Help needed with Align Trexx 450 FBL

[johncblacker]

I have a problem which I can't resolve. I have a Trex 450 converted to FBL using an align 3G (not 3GX) gyro. I had a crash last week that took out my pitch servo, so I replaced it and am going back through setup. First I made sure servo arms are at 90 deg., Then I levelled the swash. Lastly, I went through the 3G FBL gyro setup while in dir mode and everything works as it should. All controls operate in the correct directions, gyro compensation directions are all correct.

Next, I get out of dir mode and go to setup my normal pitch curve with the gyro in rate mode and here's where I see that when I move my collective up or down, my elevator servo is travelling more than the pitch and aileron servo's resulting in a tilted swash! Now, this can't be right, but I can't resolve the issue. I've redone the setup several times with the same results.

Another thing I noticed is that when I move the elevator stick back to it's extreme position down position, the whole swash moves down a bit. If I toggle E that last little bit, the swash actually moves down/up so I'm getting a collective change as well as an elevator change.

The gyro initializes fine, switches between HH and rate, compensates correctly, rudder works normally.

Does anyone have a clue as to what might be wrong or what I'm doing wrong in setup?
Thanks.

[johncblacker]

Solved! My bad...somehow, I managed to change the swash type to the wrong one in the T6 swash menu. Don't know how, but was doing the setup when I was tired and as can happen, was moving the +- toggle adjusting A, E & P and I guess that at one point I was on the swash type instead and changed it. Since the heli has flown, I was thrown for a loss, but while going back through setup one more time, I decided to check the swash type and found it was wrong! Goes to show that it's easy to overlook even the most obvious things and I don't know how many times I've heard people say: "I only changed one thing" but come to find they inadvertently changed something else, as well.

Want to pass along another tidbit about swash leveling. I have a devil of a time putting together the zip tie type leveler...I can do it, but, of course, it's useful only once. I've come upon another way. I use a small alligator clip which I remove the teeth from with my dremel, bend the jaws so it goes around the main shaft, bend down the portion that holds the wire so that it becomes the piece that acts as the "pointer" and the nice thing about it is that it's reusable, moveable up/down as needed, tends to stay where you put it (if it doesn't, use some liquid electrical tape on the inside of the jaws. It has to be a small clip because the large ones stick out too far.
My $0.02 worth.

[simplechamp]

Glad you got it sorted out. I know I've accidentaly mucked up settings with my DX8 a few times before without realizing it. The scroll wheel is great for fast navigation and adjustments, but sometimes I accidentally rotate the wheel one or two notches while trying to just click it. Not a big deal on something like DR/EXPO but on the NOR/REV servo or swash type settings like you had it could screw things up. Another good reason to always do a pre-flight check.

I used a similar method to level my swash, but instead of using an alligator clip to hold the wire I stuck a little neodymium magnet to the main shaft. Worked great. Forgot who to credit for the idea, but I saw it on a youtube video.

[mountaindewdude76]

I think we've all "mucked" up our setting accidentally, at least once or twice, lol.

That great that you got it sorted out!

I was using the zip tie method for quite some time. Then my wife surprised with me the actual leveling tools. Very cool!!!