First spool up....need help

[mknope019]

Okay so today I spooled my Hurricane 550 up for the very first time. Everything seemed find except for a few technical problems. I'm not very good with the helicopter lingo but I'm going to try my best. First off, the roll was in the opposite direction. I would try to roll right and it was rolling left. I tried reversing the two channels that I have the cyclic servos in ( aileron and aux 1...I have a DX7 with ar7000 receiver) but that only messed things up more.

Secondly, It seemed that till about 3/4 throttle I had negative pitch. These are all my current settings:

Swash Mix
Ail: 50%
Elev: 50%
Pit.: 50%

Throttle Curve-Norm
0% 60% 80% 90% 100%

Pitch Curve-Norm
42.5% 46.5% 50% 75% 100%
Should Exp turned on or off?

I went by what others were using on here just as a starting point. I hope someone can help me out.
Besides the difficulties I had...it ran very smooth. I'm so excited to lift off.

Mike

[jujiro]

to reverse the roll rate try reversing the swash mix setting for Aileron to - 50. That should set the roll rate to the right direction and allow everything else to remain the same

[mknope019]

Awesome! I just did that and everything is fine now. Now I just need to figure out the pitch problems.
Thank you.

Mike

[jujiro]

ahh i overlooked that part . Hmm there are two ways do to that mechanical by adjusting the links from the swash to the arm of the blade grip or in the radio settings in the pitch curve .hopefully somebody more experienced with the hurricane 550 comes by soon since I'm still learning about that helicopter myself @_@

[GatoVolador]

Pitch problems -- make sure everything is level at mid-stick. Set your collective/cyclic sticks to 50% and then make sure your swash is level, your washout arms are level, and the mixing arms on the blade grips are level. Now, take a look at your blade grips -- they should be level as well (or zero degrees pitch if you were to throw a pitch gauge on...) My guess is that something is off mechanically in your head setup If this is the case then the best bet is to start from ground-zero as randomnly tweaking things is just going to make things worse. Pull everything off the head except the swash and then make sure your pitch/aileron/elevator links are the correct length (as called-out in the manual). Also make sure your servo arms are level at mid-stick (correct as necessary via sub-trim if you can't get it exact mechanically...) Once you have that part sorted out work yourself up the head, making sure your link lengths are correct. Follow Finless' head setup video to do this if you are at all unclear.

Expo -- I'd recommend about 30% expo which in actuality will give you close to linear servo travel. You typically want to enable expo on pitch/aileron only. Your gyro is controlling the rudder servo so setting expo on rudder really isn't going to accomplish anything. This setting can be found in the D/R Expo menu. Note that you want to disable expo in the swash mix menu -- this is not the same thing!

[skydude]

Expo -- I'd recommend about 30% expo which in actuality will give you close to linear servo travel. You typically want to enable expo on pitch/aileron only. Your gyro is controlling the rudder servo so setting expo on rudder really isn't going to accomplish anything.


I had just randomly started with 30% and it feels good. I can't imagine anything less. But I am kind of a puss.

At least I can say it is actually close to linear.

--

[phunk]

Rather than reversing the channels or messing with the mix, I would swap the pitch & aileron servos in the receiver. If everything else is right except the roll is reversed, that's your problem.

[mknope019]

I tried switching the servos and it didn't right. Reversing the swash fixed it though. How do the throttle and pitch curves look? Good starting point?

[GatoVolador]

Your curves seem reasonable for normal mode. Not sure what sort of negative pitch 42.5% will give you for your setup but you probably want something around 2-3% as measured by a pitch gauge -- it's probably close though. Of course, your idle-up curves should be different.

[mknope019]

I was told flat 100% for idle up

[mknope019]

I just flew!!! Man this baby is rock solid in the air. Such a big difference from my Blade CP..lol. I'm in love.

[mjdee14]

I just flew!!! Man this baby is rock solid in the air. Such a big difference from my Blade CP..lol. I'm in love.

Join the ranks with the "Big Boys" no matter what they say "Size does matter" :smokin:

Your in for a lot of fun...I started with a blade then went to a 400 then a little bigger now the 550. I love this heli....it's the perfect size and it doesn't break the bank to fly.

Welcome also to the forum.....lots of good people and info found here.

[vicrc]

I love my Hurry, I do all my crash testing on it, its cheaper (than my Trex 500) to fix. I get a new woody whenever I crash :YeaBaby:. Today I finally was able to take off, fly and land all nose in! I can really do it without thinking how much money is in the air other wise I get too nervous. Hopefully by the end of the week I can flip and roll, nose in... uhmmm am skaarrrd!

