General 3gx setup help

[flysolo]

Ok guys I believe I have my swash set up correctly. I get 0 at mid stick on both. 12.5 at full stick and -13 at 0 throttle.

Now on to the rudder. I aligned that the best I could by eye balling it. Then I started the helicopter up and moved to mid stick and adjusted the link until it would hold pretty steady and not spin.

I don't think you should have to adjust the link to make the heli not spin, just so that the slider is centered. The gyro should make the heli not spin, someone correct me if i'm wrong.

I however do have some questions on the 3gx rudder limit setting. I try real hard to barely move the stick until it reaches the max travel. Then do the same for the other direction. It does ok but you can still hear the servo trying to push it past the max travel slightly. So I adjusted this with the travel adjustment in the tx. 55% one direction 40% in the other. This is the part I don't know if it's ok. The instructions have a warning about rudder travel limits lower the 50% will not be registered. I'm not sure if they are referring to the adjustment I made or not.

I had some problems with this as well. As soon as I touched the rudder stick it would max out. Had to do the setup 5 or 6 times, each time it was easier to control the rudder to set the limit. Just before it reaches the end let go of the stick and make sure the gyro blinks 3 times for it to register before you do the other side.

It's to bad Tony does not have this heli anymore, pretty much everything I know(I'm far from pro) I got from him and Marius and some other guys on here has also been very helpfull and know what they are talking about so If they say I'm wrong you should listen to them

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Ah, after reading Marius excellent write-up I think I'm gonna try to set up my tail one more time and do it according to his instructions. The difference from what I did was I let the stick go when right before reaching the end and not holding it in that position. Maybe thats why I had to do it so many times

 

[xokia]

So I put some training gear on it and tried to hover. I have Phoenix RC that I have spent a bunch of time on. Not that that actually means anything but I can fly around reasonably well and land. First thing I noticed with the real heli is that even when you center stick the swash doesn't immediately center It slowly works its way back.

Is there a setting maybe I screwed up somewhere? Heli idle up with no shaking and the blades appear to be perfectly aligned. I can look at the blades while they are spinning and I only see one blade.

 

[stokke]

First thing I noticed with the real heli is that even when you center stick the swash doesn't immediately center It slowly works its way back.

You can adjust the swash level rate in the 3GX advanced set-up (hooked up to a computer).

 

[xokia]

So I took it to a hobby store and had a bunch of things wrong. So I guess the 3gx you have to reverse the aileron and elevator because I have it mounted upside down. I knew you had to do this for the anti torque setting but didn't know I needed to do the same for aileron and elevator. Also I had the blade head upside down. So my pitch was backwards after fixing the elevator and aileron in the gyro.

I got it all fixed started to hover then came down in the grass and stripped my rudder gear. Pita was I used the T-22 loctite that came with the kit and the screws were not budging for nothing. The hobby store guy heated up the screws with a soldering iron which released the loctite and we were finally able to get them out. Got everything back together and working again and I think I'll call it a day

 

[Tony]

Glad you had it working and have it working again. Hope to see some video soon of this bird in the air.

 

[xokia]

I went through 3 sets of batteries and the helicopter is coming home in one piece. I was able to hover about 30 feet in the air.

Not bad for a total newb. I tried to hover real close to the ground and it was really hard. Once it got some altitude it was much easier. It was pretty windy so near the ground left no time to make adjustments. Just getting up the courage to leave the ground took a while.

2 things I noticed. Tail would occasionally shake so I adjusted the gyro % down to 68% from 70.5% that seemed to fix it I hope that's right. I still don't understand fully what that does. Second think I think I need to adjust my pitch curve I see no reason to have -12 pitch unless I intend to fly upside down. At that point I need to adjust my throttle curve anyway.

 

[Tony]

Set your pitch curve to 45 47.5 50 75 100. As long as you are at 0º at mid stick, then you will have about -2º of pitch at low throttle in NORMAL mode. This is all I have run. Your throttle curve should still be the same as it is.

the gain on the gyro via the Tx is telling the gyro how much to move the servo arm to correct a movement. By raising it, you are telling it to tell the servo to move farther and use more force to correct it. This can and will cause a wag at a high enough setting. If it's too low, then the tail becomes lethargic and will not correct correctly.

And the reason the heli is easier to fly up in the air and not close to the ground is called "Ground Effect". This happens when the blades force air down, the air comes back around and passes through the blades again. This is also known as "Dirty Air" and is very turbulent. The other thing that could have been affecting the heli is Translational Lift. This is when you have dirty air you are flying in that causes you to use more pitch to keep the heli in the air, then some wind blows across the air that is clean and makes the lift from the blades more efficient and causes the heli to lift further into the air. I can set here and explain this for hours, but the short is higher is better. Anything over 5' anyway.

 

[xokia]

So on closer inspection it appears I did get some damage from the first day out. I musta kicked up a rock from the parking lot and the blade hit it just right. I intend to buy another set of blades but do you think

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Damn!! meant to type do you think I could still use this one?

