Mini CP is garbage

[tstivers]

I'm fairly new to RC helicopters in general. I own two nitro powered rc cars however so I'm familiar with hobby grade RC in general. The Mini CP is my first rc heli. I got it about a week ago with a devo 7e. Yes I know the difficulty involved in cp helis. I like a challenge so I went for it.

So far I've been able to master tail in hover with my Mini CP within a day of receiving it. I can move forward/backwards as well as left/right as well, as long as the tail is facing me. Now on to why its garbage.

New out of the box the canopy was torn at the corners the landing skids slide into. One of the skids has a slight bend in it as well and the plastic was weakened as it broke within the first rough landing (it wasn't really that rough at all tbh). I've taken much harder landings and not managed to break the skids since so I blame quality control for this. These are negligible issues I could have dealt with and not cared. However the issues run deeper still.

The helicopter always wants to drift to the right. First I thought it was out of trim so I trimmed it. Then it went back to drifting. Trimmed it some more and it kept going back. So eventually I learned how to reset the receiver and it flies PERFECTLY stable after doing so. For 60 seconds. Then it drifts again. I took apart the servo that moves down to cause the rightwards drift. None of the gears inside are missing teeth. I made sure multiple times everything on the help is as it should be. At 0 pitch with 0 collective input the swashplate is level. The blades line up at 0 pitch as well.

My guess is that the gyro is causing this, however I don't believe its something I can fix as I'm seeing it as a bug essentially.

I finally managed to break it to the point it won't fly now in a pretty hard crash. One of the ball links that comes off the blades to control pitch snapped off. I doubt I'll be fixing it let alone buying another product from walkera for that matter.

Glad I bought a devo 7e and put deviation on it. At least that's not a complete pos.

Product was purchased from xheli.com. The factory seal on the package was broken when I received it so I don't know if it was caused by them. I'm guessing the seal was broken to add the devo 7e to the package.

[tstivers]

I did manage to fix the blade grip that broke with superglue. Now every time it crashes I have to re-glue it though. I could pay the $4 for a new set of blade grips, but honestly I'm so disgusted with this heli at this point I'd rather just save the money and put it towards a real 250 or 450 kit.

I'm not giving up on the hobby though. So far I love it. Hell I'd even love this chopper if it weren't for the fact it wants to drift right all the time.

[zadaw]

Honestly, the only way that a CP will not drift at all is to have GPS lock, just like what they do with multi-rotors. The chances are you will be have just as many problems if not more problems with other brands. This is Walkera has programmed the gyro to be especially stable for beginners. Take for example the nano CPX is far more unstable and likely to drift than the Mini CP. You will have much more problems controlling it if you haven't flown a heli before.

[tstivers]

Originally Posted by zadaw

Honestly, the only way that a CP will not drift at all is to have GPS lock, just like what they do with multi-rotors. The chances are you will be have just as many problems if not more problems with other brands. This is Walkera has programmed the gyro to be especially stable for beginners. Take for example the nano CPX is far more unstable and likely to drift than the Mini CP. You will have much more problems controlling it if you haven't flown a heli before.

I do understand that there is normally a leftward drift due to the tail rotors thrust. This isn't what's happening here. I shouldn't have used the term drift as it doesn't match. The help acts like its out of trim. If I get it into a stable hover and let go of the sticks it reliably banks to the right a couple degrees which obviously causes it to move to the right. I know this isn't normal behavior because after resetting the helicopter (by disconnecting and reconnecting the battery a couple times) I can put it in a stable hover and let go of the sticks, and it will hold that hover pretty well with no banking at all. It still drifts, but this is what I see as a normal drift that is expected.

[tstivers]

I also want to make it pretty clear that given I've only been flying for a week, I'm far ahead of what most people seem to be at. I pretty much practice exclusively above a twin size mattress with walls on two sides and not much room for error on the other sides. By this point I can reliably and confidently hold a tail in hover and move it any direction I please while still keeping control. Even when its pulling to the right I can still control it. It just requires that I constantly counter correct to the left which really isn't helping me learn side in and nose in hover. It doesn't go flying to the right if I let it do its thing, but it is significant enough that it makes it very difficult learning the other orientations.

