Spartan Vortex VX1 Installation and basic setup on a Rush 750

[dunkonu23]

Here's the HUGE rotor direction setup step!



Select Rotor Dir. from the setup menu. Here are your options: CW or CCW. Most modern helicopters use CW. Make your selection, press "S" and you're done!

Next up, Tail Setup!

Scott

[dunkonu23]

Here we venture into Tail Setup.



Press "S" to select tail setup.



Next we tell the system our tail servo type. This value is based on the Center Pulse Length and can be found in your servo technical specifications. In my case, I'm using an MKS HBL 980 and its Center Pulse Length is 760us (microseconds). Highlight your value and press [S]. At this point, you can plug your rudder servo into the SV4 port of the Vortex unit, brown lead up.

If you cannot determine your servo type, check here:

http://www.spartan-rc.com/resources/...php?category=3 (FAQ 12)

Then here:

http://www.spartan-rc.com/resources/...=12&category=3



Servo direction. There are a few ways to determine if your rudder servo is turning in the correct direction.

1. Turn your tail blades so they're upright, the flip blade that's on top 90 degrees (you can see what I mean in the endpoint setup pictures). Give your transmitter left rudder. If the direction is correct, the 90 degree blade will point to the left. Simple.

2. Use this step in connection with the endpoint step. When you select endpoint CW, and use the [+] button on the DataPod, the servo will turn clockwise.

There are other methods, but number 1 has never failed me. On the Rush 750, with my servo and transmitter, I selected Nor. Press [S].



Servo Trim. This step allows you to setup the arm/wheel of your rudder servo so that it is centered. More below.



As you can see in this picture, the arm on my rudder servo is not centered. Here we make a judgement call. Using the DataPod to adjust center, I had a high value when I reached center. While that is perfectly fine, I prefer to get as close to mechanically perfect as I can.

Because I'm going for mechanically perfect, I removed the arm and moved it one spline to the left. It was closer, but still not perfect. Then, I disconnected the tail control rod and flipped the arm 180 degrees. Perfect I moved the ball to the recommended distance (13-15mm--in my case 14mm). Reinstalled the ball link and used no servo trim.

Press [S]



Endpoint CW. The goal here is to get the endpoint to be as far in/out without binding. You can tell binding because the rudder servo will sing loudly. If you set your tail servo direction incorrectly it will show up here. On the Rush 750 if your tail pitch slider does not move in the direction shown below, you need to reverse its direction. When you reach binding, use the [-] button and back out the tail pitch slider until the rudder servo does not sing. Make a note of the value, then press [S].



No binding here.



Servo Endpoint CCW. Repeat the same steps as above and use the [+] key to move the tail pitch slider until it binds against the tail hub. Then, as in above again, use the [-] key to move the pitch slider in the opposite direction until the rudder servo sings no more. Take note of the value and press [S].



No binding here, either.

Add the two values you get for your tail endpoint setup. Ideally they will be over 200. In my case, they are well over 200. This is because the Rush 750 has very long tail throw. Additionally, the small difference in each value might be attributed to the length of the tail control rod. You see, on my previous FBL unit, I performed a rate mode setup before entering Heading Hold.

A rate mode setup, in my case, put approximately 7.5 degrees of pitch against torque in the system. Since the Rush 750 has approximately 6-8 degrees (in my case 6 degrees) of designed in pitch against torque, it's reasonable to assert that the differences are likely due to the rate mode setup.

I asked Angelos to confirm that my rate mode setup was okay. Angelos said it would be okay and that defaulting and not defaulting have their advantages. I did not ask him to expand on that point, but I reserve the right to ask later.

Since we're not using the built in governor, this concludes Basic setup. When Spartan releases a phase sensor or certifies the unit will work with existing phase sensors, I'll use the built in governor as I'm certain it will be awesome! For now, leave the governor setting at Inhibit.

Setup does not take long at all and the DataPod is probably the most intuitive device I've ever used with a helicopter. The layout of the menus and the clarity in design of the user interface is simply brilliant. I love the DataPod!

Next up, I'll show how I completed wiring the unit.

Scott

[Angelos]

Originally Posted by dunkonu23

I asked Angelos to confirm that my rate mode setup was okay. Angelos said it would be okay and that defaulting and not defaulting have their advantages. I did not ask him to expand on that point, but I reserve the right to ask later.

For a stand alone heading hold gyro: Using around 6-8 degrees tail neutral gives it a bias to compensate for the average torque. Also it is approximately what you need in hover so stops in hover become more symmetrical. However if you did a piro on top of a stall turn a 0 degree tail neutral would be more favorable as there is no torque to compensate.

