evdreamer

Glenn,

Cool to hear you also got to fly today. Good to hear you got the 500 and Gaui out again and that you had good weather. I just got done charging my batteries.

Nick

rotarydoc

Anyways, on the B400...the thing is driving me nuts with little details...

I got done with the head last night, but the blade grips are very rough feeling, not smooth at all when rotating them...not a good thing..

So, earlier, before I went flying, I went to the LHS, and got a new set of thrust bearings, figuring that would address the issue.......NOT!!

I guess it's the little bearings in the grips themselves...they do feel a bit rough just spinnnig them...so I went back to the LHS, and checked, and no dice, they don't have them...[>:]

SO, I am deciding what to do next...I used most of my spare parts on this crash, so I guess the best thing, although painful, will be to make a big list of crash parts, and just get online at Helidirect, and hit that "confirm order" button, and be done with it...LOL[X(]

I don't think anyone local is going to have the horizontal stabilizer, and I should order some of those bullet proof see saw arms for the Gaui like Nick has on his at the same time..

I'll go through my inventory, and make a list...[8D]

Glenn

rotarydoc

Nick,

I really enjoyed flying the Gaui again today. I have the headspeed dialed up pretty good on it, and it flies really well like that...but it's really putting a hurt on the batteries...I have the 800 mAa Gaui packs...they used to last me like 6 minutes, now it seems like I might be down to about 4 1/2 minutes or so...and they are quite warm when they come out of the heli...

On the 500, today I took a couple of steps back...and just spent more time just trying to get more of a feel for it, dialing in some expo, and getting more comfortable with it...it's still pretty intimidating to me, but it's slowly getting better. Just the noise the blades make is awesome sounding, you know you are flying a serious machine when you hear those blades..LOL[X(]

I finally watched the Gaui V2 video that Finless put up...he got an ARF one, I was hoping he got the kit version....looks nice though, he found some stuff that wasn't loctited, etc, and went through some other details on the head, frame and tail...

I still need to watch the Trex 250 one...

Glenn

J-MICHAEL

Glenn ~

That's cool ya got some flights in ! I hope I have not forgotten how to fly. I was thinking of hovering the 500 earlier in my small yard, but the rain wasn't cooperating... Maybe in the next few days.


Have a good one,

~ Jeff


DR. Phil gotta hold of me and told me to tell JPEE he found a match...........

JPEE

Jeff, Clearly I now have a reason to leave my old lady..............and at our age she is. A young full figured woman like that.........who could say no to that LMAO

evdreamer

Glenn,

Can you push the spindle towards the grip that feels notchy. Maybe it is not far enough on that one side. The radial bearings could be damaged.

Have you checked the price on the V2 mixer arms, since they are supposed to have fix the problem with them bending. They might be cheaper than the MH ones. I have been eyeballing the V2 tail for the shaft drive for awhile and was thinking about upgrading mine to that, but I saw MH just came out with a tail like yours, but for the shaft drive as well. They both look great and I like the ball bearing links on both of their pitch sliders.

I use the Outrage 2S 800mAh 25C batteries in my Gaui and they aren't that warm after a mild 3D flight. I am also down in the 4min range with a 100 90 100 throttle curve.

Yeah I love the sound of the 600. The 450 just seems like a toy when I am spooling up, but the 600 sounds like the real thing.

I also watched his other 3 vids on the Gaui after the whats in the box. It was kind of interesting seeing the new stuff on the V2.

I have been researching the designs of motors and ESC's for awhile and I am really tempted to build a "SIMPLE" ESC and motor. The ESC is basically 6 mosfets and 6 switches and just timing when the switches turn on and off. I could easily build one of those, but the motor would only spin as fast as I could flip the switches. And gobrushlessmotors has some pretty cool DIY motor kits that would be fun to build and mess around with. Hopefully after I graduate I can build a nice ESC.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

I'm pretty sure that the radial bearings are the issue with the roughness...there's not much else it could be, so I'll go with those next.

