How Do You Start Your Electric Heli?

[TheDeltaFlight]

So I saw a guy at a field today who held the rotor head of his heli (looked like a 450 size) and then plugged his battery in. He let it initialize, then let go of the head and off he went.

It got me thinking, whats the correct way of starting your electric heli? Do you plug the battery in and back up, or do you hold the head like this guy? I assume you can over power the motor and not allow it to spin if you hold the head. (Just in case if it was in idle up or something.)

[edin508]

I turn on my DX8, wait a sec or two, then hit the TH button before I plug the battery in. After that, I walk away to where I will be standing, make sure the throttle is all the way down and then throw the TH sw. Spool up and fly off.

[velocity90]

:p i can't believe this thread is really there.

[Russell Harding]

My question is: have you ever seen a 'hot start' without soft start? It is incredibly violent if the throttle number is high.

Sure, you could probably overpower a 450 if you didn't let the motor get going, but only if you were REALLY holding on.

If you hold the head, the rest of the helicopter will just spin, so you need to hold the head and the tail boom, while plugging in the battery. You also have to HOLD ON if something happens, when most have the instinct to LET GO.

I'd like to think that by plugging it in while crouching over it like most people, I'd would instinctively jump back if anything unexpected happened.

Most have the preflight mentioned above:
Tx on. Check model.
All switches zero.
TH on.
Plug in heli.
Control check.
Gyro correction check while
Walking the heli out.
TH off - soft start - fly.

One thing I've been considering personally is plugging in the heli with TH OFF. All of my ESCs (and basically all of them theses days) will not arm until they see zero throttle. By turning the heli on with throttle hold off, I would have to toggle the switch to spool the heli. This would protect against catching the TH switch on something, or dropping the transmitter, which could easily flip the switch. I only use IU modes, so I think this would be safer for me, but I can't get myself to plug it in regularly with non-zero throttle... Doesn't seem right.

If you had a normal mode and plugged in the heli with TH off and the throttle zeroed, it would arm. Throttle non-zero wouldn't arm till you bumped the throttle down and back up.

Some folks still have a normal mode, so there is a second layer of protection with the TH switch, but this doesn't help the dropping the TX scenario.

[linklemming]

Some esc's (i.e. with blheli firmware) will go into setup modes if they dont see 0 throttle. An example being to set transmitter throttle endpoints. Its what happens when I plug in the heli with TH off and the IU switch to IU1 or IU2.

I set my normal throttle curve to all zero. I have accidently bumped the transmitter stick while plugging in the battery causing it to spool up in my hands. At least with the throttle curve at zero for normal mode, two switches would have to be wrong and it gives a backup if the normal TH switch fails for some reason.

[DT75]

Originally Posted by edin508

I turn on my DX8, wait a sec or two, then hit the TH button before I plug the battery in. After that, I walk away to where I will be standing, make sure the throttle is all the way down and then throw the TH sw. Spool up and fly off.

^^^^^ This.

Although, I have symmetrical pitch in all flight modes, so I make sure throttle is at mid-stick (0 pitch) before I switch th.hold off, and then let the ESC's soft start do it's thing.

Regarding holding on to the rotorhead, there's some opinions on that here (pg. 2-3) :

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=553563

[Dylan Hudock]

Turn on radio, turn on TH, plug in, walk out to flight line and fly. Rinse and repeat!

[KSHeli]

I know on my Trex 500 with CC Ice80A ESC if I have my heli in IU and TH on and then power up the electronics when I flip off TH the ESC will not arm while in IU. It felt like I spent about 15 minutes one day trying to figure out why the Heli wouldn't spool up, then I finally noticed I was in IU1, I switched to N and the ESC armed.

[Aryemis]

I plug in the battey with TH off actually, as the SK540 won't arm the ESC until it sees 0 throttle. This way I need to toggle the switch two times to start it up, which is generally safer than one.
Since I'm using SK governor I only have idle up modes so the only way to have 0 throttle is TH.....

or failsafe I did a range test once, I had TH off and ESC not armed as usual before I fly, except suddenly it lost the signal for a sec (obviously since it was range check), which initialized the ESC, and then it got the signal back and started spooling up
It took me a sec to realise why it had started spooling up .

I guess that's the only dangerous part of starting with TH off. But that was during a rangecheck, I don't think you'll ever lose signal at the distance you are before you take off (I never have at least, except for that time with the rangecheck).

[-Richard-]

In the pitts:

Once a day

Range check
Servo movement
Gyro response

Before each flight

Transmitter ON
Check correct model selected (Futaba )
Confirm BEC on/off switch is off
Connect batteries
Put on canopy
Walk out to flight line

Flight line:
Check transmitter switches forward
Check zero throttle
Turn on BEC switch
Check for correct gyro initialization
Hit throttle hold
walk to flight box
set idle up 1
turn throttle hold off

[3dwantabe]

If your running a separate fbl RX battery pack from the esc flight motor pack which do you hook-up first if the bec has no on/off switch? Bec and let the fbl initialize then the esc flight batts or esc then bec?

[velocity90]

Fbl rx unit first. Be sure you correctly setup the transmitter failsafe and tested it without blades.

If you use vbar gov also learn failsafe thr hold there.

[DWill]

I run all three FM's goverened so essentially I don't have a "normal " mode.

What I have set in my TX is I set one switch as Throttle cut and I also have Throttle hold.
Both are on when I plug in the battery.

So the routine is…

TC: On
TH: On

Plug in the battery
Heli initialized
Take off checklist

Hover
IU2; On
In flight checklist

Fly

Landing checklist -
Hover
IU1
Anything thing else I might have turned on, I.e. Self Level etc. …. Off

Land

Post flight
TH: On
TC: On
Unplug battery