New Flybarless System

[SpeedVision]

WARNING - I accidentally tested the "don't try to fly in setup mode" rule.

Holy WILD RIDE, Batman!!!

I think my heli thought Alvin was at the sticks... Hahahahahaha.

Fortunately, the only carnage was a tail drive gear and dirty pair of undies... I got lucky...

Seriously speaking, this could have been misinterpreted as a gyro error, so please don't be quick to jump conclusions and flame the SK360 before you've had a chance to fully evaluate the situation.

Bottom line: Do the pre-flight check after any setup changes.

[cmulder]

looks like there is a lack in "education" on the diferent firmware versions of the helicommand.
The rigid is ALSO a flybarless unit ON TOP of its other features like its auto pilot (gyro/ optical) features and it INCLUDES a tail gyro so it allows for a simpler setup (single tail mounted box)


helicommand is a stability control system (aka autopilot), not an electronic flybar. it is not relevant to this thread. but, you might find some good discussions in the AV forums, since they are good photography platforms.

[skydude]

the lhs owner said "you need a flybar dont you" i laughed and said nope.


LOL. Now that's what I am talking about.

Hate the drake....er, flybar.

--

[Finless]

:lolol:lolol

[Skookum]

To anyone flying nitros with the SK360:

After some further testing here, we found that on some idling nitros the SK360 will not realize when the heli is on the ground. If you set Hiller Decay to 100%, as I'm sure most have by now, this should not affect take offs much (the spool up mode just forces a high hiller decay value for a few seconds, to allow the option of setting it low for flight).

What it will still effect is when the gyro reads the gain dials. Normally it reads them at startup, and at spool up. This means that if you change the gain dials, you'll need to kill the motor and let it be still for 10 seconds to be sure the new values are read in. Clearance has been flying for some time with his Evo 50, so it should be ok otherwise.

A firmware update will be sent out in a week or so to correct this behavior for nitros.

[Tomas-]

I've flown 4 packs with my TREX 450SE v1 and the biggest problems I had was because of bad tracking and low headspeed.

After fixing HS and tracking, the heli oscillated a little in hover, nothing you noticed while doing stationary flips or FFF. I had to turn down the Hiller? gain (right pot) to a point where it didn't handle well in gusts of wind.

I think I mounted it to close to the frame, so that vibrations gets into the SK360. I will move it to the center of the bottomplate, maybe it will work better then.

PS. The TREX did fit in the freezer :) No issues with my unit

[Skookum]

Hi Tomas,

Great to hear you have it working. One thing to check is on the "Advanced" tab, check that the "Decay" gains are 18 for elevator, 14 for aileron. If you had pressed the "Copy from Dials" button at some point it would have re-scaled the decay gains too high (that button is only meant to be used in conjunction with "disable gain dials", it needs to be moved). That would limit how high you could set the gain dial before oscillation. In fact if you have analog servos you may want to try (16,12) for the decay gains.

If not, and it still oscillates in hover, other than vibration you may also want to check for swash and linkage slop or friction.

If there isn't much of that, does it oscillate in a kind of gentle forward-right-back-left corkscrew, like precession of a spinning toy top? If so your heli's phasing may a bit out of trim. The phasing can be up to 10 degrees out of trim with only that minor symptom.

[xStatiCa]

PS. The TREX did fit in the freezer :) No issues with my unit
I would be afraid to do that for fear of condensation accumulating on the electronics when you pull the heli out of the refrigerator maybe causing something to short out when you power it up.

[Tomas-]

Hi Tomas,

Great to hear you have it working. One thing to check is on the "Advanced" tab, check that the "Decay" gains are 18 for elevator, 14 for aileron. If you had pressed the "Copy from Dials" button at some point it would have re-scaled the decay gains too high (that button is only meant to be used in conjunction with "disable gain dials", it needs to be moved). That would limit how high you could set the gain dial before oscillation. In fact if you have analog servos you may want to try (16,12) for the decay gains.

I don't think I have clicked on "copy from dials", but I will check. I do have analog servos (Hitec HS65MG)

If not, and it still oscillates in hover, other than vibration you may also want to check for swash and linkage slop or friction.

Only slop is from the stock SEv1 swashplate.

If there isn't much of that, does it oscillate in a kind of gentle forward-right-back-left corkscrew, like precession of a spinning toy top? If so your heli's phasing may a bit out of trim. The phasing can be up to 10 degrees out of trim with only that minor symptom.

It was more side-to-side. I checked the phasing on the desk and it's spot on.

I would be afraid to do that for fear of condensation accumulating on the electronics when you pull the heli out of the refrigerator maybe causing something to short out when you power it up.

True, I only powered up the SK360 for the test and then the heli was left in a warm room overnight.

[SpeedVision]

I've flown 4 packs with my TREX 450SE v1

Can you post pictures of how you modified your head? Did you use "reduction arms" or did you go straight from swash to your blade grip.

