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Post by chitty024 on Jul 5, 2012 22:51:46 GMT -4
HK's shipping sucks. Ordered blades a week ago and they haven't even shipped yet :/
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Post by sgmason on Jul 6, 2012 2:40:21 GMT -4
Did you pay the extra for EMS? Also were they in stock or back ordered? I know that they say they ship within 48 hours, but it took them 4 days to ship my batteries. Once they got moving they were here in 10 days. Twice as long as they state with EMS, but not that bad all and all.
If they are in stock, the ones I plan on ordering are, I would use the online support and ask why they haven't shipped yet.
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Post by Valkman on Jul 6, 2012 7:13:28 GMT -4
You pay extra for the shipping not the service! Their picking and packing is gone bad recently. I have ordered stuff EMS and it took 4 days to Ireland. Then on the next order I ordered air mail for less and it took 5 days. After that I just ordered air mail for less and it usually takes 5 days to Ireland. It takes them longer to take the item off the shelf and put it into a box! I think what they are doing is waiting till they get a lot of orders together and ship them out bulk.
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Post by chitty024 on Jul 6, 2012 10:13:17 GMT -4
EMS and In stock! Supposed to be here today or tomorrow now supposedly. Did you pay the extra for EMS? Also were they in stock or back ordered? I know that they say they ship within 48 hours, but it took them 4 days to ship my batteries. Once they got moving they were here in 10 days. Twice as long as they state with EMS, but not that bad all and all. If they are in stock, the ones I plan on ordering are, I would use the online support and ask why they haven't shipped yet.
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Post by sgmason on Jul 6, 2012 10:15:10 GMT -4
I wish you luck with that, seems to be real fast to go from not shipped to delivered in two days
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Post by sgmason on Jul 9, 2012 12:36:03 GMT -4
Well to make my set up easier I just ordered a true swash plate leveling tool, mine has a bit too much play in it. My GST check didn't come in on Friday, not that expected it would, so the earliest I will be able to get parts is Wednesday, that should make setup round two this coming weekend. No test spin up of hover till the first nice calm day after the weekend because it is the fly in breakfast/car show this weekend and it is held where I was going to give round two a shot. I will add expos to the controller this time, in fact there is a post-it note on the Tx right and helicopter now so I don't forget a second time. Getting the hobby shop to set it up is just going to be too expensive, they quoted me $60/hour to set it up and figure that it will take them 4 hours to do it . Sorry but I just don't have the $240 to through around right now and I haven't heard back from either of the flying clubs that are reasonably close to me about getting help from one of their members, so it looks like I will be giving it a go on my own again. This could turn out to be more than the $240 the hobby shop wants, but for the same money I can buy a lot of spare parts and learn the hard way . Well just ordered 3 sets of the $26 HK CF blades that Dr E suggested, hopefully they and the set of Align blades I will be picking up on Wednesday will be enough to get me into the air once or twice before I have to rekit ;D. With what I ordered today, plus what I pick up on Wednesday I am still under the $240 for setup on the helicopter that the hobby shop wanted That will be a main shaft, 4 sets of CF blades, a swash leveling tool, and I could add in a blade balancing tool and be just over the $240 mark. This means that next pay I can start buying the other crash replacement parts I am likely to need in the future, like extra main shafts, flybars, feathering shafts, booms and supports, skids, and what ever else I can thing of. I already have 2 spare main gears so that is a start
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Post by sgmason on Jul 11, 2012 21:45:21 GMT -4
So I picked up my main shafts and blades tonight in Ottawa. While I was there I decided to buy a blade balancer too. I got the Heli Max one for $19.99+tax. I have to say two things, the blade balance works like a charm, no fussing with a screw and some glasses, and you can tune it even when on a non level surface. the next thing is wow I am impressed with the Align blades, the CG was dead on as was the balance between the blades. I am almost tempted to set them aside and wait for the HK blades to show up and use them to learn on. That way I would have a good set of blades waiting. I probably wont wait though, but if I haven't wrecked thses blades before the HK ones get here I know I will swap them out ASAP.
Tomorrow morning I am going walleye fishing for a bit, then around 11am my swash plate tool should be in and I can start setting up again for round 2 next week. I will bring the camera and tripod with me this time to record any success or failures
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Post by sgmason on Jul 13, 2012 9:41:52 GMT -4
I am still working on the set up, I am going for perfection this time, even made a list with steps and goals. I could have it ready to go today, was actually planning on an late afternoon spin up and blade tracking check, but then I realized what day it was. So nope not going to maiden it on Friday the 13th.
Actually the last couple of days it has been beautifully calm in the morning and then breezy with gusts in the afternoon so I don't want to chance it in less than ideal conditions. Tomorrow mornings weather forecast looks much like today's so I should be good to go, as long as the setup goes as planned today.
I did manage to screw up the settings on the ESC yesterday though. Some how I manage to get it set so it didn't spin the motor till it was above 50% and then went to full throttle by 75%. At first I thought it was the Tx setting so I rest and programmed it again, when that made no difference I reset the ESC to the factory settings and everything worked fine. I do have a question about the soft start/governor modes. Should I be running the governor, and would a 1220Kv motor be considered a high Kv motor? Governor #1 and #2 are the same settings, but #1 is for low Kv and #2 is for High Kv.
