500 blade tracking issue.

[danhampson]

ive been flying my protos for a couple of months now (no crashes, no hard landings). when i fly sometimes the blades will track sometimes they wont, so far i have checked the blade grip bearings (removed, checked, regreased, refitted), the dampeners, checked the contol rods for slop, CG and balanced blades (triple checked), checked the feathering shaft, and all seem to be fine. The only thing that i havent done is change the blades as i only have the one set of 470mm. I do have a set of 425mm but am unsure about trying them as my protos is stretched and the HS set in the gov may be a little on the slow side.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this.

 

[Tony]

Check your swash bearing. That was my issue on the 450 clone at first. They do wear out unfortunately.

 

[pvolcko]

Especially if you have a crash or two. My 550X swash developed some up and down slop after my tip over crash. I'm still running it since it isn't binding and it hasn't gotten any worse, but have spare ready to go in when my skill gets to the point of noticing it or it starts to get worse.

 

[danhampson]

just seems strange its not been crashed? will have a look in a bit, kids are in the bath

 

[Lee]

I have been flying my Warp a lot. Now it has one swash ball link worn out from wear and tear. Things are very much perishable on helis. Just look for any play in the system, from the servos to the head. If you can hold the blades and turn them slightly, try to see at what point the play is coming from. Thats how i just found my damaged ball link not 30 mins ago.

 

[danhampson]

cheers lee, ive given the blades a wiggle and the moment is in the swash.
question now is would you guys fly it?

there goes my excuse for new blades.

 

[Lee]

So does it look like the swash bearings are going? If it's just a little bit of play and the tracking is just off a touch it should be ok for a while longer. Just keep an eye on it. And once you replace some thing see how it feels new, so you know when its getting bad.
Good luck

 

[danhampson]

i mean for about 10 flights

 

[danhampson]

ive taken the swash off and there is play in the main bearing (about 1/4mm) and the fish eye (dont know its name) bearing is notchy but only when not the main shaft.

so it looks like a new swash is needed, will do that at the end of the month

 

[Lee]

I hope that fixes your tracking Dan.

 

[danhampson]

just out of interest would the swash wear cause ail interaction i notice when doing loops that it heli had a tendency to bank to the left, but i thought it might be my thumbs.

 

[Lee]

It could be some wind or the natural drift of the heli. Or if you have big thumbs, your're pulling back and left on the stick. I doubt the swash is soon it.

 

[danhampson]

i will have to work on that then. cheers lee.

 

[murankar]

I posted an article in the beginners area about swash phasing. Not sure if this will help, just sounds like that could be a cause.

 

[danhampson]

I've just read that article. been doing flips this afternoon and getting the same interaction. There was little to no wind and the interaction was the same as the other day when doing fff into loops.

I think that today might be my last flight until i get a new swash, i dont want to tempt fate. And it will give me chance to give her a service and deep clean.

 

[danhampson]

ive re-read the article and checked the phase as per there instructions and the phasing is out. ive also had a quick look at the brain software and in advanced-common-ccpm there is a slider for swash phasing, I'll hook it up later on and have a look at the settings and let you know how it goes.

 

[danhampson]

that was easy, i followed the instructions in the article that uri posted, which started with lining the main blade grips up with the boom.



And found the balls dont line up



So i plugged the brain into the laptop and went to Advanced-common-ccpm-swashplate phazing. set the heli to 0 pitch moved elev full throws and watched for blade grip movment. There was movement so i adjusted the slider +2 and repeated there was more movement so went -2 and moved stick again less movement. I repeated this untill i had no movement at all in the grips.

Does anyone think the swash phasing might have anything to do with the SL playing up because min wants to go to the left and back the same as when doing loops and flips.

sorry tony ill make the pic smaller next time

 

[Tony]

Pics look fine in Chrome. They auto-size themselves. Not sure about the other browsers though.

 

[Slobberdog]

They look good on safari,

- - - Updated - - -

Ok I see how to do this if you have swash followers but not getting how you would do this on dfc,

 

[murankar]

I think it would. Because if the help needs back elevator while leveling the the gyro would have to work harder to get back to level. I hope this info is the fix.