Venom Micro 3D brushless

[raginredneck93]

Couldn't let this thread die now could we? ;)

I got my 52 a couple weeks ago, and actually got it airborne last weekend in stock configuration. Mega twitchy and a bit underpowered for sure. That and way short flight times with the stock battery/motor. I'm figuring that part of the reason for it being so hard to control is the fact that the ball links on my flybar are way too tight. I lapped them a bit with some toothpaste (woefully unable to find a ball link resizing tool for a Walkera 52) and it helped, but still way too tight. I'm planning on ordering some pieces for the thing soon so I'll pick up some extra metal balls and make myself a ball link tool out of one of them methinks.

I can definitely see the need for the brushless motor, mine will fly but it doesn't take a genious to figure out that the thing is about maxed out on power just hovering. No chance that it'll 3D on the stock motor. I doubt I could even get up enough forward speed for a decent loop before I either ran out of collective or the battery went dead, but it's still a neat little heli.

One thing that I'm noticing though is that the gyro isn't exactly living up to my expectations. I've ended up with my rudder trim full right and the thing still wants to piro on its own unless I hold a healthy dose of right rudder all the time. I wasn't exactly expecting a 401, but I've heard that the stock gyro in these things is pretty good so maybe I'm doing something wrong? I've tried the settings all over the place and it doesn't seem to get any better. I'm thinking maybe remounting the control unit on some good foam tape and see if that makes a difference as the stock stuff seems a little iffy. Maybe it has to do with the weak stock tail motor? If I spool the heli up in my hand and give it a twist the little tail motor seems to kick in straight away though with power to spare so I'm not thinking that's the problem but anything's possible I guess.

Just a quick update from the next guy to order a Medusa. :D

[skunkworx]

Yep! Already got the Medusa! I finally got it installed, but I still need to get a smaller pinion. I have the stock 10 or 11 tooth, but it'll be way too much headspeed. Buildem336 sent me an 8t, but the darn thing punched through the side of the envelope, so I'm back to square 1. Just for your info, if you do get the 'Dusa, get the 4000Kv and get a 6-10t pinion, but the 8t is the recommended one by Buildem336. Also, the Fullymax 450 3s is a perfect fit for the airframe, but you have to ditch the plastic batt tray and use some velcro or ties to hold it on.
The stock gyro should work extremely well, as I've seen Buildem fly both his 52 and Venom 3D micro without a hitch. Maybe your settings are a bit off?I would ask him about it.

[raginredneck93]

I was hoping he'd jump back in on the discussion, buildem seems to be the resident expert on the Walkera 52 for sure. Yours is looking good, hopefully it'll be flying soon. I'd never even imagined that such a tiny heli, especially one with a tail motor, could fly half as good as buildem's until I saw his videos. I've been hooked ever since. Obviously the pilot has a lot to do with it as well, but even the best pilot can't pull off moves that the machine is simply incapable of.

I've tried playing with the rudder mixing and the gyro gain quite a bit, but unfortunately the short flight times limit just how much experimenting I can do. About the time I think it's about dialed in, the battery is dead and I have to start all over. I think the issue must be with the mixing though, because I can get the tail to wag pretty good if I crank the gain so I know I'm not running short in that area.

I'm thinking about making a Y harness so I can run two of the stock batteries in parallel for now. I ordered a handful of them off of Ebay at the same time I ordered my heli so I've got plenty, might as well do something with them. I figured if nothing else I could use them in some of my indoor micro planks, the price was just too good to pass up. I think I gave like $20 for 3 of them off of Ebay. I've got some Kokam 340's too that I use in one of my indoor planes, might try one of those as soon as I get the connectors on the 52 converted to be in line with the rest of my equipment and ditch the JST's.

