Metal Head Parts for HBFP

[USNAviationjay]

hey guys ya'll got a CompyFP/Freestyle HBFP thread around?
I don't see anyone of y'all using either.

I've got a HBFP Freestyle conversion

Freestyle belt kit with fast blue servo
-Walkera skids
-Arc130 with heatsink. 9t pinion
-CC10A ESC
-Specktrum AR6200 /DX6i
-Telebee HH Gyro
-Trex aluminum flybar and paddles.
-M24s
-x2 3s 800mAh CSRC lipos (mini deans)

and looking for others as well into these hybrid FPs.

Found some on RCgroups but already read everything there =D

[C R Mudgeon]

Project Metal head:Bang took a step forward today. I got the the fibe frame from heli fever.
Now I got power from the brushless, headspeed from the M24's and a rock steady frame.
I got it mostly put together but it need modifications to allow the servos full movement. Also, it needs two more metal shaft collars to keep the main shaft in place.

So metal head will have:

Xtreme Metal Head set,
Fiber Frame
hs 55 servos
Esky hh gyro
M24 blades
HiTec 6ch receiver
Ammo brushless motor
Dynam ESC
GWS DD tail 4350 Prop
GWS brushed ESC

I hope this thing still can fly!!!

Pictures and Modification notes when I get it completed.

Can I still call this a HBFP? The canopy, maingear and the shaft is still HBFP;)

[Twmaster]

Yanno that's the frame from a Compy 300....

A few more bits and you can have belt drive....

So, Mudge Man... What's it weigh??

:D

[antennahead]

Don't feel to bad kodak_jack, it seems as if I'm in constant rebuild also. I got mine a few months ago and the first part I broke was one of the swash arms, luckily the aluminum ones just came out and I was able to get one, got that and the flybar cage, now I wish someone would make a metal adaptor or fork....whatever its called as I broke 3 esky and 2 gws ones this week alone. the problem I am battling now is when it takes off the tail would slowly drift left, did a slight adjustment on the proportional, now it spins to the right at spool up, tried to adjust the other way, but no matter what I do with the proportional, it spins to the right as if I am holding the rudder stick over :arggg:

[C R Mudgeon]

Yanno that's the frame from a Compy 300....

A few more bits and you can have belt drive....

So, Mudge Man... What's it weigh??

:D


Hmmmm not as easy to assemble as I was hoping. The frame is a Compy 300 "upgrade" I'm having trouble installing the motor and the elevator servo. Just not as clean as I want it and a lot of grinding.

My thoughts on belt drive is that since you do not have a consistant motor RPM with a fixed pitch a direct drive tail would be better.

The pictures show and assembled HBFP with this frame. I'm not sure that it will fly. The servo throws are different. But I'm continuing and will have weights and pictures in a couple of days.

[C R Mudgeon]

Hooked up the brushless motor. I have a 10t pinion and it looks like I need a few more RPM ... well a lot more I'm ordering a 14t pinion.

[C R Mudgeon]

Got it assembled. It weighs in at a porky 369 grams ready to fly with a 7.4v 850 lipo
I did not get it to fly yet as I need to adjust the gyro and to do so I have to take it off to get to the pot. ( miscalulation on my part ) But here are the pictures. The wires need a little clean up.
http://ricopaolino.dyndns.org:8080/hostedimages/HELIPICS/IMG_0242.jpg

http://ricopaolino.dyndns.org:8080/hostedimages/HELIPICS/IMG_0239.jpg

[kodak_jack]

Don't feel to bad kodak_jack, it seems as if I'm in constant rebuild also. I got mine a few months ago and the first part I broke was one of the swash arms, luckily the aluminum ones just came out and I was able to get one, got that and the flybar cage, now I wish someone would make a metal adaptor or fork....whatever its called as I broke 3 esky and 2 gws ones this week alone. the problem I am battling now is when it takes off the tail would slowly drift left, did a slight adjustment on the proportional, now it spins to the right at spool up, tried to adjust the other way, but no matter what I do with the proportional, it spins to the right as if I am holding the rudder stick over :arggg:
The saga continues. I decided enough was enough with the hovering routine. I took it out in the yard and let it FLY!! Unfortunately, it got a little higher than I wanted it to and nicked a tree branch. When it came down, it smacked the tail and cracked the GWS DD tail mount/fin. It also ripped the red wire. I got the mount back together with a zip tie and some CA. I had to pull out some slack from the wires to make a new soldered splice. I had used a piece of CF skinny rod from my training gear to make a new flybar a couple of days ago. I decided when I was in repair mode to straighten things out a bit. I was using a paddle control frame that only had one ball on it with only one ring like push rod. I decided to put put on a new paddle control frame and two ring likes. With only one ring like, as many guys are doing, my head was CONSTANTLY popping off. If I crashed, it popped off. Even if I came down a little less than gently, it popped off. Today, with a more healthy set up, I was staying in the air longer and I didn't break anything. I considered it a successful day because of that. I still can't get this thing to go into a sustained hover. I'm constantly fighting with the right stick. :arggg:
The GWS set up has this thing called an adapter. It takes the place of the see saw piece you're talking about, but it's different. Instead of it having the dog bone links between a set of fingers, it just provides one arm that seems to do the same job. The head/motor will always be going in the same directions, so, I guess they figure you only need something on one side.

