New Flybarless System

[chichisport]

What you should really had to find are good bearings for the swash and something that fit snug inside the mixer bearings.

[carl0s]

What you should really had to find are good bearings for the swash and something that fit snug inside the mixer bearings.

Yes, it does seem to be the bearings that are at fault. Are better replacements easily found? Is this a typical upgrade/swap for SEe v2 owners?

[alvinchai]

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

Glad to hear it is working well for you. It does take a bit learning at first to get it dialed in correctly, but once you have more stick time in, it will only get easier :)

[Tomas-]

Got 3 more packs in the air today at lunch. I was wrong before it defenitly is a oscillating "round" motion, not side to side. I went with the default 3d settings and changed the dampning as was recommended for analog servos, bumped the gain back to 50%/40% and retuned the two pot settings. Hiller decay at 40%

Flight was much better, solid hover in wind. The oscillation did screw up the overall feeling when doing funnels, flips etc.

Question to Skookum: Is it possible to get a firmware where one of the pots adjust the phasing offset instead of the gains? Would be nice to be able to tune this setting at the field without the laptop and much faster.


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...

It does come close and I had to tweak the holes a little on the mixer arm that connects to the inner ring on the swashplate. I ended up using the brass spacer inside the mixer arm, that way I could adjust the size of the hole and then glue the spacer when I was satisfied with the fit.

[Finless]

OK we now have our own forum to discuss this system!

Bob

[Ludde]

Ok, nice to c that some got it running, is anyone have it running in a nitro yet?
Im away all week on work stuff so cant test until upcoming weekend..

ohh tracking whont be a problem for me right? since I got it direct linked...

[chichisport]

Once you adjust it it will be ok , direct linkage don´t solve this .
Tracking can´t be trimmed with a swash tilt.

[chichisport]

Yes, it does seem to be the bearings that are at fault. Are better replacements easily found? Is this a typical upgrade/swap for SEe v2 owners?

You have to search for that . I don´t have direct experience with t-rex V2 but a bearing is a bearing , you should get the better you can find .
If you read the small letters in the swash bearing maybe I can help .
The mixer arm ,being 2 bearings is easy for a bad set of bearings to do a good work,the mixer arm bearings would need to be glued to the arm itself or to the screw ,quite tricky to not to ruin the bearings with excess glue ,epoxy is best as it will not flow inside the bearing . Try to find where the slop came from ,maybe with a shouldered screw all the problem is gone.

[Finless]

The Align 450 swash bearing is a CUSTOM bearing. You cannot get it off the shelf. Kevin and I have found that if you can go buy a older XL plastic swash the bearing in that is better and lasts longer. The recent bearings Align has been getting get REAL sloppy FAST....

might I reccomend the Beam E4 swash! you can replace every part in it easily and it's a very good swash.

Bob

[WhirlingBladesOfDeath]

Hypothetically, what would happen if the washout block (circled in red) fell off of the pins that keep it in phase (pointed to with red arrows) during spool up while still on the ground?
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=46127&stc=1&d=1209007509

I got my replacement unit this afternoon, swapped it out, loaded my config file, and did a quick pre-flight on everything. My first flight was PERFECT! I was able to run through my whole (limited) repertoire of moves, and was really grooving along.

Put in a second pack, started to spool up, and then the carnage happened in a blink of an eye before even leaving the ground. :bawl:(:arggg:

The head got pretty mangled up, so it's hard to tell if any of the damage was pre or post crash, but I noticed that the washout block was off the pins now. I remember worrying about it when I was initially modifying the head, but all through the set up, it always seemed to stay on there just fine. Eventually I just stopped worrying, and assumed it wouldn't be a problem?

So I figure if someone can tell me how a heli would respond if it fell off, and if it matches what happened to me, then I have the culprit. If not, then is there any reason why the gyro would have done this????

Thanks,
Jason

[eurylokhos]

Same as with any heli, the phasing will go out of whack. Depending on how much it turns, it could have enough effect to throw you inputs completely out, meaning that forward cyclic will cause it to roll, and roll can cause it to have forward or back cyclic. Basically, it'll be uncontrollable. You need to put a set screw or somethign in the washout to keep it in place.

[Skookum]

>So I figure if someone can tell me how a heli would respond if it fell off, and if it matches what happened to me....

If the head was out of phase by a large amount, say 40 degrees or more, then the gyro would see error and try to correct, now on the wrong axis, making it worse...a death dance of feedback in a split second.

[jyheli]

I put a mask lock below the washout to keep it in place. It work very well for me without limiting any pitch issue. Did this on Logo (before I got the proper swch driver) , Trex 500 and Lepton.

Jonathan

[jyheli]

here is a pic of how it is done on Lepton and Trex 500.

[WhirlingBladesOfDeath]

What happened was, as it was spooling up perfectly fine, suddenly in the blink of an eye just went full right aileron, tipping HARD into the ground. I didn't even have a chance to try to compensate.

Total carnage: busted both CF blades, bent one blade grip, feathering shaft, stripped two servos, and bent both control arms to the blade grips. Probably will replace the main shaft too for good measure.

