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View Full Version : HELP The Gremlins are in control of my Hurricane!


Graeme67
06-17-2008, 11:48 PM
OK Guys this one has me tearing my hair out, & I really can’t afford to lose any more. (Hair!)

I had a crash the weekend before last, a simple roll over at the end of a nose in landing, not a biggy. But since then I can not get my hurri to fly “right” It just feels wrong. I ended up putting her in again last weekend.

My Hurri has 260 flights logged, with 9 crashes including the last 2. Interestingly the last 2 bent the feathering shaft both times, I‘ve never bent one before. The head is basically original with the same servos since new (DS821).

So here is what’s going on.
After the 2nd most recent crash I noticed on takeoff that the heli wanted to drift right – WTF? :shock:

So instead of having 1 or 2 clicks of right cyclic to stop it drifting left like I always have had since new, I had to add 2-3 clicks of left cyclic to stop it drifting right!

Also with my 2 x 3s 3200 packs she has always been nose heavy. Normally 50g on the tail had her level but a while back I removed the weight & she flew quite nicely with 8 clicks of aft cyclic.

After that crash I reinstalled the weight but it never seemed to trim out properly – it was tending to slide backwards, so I removed it.
Then I would try & set the elevator trim and would end up with about 8 clicks aft cyclic but then once in the air trying to hover it wanted to slide backwards all the time so I would back off the trim till I was almost back to centre again.

So this week I have been going through the setup with a fine tooth comb trying to pinpoint the problem. I have stripped the head down and readjusted the subtrims to level the swash. There was some adjustments needed. The swash remains reasonably level with only a very small drift between top & bottom. The swash seemed to re-centre nicely on the bench also.

Today I had some trouble with tracking & decided to replace the head dampers to take out a little bit of slop that had developed. I also found the cnc mixing levers were coming loose on the grip so re-locktited & all good again. After this she tracked beautifully & I thought I might have it nailed – But No!

With all the trims centred I brought her up & she still wants to lean over to the right! What Goes Here??

I had the same trouble with the elevator trim. The tail just wanted to slide down backwards. If I got the trim close and let the stick centre it would not sit there. The tail just dropped and kept going until a correction was made.

A fellow at the field suggested I may have a servo not centering properly. I used a V-block to centre the swash & with that on the shaft I could flick the cyclic around and the swash always came back level.

But I am suspicious of the servos. Could they be getting lazy under load or in one direction, hence the tail dropping? I have no idea what sort of load the spinning disk puts back on the servos. I am at a loss to explain why the heli now wants to drift right. My next move is to replace all the cyclic servos – I don’t know what else to try.

Any suggestions?

Cheers
Graeme

michael88997
06-17-2008, 11:52 PM
well that could be alot of things but since its only a couple of clicks more i would say that maybe your batteries are not centered... mine does that sometimes, or it can be the wind... unless your adding in 20 or more clicks i would worry about it

kgfly
06-18-2008, 12:34 AM
Hard to say. I never use any trim at all since it will make things much worse when you go inverted.

One idea that came to mind that you might want to try is to swap the aileron servos. Two choices, you could swap them physically or simply swap the plugs at the Rx and adjust the reversing/swash polarity in the Tx. I think the second approach is the simplest.

If the drift behaviour changes that might be a useful clue. Might not! If it does, the next step is to swap the suspected "good" servo with the elevator servo and once again, see if and how the behaviour changes.

Otherwise candidate mechanical items to inspect and potentially replace include:
- main shaft
- bearings (maybe damaged in one grip but not the other)
- links (maybe causing some drag on one or other axis of the swash)
- head block (maybe distorted, seems unlikely, but maybe)
- dirt/grit in Tx gymbals or pots (really stretching now)

I hope you sort it out quickly Graeme, these things can be quite maddening, I know :arggg:

Graeme67
06-18-2008, 02:10 AM
Otherwise candidate mechanical items to inspect and potentially replace include:
- main shaft
- bearings (maybe damaged in one grip but not the other)
- links (maybe causing some drag on one or other axis of the swash)
- head block (maybe distorted, seems unlikely, but maybe)
- dirt/grit in Tx gymbals or pots (really stretching now)

Kenneth,
New main shaft, I checked the grips today and they are fine, the head runs true & blades track fine, the Tx is a possibility but all this has only happened since the crash. I am really suspect of the servos. They way trim is very hard to set & the goal posts seem to keep moving.

Cheers
Graeme

kahn10
06-18-2008, 02:22 AM
hey graeme worth checking out the hyperion atlas range of servos if your considering replacing all your cyclics. seem to be alot of servo for the bucks.... going to kit mine out with them very soon.no dancing banana's here........

kahn10
06-19-2008, 07:24 PM
any joy fella

vicrc
06-20-2008, 03:47 AM
If you changed out the tail blades to the white ones it will change your CG. White fins the same way as well. To add weight to the tail I went with the carbon fins.

Graeme67
06-21-2008, 08:55 AM
Well I'm back in the air, still none the wiser really as to what was going on. I had a friend give me his ds821's that he didn't use & have had another good look over the set up swapped & tested servos & really didn't find anything conclusive. I have managed to trim her out & she is flying well, so thats the main thing.

Cheers
Graeme