First Heli build - Compy 300 FP

[mtnmole]

Hi Kiwi,

Thanks for the input but I have left the gyro off for now. It is just running the basic setup; servos, esc, motor. I left the gyro off to fire it up for a test and found the tail problem. Good thing to, the first thing I would have done is pull the gyro out of the troubleshooting loop.

I found a wiki on the Compy so will do what they say(reverse the grips to screwhead in) and see. I am also reading the Compy thread in RCgroups looking for some tips. I am pretty sure it is a noob error, just wish I had a mentor here that I could go to. Oh well, learned computers the same way - guess I'm prone to do thing bass-ackwards

[Doozer]

Dave,
Try reducing your Gyro gain. Some gyros really prefer to be set at a low gain. I have/had my Telebee set in the 20's. Make sure your belt is tight enough as well. I set both rate mode and HH mode to the same thing. I had the same with torque spin, on a few of my helis. Reversing and Gyro gain reduction fixed them all.

[Solitaire]

He doesn't have the gyro installed yet, Dooz.

[Solitaire]

Mar 16, 2009 18:15:55 GMT -6 mtnmole said:

I found a wiki on the Compy so will do what they say(reverse the grips to screwhead in) and see.

mm
AS mentioned yesterday, there IS a slight offset to the blade grips, which I didn't notice til then. If you look at them straight on, you'll see they are just off center to the arm that has the ball. I think you can pop them both off the balls and just rotate them 180 degrees each.

So you'll be simply switching arms with the opposite link.
The pic isn't too good, but you can see the offset.

<edit> I edited the pic so you see what offset I'm referring to

[mtnmole]

Ok, I reversed the grips like the wiki said and the tail has much more control. But now the problem is reversed. To hold the tail at 30-40% stick it takes full input to the boom side(left stick) and it does recover and spin right.

I made my wife a bit upset when I took apart a spice rack to use the platform as a lazy susan, lol. I had to promise to put it back together again. She got even more worried when I grabbed one of her 5 lb. wrist weights to hold the heli down. Women confuse me because I dug it out of the garage because we never use it. She is a bigger pack rat than me(don't let her read this or I will learn to like the couch )

I seem to have plenty of headspeed. I pulled out the Blade 400 and the spinning pitch was comparable, I mean the sound the blades made, but the 400 has a gyro and the Compy doesn't yet. I have ordered both the main belt gear and the tail belt gear so one or both of those should get me in the air with the tail slider close to the center of the tail shaft, with training skids of coarse ;D. Really tempted to pick up the $20 metal tail from Deal Extreme, maybe next order I will include it.

I wonder if I can put the spice rack together after the parts get here?

[mtnmole]

Thanks for the picture Sol, that is what I found out tonight looking at mine really closely while switching the grips around. I did exactly as you said, just rotated them and attached to the opposite control without removing the mounts. Then turned the blades around to spin front first.

One more quick question before I call it a night, how do you balance a tail? I had a lot of tail boom vibration noticeable in the tail fin while it was spun up to 35-40%. The bottom half of the tail fin was going nuts - vibrating so hard on the lower half of the fin back and forth I was concerned of the fin staying intact.

Slowly but surely this bird will be mine. I think its ok to put the gyro on now and learn about its setup. I know I will do it again but the practice never hurts and it is a long way from the vibrations. Thoughts?

[Solitaire]

That's what I need...a lazy susan to test these little beggars.

That's still a lot of right rudder to get it to stay straight. Did you check for stiffness in the head rotation? There's still a lot of torque to counteract, although a HH gyro will take some of that out.

The problem with vibration is it can come from anywhere and still show up in the tail. Main blades balanced and tracking true? Flybar and paddles balanced and equidistant from the center? Pinion mesh too tight? I guess you can balance tail blades although I've never heard of anyone having to do that. Maybe do a weigh on each blade and try the Scotchtape trick if they are out at all.

I did notice in one of your pics there is a lot of the main shaft showing below the swash. What length of main shaft did you get with your kit? Do you have full cyclic without jamming in the anti rotation bracket? Can you adjust the links to lower the swash at all and still have clearance in the anti-rotation? You could be setting yourself up for some vibration in the shaft due to sway.