Also, I am experiencing the same behavior you are. Skookum suggested the same changes and I have yet to offically test them... I say officially, because my blade tracking was WAY off and I'm sure that contributed to the instability (was also windy)

Phasing is dead on (per instructions) and I have +-8 for cyclic and +-11 for pitch.

[Skookum]

Tomas>Only slop is from the stock SEv1 swashplate.

The best two investments for flybarless, even before getting a custom-flybarless head, is a really low slop swash (microheli's seems good) and a set of digitals. I have heard rumors that HS65 digitals will becoming out soon.

Tomas>It was more side-to-side. I checked the phasing on the desk and it's spot on.

Side to side doesn't sound like phasing, ya, although phasing can be "correct" on the bench and not quite right in flight for various reasons.

In your case if its oscillating side to side before it does fore-aft, then you might try setting both the Hiller and Damping base gains for aileron just a bit lower on the Advanced tab. With analog servos the damping gain can cause oscillation before hiller does. But if damping gain is too low you can get elevator kicking in fast forward flight.

[Finless]

Just an idea... should this post be moved into the Flybarless forum? Or should we start a new thread there for SK360 support? Just afraid all this good info will get lost in the main forum over time?

Bob

[SpeedVision]

Side to side doesn't sound like phasing, ya, although phasing can be "correct" on the bench and not quite right in flight for various reasons.


So, if you position the blades at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock and the nose of the heli at 12 o'clock to test phase, would you generally offset phase towards 11 o'clock or 1 o'clock to adjust what you said above? Knowing this would help eliminate tedious arbitrary adjustments.

Also, do you favor phase adjustments via your software or mechanically via the swash driver?

Finally, is a clockwise phase shift considered positive?

thanks.

[int2str]

Just an idea... should this post be moved into the Flybarless forum? Or should we start a new thread there for SK360 support? Just afraid all this good info will get lost in the main forum over time?

I vote for opening a SK360 support thread in the flybarless forum.

PS: My SK360 shipped today :D

[SpeedVision]

I vote for opening a SK360 support thread in the flybarless forum.


+1

Would get more "face time" for those interested in Flybarless. Also, if he wishes, Skookum should moderate...

[Finless]

Well we don't have moderators here.
I will discuss with the admins about adding a "sub forum" under flybarless vs just a thread in the flybarless forum. Stay tuned.

Bob

[Tomas-]

Can you post pictures of how you modified your head? Did you use "reduction arms" or did you go straight from swash to your blade grip.

http://www.webservices.se/pictures/2008-04-21/IMG_8276_sized.jpg
http://www.webservices.se/pictures/2008-04-21/IMG_8277_sized.jpg

Used a plastic washoutbase and mixerarms.

Also, I am experiencing the same behavior you are. Skookum suggested the same changes and I have yet to offically test them... I say officially, because my blade tracking was WAY off and I'm sure that contributed to the instability (was also windy)

Phasing is dead on (per instructions) and I have +-8 for cyclic and +-11 for pitch.

I also have +/-8 cyclic and ~+/- 11 degrees pitch.

I did notice today that the stock swashplate is really sloppy... thinking about uprading... is 3rd party like microheli the only option or maybe the Trex SE v2 swashplate?

[Skookum]

>would you generally offset phase [clockwise or counter clockwise] to adjust what you said above? Knowing this would help eliminate tedious arbitrary adjustments.

Um. I have to admit, phase adjustment is still something of a black art. Dragging of the swash would need negative (counter-clockwise) phase trim, multi blades seem to like a bit of positive trim, the gyro mounting could be off by a few degrees, the gyro itself could even be off by up to 2 degrees... luckily it only seems to have to be within about 5 degrees, better than that is hard to notice, and it seems to change with headspeed and forward speed anyways. For most helis it seems to take 15 degrees of error to see control problems.

>Also, do you favor phase adjustments via your software or mechanically via the swash driver?

The software is a nice clean way to do it. But the software route requires a computer, which isn't always convenient. For some conversions I've used 30-50 degrees of phase trim and it works great, but its a little unnerving to preflight check, the motion just looks wrong.

>Finally, is a clockwise phase shift considered positive?

Yes, the convention is that clockwise = positive.

[SpeedVision]

Used a plastic washoutbase and mixerarms.



I also have +/-8 cyclic and ~+/- 11 degrees pitch.

I did notice today that the stock swashplate is really sloppy... thinking about uprading... is 3rd party like microheli the only option or maybe the Trex SE v2 swashplate?

Thanks. Does your swash driver come close to rubbing (bind) on the swash servo link mounting "posts" when pitch is in full +/- 10 and full +/- 8 on elevator/aileron (with swash ring feature enabled)?

I can get binding if I go much past 10 on pitch and 8 elevator/aileron...

