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e-Electric General Discussion > DragonFly 4CH RTF Helicopter
 
 
dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Confidence in setup = confidence in flying?

This post could be viewed as an obvious one, but I believe that it is not understood by newbie pilots or sometimes may be overlooked by experienced flyers. Great flights with your model helicopter whether gas or electric really boils down to confidence; this comes with experience which helped in building skills where the skills gave you confidence. This is to be understood, but I believe that confidence in your helicopter's SETUP(mechanical/electrical/trim/balancing) will give you a degree of freedom in flight such that you may attempt manuevers that you otherwise may not have attempted before for fear of crashing. I know when my DragonFly was having problems with the mix gain for holding the tail straight, I was less confident at times when trying to manage tight manuevers in small spots that otherwise I know I could have pulled off if the electronics were working correctly. Electronics in a micro electric are really the achilles heal, they are so crucial to it's performance let alone getting the machine off of the ground. As time passes and you have become thoroughly familiar with all of the parts in your heli, how they go together, what they do and how they interact, how to fix/replace them, you start to build a level of confidence in the machine that you initially did not have. Couple this mechanical/electrical confidence with exposure to its ACTUAL flight performance(not a guesstimiate from some simulator) and you will find yourself considerably more relaxed at flying and will be able to pull of critical manuevers without crashing.........that is key.
05-02-2005 01:02 AM
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Neilius
Heliman
Location: Herts UK

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		does anyone know how to adjust the gyro sesitivity on this thing? its hunting like a basterd. There are two holes in the side of the reciever case, one with a blinking red light and one with a pot, ive adjusted the pot but found that to be for the on board Revo-mixing.... i may just open the thing up and see if its inside..

Neil
05-11-2005 09:52 PM
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jknoell
Senior Heliman
Location:

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		IIRC that one does not have any adjustable gyro setting.
05-12-2005 02:41 AM
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dragon-arrggghh
Heliman
Location: selby,north yorkshire england

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		dragonfly#4

hi can someone tell me if these little micro helis are supposed to be balanced, because mine wobbles like an egyptian belly dancer, i knew it would be hard to fly but it won't stop dancing around, even with only a small amount of throttle, i put a small white dot on to the rotor head and looked at it from above and when its turning it resembles a rounded triangle, surly this is not right, any suggestion please thanks ,bill
05-26-2005 09:18 PM
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jknoell
Senior Heliman
Location:

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Try tightening the blades a bit.
05-26-2005 11:16 PM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		And onward to technical...

And now for some gory details, I love details! The next several posts will contain some real details about how to set this little micro up with "separates" or a mixer board; that is, a 3-in-1 controller from GWS and the problems that I have encountered with them. I will also post some information about my experiences with this helicopter flying it outside and comparing the pros/cons of the original 4-in-1, all-in-one circuit board that Walkera makes to control this heli as compared to my "separates" setup...
05-29-2005 04:58 PM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		"W" squared; a day at the flying field...