I noticed you are at 416g AUW. That's svelte compared to mine at 430g. Mind you some of that porkiness is this...



The $20 DX special at 31g.

[akphill]

have you checked that the belt is not twisted by chance could give a problem

[Solitaire]

mm

How's the progress on this project? Haven't updated in a while.

[mtnmole]

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this. I have the tail finally fixed and am happy with it. I took a Blade 400 tail shaft from the LHS and cut off the flanges that are on the sides of the plastic wheel to make it fit.


After I did this and put it in it gave me another 3-4mm of throw and that is just what I needed. I ordered the parts for it along with some super sized training gear on 3/19/09 and all the parts came today. The training gear is cool, it has a spot at six points instead of just four so there is a rod and ball on the nose and tail.

This is a picture with the Blade tail shaft installed. There is a piece of the shaft sticking out the backside but the wheel is glued on and so I had no choice there. It still gave me the extra throw I needed for a smooth tail.


This is the cog for the training gear and a picture of the training gear installed. I bought 2 kits and it is a good thing because each kit comes with 4 shafts and balls so I scalped 2 from the extra kit. At $5.00 each it was no big loss. Got the 400-500 size training kits from deal extreme/extremely slow shipping ;D



When I put everything together I had put the esc under the frame. In order to put the training gear up a bit higher I ended up moving the esc to the side. It works ok but as soon as I am good enough to fly forward I will move it back underneath, just looks cleaner to me.


I had it out tonight for about 10 minutes before it got dark and it flys really smooth. After first power up there is a small vibration as everything spins up and smooths out but after that it is awesome. I am very pleased with the end result. This was way over my head when I started and I really took my time with it. I still can't land my Honey Bee without crashing but I can hover ok(until I lose it anyway ;D)

[Solitaire]

That's quite the training gear setup. I've not seen one with as many legs. Guaranteed not to tip over, I bet.

Glad to hear you got the tail working, finally. Funny how you can basically throw anything together for the rest of the heli, but a non-working tail just won't fly.

Ok, next stop...flying vids

[coffinsnail]

nice post, and nice heli, however not sure about that price, for that price id get a Trex lol but thats just me as i know nothing about the brand you bought, have never heard of them either... good luck on the rest of it when you finally get to that point.

actually it looks like he combined two trainers into one, i know mine has enough slots on it to do that, just dont have that many rods only came with 4.

[mtnmole]

I did use 2 extra rods and balls out of a second kit. I ordered 2 from Deal Extreme because I'm hard on the training gear and they were really cheap, just over $5.00 each. It works well for a nooby pilot like myself. This build was a bit pricey but for the amount I crash I couldn't afford the repairs on a 450 class all the time, $5-$6 per crash now, at the most, compared to the $20-$30 or more with a 450 class. I have a Blade 400 sitting here waiting for me when I do get figure 8's and fff down. As soon as I can hover a full battery without having to land because of loss of control I will start some ff and slow circles. I pretty much have tail in down below 6 feet and I am starting on doing left and right side hovers, but think maybe nose in would be easier. I also still lose it when it gets over my head, have a hard time keeping it level because the "plate" angle is different and my muscle memory is not there yet. Killed my Honey bee that way when it met a tree from 15 feet up and not worth the rebuild now.

[akent]

That's sounding good, Mtn!

Keep it up and you'll be there before you know it!

For me, it was just one day it snapped and made sense. I didn't have to think so much about flying. I tend to just look at the disc now and the whole heli instead of concentrating on the nose like I used to.

I can hover the 450 at several hundred feet up! If I lose orientation, I just move the controls a little and then depending on how it reacts, that gets my orientation back. It took quite a number of flights before that clicked.

Now, I STILL have some trouble with nose in. Sometimes it works great, and sometimes it doesn't and I get screwed up. Man, I can't wait for that to become automatic. When I get screwed up, I just zip the tail around and it's ok then.

I think the bottom line is to FLY! Fly, fly and fly some more! I think seat time is what gets us flying.

That's great having the Blade. Man, you're ready for it now, I think. You will be amazed at how much better a pilot you are with a CP heli!

Best,
Kent