me).

If cyclic isn't quick enough at that point, one can increase headspeed, use lighter paddles (the new Thunder Tiger green paddles are nice), and use stiffer dampeners in the head. Anyway, your mileage may vary, but it works for me.

Hope this helps.

[ColinB]

The easiest fix for more collective would be to change the mixer arm geometry slightly. Move the pitch link ball side/end out or the long control rod in on a modified mixer. You'd also increase the cyclic throws and I'd think the cost would be less than buying a swashplate.

stephen

[xerog]

Thanks for everyones comments about our conversion.

First we are always interested in helping our customers find solutions to their problems or challenges in connection with the use of our product.
We have yet to receive any personal messages from any of the contributors on this thread, but be assured that we will respond quickly when we do.

In regard to the limited amount of collective and swash pitch available, you are absolutely right that our conversion will not give you 13 and 13 with 8 degrees of swash deflection. I don't know anyone (or blade) who can use this much pitch - 21 degrees in total. What I am referring to is that I agree that todays powerful engines and mufflers can easily handle 12 degrees of pitch, but when you add the desired 8 degrees of swash pitch that makes a total of 20 plus degrees of pitch. These blades will stall at the high rotor head speeds that we are all now running.

Understanding that you can get this kind of range from stock mccpm, try this:

Go ahead and set-up your machine for 12 and 12, set your pitch to 0, then set your swash for 8 degrees deflection by adjusting throws in your swash menu.

Go fly. Manage your collective and fly your cyclic, you will have all the tic-toc thrust you need and also have enough aileron and elevator authority to tie your machine into knots. The best 3D pilots (Jeff Swartz is one of them) do not use the combination of 13 and 8 in any maneuvers that I am aware of(could be wrong)? Again these blades do not work at their optimum with 21 degrees of pitch and 1900 on the head!


We are confident that if you follow the above suggestion or others that have appeared on the the boards over the past year, you will have great results.

If anyone would like to ask specific questions or have a comment, please pm us and we will be happy to respond.

Thanks

XeroG

[ScotY]

Hey Stephen,

It's late and I'm not following what you're saying. Can you explain again?

[TerryBelanger]

I never said that I ran 13 -13 with 8 degrees of cyclic when flying . I said I got a max mechanical travel of 13 -13 and 8 deg of cyclic. That means thats all I could physically get out of the system.

I in fact ran 11 -11 in normal and idle up and 13 -11 in hold. I ran 8 degress of cyclic in all conditions.

I never could get rid of the interaction. So I sold it.

You are right in that most machines will not handle a total 21 deg of deflection. I wasn't getting interaction at full collective and full cyclic, I was getting the interaction at 3/4 and 1/4 stick so if you think about it I could only get some where in the neighborhood of 13.5 deg (5.5 deg of collective and 8 deg of cyclic) total deflection before it started to interact.



The elevator arm (ball link that attaches to the arm) would bind on the frame when moving the swash up and it would not travel far enough when moving the swash down

I followed the instructions exactly and used all stock parts when setting the copter up.

I would be perfectly willing to give the xero-g another try if I ever get another Raptor.

I would be anxious to see how the kit works with a stinger 50.

[alexander]

It's late and I'm not following what you're saying. Can you explain again?


hello,

We needed more on our raptors 90SE so I altered the mixers. Now easily get 22 collective and over 7 cyclic without binding in the corners or a cyclic ring. It means you can use less servo rotation and swashplate tilt for a given blade angle.

http://www.scotiabladerunners.ca/90SE.htm

The pictures are near the bottom of the htm. Sometimes the answer with low throw setups is in the paddles, sometimes not.

Stephen

[andys]

As we sell the Kits for XeroG in the UK we have had a cople of guys in the UK with the interaction problem, and they all managed to sort out, the easiest way which is works is as follows

1) linkage lengths- 65.55mm- 38.75mm - 48.00mm(this last one is the forward crank, from centre ball to centre of pivot pin)

2) pcm 9 ECCPM settings- no sub trim on ale, ele, pitch. travel adjust for the channels are at 100% each direction the swash mix travel settings are at aile 72% elev 72% pitch 77% now you can opt to limit the pitch range here to give the maximum deflection you desire, how ever I chose to use my pitch curves later on..

3) IMPORTANT!! The collective needs to be at half stick and showing 50% out put on the pitch curve display, at this point select your servo arms that fit the 90 degree criteria best. This can take a while and will pay off big time later if it is good. Try some arms around different ways to get the best result before cutting off the excess.

4) If all the above went well you should be able to adjust the long links to the upper mixing arms to give you 0 deg collective at 50 % stick. ensure the swash is level before you measure for the 0 deg.

5) At this stage the swash will bind on the shaft collar, this is easily sorted by some filing of the collar and profiling as necessary.

6) Now to set max collective this is where it all goes pear shaped in a big way!!! Depending on the mixing system used i.e stock plastic, TT metal upgrades, Quick UK or other will determine how much collective is given per distance travelled up or down the main shaft by the swash this distance on my machine is 14.5 mm total range giving + - 10 deg respectively. a significant modification to the upper mixing arms was used to keep this range measurement to a minimum, The mod was done to the stock plastic arms and is as follows. Move the ball link input further in board on the arm (this is the side that attaches to the long link and then to the swash) my pivot point to ball centre is now set to 28mm rather than a standard measurement of 32mm aprox. In relation to point No 6 I also have quick UK lower mixing arms. I cannot vouch for any other set ups or their respective ratios so if you have reached the target swash travel and collective has measured up as 10 either way, the mixer arm mod will not be necessary.

7) Now with the set up as used, ALL of the interaction issues and servo over travel issues disappear along with sluggish cyclic response!!

8)I Do run higher head speeds with metal heads, I run 2040 with the Quick UK head

9) Changed to MA white paddles

This info was given to me by Hobbit_Basher and was also posted on other forums, which has helped alot of our customers out.

I hope this info helps

Andy

[WillJames]

Thanks very much for the info Andy!!!! :noteworthy

[TerryBelanger]

Andys. That's great info, but thats the reason I sold the Xero-g. I don't want to have to modify stock parts to get the kit to work correctly. I stink at fabrication and do not trust myself to modify a part by hand. If the components doesn't work out of the box, I just return it, or sell it, and move on.


Like I said before If I ever happened on another raptor I would definatley give the xero-g another try

[andys]

Hi BDIS
You dont have to modify the stock parts to get it to work correctly, what I posted was a customers details of what he did to get it to fly how he liked it, by doing this he was able to remove the interaction he didnt want.

With eCCPM you will always have a small amount of interaction no matter what heli it is.
It seems it is only when people want more from the kit than is availible that it cant do it, like + - 13 and 8 degrees on the cyclic, which we got asked for yesterday.

Sorry to here you sold the kit

Andy