Reefpainter

Hey everyone!

My dad and I have built our MX400 Pro's to the letter in the manual and have flown them a few times. We are at the stage of beginner forward flight. My question is regarding proper transmitter setup for this stage of our learning curve.

We both have the Futaba 6EXH 6-channel radios recommended for the kit. My dad, having experience with model airplanes suggested that we set the dual rates at Low 40% and Hi 80%. This feels fine for the flying we are doing, but I am wondering if we should also be using the Expo, End point, or Throttle/Pitch curve settings to better dial in our machines?

Since we are so far away from 3D or anything, should we even bother with these functions? My heli will lift off at about 2/3's stick and I thought I read somewhere that it should hover around mid stick. This is a Pitch curve setting right? We don't have a Tach to tell head speed, but I don't think that is a great concern for us right now.

Does anyone have a recommendation for beginner settings for these Tx functions so that we don't learn bad habits by not flying a properly set up heli?

Thanks

credence

My Feedback: (2)

The helicopter should not hover at mid-stick, it should hover at just a bit above mid stick. Mid stick should be 0 degrees of pitch.

Well, it would be more accurate to say that you'll find learning easier if you don't have hover at mid-stick. You can, of course, set the hover wherever you like it to be, but for future learning, it's better to leave mid-stick at 0 degrees of pitch, this way as your flying skill progresses, you won't have to re-train your stick position to adapt from negative to positive pitch settings.

Only use expo/dual rates if you feel you need it. If you can control the helicopter just fine, expo will only make it more docile and potentially more dangerous as you have to move the stick further to achieve the same movement, which makes "over-correcting" a bit of a problem if you aren't used to it. If you don't feel you need it, leave it.

You can use EPA on any of the channels if you're getting binding in the servo/swash movement. I had to use it for the elevator servo on my X400 as it had way to much throw for what the elevator needed, resulting in the servo stalling (not good, wastes energy, burns the servo out quicker, can cause glitches, etc.).

As a general rule, set your cyclic servo EPA's so that they can go to each extreme of the mechanics movement without straining/stalling the servo. In my case, the aileron control was fine, the elevator needed some EPA as did the pitch servo to stop servo binding.

Your pitch and throttle curves will vary depending on your motor, in general, if you're still learning, for your pitch curve, in normal flight mode, you want low stick to be about -3 to -5, mid stick to be 0 and high stick to be in the +9 to +10 range (I think that's what the X400 does?).
Throttle curves will depend on your motor, generally, you want your headspeed to remain consistent throughout your throttle range so as not to bog the motor down during sharp pitch changes. In my case, with an Align 430L, i'm running at about 65% at mid stick, and then near 90 at 3/4 stick, 100 at the top. This is just how I like my pitch setup, I haven't even measured headspeed with this, I just go by the way the motor and rotordisc sounds during flight, and how the helicopter handles. If I feel I need more throttle to get the pitch response I want, i'll just increase (or decrease) motor throttle untill it reacts the way I like it to. Then I fly it around, land, check motor battery and ESC temps, make sure nothing is cooking, and if all is well, I save it and continue on. Not the most precise way to set it up, but it works well enough. Tach is nice, but it doesn't tell all, having a consistent rotorspeed is no good if you don't like the way the helicopter feels in flight with it. Solong as you aren't stressing the mechanical limits of the helicopter you're fine (such as running insane 3500 RPM headspeeds or something).

Hope that helps.