King 4 problem

[CarGuy7a]

I just installed the TTX650 radio and receiver on my King 4 and something weird is going on with the gyro. It will not arm just blinks red. Now if I plug the heli up and re bind the rx it will arm. I have the gyro gain setup on a 3 position switch first position being 0% gain 50% gain second position and 65% gain on the third position. The gyro is the 0704B.

Any ideas. I would hate to have to rebind this thing every time I want to fly it.

[exblade]

The Esky gyros will not arm with ANY rudder trim. It must be zero. Also goes for sub trim (I think).

It that is zero, check if your transmitter has any offset from zero. This is more of a problem with FBL controllers, but might be the problem.

[CarGuy7a]

All my trims and subs are at 0. The radio defaults trims at 0 when setting up a new program and I haven't changed any. I may look again but I already have a different gyro on the way at the LHS that I know works with this radio. It's just weird that when I press the re bind button, the gyro arms.

[CarGuy7a]

Re checked the radio everything was good at 0 with no offset. I think it was just a weird Esky Gyro issue not liking the new radio system. I installed a different HH Gyro and it works great now. Problem fixed

[CarGuy7a]

Bringing this thread back to life here. After a while testing with this heli and the Helimax gyro I installed on it. Things didn't go well. The Gyro reacted absolutely weird and resulted in a major crash. Pretty much wiped out the whole head but hey I have a huge bag of rebuild parts (enough parts to build probably 3 king 4's) so no prob. So apparently my Tactic TTX650 radio system and the gyro I chose won't work with this heli. I'm going to have to go back to the stock Esky radio and gyro (which I know works).

Ultimately if I wanted to throw some money at it (which I really don't) I could convert it to flybarless using 450 stuff. I may just keep it stock since I have tons of parts (which are getting hard to come by these days). So I'll have a little early spring project putting this bird back to working order and see how it does.

[TheKingPhisher]

Is the gyro/servo direction setup correctly for the tail? Also maybe your tx's gyro settings are not correct.

[CarGuy7a]

Originally Posted by TheKingPhisher

Is the gyro/servo direction setup correctly for the tail? Also maybe your tx's gyro settings are not correct.

Yep. Everything was setup per the Helimax manual (for Gyro) and Esky manual (linkage and other mechanical specs). It seemed no matter what Gain I ran whether it be controlled by the Tx or on the gyro itself, it had horrible tail wag. When it crashed is when I tried 100% gain on the gyro pot. It locked too hard and would only go straight so I had to hit TH and dump it. That was the setting I had no tail wag at and it royally screwed it.

I'm just going to go back to the factory Esky stuff which I know works. Really all I was wanting was all my air models on one radio but I guess the Esky didn't like it.

[sconel]

I'v had a K-3 since 2009, flying anytime weather permits, but scrapped the Esky rx, tx, and gyro after my 1st couple crashes, so really cant comment on what works with Esky. I remember another fella was trying to use Esky cyclic servos on a cf frame, but believe he couldn't make the servos reverse as needed with the Esky tx,rx. It didn't have the capability in the tx as I remember.
If youre serious about keeping it and flying regularly, you really do need some sort of computerized radio. That size heli is just too small and hard to handle with the stock radio, and there are inexpensive computerized radios around that will make it easy to fine tune even an Esky. If you already have a 450??? you must already have some sort of programmable radio??
Think Spring

[CarGuy7a]

Yeah my Tactic TTX650 is fully computerized for airplanes and helis. I have had some problems using it with helimax stuff. Especially the 1sq v cam and getting it to program to my Tx. I tried like 3 boards and never could get it to work right and it even had helimax techs stumped, but my radio works on everything else. I think I was just getting bum boards as a lot of people were having the same sort of problems. I just chocked it up as a loss and returned the V cam and got my money back.

The helimax gyro I used for the King 4 might have had something wrong with it that made it not like the protocol in the radio. The last time I flew it (right before the crash) the heading locked so hard that any other input on the sticks would not over come it leading me to have to dump it.

What gyro are you running?

[sconel]

It sounds as if you might be trying to mix and match the radio with different stuff that wont play nice with others. My K-3 was Spectrumized from day one, so I really cant comment on what might be happening.

Using a Futaba gy401 on mine currently, but have had a futaba gy520 on it and likely will put it back on, next rebuild. The 401 works great! Zero issues...and the gy520 is a step up from that. I have a couple el-cheapo spare gyros around here somewhere that worked....not that great....but worked....Be glad to dig them out if you need one and send it along. Don't expect stellar performance, that's why they aren't on the heli, but they do work.

Getting the tail and gyro set right in a K-3/4 can be frustrating because Esky builds about 8 degress of pitch into their tail blade grips. You will notice that the tail pitch slider is way over to the left of the tailshaft(looking from rear) when the tail blades are at zero pitch. Looks weird, but seems to work fine.