Also, I think if I'm not mistaken buildem said where he got his pinion gear in an earlier post. I've been wanting to go searching for one myself just so I'll have it when I'm ready to do the conversion but I haven't had time. If you find some in the meantime let me know if you would as to where you got them. I'm hoping to work on loosening up that flybar this weekend and as soon as I get this thing flying right I'm positive the stock motor will be worn out in short order. The darn little thing is just TOO much fun to fly to leave it setting! Better get that Medusa ordered so it's at the ready. I've already got the speed control. :D

[skunkworx]

The Medusa you can get for $39.50 from Radical RC
http://www.radicalrc.com/shop/?shop=1&cart=1655191&cat=138& It's the cheapest I've ever found it for.

The Fullymax Lipos are $22.00 ea. and are 11.1V 25C/40C burst which you can get from Sureflight.com. The website is down for now, but you can look into them when the site is up or @ (858) 571-6100.

Here's the pinion:
http://www.homefly.com/products.asp?id=36

08t gear, module 0.5mm
1.0mm bore, brass WT
Price: $2.75



Anyways, I'll let him know about the thread or he'll see it. He's on here quite a bit. He showed me a good replacement tail motor too, but I lost the link. If I find it again, I'll re-post. Otherwise, keep it coming. I'll post up when I get mine up again. I might try it out on Sunday depending on how my 450 flys tomorrow.

[raginredneck93]

Figured out my tail creep problem I think. It seems that the gyro must recenter whenever I power up the heli, and I wasn't recentering my rudder trim before each flight. I tweaked the trim a ways to the right on my first flight, then apparently the gyro thought that was center when I switched batteries so I ran out of right trim before I could get the tail to hold. Apparently I have to trim the rudder all over again at the beginning of each flight. I found that if I set the trim a bit to the left before I plug in the battery, that I've got a lot more trim to work with before I run out. Other than that it holds just fine, I just had this annoying tail creep that I couldn't trim out. Thanks for the links too skunkworx, I'll go check out the pinion gears for sure. Medusa has the motors on their website for the same price, I went and looked at those yesterday. If you scroll back a bit, buildem put the link for the tail motor in a previous post, I think he got it from BP Hobbies unless he's found a better one in the meantime. Went flying this morning but it was too windy for the little guy, I didn't even brave it with my 450. This spring weather is frustrating for sure, it seems that whenever the temperature cooperates the wind doesn't and vice versa. We've got about another month before the flying gets really good in this neck of the woods at least.

[skunkworx]

Yeah winds are a little tricky in the spring, but I get the opposite affect inthe summertime as far as flying goes. The winter, spring and fall are great, but forget about flying in summer! It's usually right around 100* as late as 1am, so even with night flying you're sweating.
I'll check out that motor. I believe Manual is still flying the same tail motor although he got me onto the idea of a 1/2a can sized B/L motor for the full separates I was going to try. The problem with going that route is simply too much weight and not enough room. The other problem would be getting a good enough gyro for the whole deal. I found a 3.5g HH gyro, but haven't had a good opportunity to test it out on my Trex to see if it is up to the job. If it does work, then I might reconsider the idea of the separates in a few weeks after tax money comes back. At worst, I'll just end up sticking with the stock electronics and fly it out the way it's set up right now (which of course is a proven combo).

[raginredneck93]

I'd thought about the full separates route myself. I think it was you that mentioned in an earlier post that you'd like to use your DX7 and I agree totally. It'd be nice to be able to tweak the control throws, add expo, and of course not have to worry about all of the inherent problems with FM. I was considering tearing into the stock control unit and seeing if I could separate out the reciever and main motor ESC, that way I could replace it with one of those new teeny little sub micro postage stamp sized Spektrum receivers and lose the extra weight of the brushed ESC that will no longer be needed while keeping the gyro and tail motor esc. I don't know if everything's on one board in these or not. I've got an all-in-one plank that I've been going to convert to Spektrum (another project that'll get done someday hopefully) and in the case of this particular model even though everything is in one unit, the servos,receiver, ESC, ect. are all rather modular. It won't be too hard to separate the rx from the rest of the unit and replace it with a Spektrum. In other words, it's east to see where the rx ends and the ESC begins. I have no idea what the inside of the Walkera unit looks like . . . . . yet. :D