My personal experiences with this helicopter has lead me to conclude two things about it, something that I call "W" squared or Wind and Weight. In my opinion, Wind and Weight or the flying weight of the helicopter are the two most important ENEMIES of this micro helicopter. I am sure "W" squared can be applied to ALL micro R/C helicopters, but I only have personal experience with the Walkera DragonFly Number 4, so I will be talking about "W" squared as applied to it. Recently I have found an almost perfect flying field that is very large, perfectly kept grass and only 3 minutes from my house by car door-to-door. I was thinking this is it, I got it made, I can fly anytime I want and it is so close and easy to get to from my home while it is positively HUGE for the Walkera to fly in. My initial expectations were correct and still true in theory, but not in practise with this micro helicopter. I took the helicopter, radio, batteries my 2 foot by 2 foot fiber board heli launching/landing pad and walked all the way out into the center of the field. Before I went to the field, I looked out the window of my house towards my back yard and noticed that there was only the slightest russle of leaves in the trees, it was a real nice day. I packed everything up in which the original somewhat hokey box that the kit comes in actually makes a really convienent carrying case for the flight battery packs, the helicopter, the transmitter, tools, manuals, etc... and headed out to my new flying field. At the field, as I previously mentioned, I setup the heli launching pad in the center of the field with the heli on it FACING the wind. The heli launching pad, in my opinion, is necessary since with sufficient tail rotor rotational rpm, the tail rotor may get damaged if it strikes a clump of grass in the field at lift-off speed. To my disappointment, the WOF or what I call, Wind Over the Field was considerably stronger then what I had noticed from my backyard, it was a steady stiff breeze probably in the 10+, may be 12 mph range, at this point, I knew instinctively that the wind was too strong for the Walkera to handle, but my curiosity was peaked, I wanted to see how the heli would perform anyway. I set everything up, did a pre-flight and was ready, I slowly brought the main rotor up, checked everything again and then pushed the throttle forward. The heli's motors came to life and it made that distinctive electric whisper sound that you hear in all the Internet videos with electric R/C helicopters, it sounded really nice. The heli left the launching pad and got about 1.5 feet into the air and then it started drifting back to me quickly, I was surprised as it "blew" past and behind me! Oh man, I was thinking, I lost this idiot thing already, luckily I regained control and was able to land in a RO(Reverse Orientation) back on the grass nicely, I was very lucky. I walked over, picked it back up and placed it back on the launching pad. I brought the rotors back up to lift-off speed, this time I held in fore cyclic while it gained some altitude. I was hovering now in front of me, however, I had NO ground speed at all; that is, while holding 1/4 fore cyclic stick position past center stick position all the Walkera could manage to do was to maintain a hover into the wind!! I tried some rolls left /right and ended up making a few rough landings to prevent it from being blown downfield. In almost all cases the heli would land and roll over onto its side since now I have been flying without the training gear. To my surprise again this knocked the flybar paddles around on the flybar!!!! I spent the previous night centering them! Of course I had no needle nose plyors to hold the hex nut down to realign and tighten them back up onto the flybar so I was forced to use my fingers. I got the thing back up in the air and was able to hover in front of me, that was it, if I tried a down wind turn the heli would have RACED down field and I would not have been able to recover it. After performing 6 hovers I landed it and was lucky that I did not break any parts! I packed up my equipment and headed home. At home I was thinking about how ABYSMAL the Walkera performed in those STIFF "breezes". It was basically almost unflyable and was not much fun at all to fly. In the manual that came with the kit they clearly indicate not to fly the helicopter in anything over a breeze, they are certainly correct! Using the stock physical setup; i.e., stock plastic main rotor blades, tail gear, tail blade, main motor, etc..., this helicopter will only really fly indoors, but if flying outdoors only in a dead calm. So, I have come up with what I call the 5 mph Rule; that is, sustained "winds" or "gusts" above 5 mph is a NO FLY for this fixed pitch, micro helicopter. Again, I have personally witnessed the first component of "W" squared with this helicopter; that is, Wind, wind will KILL the performance of this machine and if it is strong enough where it does not need to be that strong at all in the first place, will make the helicopter unflyable. This is unfortunate, since where I live most of the time there is almost always a 10+ mph wind after 9 AM everyday. I also, currently, have no large indoor area to fly so I am really stuck.
I was thinking that a more powerful main motor, a LiPO flight pack and fully symmetrical main rotor blades might help this helicopter out alot in battling surface winds, just how much I can only guess, can any one confirm my hunch? And now for the second component of "W" squared, the evil word known as weight! Weight would CERTAINLY help the helicopter in winds, but holding all other things constant in the helicopter's setup will DECREASE flight time at roughly 5 seconds for evey gram of flying weight. With my "separates" setup, which I will be getting to soon, I LOST 1 minute and 20 seconds of flight time over the original Walkera all-in-one circuit board since it is much lighter, that is why with my separates I have removed the training gear. With the training gear removed I am getting almost identical flight times to the original Walkera setup where the original Walkera setup had the training gear on while my current separates setup does not.
05-29-2005 05:53 PM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		DragonFly #4 under control by a GWS PHA-01 mixer board!

