The Cat's EXI 450SE

[Solitaire]

The default settings on these things will work fine to start out. IE no programming necessary to get started, but there's a couple of items that I usually do.

Battery protection. This will be battery drain and how far the voltage should drop before cutout. The settings on the Volcano and Pentium are 2.6v, 2.8v and 3.1v. I always choose 3.1, the highest, just in case.
Normally you won't let it go that low and you certainly don't want the heli to suddenly drop out of the sky, but IF there is a time where you lose track, at least the battery won't be too far discharged. Just a personal preference. That would probably equate to "light" on the Ace.

The other setting that a lot of flyers use is "soft start" (on the Volcano and Pentium). I suppose this will equate to "motor timing" on the Ace. I'm not sure how the "auto" feature works on that. I guess you'll be the first one to tell us.

[BTCat]

I'm going to switch the motor to either standard or low. I don't care to be the Guinea pig on anything that costs $$$.

Sol, you are right about the "light" being the highest voltage. My options are light @ 3.2v, standard @ 2.9 and heavy @2.6 as well as a NiMh and NiCd setting @ 5v. You are right about the over discharge. I will switch this to "light" as soon as I figure out everything.

[BTCat]

Okay, so I laid out all the electronics I currently have and hooked them up. I hooked up the ESC, RX, Motor and battery. Binding the Futaba RX was easy. One button on the RX starts the process.

After I did that, I had to reverse the throttle. I played around with the Futaba 6EX and adjusted several things. It is very easy to program. The manual gives good step-by-step.

I used the TX to program the ACE ESC. With the motor hooked up, but not on the heli, it worked easily and I felt much better about doing it this way rather than after the motor was mounted. I set the battery protection to "light" and the motor timing to "standard".

I couldn't resist throttling up. That 400 has a lot of torque. Already love the sound, even without a blade ;D

I also hooked up my gyro and tested it. It seems to be very sensitive. The Futaba receiver gives me some room to adjust as well as the pots on the gyro. I'll mess with that later.

Below is a pic of my "bench" adjustment setup.

[Solitaire]

Yeah, that's certainly a safe way to setup the ESC. Unfortunately, my ESC came after the motor and I guess I'll have to "risk" it as I'm not taking off the motor again. It's adjusted just right and the bolts are loctited in place. I'll just leave the blades off when I set it up.

I see your ESC has two-stage battery protection. That's a cool idea.

[BTCat]

After looking at Sol's pics in another thread, I found a spacer to use so I could mount my gyro right under the tail holder. Still trying to decide about the ESC and RX. Probably the RX will go right under the gyro.

The spacer is actually a plastic cable tie down dremeled to size.

[Solitaire]

Whoa, nice mod BT. Looks like the Rx will fit nicely under the gyro. Crap, I could have saved myself $14

Well done.

[ranben]

Cool Stuff there BT.

Get Er Done !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Solitaire]

BT, is there enough room for the tail servo horn to travel it's full distance with your mod in place?

[akent]

THAT'S AWESOME!!!!!

It looks from the side to be an adhesive backed tie wrap holder, you know the thing you stick to the side of a chassis to tie wrap a lot of wires together with, likely made by Panduit??
Who'd a thunk that!
Is that what it is?

Very cool!
Kent

[akent]

Apr 13, 2009 19:42:26 GMT -6 Solitaire said:

BT, is there enough room for the tail servo horn to travel it's full distance with your mod in place?

Sol, these Exi's have a super long tail servo rod. It is way longer than even the Squadron's. While I have not looked, I'll bet they are way longer than a standard Trex rod, too. If you have a problem with throw, I'm willing to bet that getting a regular Trex rod would fix that issue.

That said, I want to try the carbon fiber tail servo mod one of these days that I think Finless Bob came up with. You just use a fairly thick hollow CF rod with some off the shelf ends and it is really strong and stiff. I guess a bunch of the 3d competitors do this. Then you can remove all of these funky servo rod guide parts that move all the time and cause binding. With this, you can also mount your tail servo in virtually any orientation.
I just need to figure out what rod and what ends are the best to use there, unless of course you would like to research this too, Sol! It should be a cheap and very worthwhile mod.

Best,
Kent

[akent]

I did notice that BT's getting pretty on us.....

Curly cued wires?

Hey man, just kidding!!

A tutorial on how to make pretty wires would be awesome. I guess you wrap em around the nearest telephone pole?

[Solitaire]

Kent

Actually my tail servo rod is just about the right length. I won't know until my radio gets here to center the servo, but the mount is right up (within a couple of mm) to the boom mount. Just where I want it.

My question was to BT. It looked like his tail servo horn was really close to his gyro mod and just wanted to give him a heads up on possible binding.

I will research the CF route though. I think some of the 450's use a 3mm CF rod. Just need to check the lengths.

[BTCat]

I like the look of Sol's bracket better, but this was in the garage. There is enough room for the servo travel, however I did have to trim the arm a little. The rod is quite a bit longer than the T-rex rod, from what I can tell. I am tempted to change it. Probably will later. It is very close to being too long.

Yes, I curled my wires for the heluvit. You got a problem with that Just kidding. ;D Wrapped them around a CF rod. What can I say. I'm bored and don't have my other servos yet. Also still need my 11T pinion.

Getting closer to flying AND closer to crashing

[BTCat]

Apr 13, 2009 19:54:39 GMT -6 akent said:

THAT'S AWESOME!!!!!

It looks from the side to be an adhesive backed tie wrap holder, you know the thing you stick to the side of a chassis to tie wrap a lot of wires together with, likely made by Panduit??
Who'd a thunk that!
Is that what it is?

Very cool!
Kent

That's what it is. Its bigger and heavier than the automotive one. My wife picked up a variety pack of these at Ikea (I hate that store). I would imagine Home Depot has simular ones.

[Solitaire]

You may like the look of my bracket better, BT, but dammit yours works better.

The curly wires is a nice touch...don't listen to Kent ;D