So I made this tonight out of a piece of acrylic.
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=46136&stc=1&d=1209019507
http://www.helifreak.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=46137&stc=1&d=1209019507
Didn't really come out as nice as I hoped, it's real tough trying to dremel something like that by hand! I'm actually hoping I can find someone with the proper tools who can make it from a piece of aluminum?? You would be my hero!

On the slots for the control rods, should they be just big enough to get the rod through (so you would have to take off the ball links to feed through, or is it OK to have it open enough (like mine) to feed the ball link through too? Just spinning it around by hand, both control rods stay planted on the trailing edge of the gap, so I think at worst it just changes the phase a degree or two. I just need to figure out how to cut the slots smooth and straight with my dremel.

Thanks,
Jason

[chichisport]

The Align 450 swash bearing is a CUSTOM bearing. You cannot get it off the shelf. Kevin and I have found that if you can go buy a older XL plastic swash the bearing in that is better and lasts longer. The recent bearings Align has been getting get REAL sloppy FAST....

might I reccomend the Beam E4 swash! you can replace every part in it easily and it's a very good swash.

Bob

That´s life ,Align the giant......

The dragonous alu swash plate is quite good and easily repairable ,if you get one don´t forget to loctite the fine threads .

[SpeedVision]

Well, now that I got my Mini Titan flying "well" I decided to tear it apart and make some changes because I couldn't get the Hillier pot on the gyro any higher than 40% (50 and 40 on the advanced tab of the software) without oscillation. It just didn't feel locked with the Hillier set that low.

For fun, I borrowed some long links from my Dragonus and tried to go direct from swash to stock plastic Mini Titan blade grip. Now that makes for a clean setup. Simplicity at it's best... Unfortunately, it's functionally useless! As Alvin suggested much earlier in this post, without reducing the travel from the swash to the blade grip (mechanically), the swash percentages are way under 30% giving an unusable level of resolution (servo travel). So, unless you can extend ball attachment of the blade grip away from the center hub, you'll have to live with some sort of reduction arm until the aftermarket suppliers answer our prayers.

I also noticed that the plastic Mini Titan swash I was using had some vertical play in it which, hopefully, was contributing to instability at higher Hillier gain levels. Do yourself a favor and don't bother using a swash with any negligible level of slop, I originally "tried" to use my aluminum Microheli swash, but the standoffs that the servo links attach to were too tall, causing binding of the swash at large pitch and cyclic inputs. Since I'm already financially committed to the flybarless concept, I bit the bullet and took the dremel to the standoff3s last night and now they are low and tidy. The only down side, I ground down the references for my swash leveling tool... If Microheli did their job correctly, I should be able to flip the swash over, level it using the bottom as a level reference, then flip it back and the swash should be "level".

[carl0s]

The Align 450 swash bearing is a CUSTOM bearing. You cannot get it off the shelf. Kevin and I have found that if you can go buy a older XL plastic swash the bearing in that is better and lasts longer. The recent bearings Align has been getting get REAL sloppy FAST....

might I reccomend the Beam E4 swash! you can replace every part in it easily and it's a very good swash.

Bob

The Beam E4 swashplate certainly looks like the way forward, but it doesn't look like anybody in the UK sells them :(

[SpeedVision]

The Beam E4 swashplate certainly looks like the way forward, but it doesn't look like anybody in the UK sells them :(

As noted above, the Dragonus swash is also quite nice. Don't know if they are stocked and any of your LHS, but www.arkinnovations.com (http://www.arkinnovations.com) is super to deal with and quick to ship. The offer the swash and they also offer a replacement bearing for the future. Like the Beam, the Dragonus swash can be completely disassembled.

[lesodell]

so have we fond what is the best head mod for the trex500 ? and if so do you have any pics ?

[SpeedVision]

so have we fond what is the best head mod for the trex500 ? and if so do you have any pics ?

Look for the pictures posted by Fireup earlier in this thread. Not commercially available, but I believe he's working on changing that.

Ok, I did the work for you: http://helifreak.com/showpost.php?p=550613&postcount=39

[Ludde]

HOHO I tested mine today and I didnt taco it.. :-)

but it had issues.. it also like the others wanted to tip to the right, had to give left aileron not to flip it over, 2 small yanks and then I could take off, slugish so some more Bell gain will be needed and also it didnt stop when returning stick to middle, a second more of motion, no oscilation,
at full pitch to 8 meter it tilted to the right about 5-8 degrees, a tight loop sent it out leaning to the left, so theres lots to be done still..

but it flew :-) :-)

[SpeedVision]

HOHO I tested mine today and I didnt taco it...theres lots to be done still.. but it flew :-) :-)

Wow, learning to dial in this system on such a big bird... Some of you guys have more "testicular fortitude" (ballz) than I... Haahhahaha.

The system itself seems to work great, but one wrong setting and you're having tacos for lunch...

[lesodell]

so the 500 is working ok without having the mixing arms still in it ? i got the standoff ordered and i think i can make the anti rotation braket ok, but i have been waiting for there to be a conscentis on the mod. thanks for the info

[Ludde]

Pics of the works...