Weird glitch problem with my ION. UPDATED another problem

[RB]

I have had an ongoing problem with my Ion. The problem is when decending sometimes it just dips, like a glitch. It only happens when going down. It has non particular pattern to it, but I when it does this, I have no control.

I put it in a few flights ago, when my motor went crazy and the head speed went to 2400. I was trying to land it, and it had no control and crashed. I had to rebuild the whole thing. I have flown it about five packs so far, with no problem, untill today. It happened a couple times and then I went to land it because I was worried and all of a sudden I had no control. I hit throttle hold and it landed pretty good once it came back to control inputs, but broke the blades, tail blades and tail drive gear.

This is a little history about it previously.

I gave it to a well known ION guy locally and he was going to put a LRK in it, well needless to say he said it didn't work and the heli went crazy and wouldn't shut off. He didn't have the blades on it when he tested it so he gave it back (stock) stupid me I thought it was ok, and didn't try it with the blades off and stock motor, so I went to fly it and it took off on it's own and crashed bad, it wouldn't shut off.

I sent the speed controller back to Hacker and they replaced it, then I put it back together with a new BEC and receiver because I thought it might be ruined. I sent the old receiver to JR and had it " checked " They said it was all right, so I figured the BEC was possibly damaged. Ok during the time I was waiting for the speed controller, which took three months to get back, I put in my friends motor and speed controller in it and flew it quite a bit, but it did do the "dip" problem a couple times, it really seems like a glitch to me.

Then I put my speed controller back in and motor and flew it about 10 times, then the motor started to speed up alot. That is when I crashed it for the second time, I was trying to land it because the headspeed was so fast, well, It kind of diped and I lost all control about six feet off the ground. I took out everything at this time, frames etc.

Next I sent the speed controller and motor to Hacker and they replaced the motor and not the speed controller, it was replaced not too long ago. They said the rotor went bad.

So, I put it back together and try it about five flights and then the "dipping" problem started again, It became more frequent and I decided to get it down. As I brought it down I had not control and the minute I felt that, I hit throttle hold. It shut off and I tried to land it, but it was a little crooked, and the blades hit the ground, but control came back and then I was able to straighten it out. Damage done.

Sorry for the long post, but this thing has cost me well over $1000 in repair costs and I am not sure what to do.

I have a Deans antenna on the receiver and it is under the Canopy, I relocated it there when the "guy" tried to put in the LRK motor. I left it there, I have had problems since, but I am not sure that has anything to do with it.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

[misskimo]

hey , whats your throttle curves set at ? where is the esc, no where near the rx , make sure the antana is no where near the motor or the esc or gyro , and it does sound like a a bec problem , kinda , the dip thing , huh? maybe thats when a feq. hits the rx when the motor starts spinning alittle faster during a decent.
I recon thats why I use a schulze esc , its never failed , and not to long ago my buddies Ion wouldnt shut down , and ran wide open after landing hard enough to break the landing bows , he ran around his car waiting for the heli to come apart , it ran at 0 degrees pitch for 3 minutes till the esc shut it down due to thermaling off , he took the hacker system out , bec too , and replaced it with a actro and schulze 40-160 , which the heli is my 3rd Ion now , schulze esc has been nothing but good to me , if you do get the big 40-160 which sells for 650 buck , will be the last time you get a esc , what I would do . replace the esc motor , bec , get the Neu motor that will drop right in to replace the hacker, and if you get the schulze , this will be one controller that you will be able to use gov mod , dial down the blades to what ever headspeed you want , 160 amps cont. mean a lot , 210 peak amps , if you want a 1500 headspeed, no problem , 1900 , no problem , and the controller has a great soft start , even if you have idle up 1 set at 50% across the board for gov , and have idle up 2 set at 100% softstart will still kick in , and flip down to idle up 2 to 1 will softstart backwards from 100 to 50% , man what a great controller ,
hackers are great motors a esc , but once I see a problem , I cant trust them , I hate waiting for something to happen ,

Tony

[simon109]

Hi,

Have you tried removing the BEC and using a seperate rx pack ?or tried repositioning your BEC ? I would try a seperate rx pack if you haven't already.

Simon.

