The Cat's EXI 450SE

[akent]

Heehee!!!!
Yeah, those Alpha stickers aren't designed for rpm!
When the first one came loose and off, it scared the crud out of me too!

You're running the DX6i right? If so, then 25% is in rate mode. Above 50% is HH (Head Holding) mode. But 25% is a good gain for rate mode. I never fly in that mode, but lots of folks do.

What's kind of fun for noise is to take a thin piece of tape and let it hang off the trailing edge of the main rotor blade! LOTS OF NOISE!!!

I hope your CNC tail comes in SOON!

Best,
Kent

[BTCat]

Apr 26, 2009 18:37:54 GMT -6 akent said:

Heehee!!!!
Yeah, those Alpha stickers aren't designed for rpm!
When the first one came loose and off, it scared the crud out of me too!

You're running the DX6i right? If so, then 25% is in rate mode. Above 50% is HH (Head Holding) mode. But 25% is a good gain for rate mode. I never fly in that mode, but lots of folks do.

What's kind of fun for noise is to take a thin piece of tape and let it hang off the trailing edge of the main rotor blade! LOTS OF NOISE!!!

I hope your CNC tail comes in SOON!

Best,
Kent

Hey Kent, I thought you were heading east by now. I have spent some time in the Kola Peninsula, but never stopped in Norway. Wish I could have taken a day or two and checked out Oslo when I was making those trips. HATE the long flight, though.

Actually, I am running the Futaba 6EX (and love it, BTW. Easy to learn and setup). The gyro can be set from +100% to -100%. The HH is on the + side. I am running in HH most of the time with +25 giving best results and -25 when I am in mode.

I am ready for the CNC tail, however I am more ready to upgrade my battery and charger. This GE Power POS battery is 2200, but does not display the C rating. I suspect it is 15c or 20c. It gets warm after a run. It was free. Can't complain too much. ;D

Still can't believe how loud and ominous that label was

[Tony]

Great going on getting that thing together BT!!

I hope to join you this week. Just waiting on my Align hardware kit. Thanks again for the link.

[akent]

Oops, sorry BT.
I knew you were running the Futaba system. I just forgot...

I head east tomorrow for a couple of weeks in Norway. Hey, they had a major heat wave! It was 50F a couple of days ago. I haven't looked at the weather reports since.

Kola peninsula? In Russia? That must have been interesting!

Yeah, Oslo is interesting. There are lots of different folks there.
I was in Oslo last fall and there were a couple of girls walking around with heavy coats that were waist length. Then they had leggings up to about mid thigh. Then boots. The area between the bottom of the coat (waist) and the legging tops (mid thigh) was a tiny bikini!! That was COOL! And I'll bet it was COOL on their rear ends, too!

I am going to Stavanger this trip. Southwestern part of the country, right across from Scotland. The downtown area here is really nice. They even have a 'sh!t' store!! Everything in the store is covered in 'sh!t'!!!
It's actually the brand of a Norwegian skateboard, but they sell clothes that have 'sh!t' all over them! I wanted to buy a hat that said 'I (heart) Sh!t', but they were out of them my last trip. I did buy my wife a night shirt that just says 'sh!t' all over it!!! It is priceless! Most Norwegians have no clue what that means! But the store owner sure does!

Anyway, I leave tomorrow and will be unable to fly for a couple of weeks. I hope by then you get her dialed in, have already done FFF and are by then doing loops!!

Best,
Kent

[BTCat]

Murmansk, Lots of trips to Murmansk. Loved the adventure

[BTCat]

Got the CNC tail today. 14 days from Hong Kong. Not bad. Haven't put it on yet. The weather was too nice so I took the EXI out for it's first full flight outside. That thing flies great! I could almost trim it out to hover with no hands. A little more time and I think I could work it.

BTW, I am actually increasing my headspeed, rather than decreasing. The more speed I have as I come up on the pitch, the more stable it is. I am running an 11T pinion, but may try the 13T later.

Tony, you have to get yours up in the air. You will love it!

[ranben]

Congrats BT !!! Any forward flight involved or just hovering.?

Your right about how well these things fly. Quite a bit different than the old HB.......... ;D

I did the same mod on the plastic tail that you did. Put a screw into the side and used loc-tite. The tail hit the ground and broke at the end of the boom (actually spun it in half) but the screw held in place. I replace it with the CNC tail........lots of difference.