[tstivers]

Originally Posted by zadaw

Honestly, the only way that a CP will not drift at all is to have GPS lock, just like what they do with multi-rotors. The chances are you will be have just as many problems if not more problems with other brands. This is Walkera has programmed the gyro to be especially stable for beginners. Take for example the nano CPX is far more unstable and likely to drift than the Mini CP. You will have much more problems controlling it if you haven't flown a heli before.

My original post doesn't appear to have posted so sorry if this ends up being a double post. Its not a normal drift. I understand there will usually be a slight leftward drift due to the tail rotors thrust. This is consistently a rightward drift and the heli banks to the right a few degrees. It does so immediately after I let off the cyclic (which means I'm no longer counter correcting to the left). When I reset the heli by reconnecting the battery a couple times it flies stable and holds a stable hover with minimal drift after I let go of the cyclic. For a minute or two at least. Then it goes back to the normal antics. Its a very noticeable difference and even being a noob I can tell it isn't how the heli is supposed to behave.

[zadaw]

Honestly, I wouldn't get too bothered about it. Soon, you will spend very little time hovering per flight. One thing I found was that any drifting problem is less apparent when you fly outside with some wind present. The gyros in these micros are very basic compared to larger helis. Sometimes, it may start misbehaving as the battery goes down. Another thing is that I found that it is easier to plug in the receiver battery first before turning on the transmitter to initialize. You may run into problems if the heli is not giving enough time to initialize.

It is true that larger helis are easier to fly but they cost much more per crash. Not to mention they are much more dangerous. I have been hit by a thrown off blade of a 450. Luckily, it was only my middle finger. If the heli had been higher up, it could have got my eyes.

[tstivers]

Originally Posted by zadaw

Honestly, I wouldn't get too bothered about it. Soon, you will spend very little time hovering per flight. The gyros in these micros are very basic compared to larger helis.

It is true that larger helis are easier to fly but they cost much more per crash. Not to mention they are much more dangerous. I have been hit by a thrown off blade of a 450. Luckily, it was only my middle finger. If the heli had been higher up, it could have got my eyes.

It does bother me though. I bought this heli to learn on. The fact I have to constantly counter what the gyro is doing makes it very difficult to learn. This is also something that I assume would happen during ff as well. Literally I have to hold the cyclic a bit to the left at all times unless I want to move right. Its as though the heli is out of trim. But trim doesn't help and if it were out of trim resetting it wouldn't remove the issue.

I read another post with a genius cp and similar issues. It was mentioned that it could be caused by a temperature change in the gyro. When the gyros temperature changes from what I understand it loses its calibration.

As far as larger helis, I actually like the smaller ones. I started small mainly because I knew I was going to crash a lot at first and wanted something that could survive a few crashes. I don't have thousands to put into the hobby but I would like to get a 250 or 450 but 450 is probably as large as I will go. I'm more fascinated with the challenge of flying and the potential for some sweet looking 3d, and the larger you go the easier it generally is to fly. I'd honestly like to stay 250 and under but 450 seems to be the standard size if you want good performance and a decent price. Even then I only really want a 250 to get away from direct drive tails. The v120d02s v2 was my next planned upgrade until I got so frustrated with this one and decided to stay away from walkera in the future. Other than that a 250 kit is my next best option as far as I can tell to get into belt/TT driven tails.

[tstivers]

Drift really wasn't the best term. The helicopter banks to the right when this happens. Drift implies no banking I guess. When it's running right stability isn't an issue at all. Maybe its because I have never flown a larger heli but when its running right it seems very stable. I can get it to stay in a 1 foot square for a good 10 seconds with no cyclic input when its running right.

[Heli Yea!]

If your heli moves right w/o stick input try lengthening the linkage on the right servo 1 full turn and test it. Repeat until it hovers flat.

[Heli Yea!]

/.

[dominator]

Hang in there. The mini cp with devo 7e was my first cp heli as well. Just remember that it is a cheaper cp heli and its not a crazy 3d machine but it did teach me alot. Keep working with it and replace broken parts. Tinkering with these things is half the fun

[tstivers]

Originally Posted by Heli Yea!

If your heli moves right w/o stick input try lengthening the linkage on the right servo 1 full turn and test it. Repeat until it hovers flat.

This is what I thought at first as well. However if this were causing the problem then wouldn't it still happen even after resetting the heli? The swashplate is also as level as I can get it. The first thing I did when I got the heli was make sure everything was tuned correctly. The right servo is the only one that isn't at a perfect 90° angle though. I'm not sure if this would be the cause but I really doubt it. Its as close to 90° as possible, angled down a hair. The link is extended enough that it still keeps the swash level with 0 cyclic input.

[tstivers]

Originally Posted by dominator

Hang in there. The mini cp with devo 7e was my first cp heli as well. Just remember that it is a cheaper cp heli and its not a crazy 3d machine but it did teach me alot. Keep working with it and replace broken parts. Tinkering with these things is half the fun

I'll definitely stick with the hobby. Even with this pos chopper I still love it. It just frustrates me because this issue pretty much limits me to a tail in hover unless I want to crash repeatedly. And until I replace the broken blade grip every time I crash I pretty much have to fix it again. I may get the align 150 dfc as it seems to be a very nice heli. I'll have to go read the forum for that though and see what issues people are having.

Here's another test I did, it may be relevant. When the chopper is acting up, if I hold it in my hand and throttle up with the blades on and everything, the swash will move all the way to the right over time. After a reset it stays level and when I move the heli around it still stays level relative to the ground.

[zadaw]

The drift on the Genius V1 was a serious issue but it only occurred in the 6 axis mode. One you took the heli off, it would just quickly fly backward towards you. Some claimed that the problem could be fixed by tilting the receiver. Others said it could be fixed by repeated binding of the receiver.

The old Mini CP receiver (with a coil) was the most stable I have ever seen in a 100 sized heli. Walkera revised the Mini CP receiver about a year ago (now without a coil) and it is noticeably less stable than before. It has become a very different heli and now flies more or less identical to the Super CP. As Mini CP sales collapsed when the Super CP was introduced, there is little information or experience on this new Mini CP receiver. It was only recently when Walkera dropped the price of the Mini CP did it become popular again.

First, I would recommend that you remove any trims or sub-trims. They are not required for FBL helis. If you bind with a trim on, it makes things worse. The fact that sometime the drift appears after a minute suggest the gyro may have a problem as the battery voltage goes down. Frankly, the Mini CP is notorious for poor flight times. You will be lucky if you could fly 3D for over a minute and a half with the stock battery. There are a few of things you can try. You can try turning off telemetry as some have reported that it consumes a lot of power. You can try the Super CP motor which has a higher head speed and give a longer flight time. Lastly, you could try a new battery with a larger capacity e.g. 350mAH and see whether it makes any difference.

[tstivers]

Originally Posted by zadaw

The drift on the Genius V1 was a serious issue but it only occurred in the 6 axis mode. One you took the heli off, it would just quickly fly backward towards you. Some claimed that the problem could be fixed by tilting the receiver. Others said it could be fixed by repeated binding of the receiver.

The old Mini CP receiver (with a coil) was the most stable I have ever seen in a 100 sized heli. Walkera revised the Mini CP receiver about a year ago (now without a coil) and it is noticeably less stable than before. It has become a very different heli and now flies more or less identical to the Super CP. As Mini CP sales collapsed when the Super CP was introduced, there is little information or experience on this new Mini CP receiver. It was only recently when Walkera dropped the price of the Mini CP did it become popular again.

First, I would recommend that you remove any trims or sub-trims. They are not required for FBL helis. If you bind with a trim on, it makes things worse. The fact that sometime the drift appears after a minute suggest the gyro may have a problem as the battery voltage goes down. Frankly, the Mini CP is notorious for poor flight times. You will be lucky if you could fly 3D for over a minute. There are a few of things you can try. You can try turning off telemetry as some have reported that it consumes a lot of power. You can try the Super CP motor which has a higher head speed and give a longer flight time. Lastly, you could try a new battery and see whether it makes any difference.

I haven't used trim/subtrim since the first day I got the heli. Initially I tried to trim it because of this drift, then I realized trim wasn't the issue and that it also doesn't work as you would expect (you have to trim it every flight and eventually you run out of trim to use). So I reset the trim and haven't used that since.

I was wondering why my rx didn't seem to have that notorious coil I've heard so much about. Good to know.

I haven't had too much issue with flight times, I got 7 minutes of hovering like a noob when I first got it. Now the times have gone down significantly. Probably 3-4 minutes of just hovering around like a less crash prone noob. I have tried it with/without telemetry when I first got it and it seemed to have little effect. I kept telemetry to keep myself from killing batteries or my motor prematurely. Maybe now that the batteries have lost some of their power turning telemetry off will have a more significant impact.

I did play around with the servo linkages and it had an effect. I got it to want to drift left rather than right. Interestingly enough I did so by tightening (read:make shorter) the right linkage. Logically this would make the heli want to drift right more. My logic however was if the gyro is correcting to the right maybe its because the linkage was too long. If you can understand that spider web of my logic. So maybe this really does come down to me being a noob who doesn't know how to set the heli up properly yet. Now I just wish both sides of the o ring that clips over the ball were beveled so I could get finer control over the tuning. I'm still not entirely convinced this is something that's fixable, but I'll play around with it a bit more and see if I can't get it to work as expected.

What gets me though is if its a tuning issue then why does resetting the Rx make it disappear for a short time?

[tstivers]

Do you have any recommendations for a reliable mini size (preferably something I can fly indoors) heli? I'm not extremely worried about stability, more so reliability. Crash survivability is somewhat of a concern, however as I fly more and more (I'm probably well past 100 flights at this point) I crash less and less. And lately when I do crash it isn't too hard of a crash. Granted I do fly over a mattress for the moment lol. I want to get into 3d at some point but I don't think that's something I should worry too much about right now because by the time I am capable of 3d I will probably be looking at a different heli anyway. I just want something I can learn the different orientations, slow piros, forward flight, circuits, etc on that will perform consistently.

Edit: I don't know if it really should be, but getting away from dd tails is high on my list of priorities too. Even in small pitch pumps the mini has a bit of a tail kick. And if I take it outside and give it a good pitch pump it does a couple good piros on its own.

[pmerritt]

you may have received a bad minicp but i can honestly say minicp isn't junk by any means. I have a v1 that i still occasionally fly. It's since been converted to brushless but it is a wonderful little bird. Also if it's truly drifting to one direction it could be that the swash isn't perfectly centered. You should but a micro pitch gauge or eyeball it as best you can (still prefer a gauge) to adjust it. ANY cp heli will fly better if it is setup properly.

[tstivers]

Originally Posted by pmerritt

you may have received a bad minicp but i can honestly say minicp isn't junk by any means. I have a v1 that i still occasionally fly. It's since been converted to brushless but it is a wonderful little bird. Also if it's truly drifting to one direction it could be that the swash isn't perfectly centered. You should but a micro pitch gauge or eyeball it as best you can (still prefer a gauge) to adjust it. ANY cp heli will fly better if it is setup properly.

I've been playing with the swash the past day. I'm so pissed off with this ****ing piece of shit I can't see straight. No matter what I do it wants to drift right. Sometimes it will act normal then it just goes full retard 60 seconds later.

I submitted a ticket with xheli to see if they will make it right. I have a feeling there will be a catch though. I'm sure they'll want to charge me another $25 for ups shipping so they can send it to me via a slower/cheaper FedEx option.

[zadaw]

So little is known about this new receiver that I cannot honestly tell you whether this drift is normal for it or not. I hope that you have not been flying until the battery runs out. This is very bad for lipos and could damage them. I would not run your batteries to below one third capacity. It is also possible that your head speed is not high enough for the gyro to work properly. It could be that your throttle and pitch settings are wrong. If you have had 100 flights, then it is probably time to replace your motor anyway. I would also get a new battery. Ideally, you should get somebody experienced to check it for you.

Unless you have got a large indoor area, it is generally not a good idea to fly a CP indoors. It is because they move much more quickly and their higher head speed could cause much more damage to your furniture. For nose-in hover training, it may be a good idea to get a SIM or a simple FP like the WL toys V911 or Blade mSR. The discontinued mCPX is easier to fly but you will need to do a few simple mods to prevent tail blowouts. The nano CPX is harder to fly but its smaller form means that it is likely to cause less damage indoors. Also, you are more likely to get local help.