That Homefly site that you linked to has some teeny weeny little brushed and brushless ESC's as well that'd be great if a person was to go the separate route. I've got a bushel basket of itsy bitsy little GWS brushed controllers that would probably work for the tail motor if a person stayed with brushed at least. That way all I'd need would be a gyro. How about a link to that tiny one you found? I'd like to check it out. I've got a friend that has an MS Composite Hornet that he put some tiny little gyro on, but I'm not sure of the make. It holds alright, but it's no 401 by any means. His little Hornet is a cool heli in its own right, but he's got silly amounts of cash tied up in it just to make it fly. It'll do forward flight just fine, but the one and only time he tried to loop it ended up in disaster, LOL. All of this talk about separates and converting to Spektrum and brushless motors has me thinking that a Gaui 200 might be the way to go. LOL.

[skunkworx]

Yep, that was me. After watching Manual fly his though, it got me to reconsider. Like I said, he can fly circles around just about anyone I've ever seen flying in person with his 2 little birds. I am still interested in integrated into the Walkera 4n1 because of how well it controls everything, but the problem is that the two boards that make up the unit are soldered together side-by-side, and I didn't want to go tearing it apart just yet in case I can get all the stock stuff running well. As is, the Phoenix 10 barely weighs anything and adding another one would have a very minimal impact, but every gram counts on this little guy.
The only thing I would really need would be a mixer for the main/tail motors and just keep the 4n1 on the side for a fallback. The gyro is an Ikarus. It's barely smaller than a Telebee gyro, but it doesn't have remote gain. I've posted a pic of both so you can see the difference and the size.
If you do decide to go with another heli, the 64C looks really cool. Much better build than the pixy zap, and probably much cheaper. I can't speak for the Gaui. I've never seen one, but I've heard a bit about them. The only reason I was interested in the 52 to begin was the fact that it was so small, but because of the full functioning of the 64C, I might try the slightly larger bird for the full DX7/brushless conversion. I still love my 52, but I still have a few kinks to work out on it. Programming the remote is a breeze now that I have a better understanding of how the controls work (I was a nOOb when I got it to begin with).

[raginredneck93]

I'll have to ask my friend what that gyro on his Hornet is, it's not either of those. I'm thinking that maybe it is however and he just took the case off of it. I've seen his heli with the canopy off and the gyro is a little circuit board with a little silver metal box on it, about the size of a Starburst candy or maybe a little smaller, but no name that I could see. Like I said, it's quite possible he just took it out of the case.

I haven't seen the Gaui 200 live and in person yet, but I've seen the videos and it looks awesome! A little bigger than the 52, but with the advantage of a metal head, real gear, and no tail motor. For now though I'll be content to hack away at my 52. Buildem has proven that they'll fly well with a little tweaking, so I'm off to the bench to tweak. :D

[skunkworx]

3rd pic. Did it look like that??? That's the Ikarus out of it's case.
I want to say the 64C is probably identical ora knockoff of the Gaui200. Do a search on it and it will show you what it's got. Quality is always the tough thing to get past. You always end up paying the piper in the long run over cheap stuff anyways, but if they are the same, I'd say go for the 200! I've personally seen the 52 do some amazing things and therefore feel it's well worth it no matter what. If you eve decide to part with yours, let me know. I'll take it!!! :)

Anyways, just took my 52 out for it's first action in almost a year! I had it sitting on the table, putting in the parameters on the controller. I put in PIT, SENS and was working on the last step (THR curves) and I accidently hit the throttle and the little bugger jumped out of my hands before I knew what the heck even happened! I managed to actually pick up the controller in the knick of time and brought her back down safely enough. Only damage ended up being a change of drawers and 1 main blade had a tiny chip in it. WHEW!!! Boy that little Medusa with an 11t is lightning fast.