[ChrisS]

What does your throttle curve look like? Have you checked the temp of the ESC on landing? In the past we have seen no propensity for electrical noise from these Hacker units *except* once when we were running them at lower headspeeds and they were getting hot. And that was with one of the older 48-3P's. I have run the new 77-O's at partial throttle settings for long periods of time working on contest setups and not had one do that...but there is always that first time.

Another thing to look at is the routing of the antenna. I would seriously recommend a FULL length antenna. In my opinion, graphite frames and the Deans whip is a problem waiting to happen. I run my antennas full length in a tube down under the skids and up a boom support. This works and works well for many people.

What BEC are you running? I have heard of one or two of those causing issues. Until you can eliminate it through other means, try just using a separate Rx battery.

How good is your receiver? Crystal? Have you had it checked and tuned recently?

The "dip on decent" thing that you speak of, is this a complete loss of control or do you just loose control of one of the cyclic servos when decending? What I'm trying poorly to convey here is this: could it be a bad servo that locks or otherwise stops working at one certain position?

I have had a number of servos fail me the last couple years and have resorted to getting them checked out often, like at least once a season as it's just not worth risking a machine to an errant servo.

That's my nickels worth, hope it helps some

Chris

[RB]

The throttle curve is at 100 percent straight across. The BEC is an Ultimate, which is the second one, because I thought the first one might have been bad when the LRK thing smoked my speed controller.

The receiver was brand new along with the crystal after the LRK incident also. The dipping thing is a quick thing that happens when you come down, it feels like all of a sudden you are not in control, the heli keeps going down, you give it input and nothing happens, then is snaps back to control. It feels like it locks up on decent, nothing seems to work. The reason it crashed both times is that it locked up too close to the ground and it wasn't straight enough and hit the ground. It also seems that the tail starts to give also because it gets sideways.

The only thing I can think of for sure is the "guy" ( he is well known on here, and I don't want to drag him in) who tried to put the LRK in moved my antenna to the frames above the receiver, I left it there after rebuilding it, but now have started to wonder about it. I had no problems with it before the LRK incident. I will for sure move it, and I do have another reciver with a full length antenna I can use also.

One of the servos was replaced, and it doesn't seem like it is a servo issue, it stays level, but acts just like a glitch, very fast and defenite. You know when it happens, your fine, then all of a sudden Bam, you get hit.

I have the 52 tooth gear and running about 1860 1900 head speed. It doesn't seem to be hot, I will check the speed controller though, It does seem to take a little time to act up, It usually happens in the 7-8 minute range. Yesterday though I changed packs and it was cool, then I put it up for a couple minutes and it happened about three minutes in.

Thanks for the input.
:arggg:

[BobbySmith]

The deans antenna's IMO arent that good i wouldnt trust one in a micro heli nothing but glitch problems
I run the revolution whip antennas and run it down on one of the skids so it is away from the canopy and all the electronics and i have had 0 FAILURE .
They way chris recommends to run the full antenna works well also if you go that route


my 2cents
Bobby

[fitenfyr]

Well since nobody mentioned it that I can see....

How's your TX?

This sounds like a Tx going bad to me....

Ditto on the Deans...They are junk IMO.
The Revolutions are the only ones I will use if not a stock antenna.

[RB]

It is a brand new 9303, I have six helis and none others have problems, I will change the antenna for sure too. I didn't know the Deans were bad.

[ChrisS]

If you can confirm that you are going into lockout (do you have the throttle set to go to minimum?) then I would seriously think it's the antenna thing. This does not seem the case though as there would be a surge in power if you were doing it this way when the signal reaquired. What is your failsafe set to do?

I may be jumping the gun a little here, but I'm wondering if you are having a power problem, as in "loss of". It seems to me that if power is lost for a only a second or two, the speed control would keep running and may not reset, although I have no idea what it would do if it did reset with a turning motor.

Just kinda' thinkin' out loud...

Chris

[bob00]

RB,

Bad thrust bearings could be another reason why the collective / cyclics apprear to freeze when RPM picks up as the rotor disk unloads.

Long shot, but I've seen it happen...

- Rob

[RB]

As far as the bearings, I put new mainshaft upper and lower bearings in and also the bearings on the tail output shaft (the part that drives the rear drive shaft). I'm not sure if those are the bearings you are talking about.