[WhirlingBladesOfDeath]

My unit failed the cold test, and a new one is on it's way, but I couldn't keep myself from trying it out this afternoon anyways on my Hurricane 550.:flamedevil

I was pretty careful going through the instructions and setup, and gotta say it flew pretty good right from the get go! However, I was getting some fairly significant vibration in the tail, so only did one 5 minute flight, and decided to call that good until I can track down and fix the vibration.

First thing I noticed at spool up was how ODD it looked without the flybar! It's like something was missing. I was totally paranoid about not putting any inputs in during spool up. I use a governor, so it takes a few seconds to get full head speed. It started to tip at one point and I waited as long as I dared before putting in a quick tap of corrective collective in, which straightened it back up. Not sure why the gyro didn't do that for me automatically?

In the manual it warns to just go ahead and jump it up into a hover, but I ever so slowly increased collective until it got lighter and lighter on the skids. I finally got into hover a few inches above the ground and experienced a whoa moment trying to adapt to the flybarless system. Quickly bumped it up to 5 feet or so, and spent a minute or two trying to get use to hovering it.

Like others have already mentioned, it does feel a bit odd at first. The first 30 seconds of hover was like reliving my first ever hover with a helicopter, knocking knees and everything. :) It's very precise, and does exactly what you input without any delay. Sort of a more connected feeling. After getting use to the feel, the only problem I had was that it drifted back and a bit to the left if I just let it hover hands off. I'm going to guess I need to increase my hiller gain a bit? But it wasn't a random drift, always back and to the left, even if I started it out slightly going forward and right.

After a couple minutes of hover, I started doing some slow easy circuits, slowly increasing the speed on each lap. I didn't get too aggressive, and didn't try anything beyond FFF, but it flew flawlessly! Not sure if I was already use to it from the hover, but didn't have to do anything consciously different than normal during FFF? It just flew like a champ, with no bad tendencies I could detect.

Timer went off after what seemed like way to short of a time, brought it back into a hover no problem, and gently landed no problem.

So, with the default basic 3D profile and no tweaking as of yet I'd rate it:
Takeoff: 5 (I shouldn't have to give any inputs to keep level during spool up??)
Hover: 7 (much more precise, but I had some drifting problems. Hopefully solved tweaking Hiller gain. Feels a bit odd, but probably just need to get use to it)
FFF: 10 (Flew as well as I could have every hoped doing my easy circuits)
Noob Mad3Dzz: ?? (TBD, stay tuned.....)

So overall I'm really happy with it right now. I fully expected to have a bear of a time the first time out, and need to do some tweaking right off the bat. As it turned out, it's perfectly flyable straight off, and looks awesome without the flybar! I fully expect to be able to make a few tweaks and get it dialed in perfectly and get all the scores up to 10s. :)

Thanks,
Jason

[fireup]

Like others have already mentioned, it does feel a bit odd at first. The first 30 seconds of hover was like reliving my first ever hover with a helicopter, knocking knees and everything. :) It's very precise, and does exactly what you input without any delay. Sort of a more connected feeling. After getting use to the feel, the only problem I had was that it drifted back and a bit to the left if I just let it hover hands off. I'm going to guess I need to increase my hiller gain a bit? But it wasn't a random drift, always back and to the left, even if I started it out slightly going forward and right.

Jason

Great that you got it flying:thumbup: Drifting is due to trim not hiller gain. Adjust the ball links or trim in the software to take out the drift. Adjust hiller if you want it faster/slower or to take out oscillation.

Got a chance to test Bob's SK360 with my T500 that was setup to run with the V-Bar. Just swap out the electronic and installed the SK360 with a Spartan tail Gyro. Took several tries and was able to get it to feel like the V-Bar. Bob got some flight video so hopefully he have the video posted soon.

[kgfly]

So is anyone noticing more power or lower mAh with these setups ? The rumour is up to 20% more power/lower current without the flybar and enquiring minds want to know if it is true ?

[fireup]

So is anyone noticing more power or lower mAh with these setups ? The rumour is up to 20% more power/lower current without the flybar and enquiring minds want to know if it is true ?

Power gain is only a little, like about 5-10%, not 20%. You can get longer flight time if you don't mine running lower headspeed. With a lower head speed, a flybarless can perform just as good as a flybar heli with higher headspeed (as far as cyclic speed). It won't have the "Pop" or fast climb out of a higher headspeed setup. So if you setup the same headspeed of a flybarless heli as a flybar heli, I don't think you'll get more than 10%.

[carl0s]

I did notice today that the stock swashplate is really sloppy... thinking about uprading... is 3rd party like microheli the only option or maybe the Trex SE v2 swashplate?

My SE v2 swashplate and mixing arms are sloppy too, so probably not a worthy upgrade..

[carl0s]

I wonder if the simulators (e.g. Phoenix) will be updated to simulate flybarless/hh-cyclic ? That might be useful.