Trex 550 first time governor setup (Ikon or CC 75 ESC)

[cv68]

Sure this has been asked many times before, so if there is a good thread I should read pls point me in the right direction.

I have an older Trex 550 (RCM-BL600MX, 1220KV) with an Ikon FBL and CC Phoenix 75. Up to this point I have never tried using a governor, instead I just set throttle curves and adjust to get a nice flying headspeed (e.g., 84 82 80 82 84 or similar). Of course I am comfortable using throttle hold, and typical fly with a linear pitch curve in all flight modes. I would like to start using a governor to fly at set rpm headspeeds throughout the battery voltage level; have the ability to auto rotate and do a slow restart if necessary, etc.

1st Question - should I use the Ikon governor or the Castle Creations ESC?

2nd Question - suggested headspeeds for normal, I1, I2?

Thanks very much!

[Rob43]

I think either gov can work fine for you. Been a long time since I used a CC gov...not knowing much about current CC esc's. I would say the iKON gov is excellent, and can work really well. I've used it in two different helis and it worked well in both. To me, it would depend on which one you can tune most easily. If you have the Bluetooth version of iKON, then that's pretty easy, I think. You can land, adjust, fly with only a smartphone app and you can adjust anything else at the same time. More parameters available such as precomp. It does take some care to set up, but so does CC. Either are superior to throttle curves, IMO.

As for rotor speeds for your 550, it depends on the sort of performance you're after. I fly a Logo 550SX, and run it from 1750 to 2100. Mostly fly it under 2000. I've also had prior 550's I ran up to 2400 for ballistic performance. Was more than necessary for sure. You probably want somewhere between 1900 for mild flying and 2200 rpm for harder flying. You will need to do some checking of gearing to target the desired speed without running out of headroom for the governor, or on the bottom end, running at too low throttle values that make the ESC get hot. I like to use this Headspeed tool: LINK


Some may disagree with me about this, but I get close with this tool using 4.0 volts per cell as the value for input. When I use this tool to see what pinion I want, I enter the target max headspeed I would want to run, and 80% throttle value, the main gear tooth count, and click on "compute tpinion". Hopefully, it's in the range of available pinion gears. You can play around with your setup from there before doing the gov setup on your heli. I hope this helps.

[cv68]

Thanks very much!!

[Abenn]

I use my TRex 550 for gentle 'scale' flying with a JetRanger fuselage, and have set the headspeed to 1900 rpm with the CC Talon 90 in governor mode. Setting it up with the Castle Link was simple.