Nah, I didn't check the V2 arms, that would be a good thing to look into though...good idea. I like that yours are so tough, and I know they are only $10 or so...I...the stock "butter" Gaui arms are like $16 a pair...I would imagine the new V2 ones would be in the same price area...

I'm not sure what happened today, but I put my second pack in the Gaui, and it only flew for about a minute, and then had a severe loss of power...so I figured I must have missed charging that pack...but when I put it on the charger, it only took like 70 mA or so...I'm not sure why....[sm=confused.gif]

That would be cool if you build your own ESC. Like you said, the MOSFETS would be the easy part...I don't know how you would control the switches that switch the MOSFETS on and off that fast...

I remember in my old RC car days, and also with certain cordless power tools, the ESC's on those make a cool noise when they are under part throttle...like a hum/squeel noise, if you have ever heard it, you'll know what I'm talking about..I guess it's the MOSFETS switching at a high load/frequency or something...neat sound.

Hope you get some more decent weather so you can fly. I think my luck has run out, it's supposed to be kinda rainy and windy tomorrow...[]

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

They have chips to control the switching, but I was going to try and do it manually. So it would only rotate part of a revolution each time I flip a switch. I know the sequence that needs to be done to make it rotate, but I don't know if I want to get into building one any time soon. It just sounded like a fun idea to try out.

Sorry to hear about your upcoming weather.

Nick

evdreamer

I just got back flying 3 packs in the 450. It is 20 degrees and feels great. LOL It flies so much better than the Belt CP. I think I will stop flying the Belt and keep flying the 450 even though it has shorter flight times. I am getting better at transitioning between the inverted hovering orientations CW and CCW. I want to start trying the more advance stuff, but I think it will pay off learning to hover really good inverted.

J-MICHAEL

Cool Nick ! I'am charging my DX-7 right now just in case I get a chance to fly at one of these fields.... 2 blocks away the high school and middle school are nearby and the fields there are HUGE. But there is a park that is better with some nice cushy grass that I'll have to check out soon.

Its gonna be weird to fly above grass now...... But so cool huh ?!


~ Jeff

evdreamer

Jeff,

Are you taking the 500? I bet it is begging to be flown. I knocked the Gaui off my work bench on accident and I bent some spindle screws. Then my last phasing pin fell out, so I put some green loctite on it and hope it stays in the head. Then my servos locked up. So I fixed those. It is not a good start right before my Fun Fly today. I might fly the 600 soon.

Have fun flying if you go to the fields.

Nick

J-MICHAEL

The 500 ?! Hek no, I'am scared to death of that thing..... I bought it for looks on the shelf....... LOL.... Kidding. But it does freak me out a bit... I just did a few test hovers with the 450 and made some new adjustments. As you may have remembered during the video of my first loops back in Cali and after replacing the belt and such I had a tail wag like Glenn back then when I spooled it into idle up but did the loops anyway, but never had the chance to troubleshoot the wag as I was leaving to go back home.

Well the wag is cured and it ended up being that when I replaced the belt, I also re-programmed the Castle ESC on my computer with some different settings, and I had increased the timing from medium to high, bumped up the frequency also from 13khz to 26khz, and the throttle response was boosted to the max which was at 5 but boosted to 10...

I put all these settings back on the ESC to where they were at before I replaced the belt and had no wag... Because before I even had a few missing teeth on the belt as you may have remembered and it flew still like a champ with no signs of a problem like the missing teeth, so I stepped back and put the settings back...

I put the high setting from high back to normal, and the frequency I put back down from 26khz to 13khz, and the throttle response I took from 10 to then high (8)... And all seems better so far from the test hovers. No flying at the field today even though its blue skies with the sun out, 50 degrees and a mild wind... I need to do a good inspection of the 450 and 500 and then I'll take em' out hopefully soon... I'am pumped that I found the problem ! I did these in hopes of getting some more anger out of the heli for attempting those loops, but ended up being overkill and conflicted with how the heli flew with the tail wagging...


