450 This is getting really frustrating.

Tony

Tony

Staff member
I'm not sure what you mean by the screen portion. To zero the gauge, you will set it on the frame in front of the main gear and hit zero. Then, all of your checking will need to be done with the blade facing the front of the heli for an accurate measurement. All but the elevator that is.
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
the orientation of the gauge doesn't matter much. Just make sure the way you initialize and calibrate it is the same way you are putting it on the blades.
 
X

xokia

Active Member
If this is a 450 stick 500 landing gear on it and stripping torque tube gears will be a thing of the past.
Tp prevent from tipping over if your a newb get a set of training gear.
 
Derek

Derek

Well-Known Member
xokia said:
If this is a 450 stick 500 landing gear on it and stripping torque tube gears will be a thing of the past.
Tp prevent from tipping over if your a newb get a set of training gear.
Click to expand...

Heck yeah! I put 600 skids on my 500. The wider base that the 600 skids give is very nice and besides that, I really like how the 600 skids look on my 500.
 
N

Nitropropane

Member
Hurrah! after getting the courage do finally lift off I got the satisfying feeling of actually controlling the heli.My soultion set throttle to 50% across the board and set the elev and ale gain to 100% in the software.It no longer drifts so crazy.Now wether or not its because of the reduced headspeed or the the change in the programming I have yet to find out.Just 2 questions.1 how do I calculate the head speed and to what would you guys recommend for a newbie and 2 is blade tracking that important at first?If its only really important in 3d flight then i would like to put it off for now.
 
Derek

Derek

Well-Known Member
as far as the head speed, I won't be much help there. However...blade tracking is incredibly important for every heli pilot..whether you are a rookie or pro. There are several videos for setting and adjusting the blade tracking. But yes..it's very important.
 
N

Nitropropane

Member
Damn shouldnt it be adjusted enough already though since im using a digital pitch gauge and no visual flybar stuff.I can get within a tenth of a degree to each other.
 
Derek

Derek

Well-Known Member
actually, blade tracking really has nothing to do with the blade pitch. Blade Tracking is making sure that your blades are spinning along the same plane. You don't want one blade to spin higher than the other.

Try this simple test. Take a piece of color tape, I use red, and put it on one of your heli's blades approximately 1-2 inches from the blade tip. Spin up your heli to a decent hover (or even just a high speed rotation on the ground, hovering preferred). Get yourself down low to the ground so that you can see your blades spinning. Look to see if the blade with the colored tape is spinning higher or lower than the other blade. If the colored tape blade is spinning higher, you need to shorten the linkage that is connected to that blade. Just start with one full turn and then spin up the heli again until both blades are spinning on the same plane. If the colored tape blade is spinning lower than the other blade, you will need to lengthen that linkage.

I dunno if there are actually "Blade Tracking" videos on this site, so if you just went to Youtube and searched out "RC Helicopter Blade Tracking" you'll find many results. It's actually pretty easy to do but I can assure you that it is necessary.
 
N

Nitropropane

Member
Okay luckly i wont have to do one turn at a time because i bought turn buckles for all my linkages.Which brings me to one more question.Do bigger size helis and a screw to keep the turnbuckles in place?im afraid that it will change over time or mid flight?

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oh and also i bought some really crappy cheap blades with quite a bit of flex since theyre plastic.wont this help since the centrifigal force will straigten them out?

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another update
if i adjust the blades wont they not be zero pitch anymore?wont that be even worse for the heli?
 
Derek

Derek

Well-Known Member
I've not used turnbuckles, so I won't be any help there.

As far as your blades...the cheapies that you bought will be ok for hovering and "basic" flying. Those can be upgraded later on.

for the blade tracking...the two upper linkages are adjusted for "blade pitch." The three linkages that come off your swash plate are the ones that you'll be adjusting for "blade tracking." I strongly recommend watching some "Blade Tracking" videos on Youtube. Without actually being there, I can't tell you which linkage (Elevator, Aileron, or Pitch) will be adjusted for blade tracking.
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
Blue thread lock is made to hold metal bolts into a metal housing. DO NOT USE THREAD LOCK ON PLASTIC, PERIOD! The green thread lock is made to go into very tight areas like around the outer bearing race to hold the bearing in place. On the Align 250, it's used to hold the pinion on the motor shaft since there is no room for a grub screw. Green is almost like red in it's holding strength, so don't use it to hold a bolt in that you want to be able to take out at a later date.
 
N

Nitropropane

Member
ok thx for all your help guys I had my fourth but 1st actual flight today.Its pretty stable and I had to tame it down to about 30% on both ali and elev.the tail is SUPER sensitive so im gonna tame that too. I have another question though.Is it okay to keep the same throttle across the board?I have it to 50% right now and I dont plan on doing any 3d soon.I wanna clear this up now so that I dont get used to it and find out 6 months labor that my heli is set up all wrong

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6 months later*
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
Yes, you can run a flat curve, but I would use at least 70%. The higher the head speed (HS) the more stable the heli is with it's gyro effect. Think back to when you were in school and you held the bicycle tire in your hand with it spinning. The faster the tire was spinning, the faster you would spin in the chair when you tilted it to the side. But moving the physical tire that was spinning was quite hard. Same goes with the heli.

As for the tail, put some expo in it and it should help.
 
Tony

Tony

Staff member
Ah, good deal. I get caught up in my old age once in a while lol. I did that little gyro test back in 93-94, somewhere in there.

Just remember, don't use idle up. You will want to set your pitch curve to 46 48 50 75 100 that way you have a little negative pitch on the ground, but not enough to "shove" the heli into the ground if you panic. Throttle curve I would run at 0 40 70 70 70 if you are wanting a flat curve. That way it's not so jerky on spool up. Unless you have a good ESC like Align or Castle, then you can set it to 0 70 70 70 70 since they have a GREAT slow start feature.
 
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