LoveToFlyGuy’s Logbook

Ok…

<RANT>

I was having a lot of fun when this all began, but I’m getting *VERY* tired of trying to fix this stupid heli. Actually, it’s the constant “what ELSE could be wrong with this stupid ***?” that is driving me nuts. I just want to fly, darnit! I understand that fixing these things is just a part of the hobby, but really! Two weeks (or more!) and no takeoffs? I have only one thing to say - ARRRRGGGHHHH!!!
</RANT>

As you can see, my flight preventing issues persist. I think I’m about ready to break down and try to find a local “expert” to help me figure this out…

Problems:

Full power (max RPM - training mode) = max *negative* blade pitch.

Loss of tail rotor control, i.e. tail goes dead on startup. Kinda’ hard to control that way!

Binding somewhere in the rotor head linkage, causing one of the servos to stick in the full up position.

Rotor blade tracking is off…

HB Cool rotor blades are too long for the King - I need new blades, I think I’ll make my own out of paint sticks (as seen somewhere on the web).

It seems like as soon as I fix one thing, something else goes haywire. I haven’t flown for the last two weeks, instead, I’ve been chasing one problem after another.

So, I get home yesterday, and the heli is still setup from the night before, and the (stock) battery is fully charged, so I thought I’d give it a try before changing anything. I took it outside, anchored it down using a couple of heavy pry-bars across the training gear, powered up the Tx, double checked the controls (made that mistake before!), and connected the battery. As expected, the esc sang it’s little startup song, while I reassured myself that the controls were not reversed. I started to add power, and got nothing… Half throttle, and no joy… three quarters, and nothing… full throttle, and nothing… Hmmm. It looks like Flossie was definitely right about the battery - not that I doubted it! Then, without warning, the silly thing *jumped* to life! I was really glad that I had it firmly anchored down, and had my hands & other parts well clear of the blades’ arc!

Here’s the strange thing… The problem that I’ve been trying to solve has mysteriously disappeared, but strange things are afoot… The throttle and collective controls seem to be at odds with each other; full throttle (in training mode) gives me full *negative* pitch, pushing the heli down, while reducing throttle lets the heli rise back up to a ‘normal’ stance. I’m hoping that the new battery will solve this latest problem…

I’d really like to fly this thing again someday!

At least I got to see the rotors go around, and test the cyclic controls… Maybe my battery will arrive tomorrow…

A more powerful King!

Well, I just posted this tip on the Heliguy forums, and I thought I’d share it with all of my loyal fans…

I have lately been scrapping old computer hardware in my office. You see, as a networking and general IT guy, I replace a lot of computer components, and I usually store the dead equipment on a shelf, just in case I need to salvage something off of the old part. So, there I was taking these things apart, when It occured to me that most of the little tiny screws I was removing were about the same size as the ones in my heli….

IDEA!

Once I started looking at those old components with a heli repairman’s eye, I saw a lot of other usable parts; ferrite coils in various sizes, wire connectors that could be re-used, and even small steel rods that might be useful for rebuilding badly bent linkages. I have even been considering wiring up some nav lights, using salvaged LEDs…

Pretty cool, eh?

Some of my salvaged parts.

Well, I was working on getting my flight experiences up to date, but it seems that I just keep falling further behind on my log entries… So enough of that!

Today I’m sitting in my office waiting for my new batch of servos to arrive so that I can finally go fly. You see, last week I had this little “boo-boo” while attempting to hover in the back yard. I looked the heli over after the incident, and all seemed fine, but when I went to spin it up again the heli made “bad noises”… As the rotors spun up, the motor would seem to slip or miss or something, which produced a loud bang/whack sound. Spiiiiiinnnnnnn WHACK!, Spiiiiiiiinnnnn WHACK!, repeat. Confused, I decided to end the day’s flights and put her down for diagnostics & repairs.

When I took a closer look at the motor, I found one of diode thingies had broken off, and was hanging onto the motor by magnetic attraction only. I figured the motor was probably shot, especially since I had seen electrical arcing while in flight (probably from when the diode came off) and the motor was *HOT*. I mean burn your fingertips hot! So… Now I get to order the upgrades that I had been planning to order.

