Setup Without Pitch Gauge

[Redfire SVT]

I had to cheat the other day when I set my heli back up. I set the pitch without a pitch gauge.

First I leveled/checked the swash plate and made sure the travel was good, refering to Sokal's method of watching the pins slide into the head block on full positive/negative. Watch his video for details, it's great. Next, I leveled the washout arms at midstick. An easy way to do this, for me, was to remove both pushrods and make them exactly the same length then install. Now remove or add equal turns until the washout arms are level at midstick. I did the same thing with the pitch pushrods. I adjusted them in equal turns until I got what looked to be close to zero pitch at midstick with everything level. This is a starting point.

I then spooled the heli up very slowly in regular flight mode and noted at what stick position it started to hover. It turned out that it took a fair amount of stick to hover so I knew it was off. I sat the heli down and then added positive pitch by shortning the pitch pushrods by 1 turn each. Hovered again and this time it was close. Sat the heli down, made another equal adjustment and now it hovers where I like it.

How wrong am I for doing this? The heli flys great.

[sokal]

I had to cheat the other day when I set my heli back up. I set the pitch without a pitch gauge.

First I leveled/checked the swash plate and made sure the travel was good, refering to Sokal's method of watching the pins slide into the head block on full positive/negative. Watch his video for details, it's great. Next, I leveled the washout arms at midstick. An easy way to do this, for me, was to remove both pushrods and make them exactly the same length then install. Now remove or add equal turns until the washout arms are level at midstick. I did the same thing with the pitch pushrods. I adjusted them in equal turns until I got what looked to be close to zero pitch at midstick with everything level. This is a starting point.

I then spooled the heli up very slowly in regular flight mode and noted at what stick position it started to hover. It turned out that it took a fair amount of stick to hover so I knew it was off. I sat the heli down and then added positive pitch by shortning the pitch pushrods by 1 turn each. Hovered again and this time it was close. Sat the heli down, made another equal adjustment and now it hovers where I like it.

How wrong am I for doing this? The heli flys great.
only thing is you dont know your pitch range
may be 10 or 12 or just 8

im glad with out a doubt and the want to fly u figured it out one way or another
if it was me i would have done the same thing. anything to keep it up


but the best for preformance is to use the guage
less steps
but well done my man

[SeaComms]

Grab a pitch gauge from Deal Extreme - they're like $3.80 or something and free freight :)

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10778

[newhelliguy]

If you changed your links you are mechanically increasing your positive pitch. Thats fine for normal flight but what it does is decrease your negitive pitch so it would affect inverted flight. :thumbdown:

This is ok but you really should leave every thing level at mid stick and increase your pitch by using your pitch curve.

For example if you want to hover at mid stick increase your setting # 3 in your normal pitch curve until the heli lifts off at mid stick. if the headspeed is to low then increase your throtle curve at position #3. continue to increase and decrease these two numbers until you hover at mid stick at the head speed you want.(you can probably tell be the feel what you like).:roll:

After you get these two numbers set then set the other positions to get a somewhat linear curve however I like to keep the low position around 35-40% so you wont come down to fast if you dump the throtle stick(2-3 degrees seems to work).

I hopes this helps it took me a long time to understand the relationship between pitch and throtle curve and Im sure it has been explained better elsewhere.:roll:

Also Extreme deals are great.I ordered the 5 of the cheap voltage meters and they worked great. Its a good idea to order a few things other wise you waste shipping charges so look around their web site. and it does take a couple of weeks so order now.

[Redfire SVT]

I got the heli to hover just past midstick, identical to before the crash. I haven't messed with the stock pitch/throttle curves, they seem to be fine. I will check the curves once I make the switch to 3d, which is months down the road.

I will definitely procure a pitch gauge soon.