[C R Mudgeon]

Found a couple of problems with the fiber frame.

1) The HBFP main shaft is too short. This causes binding on swashplate. Also it the fly bar hits the anti rotation device.

2) The anti rotation binds the swashplate pin.

3) The motor mount needs grinding for a 20mm brushless motor ( Ammo or Park 370 or 400 )


I ordered a Compy 300 main shaft in the 86 and 93mm flavors I think they will be plug and play. Have to find which one will work best. I sanded the anti rotation but I also ordered the compy one.

One other thing with the metal head and the M24 blades. The blades are too thick for the grips. This causes the metal rotor head to slightly pop off seems like the rings can not hold the rotor head down. I'm going to sand the attachment point to get it as thin as the OEM blades.

[kodak_jack]

I meant to ask you about the shims that came with the metal head. Were they supposed to be used if your blades were skinnier than the hub the blades fit over?
Other guys have gotten that frame and put heli's together without talking about how things didn't go together right or needed mods (?).
What did you do on the tail? Is it a belt drive or DD or what?
You still have the old fork in there and not the adapter. What's up with that?

[C R Mudgeon]

The shims seems to do two functions. One is to allow the blades to turn in the blade grips kind of like a bearing. Second is a little harder to explain. The bottom fiberboard section of the grips "capture" the bearings on the center hub. This and the rings keep the rotor head in place on the center hub.

I did a DD tail using the GWS kit (http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXHHE2&P=SM) and I used a axe cp tail mount and motor that I had hanging around. I hooked that up a Great Planes ESC (http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXKBF3&P=0) and a Esky HH Gyro

Things need mods.....Even in the best of kits. Also, I'm doing this as a real Frankenstein There are parts of at least three or four different brands of helis here. Some stuff works some stuff needs mods to work Some sutff doesn't work. You can keep Esky parts on a Esky heli and it will all work. Or you can try to make it better by getting other stuff but it may not be all plug and play.


Fork?? Oh yeah....It's still not here. Tower mailed it in the slow mailbox.......

[C R Mudgeon]

Trying to get this thing flying.

Had to go to a non heading hold gyro and a mixer to get started. The torque from this thing was overwhelming the tail on take off. Need the gradual spool up of a mixer to get the tail under control. Torque was also kicking the thing over to the left. Have to give it a smack of right aleron on take off to get under control. I put back on the 10t pinion which is now getting better head speed.

Issues
1) Heli is now slightly tail heavy. Going to move things around to get CG under control.

2) Main Shaft is too short. Swash is getting snagged in places. Have a 86mm shaft on the way

3) Landing gear struts broke already.:thumbdown: Have a couple in the pipeline also may use the struts from the super skids clones.

[kodak_jack]

Trying to get this thing flying.

Had to go to a non heading hold gyro and a mixer to get started. The torque from this thing was overwhelming the tail on take off. Need the gradual spool up of a mixer to get the tail under control. Torque was also kicking the thing over to the left. Have to give it a smack of right aleron on take off to get under control. I put back on the 10t pinion which is now getting better head speed.

Issues
1) Heli is now slightly tail heavy. Going to move things around to get CG under control.

2) Main Shaft is too short. Swash is getting snagged in places. Have a 86mm shaft on the way

3) Landing gear struts broke already.:thumbdown: Have a couple in the pipeline also may use the struts from the super skids clones.
How do you know how much head speed you need? Guys are constantly talking about the pinion gear size and it is nothing that is tried and true for every situation.
Another thing guys are doing is shortening the boom to try to improve balance. Again, how much is needed before you get in trouble with the main blades?

