Velos 880 Videos & Photos

[OnTheSnap]

Originally Posted by -Richard-

Very cool and nice flying in the first video Alex, what was that like chattering sound at 1:21 of the second vid?

Ryan had too much gain.

[-Richard-]

Oh ok, thanks

[ragge1]

So did Jamie like the Velos

[A VIKING]

Awesome video work Velos!
Its inspiring.
Anyone on the fence after viewing that video will be a Velos owner very soon.

My maiden will occur today.
Photos of the airframe after flying will be posted showing my final configuration as I had parts missing in my previous build photos and I'll try to post some CC logs to show if my battery harness causes any voltage ripple. Previous ground run logs showed low ripple but that was only on the ground, flight will show a better story.

[LaDon]

Ryan was still way off on the tail gain on his. We only had 6 flights on it before ircha and we were being real careful with it before that so it didn't show up till he started flying it harder. We have got that adjusted out now.

[A VIKING]

Maiden went well today.
First thing I need to do is get used to its sound, the tail is loud!
Looking at all the flight data recorded from the maiden.
I'll post the first short hover video tomorrow with the after flight photos of the airframe setup along with some other info.
It was a good day,even though I had to dodge rain.

[gtruk]

Awesome! Congrats! I'm in the process of building mine now.

[UCPharmD]

I need me one of these Boolitproof helis!

[-Richard-]

Very cool, thanks for the update

[Slyster]

Velos! Ross Cook (5 min 25 sec)

[cbdane]

Good videography is a hard thing to come by. Here's flight #3 (not counting hovers, test hops, etc.). It's very reserved (mostly forward flight) but I've got to be honest and say that I'm still a little (okay, a lot) intimidated by this big heli. Watch it in 1080 since it isn't very zoomed in on the heli and I tend to eat up a lot of sky (old plank pilot). Bottom line: I'm not a great pilot but I have a good time!

The sad part is in the last three minutes of this flight I really began to let her rip with some rolling tail slides, upright funnel, etc. but my automatic camera tracker lost its mind after a close-in low pass (see the video) and ended up pointed straight up at the sky about half way through... I left some of the failed footage at the end for the folks at Soloshot to look at. When I cut it off, you can just hear the headspeed dropping to 1500 for a low-n-slow pass down the runway. The sky was overcast and visibility was lousy. Oh well, I need to get my son out for some good footage next time; he's very good at it.

Here's some questions from my video:

- I have a weird warbley noise from the tail (I think) that I haven't heard in other people's videos. Do you think the belt is too loose?

- I've dropped the Vbar gain down to 60% and I still get some slight (slow) porpoising in fast forward flight. OnTheSnap, would you be willing to share your Vbar setup? The three main page settings (agility, stability, and gain) and the Expert fields (heli size, etc.)? That would be very helpful.

The power balance is very (very) good right now. I used 2000mAh in about 6 minutes of flight from my 4500mAh packs. My "mere mortal" flying of this heli should provide long flights! I'll post some photos of my charger screens after recharging the batteries from the flight just previous to this one (flight #2) which used more like 2200mAh.

[cbdane]

Battery recharge balance (4 packs) after 2nd flight. Kosmic ESCs are running on internal governors. Not as easy as an external governor but it can be done and is locked in to this level from now own (Kontronik governor store mode).

[A VIKING]

From the flight videos posted so far, looks like the Velos 880 numbers are growing...and add one more.

This is my maiden flight video and post flight airframe photos.
The actual flight was 4 minutes with nothing but pitch pumps and slow hovering flight. The object was to "make sure noting falls off" and to just closely observe the airframe for any big vibrations.
Searching for visible vibrations was easier to do using the video as it was shot with a zoom lens to get in close.
Looking at the vertical fin for vibrations along with "shimmering" of the landing gear plates and canopy is always an easy catch something is not happy.
You can see that both areas appear "quiet" with respect to vibration levels.
You can also pick out in the video that I have a slight out of track which can be easily adjusted out...if I pick the right direction of pitch change adjustment and blade the first time.
Edit: I checked out the "0" pitch scribe lines on the pitch grip and hub and saw one blade was off just by the smallest of margins. I adjusted it to be dead on the line so that was probably caused my slight out of track.

RPMs in the video start at 1600 for normal and 1700 in idle 1.
RPM changes from normal to idle 1 was a tad slow but that can be adjusted out. Once I am satisfied with everything I'll go Idle 2 which I have set to 1800RPM.

Looking at the CC logs both motors track each other.
Target RPMs were accurate.
Voltage ripple was low, but I never loaded the system up aside from some big pitch pumps so more flight test will be necessary. There is absolutely no difference between motors looking at the voltage ripple chart. Both long battery harness on the left hand engine and the short battery harness of the right hand engine match and I was surprised to see that.

Will be monitoring the system more with subsequent flights but the maiden numbers look good.

My previous photo set had parts missing so here is a fresh set post maiden flight. I don't see that I will change anything from this arrangement, for me its a keeper.

It had been raining and was sprinkling during the maiden so the white puff coming off the tail rotor on landing is water vapor.

Velos 880 Maiden (1 min 35 sec)

[gtruk]

Very cool AVIKING and CBDANE! I always get the nerves when flying a new bird and can only imagine the intimidation factor of this one! I've built the frame and drivetrain and it's very impressive.

[taternator]

cbdane I have to know what tx that is that you have? looks fancy

[gtruk]

A few shots on my progress. With my setup I was able to get away with not having to cut the motor wires at all or the ESC, other than snipping off the pre-tinned bits. I have some 3M tape on the bottom of each ESC to help with vibration and added a couple of holes for mounting. I'm hoping they're far enough apart to not affect each other much. My current plan is to run all servos into the PB1 bus and then back to the SK720 and run the RPM wire straight into the FBL. Hoping for a nice clean look when all is done.

[A VIKING]

Looking sweet gtruk!
Nice job!

[gtruk]

Alright, finally picking up the pace a bit. Got the servos sorted and installed last night. Today I wired up the ESC's and configured and hoping to finished tightening down the servos later and starting on sorting out the wiring. You kind of get the idea what I'm going for though. I'm running all servos into the bus and then back to the SK720. As for my ESC wiring, I used 8AWG to extend to the back and used 7mm bullets to help bridge the distance while my crossover wires are only 10AWG. I'm hoping that with the lower amps that won't matter as much. Because of how I installed the ESC's I have to put the RX battery on top of the others in the front which is giving me the CG I need with the cover on.

I'm getting there and hope to maiden soon!

[OnTheSnap]

Pictures from the 2015 Helifreak Fun Fly

[garfield2412]

Love on the first sight - Velos 880
not only very nice looking machine, it's just insane powerfull and flying very well.