 

[Tony]

You can and you will probably be fine, but there is a chance that the chip will turn into a crack that will break a part of the blade off. If this happens, it will throw the head out of balance and result in a crash. I would not use them if it were my helicopter.

 

[xokia]

I just tried your pitch curve in Phoenix RC and I like it so far.

Another question to make sure I have my simulator and real heli setup the same when you move the rudder stick to the right should the tail move the the right or left?

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I was thinking of adding a couple drops of super glue to prevent it from cracking. I intend to buy a new set tomorrow. Since I am still learning I might just try and still use them since I'm sure I will get more of this.

 

[Tony]

Using a little CA will help bond the pieces better than they are now. Just use caution and if you notice any vibration, land it and check it out. Everything is done with the nose. Left stick moved left, should move the nose to face the left. In answer to your question, left stick moved left will turn the tail to the right.

 

[stokke]

Good to hear it's going well, xokia

Some nicks and cuts are normal, but the one you've got there is a big one. I would replace it.
When pulling the rudder stick left your nose will go left.

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Yeah, I see Tony answered all that as well..
Early in the morning. LOL

 

[Ledesma45]

Men let me tell you, i love this forum, all the guys here helped me with my set-up and it was great since, I flip, roll, loop but to bad that i cant get a video of my self flying so i could post my progress here.

Keep this forum alive, its a great tool for us starting on this hobby.

 

[xokia]

Using a little CA will help bond the pieces better than they are now. Just use caution and if you notice any vibration, land it and check it out. Everything is done with the nose. Left stick moved left, should move the nose to face the left. In answer to your question, left stick moved left will turn the tail to the right.

Excellent thanks! I had that one backwards in Phoenix RC so I need to retrain my thumb now.

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Men let me tell you, i love this forum, all the guys here helped me with my set-up and it was great since, I flip, roll, loop but to bad that i cant get a video of my self flying so i could post my progress here.

Keep this forum alive, its a great tool for us starting on this hobby.

I agree I tried a couple other forums a couple of the big ones. And one of them is blocked by google and by my work. To many viruses spread through it I guess. Also people aren't as helpful. I found the you tube setup videos which were pretty good so I decided to give this forum a try.

Getting questions answered is extremely helpful. The learning curve on these things is already pretty steep at the start. Having good answers definately reduces that curve.

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Has anyone tried the simulated flybar in the 3GX menu? I'm curious of how it will effect flight and if it's reasonably accurate to a real flybar setup.

 

[Tony]

Men let me tell you, i love this forum, all the guys here helped me with my set-up and it was great since, I flip, roll, loop but to bad that i cant get a video of my self flying so i could post my progress here.

Keep this forum alive, its a great tool for us starting on this hobby.

No worries, we will be here for a long while to come. About a year ago I was going to shut this site down because of the lack of activity, but let me tell you, I'm glad I didn't. In fact right after that things started to balloon out and things are better than ever. Hearing stories like you just told is the whole reason I keep this forum up and running. It's a great feeling knowing I could help someone out by providing a forum environment where you can get the answers you need without all of the BS that comes from the larger forums. Hope you can find someone to video your flights here soon, I would love to see them.

 

[xokia]

Here is a video of me flying my 4th ever flight and breaking the torque tube gear at the end. The dang rudder is just to fricken close to the ground. I ended up purchasing landing gear for a 500 and its WAY better.
IMG 0459 - YouTube

 

[Tony]

If you stripped out the front gears out, then it wasn't the blades touching the ground that did it, it was the flexing of the tail boom causing the mesh to separate. I would make sure your tail support rods are very tight and the tail can't bend down. If the 500 skids are working, that's all that matters.

 

[xokia]

If you stripped out the front gears out, then it wasn't the blades touching the ground that did it, it was the flexing of the tail boom causing the mesh to separate. I would make sure your tail support rods are very tight and the tail can't bend down. If the 500 skids are working, that's all that matters.

I'm pretty positive it's the rudder slapping the ground. The tips of the rudder were scratched up from hitting the pavement. The problem is if you come down and the helicopter is tilted just right it's easy to smack the rudder.

It's pretty windy where I am at and I didn't adjust the throttle when it did this it would just fall out of the sky real quickly. So you had to constantly correct it. But you would give it a tiny bit of throttle and then the wind would grab it and it would climb to much

Still learning how to quickly compensate but not to much.

 

[murankar]

That along with the flex in the tail boom can cause the gear to strip. Anything more than a light landing can cause the boom to flex but not bend.

I bent on tail output shaft without bending the boom. Also the mesh is such a fine adjustment that it does not take much to damage it. Normally you'll trash the rear gears before the front.

 

[Tony]

I have never killed the rear gears, always the front. Guess it's just luck of the draw lol. Either way, i was replacing gears.