[mjdee14]

I I get a new woody whenever I crash :YeaBaby:. !


:lolol


Are we talking about Heli parts or other appendages ?? :dontknow

[mknope019]

Just got done with my first real flight in a large open area. Wow is this thing just awesome to fly. It was pretty windy and I barely felt any of it. I love this machine. My flight time seemed a little low though. I'm using two kong power 2200 mah lipos and I got around 4 minutes of flight time with the stock 860kv motor. I expected longer flight times because I was pretty much just hovering there and doing very basic forward flight. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong when charging that would leave the lipos not getting fully charged. I have that new kong power charger with the battery bridge so I can charge both lipos at once. I have it set to charge at 2.5A cause the lipos say to charge at 2.5A or less. Now when I charge one lipo shouldn't the charger read that the lipo charged to 2200mah? When I tried charging just one of the batteries it read at like 1200 mah when it was finished. Doesn't seem right to me. When I charged both of the batteries it read at like just under 2000mah. When I charge both lipos at once am I supposed to increase the 2.5A to 5A to compensate for the 2 lipos? Any help would be appreciated.

I'm going to order more sets of lipos today cause I want to fly the snot out of this puppy.

Mike

[Mikej]

i use Kong Powers with the standard motor and get about 7 minute flights. It doesn't sound as if you are charging them fully or similar - I have on eof the Maxpro chargers on the way from RC-Tek so should be able to help more in a week or so. In the meantime there is a very good thread about them on RCGroups.

[vicrc]

If your using two packs make sure you carry at least a voltage pack reader, like this one

http://www.all-battery.com/browseproducts/Cell-Spy-lipo-voltage-tester.HTML

http://www.all-battery.com/ProductImages/lithium/cell_spy.JPG (http://www.all-battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1973)

This way you wont destroy one of the packs. I use it all the time before hooking up series plug.

[mknope019]

What exactly does that do? And do you have any explanation for why my flight time was so low?

[Mikej]

What exactly does that do? And do you have any explanation for why my flight time was so low?
That tells you the voltage in each of your cells.

How did you decide when to stop flying on your flights to date ? You are either not charging the batteries fully (i.e. starting with a less than fully charged battery) or not using them for as long as you could do (i.e. only partially discharging them) - or they are defective (less likely)

[mknope019]

I just decided I would set my timer on the transmitter at 6 minutes cause from reading on here it looked like I should be getting 7-8 minutes of basic flight. But around 4 minutes I was loosing head spead as if the battery was dying. Luckily, I was just a foot off the ground and set the heli down as soon as I saw the power going down. How could I not be charging the lipos fully? I charge both batteries at once with the battery bridge at 2.5 Amps until the charger says charge complete.

[Mikej]

How could I not be charging the lipos fully? I charge both batteries at once with the battery bridge at 2.5 Amps until the charger says charge complete.

Unfortunately I don't know enough about the charger (yet) to really comment unfortunately. Other things to check that would affect flight time are belt tension and motor pinion engagement - if either are too tight they will reduce run time. Do you have a multi-meter or a friend with a different charger that will tell you how many mAH you are putting back in ?

Cheers,
Mike.

[mknope019]

No I don't. Do you know how I can find that out with this charger?

[mknope019]

Okay so I just charged each lipo individually at 2.5 A. This is what the charger displayed at the completion for each lipo:

Battery 1:
12.6V
23 Degrees celcius
2.07AH
0:59
4.20 4.19 4.20

Battery 2:
12.6 V
22 degrees celcius
2.09AH
0:57
4.20 4.20 4.20

My flight time was 5:15. Still seems a little on the low side.

[mjdee14]

Looks like your lipos are fully charged and balanced....5:15 is about all you could expect from 2200 mah batts.

Read through some of the threads...5mins is about normal....even 3300's are in the 7-8 min range depending on how you fly.

i reduced my HS to about 17-1800 and ws able to get 12 mins of just putZing around...nothing fancy just flying in circles....up the HS to 2100 and that drops to about 7 mins on the 3300.
get bigger batteries and a Z20 -980 motor is you want longer flight times and even then I wouldn't expect more than 5 -6 min form 2200's

[Mikej]

Yep - it looks as if you are charging them fully, what is your set- up i.e. motor pinion, primary gear, OWB etc. - as Mike says your head speed may be a bit high. I have 14T pinion, 20T owb, 41T primary gear and a throttle curve of 0, 85, 90, 90, 95 which gives a HS of about 1800 which flies nicely for my newby flying and give me about 6.5 - 7 minutes flying on 2200 KPs.

Have you checked your pinion mesh and tail belt tension - they make a surprising difference.