After all that excitement, I took it outside for some better adjustments/more room for error...lol.....It spun up like a dream with some negative throttle input (in the setup steps). I had a real problem with it though, because once it had enough pitch to get off the ground, it simply rocketed up instead of a nice and easy ascent. Once at eye level, it held perfect. Nice and easy to fly, tame enough with some EXPO dialed in (about 30% works great) but twitchy enough to really get ripping if you jammed on the sticks.

I brought her back down with a little bump. Seemed to be doing very well. I played with the pitch stuff a little more but never got it off the ground again. All of a sudden, the darn thing exploded!

I'm sure it was the blade that got nicked, but oh well. damage is done now. The good news is that it should be really cheap to fix up. Tail boom, Main blades, a couple links, tail motor wires, and some paddles. check out the pic.

[raginredneck93]

Holy Crap! Looks like the smaller pinion is a good idea. Perhaps a wee bit too much head speed? ;)

[skunkworx]

It is for the stock blades, but it flys freakin awesome!!!! It smoothes it out so nice and to hear that little motor zinging along....awwww music to my ears!!!

I actually am going to try my hand at making my own blades. I'll just save the plastic grips from the stock blades and get some decent covering for them. Shouldn't be too hard. Eventually I'll start making the CF blades and canopies as well, but that'll be after I get the woodies down pretty well.

[raginredneck93]

I'm not ambitious enough to make my own blades, LOL , canopies maybe, but not blades. Actually, on a bird this small you could probably just thug a box of tongue depressors from the doctor's office and drill a hole in the end. :D

I bought two sets of the Mini Zoom woodies that buildem recommended. I ordered them at the same time I ordered my 52 cuz I figured the mods would begin shortly. I think they were only like 4 bucks a pair or something like that, not hardly worth the effort of making your own unless you enjoy doing that sort of thing. If so, then I say go for it and show pics! I love DIY projects when I've got the time. If you figure out how to make them out of carbon fiber, there might even be a market for them. Hell, I'd buy a pair. ;)

[skunkworx]

I kinda had the same idea about ganking some depressors too! I found a couple old posts about doing little projects like that and figured it would be fun to try. I'd probably end up scrapping more than Ican actually use, but it would be fun to me. As to the CF's and canopies, I have a surfboard that is epoxy/gass and it's uber light and 5 to 10 times stronger than regular fiberglass, so I figure I'll try my hand at that. I still have to figure out where to get the CF materials from. Once I get going with the woodies, I'll switch over to the CF and see how it turns out. I can assure you, I wouldn't sell them for much unless they are really kick @$$. But I guess we'll see!

Where did you order your blades from anyways? I haven't been able to find anything besides the junky plastic ones.

[raginredneck93]

That's actually something you could try. Using a tongue depressor for a form that is. I don't know if you've ever reverse engineered any dorked up blades, but a friend of mine has a box of them that he kept for whatever reason, and we sat around for the better part of an hour one day peeling them apart to see what made them tick, LOL. A lot of carbon blades have a hollow section in the middle that's full of foam, others have wood inside. If a person was to start with a tongue depressor, or a popsicle stick, you could probably lay them up with carbon fiber or fiberglass and then sand them to the shape you wanted. The problem would be getting any two exactly the same unless you used some type of a mold. As far as laying up carbon fiber is concerned, I'm not totally sure but if I'm not mistaken I think that carbon fiber as well as some fiberglass (the really dense, hard stuff) is cured under pressure so it takes some pretty sophisticated equipment to work with the stuff. Once again, not sure, I could be spouting BS but it seems like I saw that somewhere.