The nice thing with the flyabrless is that we have collective to tail mix. As such we can now have 0 deg tail at 0 deg collective and gain some bias to compensate for torque through the mix. So you get the best of both worlds.

Originally Posted by dunkonu23

Setup does not take long at all and the DataPod is probably the most intuitive device I've ever used with a helicopter. The layout of the menus and the clarity in design of the user interface is simply brilliant. I love the DataPod!

I am very pleased to hear that.

Cheers,
Angelos

[OverTemp]

There is still torque at zero pitch in a stall turn since there is still significant drag profile and skin friction drag. At zero pitch, drag is governed by the drag equation alone, and the values of Cd and A are lower, but not zero. As pitch increases, Cd and A increase, as does induced drag (the sine of your blade angle of attack [not blade angle] times the lift you are generating is felt as induced drag on the rotor system).

Anytime the motor is Turing the blades, there is some amount of torque. Only way to get rid of it is to hit throttle hold.

Cheers

[Angelos]

Originally Posted by OverTemp

There is still torque at zero pitch in a stall turn since there is still significant drag profile and skin friction drag. At zero pitch, drag is governed by the drag equation alone, and the values of Cd and A are lower, but not zero. As pitch increases, Cd and A increase, as does induced drag (the sine of your blade angle of attack [not blade angle] times the lift you are generating is felt as induced drag on the rotor system).

Anytime the motor is Turing the blades, there is some amount of torque. Only way to get rid of it is to hit throttle hold.

Cheers

I agree, but I don't see this being too significant in in the great scheme of things. The heading hold part of a high-end gyro can take care of of all torque changes without any knowledge of the collective. If we help it a bit by moving the tail blades towards the right direct the control loop correction becomes smaller thus the response faster and primarily evens out the stops at both hover and stall turn situations as per my last post.

-Angelos

[tony whiteside]

I fits to get one of these! Sooner or later!

Lookin good Scott !

[dunkonu23]

Thanks, Tony!

I'm telling you bro, the basic setup on the Vortex is a breeze. It just flows from step to step. I imagine after doing a couple of these... which I anticipate doing about four more in the future... I'll be able to do basic setup in less than 15 minutes. It's that easy! You do not need a computer at all for the setup. In fact, using a computer would only be useful for saving logs after a flight so someone else could look at them at a later date. This is the future of FBL, Tony!

Scott

[dunkonu23]

Okay, folks... only one more installment after this one... Here are pictures of the final wiring.



My first step in positioning the Vortex computer unit is to put goop on the connectors. I'm normally neater with the goop, but I couldn't find the coffee stirrers I use for application (we don't drink coffee, so I'm thinking they got permanently misplaced in the trash). There is just a little bit of goop used on the DataPod lead as the DataPod is not part of the permanent installation.

I thought about how I wanted to mount the computer unit a lot. My first thought was to use plastic scotch fastener so I could remove it easily. I thought about velcro, but velcro is pain in tight spaces. Ultimately I decided on a square of Scotch 4011 tape. While that is by far more permanent, it's not that difficult to remove and peels right off when started.



This picture shows the final position of the IMU and Vortex computer. I installed the IMU lead to have a large loop to limit the possibility of vibrations being transmitted to the IMU via the lead. The IMU lead and the horizontal satellite lead are held to the bottom of the tray sandwiched between two pieces of 4011 tape.



This is the horizontal satellite installation. It is my opinion that it is desirable to have one satellite in a vertical orientation and one in a horizontal orientation for the best coverage. While this may look funky, both the active and the ground elements of the antenna are in the clear. The unit itself is held in place with a stack of two pieces of 4011. It is solidly mounted and will not go anywhere.

The lead is run on the inside of the frame and through the cutout between the tray and frame. On other helicopters I would not run the lead this way. On the Rush 750 you can replace the pickoff and umbrella gears without removing the boom from the frame. Tony Whiteside and Austin Stephens have a stickied tech tip video that shows how this is done. With that in mind, this was the best choice.



Since the DataPod is not a permanent fixture, I ran the DataPod lead on the outside of the frame. The lead is held in place with 4011 tape as shown above. I may change this to velcro loops in order to be able to read the DataPod better. We'll see.



In order to be able to pull the DataPod off for reading and settings adjustment, I used velcro to hold it to the frame. Again, this is not permanent. After flight tuning I will remove the DataPod and its lead.



I installed the canopy to show access to the DataPod is easy this way. It is recommended to keep the DataPod outside of the canopy so one can access its feature, logs, etc., quickly and easily.

That's it for wiring and installation. Next, the final installment. We'll go through setting up throttle failsafe and showing the System menu.