The motor was just recently back from Hacker (it actually isn't the same one, it was a exchange) I also had the same problem when I had my friends motor and speed controller in.

I checked the failsafe settings for the throttle, It was set at 80 percent, I have the throttle curve set at 80 percent across in normal and 100 in idle up. So it doesn't sound like the failsafe would cause it to shut down.

I will get the parts tomorrow and get it back together. I will move the antenna without a Deans on it. I had the Deans on since I got the heli and never had a problem untill it was moved to the frames.

I can also try a battery instead of the BEC, I replaced it once, so I doubt it is a problem, but who knows. I did not have any problems with the original BEC, but I changed it because of the LRK wouldn't shut down issue I had. I could put it back it I guess for a change.

It just sucks because there isn't much forgiveness unless the heli is up pretty high. Now that I think of it, sometimes it doesn't happen only when decending, it has done it before even when not coming down, but decending is when it happened the most fequently. I can't say that it has anything to do with unloading the head for sure.

If I have another problem and end up in the dirt I am going to bury it there and leave it. I think it is possessed. :twisted:

[misskimo]

I know how you feel , crashing sucks , and not finding the problem suck too , and flying it starts to suck too waiting on it to happen again , I had a deans on my eco 8 , and everytime I turned toward me it would glitch , everytime , deans , non PCM rx too ,
something to do with pointing the antannas at each other was it , my 10x I turn the antanna to the side ,

also , maybe when you go feather to bring down it causes a rev up that causes a lock out . put a V curve in there so it dont over rev


Tony

[bob00]

Hi RB,

I was refering to the thrust bearings in the blade grips. If they're damaged or installed incorrectly they can result in the blade grip not being able to rotate (lock up) under the extreme loads produced by the increased RPM when the disk is unloaded or lightly loaded.

- Rob

[MinAirChris]

I took a motor and speed control on the bench yesterday and ran them with a loose FM receiver and rx battery. When set to full throttle, if I pulled the power lead out of the receiver, the motor would continue to run for several seconds, then quit. When power was returned the unit would power back up and run as normal. If power was simply cycled quickly, it was as if the speed control and motor never even noticed.

I could also detect no "jumpiness" in a servo plugged into the receiver when I wrapped the antenna around the motor or speed control.

This was all done at 100% throttle.

Looking more and more, to me anyway, that you probably are suffering from power intermittency problems. This kind of rings true with what you said about the tail kicking out a bit, which would indicate the gyro had been reset.

FWIW

Chris

[rcman]

What JR receiver are you using?
David

[RB]

I am using the 770 PCM receiver. I flew two packs out the other day with no problem. The only thing I did was move the antenna outside to tha landing gear. I can't say yet if that fixed it, because it is somewhat random when it happens.

[rcman]

Well in my opinion that is your problem, I have flewn a lot of elec. helis with and with out U-bec and S-bec's when ever I combine the JR 770 with a U-bec or S-bec I eventuly see glitches. The 770 works better with a RX pack IMO.
In three different helis, if I move to the larger JR 9 channel PCM the glitches went away, I have no idea why just field time

Now this is just what has happed to me,
If Eric K. is the guys helping you in SLC he knows me very well and can give you my number, I would be happy to help out I would love to come down there and fly :)
David

[RB]

Ok, I have been flying it, probably 8 packs total since I put on a Revolution antenna on the skid. NO problem with the dip, BUT tonight after 6 minutes I was doing some tic tocs and it would "lock" up when going back. I would push the right stick forward and it wouldn't go, then all of a sudden it would.

It wasn't a real drastic thing when it responded it didn't load the head hard like it would if you jammed the stick forward.

The other thing I noticed is that it stayed perfectly straight back. I was thinking that a the front servo might be bad causing it because I think If it was one of the rears it would have gone to one side or the other. One the the rear servos is new since the last "mishap".

Any ideas? I am going to keep trying it on the bench and see if I can get it to do it.

When it happened it felt like a sticky swash or when your canopy hooks on your Raptor 50, yes I learned the hard way on that one.

[RB]

I am going to take the BEC out of it before I fly it again.



Thanks for any ideas. :hug: