Hickups on testflight

[sp00fman]

Spring is coming so i felt good about doing the final setup on my Gaui.

First test with the X5 tail rotor : constant wagging, not gain related. Turned out the tail seizes up when spinning. What a wasteful upgrade that was. besides the hurri tailblades dont fit in it perfectly.

So... back to the 425tail and wag is gone:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8BztO2lNB8[/ame]

That worked nice!
ESC is cool, motor is cool, OWB shaft is cool (had heat issues before but found the front gear loose and riding up on the frame)

After this my lipo still read 3.90V so i did some more gain adjustments and took off... went to idle up and wanted to see how it holds in a pitchpump.... it diddnt get very high and hs blead off.. 5 meters up there... then i realized i had already lost power some time and was to late to auto down. I quickly killed throttle just to prep for impact and did try to manage collective the way down but im not sure if it helped any. It came down relatively level but tipped over after impact. The right side of the HK600 skid broke clean off..... no further damage as far as i can see! There is some sand on the tail blades, so i hope they didn't get beat up.

I've flown this heli 3 times + 6 test hovers now, and only upgraded the swash servos and gyro for the flights above and checked out every part of the heli. All seemed fine.

Question now.... what happened?
- signal loss / brownout problem? I think i was still in control. diddnt really respond due to no real head speed left. Tail kept at the same spot so i guess it was still actively compensating jaw.

-ESC or Motor: still have to test them. Its a hobby-wing 60A and Turningy 1300KV motor.

-OWB failure: I did not hear the motor over-rev when it happened, but it runs so quiet it might as well be. The OWB seems to work by spinning it by hand, but is there any way to test it safely?
I have a VXB on hand, but i am not looking forward on the replacement procedure.

Any ideas?

[R/C Mayhem]

OWB, If it's the one that came with the kit, just replace it with the spare you have.
If you use 2.4 freq. you can pretty much rule sig loss out.
Turnigy parts...I use them and swear by them.
Best of luck.

[stark]

Good that you didn't loose much in the crash. Eager to know what was the problem.

[sp00fman]

Just checked the motor. Still runs like it used to.

I disassembled the auto rotation part:
I noticed i used both shims top and bottom of the OWB. When i reinstall it, i will only use the bottom one.
A bit of bearing grease has leaked on the shaft and mixed with some black goop. As i mentioned the auto-rotation shaft has ran a bit hot for a flight or 2. I think the middle bearing was too tight in the bearing holder so would not rotate smoothly, and that caused a bit of the aluminum collar to wear off making the grease turn black. I grabbed my VXB bearing to compare with the stock one. The new one has a little bit less wobble and turns slightly smoother on the shaft...but not much of a difference at all. The new bearing is factory greased.

I decided to swap them out...... but the old one wont budge! Even heated the gear with a lighter but its still stuck.

I wanna fix this thing...

[Mikej]

How are you trying to remove the gear? - I use two sockets and a vice (or hammer )

[sp00fman]

Just got the OWB out. Used the sockets and vice for the first half, and hammered out the last bit. To reinstall the new OWB i slightly sanded the inside of the gear smooth with fine grit paper and heated the gear with a lighter to make it expand. The new OWB popped right in, but had to force the last part. Its stuck nicely but will use a bearing retainer loctite on the edge to make sure it stays put.

My new skid supports+spare and my new ESC arrived. I hope to reinstall and test fly tomorrow with the new bits.

Finger crossed... (need the rest to hold the tx)

[KRYPTO316]

Sounds good. Here's to a successful test flight.

[Mikej]

Fingers crossed for yer

[Jerrymac]

Good luck on the test flight.

[sp00fman]

Hmm, cancel that! The landing was not all that gentle after all.

Just spooled up, the tail is fine, but had to replace the main shaft... but its still wobbly. I think a bend main rotor yoke, besides notchy maingrip bearings and possible shot damper rubber. On top of that the Rx diddn't want to cooperate at first and I needed to bind it to the Tx again....and that is very suspiciouse . Rx will be replaced as i have a spare. For the yoke i need to wait for the slow boat.