Scott

[raptorheli2]

Scott, if i may suggest something buddy. you don't have enough mech gain in your tail, you need more throw mechanically. i.e out a hole on servo or in a hole on the tail e.g

you want to be as close to 90-100 each side as possible. this gets you in the butter zone for best compromise on speed, resolution and torque of the tail system. will also have benefit of higher fbl gain which will help in hold/piros etc.

what you have will work without doubt but if you want the best then try the above.

cheers

[dunkonu23]

Will do. I just set it up per the manual which worked good for my previous unit but I have heard folks using other units have to move the ball out a bit. Thanks for the heads up!

It may be a while before I fly the helicopter due to weather here in Michigan. I will let you know how it goes.

Thank you, again!

Scott

[Bob O]

We're going to have to man up and do some cold weather flying, Scott. I plan to maiden the Warp/Vortex next week.

[dunkonu23]

I still need to maiden the Warp, too. Let's pray for a break. Monday, we're going to a whopping 33 degrees. Other than that, the next 10 are all below freezing. My only issue with cold weather flying is that it's absolutely no fun for me. I usually wait for days above 40, but if I have to.... LOL! Ever had blades ice up, Bob?

I did the tail thing Raptorheli suggested with mixed results. I'll tell you the Rush 750 has long tail throws. I think I might have had it best on initial setup. We'll see.

Scott

[jmdanna]

Scott, i think what Raptorheli was suggesting was to raise the mechanical gain by moving the ball out a hole, and then lowering the tail servo endpoints with your datapod. He mentioned 100 being the butter zone, so whatever hole it takes to get around 100 on each side is what you want. Not sure if you tried this yet, but i thought I'd mention it since it didn't seem clear to me.

[raptorheli2]

Sorry if I was not clear.

Yes out a hole on servo or in a hole on tail if available yields the same results. However I don't own a rush and there becomes a point your really overdriving your tail mechanically. I.e too much pitch. Since I don't own one then I cant say exactly how best to get it nice.

I was merely suggesting if it is possible to get it lower then be worth doing, however the good news is it will still work fine. Just as Scott says it is nice to get things mech spot on before asking the fbl to do it.

Anyway, if you find a way that works better then by all means fire ahead and enjoy, that is what it is all about!

When rain goes off I have 3 new helis to maiden with production vx1s. I have only flown the pre production one which I got some months back but I expect it to be just as effective :-)

Cheers

[dunkonu23]

Thanks Jake and raptorheli2. Here is my concern with this... doing as Jake suggests will remove approximately 1/2" overall throw from the system--I have tried it. Previously, I used full throws with no tail stalling. Please also note that I am using 115/116mm tail blades.

Additionally, if I use a larger horn, in order to prevent the tail control rod from bending too much and possibly binding, I will have to flip the rudder servo 180 degrees.

As it is now, the horn is centered at the trim step with no trim. I have full throws with the ball at the furthest point outward on the horn and the total is still well beyond 200. I think I will keep it this way and see what happens.

After I fly the Rush 750 with these settings, if I think I need to go out further on the ball, I will flip the rudder servo, install a longer horn and go from there.

Scott

[jmdanna]

Good luck Scott!
I just maidened my Rush, check out my thread!

[dunkonu23]

Here we setup throttle failsafe

Throttle Failsafe is found in the System menu of the Vortex. This is a very important parameter to setup correctly.

Throttle failsafe is used when the Vortex computer does not receive updates of the throttle position. Reasons for not receiving throttle updates can be a cable comes out, a wire breaks, non-Vortex electronics failure, satellite failure, and so on.

Note that throttle failsafe defaults to ZERO. This is probably the best position for most of us. If not, you likely need to think through the decision to change this value. I write that because in one scenario, suppose you are doing tick-tocs in front of you and failsafe kicks in with some throttle--do you want the helicopter powered?

It is likely, there has been another failure and because the Vortex remembers the last position of the sticks in addition to the throttle failsafe parameter, you will have no control. The helicopter may be coming right at you, out of control, under power!

Additionally, if you set this parameter too high, depending on the failure, there is a chance your external governor could kick in at its lowest setting



Scroll through to the system menu. Press [S]. This is what you'll see. The system menu has a lot of very useful functions that we'll touch on in the next post. For now, we're setting up Failsafe.



Note the default value of Zero. I'm not going to change it, but if you want to, press [S], then....



Move your throttle to the desired position.... Note: I played with this and found the highest value I could get is 25%--that is because I run what is basically a flat throttle curve for normal mode at 0-30-flat. The reason it doesn't indicate 30% is due to ESC arming with my previous FBL controller.



To save the setting, use the [+] button on the DataPod to select Yes, then press [S].