A very nice person donated to me a GWS PHA-01 mixer board and powerful brushed main motor for free when I was grounded while having problems with my "separates" setup. I was eager to get back up into the air since I do not currently own any other R/C helicopter and was grounded due to all sorts of "separates" problems and the associated initial steep learning curve that comes with it. I removed the "separates" from the helicopter except for the GWS naro 4 channel receiver since I would need this, because the GWS PHA-01 is a 3-in-1 controller board. A 3-in-1 controller board is simply a PCB(Printed Circuit Board) that contains a gyro, ESC's and a "mixer" or tail mixing kit to hold the tail in order to counteract main rotor torque. I was lucky since this board goes for about $46 new while the main motor is about $18 new; I got these for free and was eager to get back up flying. As a side note, I did not hook up the powerful main motor only the GWS PHA-01. I have heard horror stories about the PHA-01 in regards to overheating/burning out with 300 sized and above main motors like we fly in the Walkera #4. I followed the online message boards' prompts of placing the PHA-01 outside of the cabin, so I mounted mine using the mounting absorbtion foam on the left side of the heli if facing the rear of it, directly under the main rotor down wash as to cool it. I hooked up the wires and interfaced it with the GWS receiver and then set the gains on the mix and gyro. The first flight battery pack I spent trying to setup the correct "revo-mix" or revolutions mix to keep the tail straight at all main throttle settings and a decent amount of gyro gain to keep the tail steady under the relatively "huge" increase of torque(twisting force) caused from sudden throttle changes using the stock, high drag, high lift main rotor blades. Into the second stock 7 cell, 8.4 volt, NiMH, 700 MAh flight battery pack I was able to keep the tail straight at all throttle settings with the rudder trim tab dead center! I landed as the voltage ran down on the PHA-01 using the second flight pack and felt the tail motor.......it was HOT! I then proceeded to feel the outside case of the PHA-01 and to my suprise it was very warm. I was a bit surprised and annoyed at just how hot these components were after 9 1/2 minutes of the motors being run, they were too warm for my liking since I know that excess heat will make the tiny little DC brushes in the tail motor weaker and more susceptible to damaging voltage spikes that plague these DC tail motor powered R/C helicopters. Here's what I did to combat the heat problem, I took a a full body tail motor heat sink and placed this onto the Colco tail motor, yes a Colco Thunderbird tail motor, NOT a DragonFly #4 tail motor, they are cheap and burn right out, the Colco tail motor is FAR superior to it. Then I got the idea to take a razor blade and cut the outside plastic casing that surrounds the PHA-01 in strategic areas; that is, I cut a slot in the top and the bottom of the plastic casing so that the rotor down wash would "blast-through" between the plastic housing and the PHA-01 circuit board taking heat from the PHA-01 and venting it out through the bottom of the enclosure. I charged up a third stock flight pack and was eager to find out if my hunches were correct. The helicopter flew as normal and after about an 8+ minute long hover and 1 1/2 minutes of running the motors on the ground to drain the flight pack down I was extremely surprised to find out that the PHA-01 enclosure was COOL to the touch after almost 10 minutes of current running through it and the Colco tail motor/heat sink combination was only warm and NOT hot at all as before. I performed several other flight tests and in every single case the new cooling setup worked, the tail motor and PHA-01 ran significantly cooler than before. I have to admit, the PHA-01 was FAR simpler to setup than my current "separates" setup was, but it does have one annoying attribute. As flight pack voltage runs down after several minutes of flying, there is a nose drift tendency, simply put, as the voltage runs down on the flight pack from sustained usage, I have to INCREASE right yaw trim while flying to help keep the nose and tail pointed straight. This problem really becomes apparent when the heli only has about another 45 seconds of flight time. This problem starts to manifest itself at about 40% of the way through the flight and was witnessed by me all the way from the very first time I flew the PHA-01. All in all, the PHA-01 is ok and did not burn out for me even when flying an RK-370SD main motor. I have a documented 17 flights on it and the same Colco tail motor where the Colco tail motor was still going strong after the 17th flight with the GWS PHA-01. If any of you intend to fly the Walkera DragonFly #4 using a GWS PHA-01 mixer board and need some ideas on how to set it up correctly, go here: http://www.gws.com.tw/english/produ...ragonfly300.htm As an interesting side note, GWS has finally delivered on the promise of providing a low cost, mixer board capable of handling more current than the PHA-01 on 300+ sized main motor setups, there is information about it here: http://www.gws.com.tw/english/produ...uit/pha-300.htm
05-29-2005 06:45 PM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Current flying setup = "separates"...

