500 3D newbie question

[Parakos]

Hello everyone!

This is my first heli and I have managed to hover 8 flights so far. For $200 this heli is a bargain!

My only problem is the that I have problems with the stock gyro. It often drops HH and the light goes out on the gyro... This mostly happens during spool up and the tail violently does a 360... When the gyro is in HH mode, the tail slightly drifts no matter what gyro settings I use.

I have tried many different gyro settings in my Jeti DS-16 tx, but nothing seems to affect the gyro.

There are two settings in the gyro menu, see attached pic. "Gain" is something everyone talks about but which of the two settings in this menu is the gain?

[ahahn]

Consider that you are getting some type of failsafe response. I don't know how your radio system handles that.

Also consider that the plug to the gyro to the receiver is loose and during some spoolups the plug loses contact with the receiver.

Usually HH and rate divide the particular channel in half (0->100), values between 0-<50 are rate, and >50 to 100 are HH. "50" is "zero" gain for both, so 45 would be a low rate gain (5=50-45) and 55 (5=55-50) a low Heading hold gain. Hope that makes some sense.

What gets a bit tricky is how the various radio types label these items. Some let you choose heading or rate and let you input a number from 0-> xx, others may do it differently.

You mention that when it does work, HH gives you a slight rotation--this could be either a vibration getting into the gyro and fooling it that it thinks the hell is rotating the opposite direction. It could also be that the gyro is temperature sensitive and its sensor is drifting. Or you have some tail trim somewhere in your transmitter that you have forgotten about. It even could be that the hell was moved when the gyro was initializing--when it is initializing it assumes the hell is stationary, so it then takes the sensor output as the "non-moving" value. Obviously if it was moving that would show up as an eventual drift. But this would be random over flights, and even ok if the hell was actually stationary for that particular time. I just mention it because there are a lot of ways to fool these gyros---and ourselves too!

[Superholgi]

I always knew it: When I start my heli, hell moves.

[Parakos]

Hmm when I checked the gyro/gain channel I noticed that it was set to -50/+50. If I understand you correctly it should be set to 0/+100?

Edit: Changing the gyro channel range only made it worse .

[Parakos]

A little update. Yesterday I checked the manual and it said to set the frame rate to 11ms. When I did the servos did not move and the gyro blinked red. I gradually increased the frame rate and around 16-17ms the gyro initialized and the servos sprung to life. Default the Jeti receivers are set to 17ms so mayby this strange gyro blackouts I have had is related to the frame rate being too low. I have set it for 20ms now and will see if it cures this.

Also, what voltage are you using? My telemetry reports ca 5.1V.

[eness76]

I will tell you what fixed mine, mechanical setup needed adjustment. I had the same symptoms, drift, less then desirable hh performance. Put it in rate mode and hover. No tail trim, no sub trim, all neutral, and see which way it drifts. Trim the drift out by lengthening / shortening your tail pushrod until you have no drift. When it's perfect go back into hh mode and fine tune your gain and you'll have no drift and great hh performance.

[Parakos]

Thanks, will try that!