Anyone had a stock gyro failure?

[Deckrat]

I have been having terrible tail problems with my B450. It flew fine at first. The more I flew it, the more "notchy" and twitchy the tail got. It would hold heading fairly well, but any input on the rudder stick would produce very jerky movement of the tail. I tried reducing throw both on the radio and the gyro. No effect. I have read in another thread here where someone was also getting the same sort of behavior. So I broke down and bought another stock tail servo (Yes, it IS a DS76T) and it still does the same thing. Now I am getting terrible tail wag that won't go away regardless of gain settings on my DX-8. So I figured it flew good on the DX6i, so I tried binding it back to that radio. No change. While on the DX6i I tried running the gain down to put it in rate mode, and it doesn't want to do that. I can run the gain to zero on the DX6i, and the HH light never goes out on the gyro. I have never crashed the helicopter even a little, and I have not changed ANYTHING mechanically since my initial setup. Do I have a bad gyro, or is there possibly something else going on here that I'm missing?

Thank in advance for any help the fine people here may be able to offer.

[Imzzaudae]

My tail was acting kind of clunky after about 10 flights. I found that the blade pitch control slider on the tail was dry and binding a bit. I gave it a little silicone lubricant and the tail settled right down for me! Worth a look.

[Deckrat]

Thanks for the tip. I have lubed the output shaft, and the slides on it very smoothly. Still, the issue with the heading hold light staying on at all gain settings make me think it's the gyro. Still though, I would hate to buy a new one only to find that the problem was somewhere else.

[Manzooka]

My stock gyro was fubar out of the box.

[gixster]

Contact Horizon Hobby they should take care of you

Product Support - Radio Control: 877-504-0233

[kavic5150]

I've had great luck with the tarot gy650 mems gyro. It has lots of settings like servo travel each way, separate left and right brake, piro rate, and lock gain. Havent tried it in rate mode but in HH mode its brilliant.

Ebay has them from china for $49 but I think its worth a few extra bucks to go thru cnchelicopter.com.

Out of the 3 that I own, one of them failed to initalize on 2 different occasions. Both times I left it alone and tried it later and it worked fine. I suspect a bit of moisture got into the case but cant verify. Been using them for over 2 years and only had an issue with one.

Also if you go on the spartan gyro website they are running a summer clearance on black case quarks. $80 gets you a brand new quark. Act fast on that one.

[jackate11]

Originally Posted by Deckrat

I have been having terrible tail problems with my B450. It flew fine at first. The more I flew it, the more "notchy" and twitchy the tail got. It would hold heading fairly well, but any input on the rudder stick would produce very jerky movement of the tail. I tried reducing throw both on the radio and the gyro. No effect. I have read in another thread here where someone was also getting the same sort of behavior. So I broke down and bought another stock tail servo (Yes, it IS a DS76T) and it still does the same thing. Now I am getting terrible tail wag that won't go away regardless of gain settings on my DX-8. So I figured it flew good on the DX6i, so I tried binding it back to that radio. No change. While on the DX6i I tried running the gain down to put it in rate mode, and it doesn't want to do that. I can run the gain to zero on the DX6i, and the HH light never goes out on the gyro. I have never crashed the helicopter even a little, and I have not changed ANYTHING mechanically since my initial setup. Do I have a bad gyro, or is there possibly something else going on here that I'm missing?

Thank in advance for any help the fine people here may be able to offer.

You can try setting it up again, set the gyro gain to 50 loosen the tail servo on the boom, make sure the servo arm is at 90 degrees and re tighten it making sure the plastic rod that runs under the boom from the tail servo to the pitch slider is perfectly straight. If that's not it and it is mounted ok, I would send it in to HH for evaluation, they will most likely replace it for free, Those guys are great over there, they replaced my receiver when it went bad out of the blue..I have been fine with the stock gyro, mine holds with not drift, I do pitch pumps from 20 to 60 feet as fast as I can and my tail stays put with no drift, but with everyone going flybarless I will try to pick up a quark for around 40 bucks sometime in the next few months.

[berkeleyflyer]

They can definitely go out! Mine went out after about 5 flights. My 450 had the same problems you're describing. I replaced the tail servo (the original one wasn't operating smoothly), checked the setup, and still had the problem. At this point, I was pretty convinced it was the gyro. I called up HH and they wanted me to send the whole helicopter to them to be diagnosed. Not wanting to be down for weeks, I went back to the LHS that sold it to me and the owner gave me the gyro off his Blade 450 to try. Worked like a charm. He ended up giving me his gyro and I gave him mine to let him deal with HH.

FYI: HH will tell you that their gyros are pretty bulletproof, but if you checked everything else (and it sounds like you have), the gyro is really the only other answer. Just note, when I called HH, they wanted me to remove the remote gyro gain wire (yellow wire going from the gyro to the receiver) and try to adjust the gain manually. I asked him what happens if this does fix it...does this mean I can no longer adjust the gain remotely? He responded with yes, but that "it shouldn't be a big deal because you rarely need to adjust the gain once it's set correctly." Don't let them sell you on that. You paid for a fully functioning gyro (including remote gain control!); don't accept anything less than that! Having hearing all the good things about E-flite, I was a little disappointed by their customer service. Good luck.

[Deckrat]

Thanks a million for all of the help guys. After reading your posts, I went back and made sure that all of the hardware on the tail was tightened correctly. I got a little movement from a couple of the screws, but nothing seemed to be coming loose. Then (and I forgot to mention this in my original post, but I had also changed to a new receiver because the old one had problems linking up now & then) I checked the gain signal wire to the receiver and found that I had plugged it in upside down preventing me from adjusting the gain with the transmitter. I checked to make sure that was getting rate mode below 50% gain, and then took it out for a quick hover. VOILA! The viscous tail wag is gone, and it appears as if I have smooth control over my tail again. I DID have the clunky movement before changing the receiver, so I'm hoping that the hardware on the tail was the culprit there.

Thanks again for all the tips and help!

Deck