I think alot of hype is made about "separates". Separates are just that, separate components hooked up/configured together to allow the helicopter to fly. I know when I first started with this helicopter I was flying with the stock Walkera all-in-one circuit board which, unfortunately, burned out for me about 25 flights out from when I first bought the kit. The stock Walkera all-in-one circuit board is very small, very light, has a good gyro in it believe it or not, has poor handling of tail motor brushes; i.e., damages the tiny DC brushes in the cheaper tail motors fairly quickly using the stock main blades and tail rotor assembly and is extremely easy to setup.........there is no setup, only trim on the radio transmitter The Walkera all-in-one circuit board is a 4-in-1 board meaning that it contains an ESC for both the main and tail motors, an integrated "rate gain", but with no directly accessible adjustable gain, Gyro, a 4 channel receiver and a "mix" circuit for mixing the main and tail motor signals so as to counteract main rotor torque via the tail motor/rotor. The separates that now fly my helicopter were a nightmare to get working properly to be honest. After I made up my mind to get back on track with trying to get the separates working I decided to remove and "moth ball" the GWS PHA-01 mixer board and the 17 flight, battle tested Colco Thunderbird tail motor and place these in storage. I arrived at the decision to remove the GWS PHA-01 when I learned enough about how to get the separates "talking" together such that, I could count on them to reliably and consistently control my R/C helicopter.


[Current flying setup with "separates"]
* stock RK370SD main motor with 10 tooth pinion and full heat sink
* stock Walkera main gear used to drive the main rotor
* stock Walkera plastic main rotor blades
* stock Walkera CF(Carbon Fiber) flybar and stock plastic flybar paddles
* Colco Thunderbird tail motor with full heat sink(tail motor has considerably more
robust DC brushes than the stock/replacement Walkera tail motor)
* E-Sky HoneyBee FP tail rotor(stronger rotor hub than stock Walkera one)
* stock Walkera tail rotor drive gear and drive shaft
* stock 7 Cell, 8.4 volt, NiMH, 700 MAh flight battery packs
* GWS ICS-300 main motor ESC
* GWS Naro 4 channel receiver
* GWS GWT-4A II 4 CH FM transmitter
* GWS PG-03 rate gain piezo gyro
* Dionysus Design TREC(Tail Rotor Electronic Control) tail motor ESC with
mix kit and Version 6.1 firmware loaded
* stock Walkera NS-01 cyclic control servos
* the rest of the physical setup is from Walkera and is built like a tank relatively
speaking

The GWS ICS-300 main motor ESC, GWS Naro 4 channel receiver, GWS PG-03 rate gain piezo gyro and Dionysus Design TREC(Tail Rotor Electronic Control) working together have to do the SAME job that the little, lowly, stock Walkera all-in-one(4-in-1) circuit board does!

In my next post I will be talking about T.R.E.C and my current setup parameters with it!
05-30-2005 03:30 AM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Calling all T.R.E.C users!

I know I can't be the only one that flies this stupid little helicopter with a T.R.E.C(Tail Rotor Electronic Controller) tail motor ESC/mix system???? Well any way, the reason I went to separates in the first place was to try and eliminate the tail motor burn out problem. This was out of hand and was starting to get really annoying, besides my stock Walkera all-in-one, 4-in-1 controller fried and I had nothing to fly the helicopter with. If you are not familiar with TREC, I suggest you check it out here: http://www.dionysusdesign.com. The people at Dionysus Design are really great, they make a good product and are willing to support it, something I can not say for Walkera, may be they will change in the future. Now, the reason for TREC was simply this, its potential at running at a blazing 78.125 KHz output frequency, the typical output frequency for a brushed ESC is about 2.88 KHz which is way too low on small metal contacts inside the tail motors that run these helicopters. If you are going to fly this helicopter with stock main rotor blades, stock tail motor/rotor, you will be going through tail motors. TREC's high operating frequency and adjustable throttle curve/mix gain coupled with the Colco Thunderbird tail motor have made all the difference. At the time of this writing, I have documented a full 40 flights of TREC and a Colco Thunderbird tail motor where the Colco tail motor was brand new when first setup with TREC. The Colco tail motor is still going strong, I have never been able to duplicate this with the stock Walkera setup.


[For TREC users only]
NOTE: The reason I posted my helicopter's setup in the last post was to make known the physical setup of it; i.e., the stock high lift, high drag, high torque main rotor blades, basically stock tail motor and rotor etc... all of these and more play a significant part in determining the setup of TREC; mix gain(s), throttle curve, Start/End points etc...

