FBL Gyro Tx Dual Rates & Expo and iKON FBL

HeliDinoRC

HeliDinoRC

Senior Rc-Help Member
I have read conflicting info :thinking: on using Dual Rates & Expo with the iKON and its Bank settings and was wondering if you guys could clear this up for me?

I am wondering if and at what values to set the D/R & Expo within my DX7s Tx for the maiden flight of my G630. So, the first question being is it advised to use Tx D/R & Expo in conjunction with the iKON Bank settings (i.e. Beginner, Sport, 3D)?

Currently, for the maiden flight, I have all the iKON banks set up in Beginner mode and Bank 3 set to Beginner/Self Level (Bank 2 is set the same as Bank 3 as the channel is mapped to my trainer switch, a momentary, two position switch)

This has to do with my build but I posted the question here as I thought it was general in nature and more people would benefit from the discussion. I thought I would link to this thread within my build thread.
 
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pvolcko

Well-Known Member
I always set D/R to -100/100 (full range). I also use expo on ele, ail, and rudder. I have a switch setup for something like 35% 25% 15% of ele and ail, and 25% 20% an 15% on rudder. Bank selection is on a different switch. I usually fly in the middle position all the time, take off to landing, but I have the ability by switching up or down to select slight more aggressive and slightly less aggressive sensitivity around center with this setup, depending on what I'm doing or how I'm flying that day.

I kind of look at the bank settings a blunt instruments. They are rough settings, controlling mainly maximum potential roll rate and piro rate (roughly equivalent to setting a higher D/R setting internally). They do include certain amounts of built in expo, including expo on the collective in the beginner setting defaults. I then dial in for fine tuned cyclic and rudder feel with Tx Expo settings.

In my opinion, you can and should use both to get it to your liking.

Some will say you should run full D/R and 0% Expo and use the bank settings exclusively. You can do that, however you will be spending a lot more time in the Ikon software's advanced menus at the field in order to make expo adjustments on cyclic and rudder controls for each bank setting you use.
 
HeliDinoRC

HeliDinoRC

Senior Rc-Help Member
Thanks for confirming this for me. I always feel better about this when I get comments and answers back from you guys on this forum. I didn't want to unknowingly cause a conflict with the iKON and crash.

I was thinking about this last night when I went on my walk that if the iKON took care of everything and I shouldn't use my Tx D/R & Expo then the computerized Tx is becoming a thing of the past if all these new FBL's coming out are taking care of all the flight characteristics internally. I agree with you that field adjustments would be difficult, especially, if you don't have the bluetooth setup (I have iPhone and it's not available) or small tablet or laptop. Yes, some of us still do not have a tablet! lol

I did my final check/verification last night and in the advanced menu under "Common," or something like that, the servo section has a 20% Expo when in the Beginner mode. I watched a video by dbutzer (sp???) on the iKON advanced menus and his comment was that the Expo in the advanced menu was the same as on the Tx (paraphrasing). I am wondering if I put 20% Expo on the Ail, Elev, & Rudd in my Tx if this now means I actually have 40% Expo (adding the iKON and Tx Expos together)? I will have to try this out and see how soft it is on my maiden. I set all banks to beginner mode for maiden. I'm now thinking that I will set my D/R to 75% 75% 75% 75% with and Expo of +10% for Normal and my IU1 100% 100% 100% 100% with an Expo of +10% and go from there.

Did you change the iKON Expo settings in the advanced menus for your bank setups?
 
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pvolcko

Well-Known Member
Yes, any expo settings you make on the Tx will "add" to the expo settings in the Ikon. The Ikon has no way of knowing what your Tx expo settings are, all it sees are the channel value inputs. It doesn't know that your "+55" is stick position 60 with an expo amount dialed in or stick position 55 with 0 expo.

I found the beginning/basic setting on the ikon to be very soft. And my Tx expo settings made it that much softer. I changed my bank settings to sport and 3D within a flight or two, it was way too soft for my liking. But it is a good starting point to test setup in hover and have a good first experience with the Ikon. It would probably be perfect for a scale model setup.

I do not believe I did change the Ikon expo settings from defaults for a given bank setting. I usually only screw with roll and piro rate settings, in addition to the gov/softstart/autorecovery settings.
 
HeliDinoRC

HeliDinoRC

Senior Rc-Help Member
I think I will stick with Normal 75% 0 Expo and IU1 100% 0 Expo for the maiden then. I will leave those settings for a few batteries and then change the iKON bank settings to sport/3D and go from there with the expo. I do like a softer stick....I like it to feel locked, just not robotic. This change will take a while as I only have one 12S battery and I want to be very comfortable with the iKON prior to stepping it up.
 
HeliDinoRC

HeliDinoRC

Senior Rc-Help Member
Thanks, Tony. I have the iKON banks set on beginner for all three banks. In the advanced menu in the iKON software the Expo is at 20%. So, I should add another +15% on my Tx Expo. Theoretically, this should give me 35%, correct?
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
If you have it programmed into your gyro, then you should be fine. You just want to soften the throws a bit for the first flight. People are notorious for stick banging on maidens since they don't know what is going to happen. Just a little something to help out for the first couple of flights.
 
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scottwells

Member
I have been learning to fly with the beginner bank. The only thing I did there was to increase the piro rate to 450. The tail turned just a little too slow for me.
 
HeliDinoRC

HeliDinoRC

Senior Rc-Help Member
scottwells said:
I have been learning to fly with the beginner bank. The only thing I did there was to increase the piro rate to 450. The tail turned just a little too slow for me.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Scott! So, you made that adjustment in the iKON software advanced menu? With that value I am assuming the change wasn't made in your Tx. Just want to confirm.

What Expo values do you have set in your Tx?
 
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scottwells

Member
That is right I have not made any changes to the TX, all my changes have been made to the Ikon in the advanced setting. My expos in the advanced all have - values for example -20 on expo. Set like that stock on setup. so my understanding was that if I added expo to the radio then I would be decreasing expo in the Ikon. I could be very wrong in that thought. This is my first CP and I have been trying to understand and learn everything that makes the heli fly.. I was wrong in saying I changed the piro rate, in the Ikon it is called the tail rotational speed.

In my tx all my values are at D/R 100 and expo 0

My heli is very touchy but I dont bang my sticks so I have managed ok with basic hovering and SLOW forward flight and ugly circuits.
 
murankar

murankar

Staff member
If you adjust the expo in the radio then the setting applies to the radio mixing. If it's done in the iKon then it's controlled by the fbl.

I would guess that it would be to make the expo settings in one place or the other not both. You could end up with conflicts if done in both.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Forum Runner
 
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pvolcko

Well-Known Member
You can use expo in both. They are additive. One can "undo" the other if you're using negative expo in one and positive on the other (add +20 to - 20, zero). But that would be an unusual configuration.
 
danhampson

danhampson

Member
I use both tx and ikon and have tried just ikon and just tx, i find that a mix of the two has a different feel to it.
 
danhampson

danhampson

Member
i fly 20 in ikon, normal 20 iu 15 (dx6i), on the stock 3d setup. you should be safe enough with beginner set up and 20/20 the beauty of it is you can land and alter in the tx, beginner setup is very tame anyway. I used it of my maiden when converting to FBL and it did its job being ultra stable.
 
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