Start small...First Mistake with Futaba Radio...

[ic-racer]

I have resisted the encouragement at our airfield to 'start with a 500' heli.

I wanted to share my mistake with other Futaba users. This could have been a problem with a larger heli.

Radio: Futaba 6K
Heli: HeliMax Coaxial

The Issue:
Can't figure out which swash setting, H1, H3,???

How it happened: Transmitter is on and programmed with a 'guess' setting of the swash type. HeliMax sitting on the ground with battery in place.
Trial hover and controls don't seem correct. Land.

Go to setup on Futaba and change the swash type.

***THE PROBLEM***
Immediately the HeliMax takes off wildly toward the ceiling, the controls on the Futaba seem to become useless, throttle cut switch does nothing. I had to catch the heli and remove the battery after chasing it across the room.

How Did It Happen:
On the Futaba, when you change the swash type it instantly and without warning ERASES THE ENTIRE MODEL SETUP!!!!
So it erased my throttle reverse setup (this HeliMax uses a reversed throttle setting) and it erased the throttle hold switch assignment and function.

Lesson learned. Good thing it was not a 500.

[im4711]

wow - interesting indeed.

On any larger machine I highly recommend to take off the blades when making such setup changes. Normally depending on the FBL system (or even Flybar machine) you have the instructions what swash settings to use. So that should be an easy decision upfront. Any of those initial settings (regardless radio) I always do without any blades installed.

[flyswatter40]

If you had looked closer you would have seen the warning asking are you sure !!! First mistake is you trying to reprogram while the heli is live. Second mistake not reading the manual. Just think had you bought a Spektrum you have to turn off the radio to save data ,now I wonder how that would have went. You choose a new swash setting which defaults everything back to factory centers and puts the servo reversing all back to factory. In all cases when adjusting any "live" heli always unplug the motor wires and remove the blades. A 700 would have killed you right there, treat them as you would live wires, disconnect the power to the motor man, glad you are ok bud.

[Coco66]

Originally Posted by flyswatter40

If you had looked closer you would have seen the warning asking are you sure !!! First mistake is you trying to reprogram while the heli is live. Second mistake not reading the manual. Just think had you bought a Spektrum you have to turn off the radio to save data ,now I wonder how that would have went. You choose a new swash setting which defaults everything back to factory centers and puts the servo reversing all back to factory. In all cases when adjusting any "live" heli always unplug the motor wires and remove the blades. A 700 would have killed you right there, treat them as you would live wires, disconnect the power to the motor man, glad you are ok bud.

Never heard that... what do you mean?

[MariaFan]

CoCo,

Spekky radios don't save any changes until you turn the radio OFF.

[Coco66]

Originally Posted by MariaFan

CoCo,

Spekky radios don't save any changes until you turn the radio OFF.

Well... you make changes, and they are immediately "active"... so what do we mean with "saved" here? You make changes, you use them, and when you will eventually turn off the radio they will be "saved"... but what's the difference?

[ic-racer]

FUTABA MANUAL: When the Model Type selection command is accessed, all of the data in the active memory is cleared (except the following swash type.) Be sure that you don’t mind losing this data, or back it up to another memory using the copying functions.

To me that says nothing about erasing the memory when the swash type is changed. Maybe something was lost in translation.

To re-emphasize, I did NOT change the Model Type (Plane to Heli etc.) I changed the swash type.

When it asked me "Sure?" of course I indicated yes, as I indeed wanted to change the swash. I didn't 'accidentally' change the swash type.

[Solmanbandit]

Originally Posted by MariaFan

CoCo,

Spekky radios don't save any changes until you turn the radio OFF.

Not true in the sense you guys are saying. As said it saves it as soon as you move out of that selection.

[Dacaur]

Originally Posted by ic-racer

So it erased my throttle reverse setup (this HeliMax uses a reversed throttle setting) and it erased the throttle hold switch assignment and function.

Lesson learned. Good thing it was not a 500.

Actually the heli Max throttle is normal it's your Futaba throttle that's reverse from every other transmitter out there (that isn't it Futaba clone) many models and esc's include a warning in the manual that you will need to reverse your throttle channel if you used a futaba transmitter. (Not saying this one did, I don't know)

Originally Posted by Solmanbandit

Not true in the sense you guys are saying. As said it saves it as soon as you move out of that selection.

But in order to change something like this wash setting a spektrum radio warns you that RF output will be disabled when you go into the system menu.

[Coco66]

Well, that's 9 months after... hope he moved on...

[ic-racer]

Originally Posted by Coco66

Well, that's 9 months after... hope he moved on...

The little HeliMax does not get much use these days. The only thing that has happened similar on a big machine is an incident with the 550X where the blade did about one revolution suddenly when using the Spirit Wi-Fi link. When saving the settings with the iPhone, there is a brief moment of loss of signal, that could initiate fail-safe conditions. This was outside on the flying field, so the 550x blades did not hit anything.

What I have learned in 9 months. I started doing all my setups with a receiver pack (that wouldn't turn the motor). Until I fried an ESC, and may have damaged another until I figured out I might be causing harm to the ESC powering the electronics that way.

Now I disconnect two of the three motor wires and use a 6 cell flight pack for all setups and ESC programming. If I can't get to the motor wires, I'll take off the main and tail blades.