[Tony]

Just got my hardware kit today. I was waiting on that to really get started. I had a pretty productive night though. I took the frame completely apart (one side at a time) and went back with the allen screws, washers, and loctite. I cheated a little and installed my servos while I had the frame apart. It made things a lot easier. Anyway, I got the frame back together, centered the flybar to within .006" (I'd say that should be close enough) and got my TX programmed. I had to stop there to go have dinner with the in-laws (woohoo). Hope to finish up tomorrow night or Wednesday.

I still need to figure out where and how to mount the gyro and Rx. I wish I had ordered one of those gyro mounts like Sol has.

[BTCat]

Hey Ran,

I was out in my front yard yesterday. Not a lot of room to roam with that thing. But I did do some limited forward flight with what I had. I also played around with the trim to see if I could get a no hands hover. It will hover but drifts slowly to the side and back. I am more comfortable flying this than the HB. It is a whole lot less work and it stays where you put it.

Now if only I had that new battery ... Pulling the trigger on an order today.

[ranben]

Hey BT,

Thats great. You are about where I am in flying the 450. I have had mine for a while, but had trouble with it that made hovering a miserable experience. Now that everything has been corrected it's a hoot to fly. I have done a little forward flight, some side to side and tail in. My yard is too small and with only one battery its not worth driving to the field up the road for 6 minutes of flight. I am waiting on my batteries that I ordered last week. Cant wait to try this thing in a larger area.

[BTCat]

Got batteries on the way. Hopefully by the weekend.

BTW, I initially set my swashplate according to Finless, with limited movement for the noob. I found it to be pretty comfortable, but not as responsive as I wanted. I ended up ratcheting up the travel on the aileron and elevator another 5 to 10 percent. Worked better and responded great. I'll keep notching it up until I am used to the sensitivity.

Another thing is I have become a fan of headspeed. The more headspeed, the more stable it seems to be in a hover.

[BTCat]

I am officially calling this heli built, adjusted, field tested and approved.

I think I am going to try to clean up the first of this thread a little this weekend. Put the pics, final parts list and limited commentary at the beginning. Most of it is redundent from what Kiwi, Kent and others have already done, but it sound logical to kind of consolidate most of it for future referance.

I do love flying this thing! Flew through my only battery today in spite of the wind gusts trying to tempt fate. It changed altitude with the wind, but stayed level for the most part. Easy to fly after the HB experience. ;D

[Tony]

Finally got mine together too. It has been something of a chore though. I ended up finding a total of two screws missing from the frame and the main shaft was bent out of the box(luckily I had ordered some spares). I have some pretty bad vibration that appears to be coming from that POS plastic tail assembly. That thing has got to go. While looking that over tonight I noticed one of the tail blades is warped slightly which I am sure is causing the majority of the vibration.

On a brighter note, (even with the vibration) this thing is freakin AWSOME...and a little scary. ;D

[BTCat]

Apr 30, 2009 18:42:22 GMT -6 Tony said:

Finally got mine together too. It has been something of a chore though. I ended up finding a total of two screws missing from the frame and the main shaft was bent out of the box(luckily I had ordered some spares). I have some pretty bad vibration that appears to be coming from that POS plastic tail assembly. That thing has got to go. While looking that over tonight I noticed one of the tail blades is warped slightly which I am sure is causing the majority of the vibration.

On a brighter note, (even with the vibration) this thing is freakin AWSOME...and a little scary. ;D

Good Deal Tony! As far as the issues, my main shaft is a little off. Not enough to vibrate. The plastic tail blades are not exactly straight, either. I figured all that stuff will get replaced pretty soon anyway. I already installed the CNC tail. It is nice and smooth and I don't believe I will have any issues with it trying to turn like the plastic one.

Did you go through all the blade balancing stuff? I don't have a scale. I just used the method described by Finless to find center of gravity and then adjust balance using that inexpensive balancing tool. Tracking was very close to right after I got everything set up. I spent a lot of time tweaking the linkage adjustments. Never got it perfect, but pretty close.

I was at the LHS today. They fired up a nitro Align 700 outside and brought it to a hover. That was an impressive, expensive machine, but it still had a tail wag ;D

[Tony]

I used the Finless method to balance my blades too. I have a small scale but it is a POS from Harbor Freight. My blade tracking is dead on. It really looks like the vibration is coming from the tail. If I clamp down the heli to the table I can spin it up and put my hand on the skids and the vibration is barely noticable at the skids but the tail is shaking pretty bad.