As far as the blades, they're wood blades for a Gaui Mini Zoom, and they sell them all over the place. I got mine from HeliDirect.com. Click here (http://www.helidirect.com/product_info.php?cPath=167&products_id=3548). That's where I got my 52 from, as well as all of the parts I've ordered for it so far. I usually deal with Heliproz since they're right here in town, but unfortunately they don't deal in Walkera stuff. Now when it comes to my T-Rex 450 or my Knight 50 however, they have ALL my business. :thumbup:

[skunkworx]

Well I picked up a plank of balsa wood to try it out. I figured $5 was worth a shot. At worst, I'll have more of an appreciation for what all goes into making them! As far as the CF's under pressure, yes, I believe you are correct. Same as with the canopies, they are put into a vacuum chamber to get the resin to go where they want it and then heat it up (or some form of that process), and then formed/sanded/shaped and finally painted or sold raw.

Anyways, Like I said a bit ago, my surfboard is made out of some super strong and very light epoxy resin with what I believe is glass fiber for a cover, but I Have yet to find actual carbon fiber fabric. So with my handy-dandy repair kit, I should probably have just enough of the goo and materials to churn out a couple wannbe "V-Blades" for the 52 (using the balsa core instead of foam). Even if they turn out to be junk, it sure would be worth the laugh and the experience! I'll try experimenting with the foam cores as well, but the surfboard industry is all about stronger and lighter too, plus it's still lighter than GF. I have yet to try out a CF surfboard, but I've heard that they rock, plus they sure do look neat.

I'm also going to add some 3.5mmX1.7mmX1000mm carbon tubing for the tail boom. The graphite seemed too brittle and is really prone to twisting, plus it snapped like a twig when even the foam blade struck it. Seeing you can get the CF tubing for $3-$5 a length, I wanted to get one rod of it and make 2 or 3 booms instead of $2.95 apiece for the graphites. Hopefully I'l be able to use it in my BCPP as well so it goes a little further, but they might be different sizes.

I'll post up pics as I go. I'm hoping to make some good headway on them within the next week.

[raginredneck93]

Decent, I'll be looking forward to the progress report.

You might keep in mind however, once again if I'm not mistaken, carbon fiber tube is probably heavier than graphite, and my 52 is already a fair bit tail heavy. I was hoping mine would balance out after I added the ESC for the brushless.

Also, on the canopies, no highly sophisticated equipment is necessary. I helped some friends just a couple weeks ago make some nose cones for some homebuilt slope gliders that they've been making and I have no doubt that the same process would work famously for heli canopies. Simply make a buck of the shape you want. I've seen it done with balsa, and also by making a mold and a plaster cast of the part that you wish to duplicate. Be sure that your buck includes provisions for mounting it solid to a workbench such as some dowel rods sticking out the bottom that can be clamped in a vise. Then you simply use clear plastic pop bottles and a heat gun to form yourself a cowl, canopy, nose cone, whatever you want the sky's the limit. It's easier if you have an assistant to pull on the plastic as you gently heat it with the heat gun. It'll bend and shrink quite easily to fit the shape of the form that you're stretching it over. When you're done, just let it cool and it'll slip right off. A friend of mine even used the plaster cast method to make a new cowl for his Sig Kadet EP42. Not only lighter than the original piece, but about ten times stronger than the original paper thin eggshell fiberglass as well. For smaller/thinner parts, leftover chunks from those annoying blister packs that pretty much everything comes packed in these days works nicely too.

Just a thought. :YeaBaby:

[skunkworx]

I'll let you know how the balancing goes with the CF boom. I figure even if it is a tad bit heavier, it will stand up to the rigors better because of CF's awesome properties.

As to the canopies, I was going to use the old method of making a mould and then laying glass over it with epoxy instead of resin. On a canopy this small, I have a bit of room for error and as with the blades, it's all in good fun. I love doing all this fabrication stuff. I know I'll suck at it for now, but you gotta start somewhere!