[C R Mudgeon]

How do you know how much head speed you need? Guys are constantly talking about the pinion gear size and it is nothing that is tried and true for every situation.
Another thing guys are doing is shortening the boom to try to improve balance. Again, how much is needed before you get in trouble with the main blades?


With head speed I don't know. With a FP the more head speed ( with a particular blade ) the more lift you get. When you are hovering you are in balance between gravity and lift. If you put on an other blade that had less pitch you would need to rotate faster to get the same amout of lift. The only advantage is gyroscopic. It MAY make you a little more stable. In my case I'm just testing it out to find a more stable platform.


I've cut down the boom to the point that I'm just missing the tail ! Yikes!

[antennahead]

The saga continues. I decided enough was enough with the hovering routine. I took it out in the yard and let it FLY!! Unfortunately, it got a little higher than I wanted it to and nicked a tree branch. When it came down, it smacked the tail and cracked the GWS DD tail mount/fin. It also ripped the red wire. I got the mount back together with a zip tie and some CA. I had to pull out some slack from the wires to make a new soldered splice. I had used a piece of CF skinny rod from my training gear to make a new flybar a couple of days ago. I decided when I was in repair mode to straighten things out a bit. I was using a paddle control frame that only had one ball on it with only one ring like push rod. I decided to put put on a new paddle control frame and two ring likes. With only one ring like, as many guys are doing, my head was CONSTANTLY popping off. If I crashed, it popped off. Even if I came down a little less than gently, it popped off. Today, with a more healthy set up, I was staying in the air longer and I didn't break anything. I considered it a successful day because of that. I still can't get this thing to go into a sustained hover. I'm constantly fighting with the right stick. :arggg:
The GWS set up has this thing called an adapter. It takes the place of the see saw piece you're talking about, but it's different. Instead of it having the dog bone links between a set of fingers, it just provides one arm that seems to do the same job. The head/motor will always be going in the same directions, so, I guess they figure you only need something on one side.

Sorry to hear about your crash, it has been very frustrating getting mine set up, mostly because I don't know what is right or wrong. my problems started when I first took the heli out of the box......it was missing one of the flybar links(ring like pushrod and one ball was broken off of the flybar paddle control frame, I tried to fly it and broke the swashplate,tried to repair the swash and ordered the aluminium swash and control frame, while waiting for parts,I was trying to get the proportional set up correctly and had a glitch, the front servo moved all the way up and the rotor started to turn with the throttle off and broke the little fork that holds the ring like pushrod, the next day my aluminium parts showed up, but now I was waiting for a new fork to show up. I used the GWS adapter and ring like links.last night I was able to get the propotional set up and finally, today I was able to hover it a bunch of times for about 40/50 seconds at a time in my garage and didn't break anything. I still can't get the smile off of my face :lol: anyway I had to cut the little tabs off the esky head to use the gws adapter, and I found the gws ring likes for the flybar a bit stiffer than the esky ones,in that when I broke one side of the esky fork, the esky ring likes,wouldn't stay straight up and down and would twist as the rotor head turned, I was flying it today with one of the gws adapter arms broken off and 2 of the gws ring like pushrods and they stayed straight and it flew fine :P

[C R Mudgeon]

Glad you are flying! :thumbup: Get it flying.... Land it .... Fly again! Again great job!

But a couple of things The GWS adapter, fork or what ever is for the GWS center hub. It dosen't provide any advantage over the esky fork. The GWS hub is a stronger hub ( no split on top ) than the Esky hub. The esky fork just does not fit on the GWS hub ( or vise verse as you found out )

Get it back together. Fly it around !

[kodak_jack]

Glad you are flying! :thumbup: Get it flying.... Land it .... Fly again! Again great job!

But a couple of things The GWS adapter, fork or what ever is for the GWS center hub. It dosen't provide any advantage over the esky fork. The GWS hub is a stronger hub ( no split on top ) than the Esky hub. The esky fork just does not fit on the GWS hub ( or vise verse as you found out )

Get it back together. Fly it around !
I guess I don't follow this. My Esky fork/see saw/whatever fit on the center hub just fine. I put the pin through it all and it runs (?). If it didn't fit, the pin wouldn't go through, right?:confused:

[C R Mudgeon]

You got if right.

I tried to put the Esky fork on the GWS center hub but the tabs were different and I could not put the pin into it. I'm STILL waiting for the GWS adapter ( tower all the parts but SLOWER ) Any way that's why the Esky forks are still on the HBFP in the pictures.