[CarGuy7a]

Originally Posted by sconel

Getting the tail and gyro set right in a K-3/4 can be frustrating because Esky builds about 8 degress of pitch into their tail blade grips. You will notice that the tail pitch slider is way over to the left of the tailshaft(looking from rear) when the tail blades are at zero pitch. Looks weird, but seems to work fine.

That might be what's screwing up the gyro. I'll have to look into that. Right now the gyro I'm running is the Helimax HM4050 AVCS gyro if you want to look it up and check the specs out and see if you can find something I might have missed. The only other thing I can think of is maybe the gyro doesn't work correctly with the stock Esky servos. I might try to find some equivalent digital hitec micro servos and try that out.

[sconel]

I did a quick check of your radio and the gyro...both seem more than capable of doing the job, didnt see any bad reviews on either. If youre using recievers meant to go with this radio, there should be no problem.

The most common problems with setting up a new gyro is making sure that rudder direction and gyro direction are set to move in the correct direction. These are separate functions, both must be set correctly in the radio, or in the case of the gyro, it also has a reversing switch on it, so you can use either the radio or the switch on the gyro to reverse its compensation.

There is a lot of posts and videos around about how this is done...I bet there might even be a video about setting up your particular gyro, but gyros are pretty much the same for set-up.

Be sure your tail servo frequency is compatable with your gyro. On your gyro, it looks like the choice is either Digital or Analog, so that's easy. :Better" gyros will offer an actual frequency choice to match the tail servo specs, but nothing wrong with your gear...it should work great once you get it figured out.


EDIT: Its a couple hrs later now...couldn't find a setup video of your gyro, but the gy 401 is similar to yours and there are several videos of setup and installation. Heres one http://vimeo.com/16335168

I also visited the Heli-max website, found the set-up, installation, and operation manuals for that gyro, and didn't read every word, but looks like it explains it all very well, so I think you have the right tools...its just going to be a matter of walking thru the setup step by step until things start working right.

[CarGuy7a]

All my travels, servo and gyro directions were set correctly ( I usually triple check that before flight) so it was in fact compensating correct.

The Helimax gyro I'm using says in the specs the Response is 2ms (digital servo). The stock Esky 7.5g servo says in the specs PWM Input Range Pulse Cycle 20±1ms, Positive Pulse 1～2ms. So theoretically it should be working correct?

Now the stock Esky 0704B gyro says the input pulse range is 1.5ms where the operating voltage is 5-6v, whereas the Helimax I put on is ranged at 3.6-5.5v. I never could get the stock Esky gyro to arm with my Tactic. The only time it would arm is if I pressed the bind button on the RX with everything powered up, but as soon as I dis connected the battery and plugged it back it, the gyro wouldn't arm.

What was happening with my Helimax gyro, when I had it setup for remote gyro gain controlling it from my Tx, I had to max it out to +125% and it still wasn't enough gain. I went from 50% all the way up to 125% in 5% increments to try and eliminate the wag to no avail. So I switched it to control the gain locally (from the pots on the gyro) and started around 50% and increased in small amounts until it just freaked out and I think that was around 70%.

What I'm going to do is re install and setup the factory stuff and see how it flies and reacts. That will be the tell all. If it works then I'll know it's a radio/gyro issue.

[sconel]

When you say you increased the gain because of tail wag, you might try decreasing the gain and see what happens. If the wag gets faster and more severe when gain is increased, that's your issue.

On the other hand, a slow tail wag can indicate some binding in the tail slider, or a bad tail bearing. If you disconnect the push rod from the slider arm and operate the slider by hand there can be ZERO stickieness as it slides back and forth on the shaft. You should almost be able to blow on a blade to make slide across.

When the tail on my K-3 starts acting up at all, I tear it down and there is frequently a notchy hub bearing.

Kepp plugging away...you will get it. I'm happy to throw out more useless ideas.

[sconel]

If you are going to tear it down and check bearings, also pull the boom out and roll it on a flat surface to be sure it dosent have a sight bend which lets the belt slap the inside of the boom. You can straighten it using the "roller"method if there are no kinks of dents in the boom, and check that any new booms are straight. They often come new with a slight bend.

Tail shafts bend easily, and cant really be seen until you pull the tail whole tail rotor and slider off, then turn the heli rotor by hand and closely watch the tailshaft for any wobble.

The tail hub can also bend easiy. Its also tough to see if its bent until you pull it out of the heli and use the roller method to see if both ends are straight.

These are all things that will cause the tail on the K-3 to act up. I might suggest going thru the mechanical parts to eliminate that as a root cause to your problem.