I did make a couple sample wood blades last night. Basically they came out nice in the beginning, but didn't quite turn out so nice in the end. The main problem I'm having is keeping the planing consistent. I got the main shape taken care of. I have a rough over-sized blank that at least resembles a blade. I then wittled them down by two methods: Dremel tool and hand carving. The big downside to th dremel only lies in the fact that it is not very forgiving and it's tough to hold straight. Hand carving them is pretty accurate, but very tough to get everything the same thickness.
The upsides are that the dremel is very quick and generally will get you great results in a couple seconds. The hand carving you can add more finess to it and make the lines go where you want them.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my slight success. Although I'd never make any of them airborne just yet, it sure is a fun process. :) I think that if I had a jigsaw and some kind of planer, I could at least get it very close to specs and then hand sand them down to where they need to be. I found the wood to be about 10X stiffer and stronger than the 'ol foamies. I think that once I get the method down a little better, I'll be able to make some nice, real-use blades that I'd be happy to make at the same time! I'll post up some pics when my camera is charged up.

[skunkworx]

Here's a couple rough drafts:

[raginredneck93]

If you make enough of them, you're bound to get two the same eventually. :YeaBaby:

How about a jig of some sort? Maybe make something out of metal that you could clamp the blade in, with the ends cut to the shape you want to duplicate. That way you could use a sanding block to shape them, with the metal on the ends as a guide.

I've seen guys use a similar method for cutting foam wing cores. They make two wing ribs, one the shape they want the airfoil at the root of the wing, the other in the shape they want the airfoil at the tip of the wing. Obviously they'd both be the same for a constant chord wing much the same as they would be for a heli blade. Then they simply glue them to opposite ends of a hunk of foam, then use a hot wire to cut the wing. By simply following the metal or plywood "guides" glued to the ends of the foam block, they end up with a wing of whatever shape they were going for. I'm thinking you could do similar with metal and a sanding block for heli blades, and then you'd only have to carve the ends to shape freehand. Might be worth a try.

Another method would be a piece of metal with a hole cut in it the shape you want. Then you could sand a little, then slide the blade through the "guage" to see if the shape is the same from end to end. Wouldn't be quite as precise, but might be enough of a help to make it work.

[skunkworx]

I've put quite a bit of thought into making a jig after a few more attmpts at the 'handcrafted' blades. Needless to say, they come very close, but so far away at the same time. The really good news is that the solid balsa wood blades are way stronger than the 'ol foamies. For now I'll just have to stick with the Mini Zoom blades and work on getting some CF's made. I found a site that I can get the CF fabric for about $53/yard, so that'll make a bunch of these little suckers. Now I just have to figure out how to shape the foam/wood core so that they are usable. I'll probably try making a few fiberglass blades first, as that stuff is waaaaay cheaper. Once I get a decent enough design going I can really start getting into it.

Well back to te actual helis, My parts should be coming in sometime this week. I want to get everything set up on it and having it at least hovering by the time I go out to the SoCal funfly in May. Buildem336 said he'd go over it with me if need be to get everything buttoned up on it and really start being able to use it.

So how's your progress coming along Ragin? Hopefully you've gotten a few more of the bugs worked out of it and can start enjoying it.

[raginredneck93]

I've been flying it around in the yard quite a bit, but still in the stock configuration. I'm finding that everything that's too tight seems to be loosening up with a little use, but I still haven't figured out the tricks to programming the blasted tx. :arggg:

I'm actually getting to where I'm mostly in control of the little monster. I even tried some forward flight with it today and didn't even eat dirt . . . . . well . . . . . except for that one time. :YeaBaby: It actually just fell over after I landed in some grass . . . . which would equate in scale terms to a full scale Huey chopping its way down through the canopy into a jungle LZ. ;) Dorked up the leading edge of one of those fabulous foam blades, but other than that it was unscathed.