OK off to working on my setup again.
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Post by sgmason on Jul 13, 2012 17:33:36 GMT -4
So I am working on setting up my pitch and throttle curves what do people think of the pitch and throttle curves suggested in this thread? His suggestion are for scale flying and not 3d which is the way I am leaning. For those that don't want to go to the thread the pitch curve in normal is -2°, 0°, 3°, 3°, 3° and ID1 would be -2, 0.5°, 3°,5.5°, 8°. The throttle curve he suggests is in normal 0%, 80%, 80%, 80%, 80%. ID1 is 80% across the board. In his words, normal is for spinning up and ID1 is for flying. Right now I have all the pitch curves set to -2, 0.5°, 3°,5.5°, 8°, but it would be real easy to change the normal to what he suggests. I just don't know about a noob like myself flying on ID1 or if I should be doing my maiden in normal mode. If you have any comments please leave them, because I would like to try getting it in the air tomorrow morning if the weather is favorable, meaning no rain and little to no wind or gusts
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Post by sgmason on Jul 14, 2012 6:41:53 GMT -4
So I never heard from anyone on the pitch/throttle curve settings so I just went with them. Its a nice calm day right now and I am packing up my stuff to go try fly again. The camera is fully charged the memory card has been cleaned and I have my two batteries fully charged, Hopefully my next post will be announcing that everything went well and that I just have to up load the video. I have never tried anything more than short video clips with my DSLR, but my handycam is acting up right now so this will be the only way for me to go. I do know you can hear the auto focus on it, but its true HD.
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Post by sgmason on Jul 14, 2012 8:22:53 GMT -4
Well it went better this time but not by much. I have to review the video, but I think I actually had air under the training gear just as the ESC popped. End result, one fried ESC, S shaped flybar, and a nice hole in the tail boom. I am not sure if the blades hit the ground, but one field inspection they look fine. I am going to take them off later today and inspect them closer. 2-3 weeks more of down time till I have the money for an ESC, and the other parts.
Oh yeah, I also blow out a tail boom support at the bottom plate. Once I have had a chance to relax and calm down a bit I will do a full inspection of the damage and post both the video and damage report.
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Post by osidak on Jul 14, 2012 9:54:51 GMT -4
ouch sorry to hear that - which ESC where you using? I had the Phoenixtech 115 before and it would shutdown from over heat. I have since bought a CC ICE 100 and I am much happier with it. Got it off the bay for $89 shipped.
I know you don't want to / can't spend a ton of cash but I picked up a 450 as well as it is much cheaper to crash. I have had two "damn that dumb" moments with it and it set me back a whopping $20 for both combined. I am still very much a beginner but I think I am progressing faster with it as I am not scared to try new things. I am starting to fly figure 8 circuits with it now. I will say when I hover the 600 it is a much smoother machine though.
They are not great helis by any but I got a Erazor 450 (in trade) from xheli - new it was $159 with radio but I quickly replaced the radio with my own receiver so I could use my A9 with it. The one I have is the complete plastic frame with metal head and tail.
I did just buy the Chaos 450 kit from Mike and I am getting it together. Amazed at the difference in build quality and easier to find parts for it. The Erazor is not really much of a clone of anything.
Good luck
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Post by sgmason on Jul 14, 2012 10:52:32 GMT -4
Yes it was the Phoenixtech 115 ESC. I am still not exactly sure what happened this time. Looking at the video the helicopter looks to start lifting off and tilting to the left then suddenly it banks to the right . I killed throttle the instant I lost it, but I don't know if I got it in time. There is one little spot on the main gear that is missing some teeth. the main shaft is good, just rolled it across a glass stove top, the servos feel OK but I wont know until I am able to buy a new ESC and can truly test them. I still have to pull the tail boom so I can inspect the belt, the hole on the aluminum boom has some sharp edges. I also noticed that my tail rotor holder will now let one blade pop past its limits and stick. It never did that before, but it is the plastick one and I had planned on getting the aluminum version as an ASAP upgrade. the carbon paddle that I suspect hit the boom only has a little chip in the clear coat, none of the carbon fiber was actually compromised. Finally on what I have inspected so far it looks like I am going to have to cut the flybar to get it out of the head. First I am going to lock it in the vise and see if I can get it out that way, if not I push it back in to where it move and cut the other end before the bend.
Right now I think other than the ESC my damage costs are going to be cheap. A pair of Align Aluminum booms are only $16 and the flybars are about $10. I have two more main gears here right now and 3 sets of blades of blades speeding towards me right now.
What I was thinking of getting is the KDS that RCA has on sale right now, but I also want to get a better radio because that may actually be the source of my troubles. I can't see how the ESC popping could cause the heli to violently bank like it did. In hind sight and watching the video a couple times it almost looks like a glitch. If I go for a new radio it will put me back about 5 weeks till I am ready to try again.
Just got the flybar out without cutting, the rest of the head is good
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Post by sgmason on Jul 14, 2012 11:03:25 GMT -4
While looking at parts online I noticed that Geat Hobbies in Ottawa has the DX7S Air 2.4GHz System w/AR8000 Rx for $310, what are peoples opinion on this for an affordable radio for me?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2012 12:15:58 GMT -4
George I am sad to hear that you are having a run of bad luck. What happened?
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