500 ESP, DS-510 linkage ball on 13 mm? --- and Step L ---

[dunkonu23]

I didn't get pictures today... tomorrow. I forgot the new tail gear box won't be here until then. On another note, the only original parts (not counting electronics) on my 500 now are the battery tray, motor mount/pinion/motor, and the tail fin.

Scott

[dunkonu23]

Here's the pictures of mine...








Scott

[helidude71]

Originally Posted by dunkonu23

Here's the pictures of mine...

...




...

Scott

Nice!
It really shows why you hit BLUE and I hit RED.
My servos are making some freaking noise when I do that. (Plastic gears.)

I leave it as it is for now.

[dunkonu23]

Good deal! As long as you're happy, bro. I think this thread has been very useful for all of us with 500's using microbeasts. It has really made us look closely at our setups. For example, since I never got singing servos, I never really looked at the elevator to see that it was lightly touching both the tail drive gear box at the lower extreme and lightly touching my antirotation bracket at the upper extreme. Each is easily addressed with a dremel and a couple of minutes, but interesting to me, nonetheless.

I think it's odd that one servo rubs just enough to take off the plastic from the label and the other doesn't even do that, but you can see on the plastic where it does touch just enough to leave a mark. Fun stuff.

Scott

[helidude71]

Yep, I've seen as well if you want the most of it, the elevator starts hitting the tail drive gear box.
The antirotation bracket will flex a bit I guess, but the tail drive gear box sure doesn't.

Thx for the discussion, it cleared up my understanding as well.

[dunkonu23]

LOL! After breaking two ARB's in consecutive crashes, I decided to go with the KDE ARB. I do have a plastic one as a spare in the event I decide I don't want to break frames anymore.

Scott

[helidude71]

Originally Posted by labmaster

The original T-Rex500 is not very optimal at the overall geometry of the swashplate control.

The problem is that the swashplate inner ring to outer ring ratio is not too good.
As this ratio defines the collective to cyclic ratio you will have problems maxing out the pitch ranges and not violating the cyclic resolution restrictions of a flybarless system.

You have to modify the swashplate ratio to get more collective and less cyclic deflection on the same servo travel, as this would allow you to move the ball on the servo outside a little bit and still achive blue at 6° (means, no lost cyclic resolution) . With the ball out a little bit on the servo you then are able to get a higher collective range on the bladegrips with less servo travel and this on the other hand will save you some servo travel for getting more cyclics before running into any binding.

To modify the swashplate ratio you have to make the outer ring of the swashplate wider or the inner ring of the swashplate smaller. At the original Align FBL conversions you get shorter inner ball to make the inner ring smaller, this helps but could not fix the problem completely (depending on the collective and cyclic values you want to go)

Another problem on this heli is the limited room for the servo horns, as especially on the elevator servo the servo is not able to do its full range without touching parts of the frame.
For this i modified a servodisk so that it looks like a servohorn with a curve in it where it is going around the binding place a bit, every millimeter could be of help here.

best regards,
Walter

After re-reading this post it looks I can give it a try to put the balls on the servo arms one more out (16 mm hole) and use the shorter balls on the inner swash ring.
All this with the stock swashplate and Align FBL head.

Anyone with this exact same setup care to comment?
Will Step J and L be BLUE with +/-12* at step K?

[sutty]

I don't, but I had wondered why someone hadn't given Walter's suggestions a go until now. If anyone will know, he will. If going from 13mm to 16mm on the arm is too much to make back up by going shorter on the inner swash, you can always go longer on the outer swash as well, which I think Walter also mentions. I think I mentioned before that I would have like to stay at the recommmended 13mm, but I guess what you lose there by going to 16mm, you simply get back by changing the other ratios.

Interested to hear how you get on in the end, even though I don't have a 500. I imagine those that do will be even more keen to find out exactly what can be achieved with the right choice of balls, and perhaps a little work on the AR bracket. Interesting that Walter explained that the 500 has poor geometry wtih the standard swash, this must be why I have a completely different experience with my 250, 450, and 550.

Good luck.

Cheers

Sutty

[DVUSHELI]

Helidude, use the 2nd hole from the outside of the arm

[helidude71]

Originally Posted by DVUSHELI

Helidude, use the 2nd hole from the outside of the arm

OK, to make sure we talk about at the same thing a picture.
You mean the hole with the arrow?