Actually, as far as the tx is concerned, I've figured most of it out but I still can't seem to get the gyro right. I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the double sided tape that they used to stick down the control unit, or perhaps the flex in the tailboom. If I run any gain at all in my gyro the tail starts wagging, and gets progressively worse as I increase the gain. The gyro holds like mad, I'm actually quite impressed for what it is, but the tail still wags in a hover. I'm also wondering if it's just a product of the delay time between when the gyro senses movement, and the time it takes the little tail motor to get spooled up to stop it. It seems to be fine if it's absolutely calm outside, but the slightest breeze and I can hear the tail motor surging and the tail starts wagging again. I also need to unplug the motors, sit down, and pay some serious attention to the curves and such in both normal and idle up mode. Mine flies actually quite well in normal mode, but is absolutely uncontrollable in idle up and I'm not sure why. I'll figure it out when I get some time to monkey with it.

Glad to hear that you haven't lost interest in your blade project. :Bang It'll be cool if you can get it to work.

[skunkworx]

The way Manual has his tail set is using some CF spars to make tail boom braces like on a bigger heli. He said that they are not really needed until you get into more advanced maneuvers, but it probably couldn't hurt for the stability. The graphite boom twists up a lot due to the blade shaft being above centerline for the tailboom itself. A rather poor desing flaw that could be fixed on a next generation model if one were ever available (and the reason why I wanted to try a CF boom instead). Also, the higher the headspeed, the lower your gain needs to be (at least that's the way it's supposed to work I think?). Another thing that he does is epoxy the snot out of just about every screw connection. It makes for a pain to get it apart, but once you have it set, you really never have to do anything to it unless you have a nasty crash. I'll see if I can get some good up-close shots the next time I visit so you can see what I'm talking about.

Once you can play around with the radio a little bit more, you'll start to get the hang of what each thing does and means. I can't say you'll learn to master it inside a week (shoot, it's taken me nearly a full year to realize anything about how it worked!!), but if you get enough flights in, you'll really start to build up some confidence and then things will start to work just fine. Like I said before, Buildem's heli(s) is/are bone-stock, except the B/L setup and the tail boom supports. Other than that, he's got the FulyMax 450 3s lipo (I got one too) and the setup is nearly un-beatable. Even in 30-40mph winds, he'll sill be out-flying most people at the field, if they've even got the stones to go up at all! The biggest thing will be ditching those stock blades and the stock lipo. Hopefully my parts order will be here by Wednesday!

[raginredneck93]

I was thinking he same thing, about the tail boom braces that is. I figured that if nothing else, it would look cool. I think it would be functional as well though, because as you mentioned the tail boom is a fair bit flimsy.

I've figured out everything else on the radio, as far as setting the pitch curves and such, I'm just having a hard time with it because it's regretfully not a computer radio and therefore not what I'm used to. I also can't remember for the life of me whether or not I repeated my settings for idle up mode, but I'm thinking that I didn't since it goes haywire on me in idle up. Hopefully I'll get time before I try to fly it again to mess with some settings. I noticed that my ball links on my swash plate are a bit sloppy, and the ones on the flybar are still a bit on the tight side. I figure that tight ball links on the swash won't hurt near as bad as having a stiff flybar, so I figure I'll just swap them. After I get done doing that, I'll have a good excuse to go through the whole head and set everything up right from the swash on up.

[skunkworx]

I'm with you on the programming part bro! Like anything though, it's always the growing pains that get you. I've got a computer radio thats even harder to program than the Walkera radio! It does have a ton of settings and that's what makes it so great, but it's got a 1"X2" screen so the have to use chinese looking symbols for each of the settings. :arggg: lol

For the ball links, just use some 500-600 grit wet/dry paper and round them off a little better if they are really bad, if not, they should wear in quite nicely. I had to do the same thing for my Blade CX2.

Your idle up sounds kinda normal. With mine and the new setup, it even does it normal mode which leads me to believe that it's caused by blade flex. When I had it on full stock, the idle up gave it about 300 rpm more HS, but with the 10t Medusa, I'm well over 4K rpm's. It'll be sitting on the ground and then all of a sudden rocket up to about 4'-5' before leveling off. Scary, but controllable. I didn't get enough flight time to really get the hang of it last time due to the blade exploding, but hopefully my order will be here for the weekend!