I ordered a Just Go Fly 400DH brushless motor, and a Sonic 35A ESC with BEC last Wednesday, and when they arrived a couple of days later, I was itching to get them installed so that I could JUST GO FLY! I got them all soldered in, making use of a couple of power connectors from an old computer floppy drive for the wiring contacts. I fired it up, and had the same noise come back. Hmmm…

Upon closer inspection, I noted some chewed up teeth on the main rotor driven gear. Time to order parts again… Well, while she’s down for repairs, I might as well level the swashplate with my new Trex levelling tool, right? Yeah, right… Now I find out that I have a dead servo to boot. Hello? helicopter parts house? You carry servos too? Great! I need four… several days later (yesterday actually) the gearset(s) arrive, so now all I need are the servos, and guess what? They just arrived!

Anybody care to guess what I’m doing when I get home?

Wish me success!

Thursday, April 12th, 2007:

Earlier this week, the wife & I bought a barbecue grill. What does this have to do with helis you ask? Well, you see, the grill was boxed with *a lot* of styrofoam packing. It just so happened that I was looking at this big pile of styrofoam, and a thought came to me… Why not make my own training skids out of this stuff. I was on a mission… I found two lengths of material that were the exact same size, and went about cutting them into identical sized “skids”. They looked more like floats, actually. Rather ugly if I do say so myself. Anyways, since I’m the only one who cares what it looks like at this point, I decided to attach them to the machine, making sure that the CG was still directly under the main shaft. I attached them using toothpicks, which I shoved into the styrofoam floats skids, and then (using duct-tape) attached the toothpicks to the skid struts… America’s ugliest helis, here I come!

Saturday, April 7th, 2007:

Today I made my first flight. Unintentionally. Scared the living stuff out of me, to say the least! I was on the front porch at home, and was having a great time watching my little heli go back & forth in front of me on the cement. I was practicing following a specific path in an attempt to get a feel for coordinating the rudder and throttle. I was giving it just enough power (around half throttle) to make it light enough to move. I was trying to have it follow a joint in the walkway, when I accidently pushed the throttle the wrong way… I heard the motor spool up fast, and the heli jumped off the ground! Fortunately I have fast reflexes, and was able to shut it down quickly, before it got more than a few inches off the ground. No damage, thank God! Boy, was my pulse racing! I put it away for the day after that, so that my frazzled nerves could calm down… Lesson learned; *don’t forget which way is off*! Got it!

April 3rd, 2007:

As soon as I got my heli, I opened the box, made sure that everything was there, set the heli on the floor in my office at work, turned on the transmitter, connected the battery to the heli (after ensuring the throttle was at minimum setting), and marveled at how the servos responded. Oooooh! Aaaah! Then… I added a touch of power. Not much, mind you, just enough to get the blades moving so that I could be sure everything worked. I could not wait to get home and try some limited ground maneuvering.

Once home, I immediately took out my heli, powered up the Tx & the heli, and let the games begin! Since I didn’t (at that time) have training gear, I was very cautious with the controls. I started by adding just enough power to make the heli slightly light on the skids; which, by the way was about 30-40% power. I found that if I applied forward cyclic, that the rudder gained much more authority, and I was able to practice turning my bird. By adding just a little bit more power I was able to get it to slide (barely) forward across the carpet. Did I have any close calls that day? At the time I would have said yes, but as I think back on it, I think it was just my lack of experience making me nervous; I would get scared when the heli would tilt more that a few degrees, and kill the power. Eventually I ran the battery down, and that ended my first day’s flight. The following few days consisted of pretty much the same thing. Practice ground-taxi maneuvering, drain battery, charge battery, and repeat.

Hey there!

Yep, another blog… Just what the world needs, eh? well I hope this one won’t be completely boring, but you be the judge of that!

I decided to start this thing to chronicle my adventure in the world of r/c helicopters. I intend the layout to be something like a pilot’s logbook, so that we can all benefit from my experiences, both good and bad.