Talk with ya later.... Oh..... Bummer about the Gaui..... I'd say go buy a Vapor so ya can take as a back-up when ya go, but it might make ya sleepy flying it and not much happening that's to exciting when flying it. But I do love flying mine however.... Its just I like the stuff that makes ya dribble yer drawers when ya take it into flight....LMAO...


~ Jeff

evdreamer

Jeff,

I just ordered my DIY motors and plenty of different gauges of wire to mess around with to increase the power or speed. I am excited to see if I can actually get one to work and work well. I also ordered a Medusa power meter with those to test the timing on the CC ESC's and see what one is most efficient for each of the motors and hopefully get a little more flight time out of them. And it will be cool to see how much current each motor uses and the amount of power it can produce.

Nick

J-MICHAEL

Nick ~

That will be great having those new toys. I think a guy could go broke just buying gadgets and trinkits for the heli's ! Gotta go check my lipo..... Charging up my packs.....



Cheers,

~ Jeff

J-MICHAEL

I just hovered the 500 in my small backyard and man that thing is stable. I started to hover in the garage, but my garage became small very quick and I rested it down as I felt it was unsafe even though I was standing by the open door ready to run like a maddog. But when I took it outside and did a few little punchouts and a bit of hovering pretty high up it did so good. I've been so involved with the 450 so much that I instantly noticed the crazy diff in the stablility difference. Its tricky in my small yard with the 450 as it is so quirky so to speak. Lots of plants and very small... But with the 500 even though its bigger, I felt more at ease in the small space as it held that tame and no hands on the TX type of feel. I haven't fired the 500 back up since I maidened it on November 28th....

I think I may attach my heavy pig 247 gram camera on her soon for a flight video... Well.... Gotta go cycle so more batts hovering around.... Hope everyone is getting some flying in.


~ Jeff

evdreamer

Jeff,

Cool to hear you hovered the 500 again. Well I am off to the Fun Fly and I will be back later.

Nick

HeliStyle

My Feedback: (2)

hey everyone, just stopping in to see how everyone is doing, and see whats new?


just got my brushless setup on my stampede, thing is sick to say the least


burned my 4in1 in my walkera 4#3b, been doing great nose in, but still having trouble with right hand turns

enrolling in school this week, can't wait


anyone still looking at the t-rex 250?

JPEE

Hey Guy's...what it is?


Nick, glad you got to get the 600 out for a walk. Tell us about the Sunday nite Fun Fly when you get home.

Jeff, a 500 in a garage are you nuts? ? ? or just have a death wish. Jumping inside the house won't help with that CF blade comes through the wall and through YOU and on into the living room. But I am still glad you got out there and did some hovering.

Helistyle, good on the ole stampede. Good luck on getting all of your classes!

JPEE: Oh thats me........no flying today, way to much wind to enjoy it for both today and yesterday. Plugging away on the 500. Broke a servo wire lead end. I guess I have no choice but to cut and solder and shrink a new one on.............dang nabbit that ticks me.


Smiles Guys

J-MICHAEL

What it be like cuz......LMAO....


I just hovered both my CPP's in the garage... I was just thinking I should fire up the 500, but didn't feel like croaking today. Maybe tomorrow.....



Heli ~

Cool on the brushless Pede ! Man I wish there was a way for ya to shoot some video.....


~ Jeff

HeliStyle

My Feedback: (2)

lol I wish there was some way I could shoot video as well, actually I could on my camera, I'm just to lazy to make a youtube account and such an upload the videos

I went with a cheap brushless system from hong kong, it was 65 bucks for the 3000kv motor and 35 amp esc, with a nice program card, its called the ezrun system, many good reviews on rc groups about it

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Well, I spent most of the day trying to fix the notchy, rough blade grip/thrust bearings on the B400 that I am rebuilding...[>:]

I finally gave up trying to get it super smooth...even though my spare one is very smooth compared to this one.

I don't know what else to do, I have replaced the thrust bearings, orings, feathering shaft, and the small radial bearings (went to a not so local LHS to get them), and even tried using some Align one way bearing grease instead of vaseline as I have been doing...and it's better, but still not what you'd call smooth, exactly.