This feature may be moved to the Receiver menu in later versions of the firmware, but until then, please consider setting this to a safe value.

Next up, we'll go over some of the System menu items.

Scott

[dunkonu23]

Here we'll take a look at the System Menu.



The system menu has a several sub options that we'll take a look at. They're informational and may help you with setup of the Rush 750.



The Vortex has built-in logging functions. Here we see Uptime and minimum voltage. Uptime is the time the unit has been on since power-up. It does not show historic uptime. One use I can see is in determining if your power system has intermittent issues. Minimum voltage will show you how your power system responds to sudden increases in demand.



This portion of the logging sub menu shows SatRx changes, RX Failsafe, and Sensor errors.
SatRx values indicate an active satellite has lost enough signal to switch to the second satellite you have connected. Switching can happen if a satellite receiver does not receive a signal from your transmitter. Typically this happens when the transmitter signal is blocked by the carbon fiber frame of your Rush 750.

You can limit this by making sure your Spektrum satellite is mounted with both the ground and active element in the clear. Failing that, please make sure the active (left) element is in the clear. If both your satellites are mounted in the clear, you should not notice a Satellite change in flight.

Below is straight from Angelos

Sensor Errors:

"... {Sensor Communication Errors} Counts how many data packets from the sensor to the flight computer had bad checksum. It may sometimes count 1 error at power on depending if the flight computer initialises half way into a packet transmission from the sensor. If you see anything into double digits it might indicate a bad connection or strong static discharges on the heli. "




Below is straight from Angelos:

Sensor Failsafe:

"... {Sensor Communication Failsafe} Counts how many times the flight computer activated Sensor FailSafe. This happens when the flight computer is not getting enough data from the sensor to run the stabilisation functions; for example if the sensor gets unplugged. When the Sensor Failsafe is activated the stabilisation functions are disabled and your the TX sticks control the swash and tail directly which gives you a good chance to land the heli instead of going totally out of control. Unplug the sensor and check it out. "

The next logged item is Power Cycles. This value appears to be an historic value as I didn't power off and on during this session.



During setup, or for troubleshooting you may want to use this feature to actually see the frequency and amplitude of vibrations.



Because my helicopter is not operating at this time, this display shows nothing but LIVE. Normally it would show a graph of vibration frequency and amplitude. Additionally, there is a cursor feature where you can use the [+] and [-] buttons to move the cursor to zero in on a particular area of interest. The best use for this I can see is for bench testing and troubleshooting.



Vibration hold. This is very useful feature that is not enabled unless selected. If selected, it allows you to capture a timed snapshot of data for use in the Vibration Analysis feature.



This item, in conjunction with the Vibration Hold feature will allow the Vortex to capture vibration data for analysis for up to 60 seconds of a flight. Ever want proof you have "High Vibrations"? Here it is. This feature alone is a great troubleshooting tool.

The timer does not kick off until you enter the vibration analysis menu. So, the steps to use this are:

1. Program the Hold time.
2. Enter the vibration analysis menu--you will see a count down.
3. Fly.

NOTE: Bear in mind there is no capture buffer so the vibration data you see is the last vibration data seen by the Vortex before the selected timer stops. There is no time line and no actual recording of vibration events.

Example: You have a tail fin or other component that is vibrating in flight. You would set the Hold timer appropriately, say 60 seconds. You would the enter the vibration analysis menu, take off and fly until you're certain the Hold timer has expired. Land, then take a look at the plotted data.

If you select Never, the Vibration Analysis graph runs realtime



With this feature, you can change the mapping of Aux channel numbers. Typical use for this is for lights, or switched glow igniters.



This feature does not allow the Vortex to pump the swash plate if the voltage is below a threshold you set. It will be useful for people like me who run straight, unregulated Lipo's to power electronics. I will be setting mine to 7.4 volts so if I forget to change or charge receiver packs after a few flights, I'll know immediately not to fly!



Use the [+] and [-] buttons to set your voltage Alarm threshold.



This feature will give you the software version numbers running on your Vortex and DataPod.



This shows both my Vortex and DataPod are on version 1.0.



If you select this option, you will be prompted to confirm that you want to reset your Vortex back to its factory state. If you confirm your choice in the positive, all setup data will be lost.

That's it for this Installation and setup thread. There is much more information to be had about first flight tuning and performance tweaking in the Spartan support forum here on Helifreak. Also, please don't forget to read the FAQ's for the Vortex. The FAQ's are very informative and will help you understand more about your Vortex.

Scott

[raptorheli2]

Excellent pics/write up, enjoy the maiden.

Cheers

[dunkonu23]

Thanks, sir! I'm certain this is the start of something fantastic!

Scott