To summerize....

Esky Center Hub --- >Esky Fork.

GWS Center HUB ----> GWS adapter ( fork )

antennahead thought that the GWS adapter went on the Esky Hub for some advantage.

To be clear the GWS hub and GWS adapter ( fork ) was to be added to the metal head for strength because it does not have the split that the Esky center hub has.

[antennahead]

antennahead thought that the GWS adapter went on the Esky Hub for some advantage.

Na, I don't think there is any advantage. at the time no esky parts were in stock anywhere and my lhs keeps the gws forks in stock, (yet they cannot get the gws center hubs at all :confused:) the gws fork will not fit onto the esky centerhub because the esky hub has two little tabs that key into the esky fork. Since I can easily get the gws forks, I just cut the two little tabs off of the esky hub therefore allowing the use of the gws fork.I have no idea if a similar mod would alow use of an esky fork on a gws hub. so,really no advantage other than convienence........anyway, thats my story :P

[kodak_jack]

I was looking at a discussion where a guy wanted to use a ducted fan tail and gave a link to HeliHobby and it has a metal center hub for a Hummingbird listed. I'm not sure if it would fit, but most other Hummingbird parts do:
http://www.helihobby.com/html/century_hummingbird.html

[kodak_jack]

A lot of people are getting into the Extreme metal parts and are bi_ching up a storm about the head not fitting on the center hub bearings properly. Heads are popping off in flight and all kinds of nasty stuff. One guy complained to Extreme and they admitted to an early production problem on the "prongs" or whatever you want to call them, that hold onto the hub bearings. They ended up sending him a new "insert".

[kodak_jack]

Mudg, I also go to RC Groups and there is a guy on there who used the King 2 battery holder and skids. I paid $25 for Super Skids and just wasted another $6 for a CP2 battery tray. IMHO, the King 2 stock parts would do both very well and the total will be around $12. Have a look.

[GTX_SlotCar]

Jack, quite a few people have tried the HBK2 "battery hanger" and stock landing gear on the HBFP. I've tried it myself.
- It doesn't solve the problem of fore/aft balance because the carriage (battery hanger) still won't allow the battery to go forward enough unless you add something else to extend it.
- The HBK2 landing gear will still break. That's why so many HBK2 owners are replacing them with SuperSkids400.
- The HBK2 battery hanger and stock landing gear together weigh more than the SuperSkids parts.

I haven't read this thread from the beginning (I just went back a few posts) so I could be missing something, but why do you need a CP2 battery hanger if you have superskids?
All the metal head parts for stiffening the head, and the slo max motor, they're all OK mods for experienced pilots and help in FFF (fast forward flight) because they stop the HB from pitching up and give it more speed. But, from some of your posts, I get the impression that you're relatively new to this and still learning to hover. All those mods will make learning to hover quite a bit harder, not easier. A flexible head will let the blades cone upward so it won't wander as far or dart so fast. Not good for FFF, but great for hovering. The slo max motor has a lot more power. If you're using the stock Tx, the throttle curves are fixed (set to work with the stock motor/gearing/blade pitch/weight). For a beginner, I think you'll have more trouble controlling your altitude. It'll be just one more thing you'll have to concentrate on while learning to hover.
It's just my opinion. I hate to see someone get discouraged.

[kodak_jack]

I had problems getting my battery in and out of the rubber bands. The CP2 battery holder was supposed to be the hot set up. I'm not happy with the skinny toothpicks sticking out under the 4-in-1 unsupported. I also think the FP is too top heavy - vertical center of gravity. Anything that lets you move weight down further would help this. I have to admit the Super Skids help a newbie who bounces around a lot. They take a pounding. I've actually bent up a piece of banding strap that anchors itself into the vertical and horizontal slits in the front skid support and bends out and up under the 4-in-1 to be zip tied to the 4-in-1's bracket. A piece of Velcro does the attaching/holding of the battery.

[UAV_PILOT]

Well got my xtreme metal head upgrade all done and man my heli flies a lot smooter now. With everything I have done, it weighs a lot more then it use to but flies so much better and it looks meaner too. The 380x motor I got is getting the job done!

http://feat.putfile.com/profilepics/main/1/ride_the_pony69-76242180114.jpg
http://feat.putfile.com/profilepics/main/9/ride_the_pony69-41242180308.jpg