Dunno. It's good enough. Maybe some rough bearings from the package, it will be fine. Just irks me that I can't get it as smooth as the spare heli is...[>:]

Oh well, the rebuild is almost done, just have to set tracking and pitch on the mains, and it should be good to go again....LOL, I would say "like new" ...but the crappy notchy thrust bearings are not like new!! [X(]

Glenn

evdreamer

Helistyle,

Cool to hear you like your new brushless setup.

Cool to hear you are enrolling for school soon.

A guy at the fun fly was crashing his 4#3b and it was still able to fly after that. He wants the brushless version that is coming out soon.

I have been looking at the 250, but I really don't need another heli.

JPEE,

I had fun once again and they aren't going to go every Sunday in January, but carry it over in February instead. Someone had LED's on their CX which was pretty cool. A fixed pitch heli ran into a foam airplane the size of Jeff's Vapor. That was interesting. I had A LOT close calls on the Gaui. I need a more powerful motor. The head assembly touched the floor once and the skids crashed into the floor a couple of times coming out of a flip. I almost didn't flip the heli over in time because I increased my throttle curve and didn't decrease my timer. The tail was kicking out on me a few times, so I might upgrade to the V2 tail since it is $5 cheaper than the MH tail. I also pulled of my first funnel going CCW while doing a piro CW. I can do them while doing a piro in the same direction as the funnel, but the stick movements are kind of weird for doing it in the opposite direction, so it confused me for a long time. I was trying to put on a show, but my trick book isn't that big to make it very interesting.

Sorry to hear about your weather. It sounds like it will be nice tomorrow here, but I haven't checked to see how strong the winds will be. Too bad about the wire lead end.

Jeff,

How was the CPP compared to the 500. LOL

Nick

evdreamer

Glenn,

Sorry to hear about your bearings. Good to hear you are almost done with the rebuild. I recently got a tracking problem on the Gaui, but I don't see how I could since the swash is level through out its travel and all the opposite links are the same length. I am thinking it might be from a bent blade grip right where the mixing arms attach too.

Nick

JPEE

Nick, sounds like you and the other guys gave the crowd what they wanted! Near miss's, some crashing along with some stunts. Congrats on the funnel CCW.....U R DA MAN

See you on the other side................JPee

rotarydoc

Hey guys, back again...

Nick,

Glad you finally got some warm weather...LMAO...20 degrees! Must have felt like a heat wave...

Sounds like you are doing really well with the 450, and inverted flying...awesome!!

Hope you had fun at the Fun Fly.

That motor building stuff should be alot of fun, you'll have to keep us posted! A guy I used to race RC cars with used to wind his own motor armatures...and he did OK. The biggest problem was getting them balanced after he was done winding the wire around the core...

Jeff,

Glad to hear you blew some dust off of the 500 and hovered it with a couple of punch outs...the thing is amazingly stable after flying the 450, eh??

Just don't go the other way around...on Saturday, I took off with the spare B400 after flying the 500....and man, I wasn't ready for the squirrelly nature of the B400 at first!! Got pretty relaxed with the stablity of the 500 for a couple of packs there, when the thing took off, it made a beeline back towards me in an hurry!! Got it corrected quickly, but it caught me off guard!

Man, I'm surprised the CPP motors weren't seized up or something..LMAO!![X(]

Good to hear that you got them out, and had some fun hovering them in the garage...

JPEE,

That thing is starting to look like an RC helicopter now!!

Sorry to hear about the servo connector, the repair should be easy though...

Heli,

Hey, how ya been?

Good to hear that school is starting soon, you sound like you are ready to hit the books...and torque wrenches...LOL!

Glad to hear that the Stampede is going well...

As I was leaving the LHS yesterday...something caught my eye...a Traxxas TEC4 Jato....supposed to be 70 MPH!! Man, that would be a handful, for sure...went home, and watched some Youtube vids on it...that thing is insane!!


Glenn