[dunkonu23]

Just as an FYI, I took a look at 500FL Pro pictures and saw Align has modified the tail drive gearbox and the antirotation bracket for better elevator linkage clearance. I don't see much in the way of the pitch and aileron servo clearance being different as it is still a DS510, but it's a DS510M. So, maybe they're ignoring the slight hit at extremes for these servos as well?

Scott

[helidude71]

Originally Posted by dunkonu23

Just as an FYI, I took a look at 500FL Pro pictures and saw Align has modified the tail drive gearbox and the antirotation bracket for better elevator linkage clearance. I don't see much in the way of the pitch and aileron servo clearance being different as it is still a DS510, but it's a DS510M. So, maybe they're ignoring the slight hit at extremes for these servos as well?

Scott

Haha! I know you like that idea.
You triggered me to look inside the 500EFL manual.
They use the D6FF Metal Servo Horns and tell you to use the most outer hole.
There is no info about how much mm this hole is.

I asked a fellow freak and will post it here as soon as I know.

[dunkonu23]

Using the outer hole may be because the frames are narrower, but the reality is, the only thing I see less width doing is making the swash to servo geometry a bit odd. I could be wrong, though. The swashplate in the pictures I've seen definitely have balls with standoffs; one larger than the other.

Scott

[helidude71]

This one from rotaryguy?

The number on the swashplate is completely different I see on my 500ESP swash.
I do see the inner swash has the two shorter balls.
More I can't tell without seeing them next to each other.

[dunkonu23]

Yep. That's the picture. I'm helping a friend build a V2 550 and it has a similar ball/swash setup.

Did you check out the metal servo arms on the 500E? Overkill for a smaller helicopter given the torque needed to move the blades and trouble in hard crashes because the servos can be totally destroyed instead of having a broken arm. In the three years I've had my ESP, I can't tell you how many servo arms I've broken in crashes.

Scott

[akamullen]

Originally Posted by helidude71

Haha! I know you like that idea.
You triggered me to look inside the 500EFL manual.
They use the D6FF Metal Servo Horns and tell you to use the most outer hole.
There is no info about how much mm this hole is.

I asked a fellow freak and will post it here as soon as I know.

I listed the specs on this product page. My measurements were 18mm and 21mm. I hate that align does not put this info anywhere on there specs so I measured myself and did it for them..

Hope this helps.

[DVUSHELI]

Correct sir!! The second hole from the outer most hole. Then put short balls on the inner swash ONLY for the links, NOT the mixing arm links. Sorry for the late reply. I've been out having WAY too much fun with my 500

Originally Posted by helidude71

OK, to make sure we talk about at the same thing a picture.
You mean the hole with the arrow?

[helidude71]

Originally Posted by akamullen

... My measurements were 18mm and 21mm. I hate that align does not put this info anywhere on there specs so I measured myself and did it for them..

Hope this helps.

Yes it helps!
Got the same info from a fellow freak.
Thx.

[helidude71]

Originally Posted by dunkonu23

Yep. That's the picture. I'm helping a friend build a V2 550 and it has a similar ball/swash setup.

Did you check out the metal servo arms on the 500E? Overkill for a smaller helicopter given the torque needed to move the blades and trouble in hard crashes because the servos can be totally destroyed instead of having a broken arm. In the three years I've had my ESP, I can't tell you how many servo arms I've broken in crashes.

Scott

Good point for not going with the metal arms.

[helidude71]

Originally Posted by DVUSHELI

Correct sir!! The second hole from the outer most hole. Then put short balls on the inner swash ONLY for the links, NOT the mixing arm links. Sorry for the late reply. I've been out having WAY too much fun with my 500

I believe you do!

Align always gives you mm measured from the inside out.
To prevent confusion I wanted to make sure, thx.
You are now on the 16 mm hole.

I think this looks like the best answer to the problem.
Even the metal horns don't have 13 mm holes. (But and 18 mm and 21 mm.)
So, use the 16 mm holes on the plastic horns and the shorter balls on the inner swash ring.

I have to verify this myself but hitting blue/blue on Step J and L must be possible.
Problem now is, this weekend it's great weather in The Netherlands so I follow DVUSHELI and fly the out of it.
Wrenching we do afterwards.

Please chime in if you have the original Align FBL head and swash and already use the above suggestions.