[TREC setup]
*Throttle curve points, 17 of them from left to right; 0,0,0,107,131,152,169,184,197,208,217,225,232,239,245,250,255. You will notice that this is the default throttle curve for firmware versions 5 and up except for the third point, in the default throttle curve this is 65, I changed this to 0 to prevent the tail rotor from spinning before the main rotor starts spinning where the main rotor is under the control of: a GWS ICS-300 main motor ESC, a GWS Naro 4 Channel receiver and a GWS GWT-4A II 4 channel FM transmitter.

*TREC tail motor operating frequency: 78.125 KHz. I set this as high as possible to provide the smoothest voltages to those tiny little tail motor brushes so as to reduce the damaging effects of voltage spikes

*Start/End points: 1.100/1.900 ms Works just fine with my GWS radio gear believe it or not

*Input averaging: NONE. Do not enable this on a fixed pitch tail rotor setup since we need TREC to respond as fast as possible to main motor signal changes(throttle changes) since a fixed pitch is usually slower in responding to
main motor changes than a variable pitch one. Input averaging will reduce hunting if it exists though in theory.

*Falling Voltage compensation: Not enabled. This is a tricky one, according to TREC's help file this would be used on 75% throttle curves usually when a "high voltage" LiPO flight pack is used and the curve is too low when flight pack voltage runs down to maintain the correct revo-mix. The falling voltage compensation raises the throttle curve in increments over a period of time to compensate. I had this working somewhat on a 72% throttle curve that I was originally working with. The falling voltage compensation was just too much and would drift the nose to the RIGHT if facing the rear of the helicopter as the flight progressed.

*Mix gains: 1 cell LiPO count=104, 2 cell LiPO count=104 and 3 cell LiPO count=85, I ignored the 4 cell LiPO count.

*Version 6.1 firmware! In my personal experiences with TREC, I would avoid version 5 firmware, I do not believe that it is available for download anymore. Version 5 firmware would turn the tail motor off in flight for a few seconds or while on the ground and the heli would spin out of control. I tried version 3 firmware and it on occassion would "flip out" on me doing brief erradicate things. The other thing to note about version 3 firmware that I noticed on my setup was that the tail motor would hunt holding all other things constant which I initially thought was the GWS PG-03 gyro since it would react negatively to the hunting. Version 6.1 firmware is almost flawless, the tail motor does not hunt almost at all, it runs very smoothly and there is no detectable erradic behavior in the system.

*Motor shutdown: Not enabled This should be obvious, you do not want the tail motor shutting down before the main rotor does

*Cutoff voltage: Cut off voltage is enabled at 5.22 volts The 5.22 volts seems to be a "sweet spot" in the setup where the main rotor will shut down before the tail rotor does when the battery pack dies and then the tail motor soon afterwards.

*Safe Start: Enabled I have this enabled since I do not want the tail motor and the rest of the system from starting when I first plug in the flight pack battery. Holding the rudder transmitter stick full left for over 1 second will disable Safe Start effectively "arming" the system.

*Auto adjust on the number of LiPO cells for voltage monitoring: Not enabled I am currently not flying with LiPO battery packs since I do not want to burn my house down yet...

*LED light: Enabled Nice visual queues feature if you are not flying with a LiPO alarm/speaker

TREC NOTES: It seems that I have to fly the Default Throttle curve on my stock heli, the 72% high throttle curve would work at up to a thigh high hover; that is, it would keep the nose straight, applying more main motor throttle would turn the nose left as the heli rose to head high, not even FULL right rudder would compensate and as such the revo-mix was too low. As a side note, this "low" throttle curve really ran the Colco tail motor cool, it was basically room temperature after flight not even being heat sinked. With the stock, plastic, Walkera, high-drag, high-lift rotor blades and the "weak" geared Colco Thunderbird tail motor, the 72% throttle curve just could not combat the ridiculous amount of torque generated by the stock main blades coupled with the relatively week tail motor/gear combination. Another interesting thing that I noticed with the stock, 7 cell, 8.4 volt, 700 MAh, NiMH flight battery packs is that TREC will see the voltage as 10.12 volts with a fully charged pack! Hmmmm...so much for 8.4 volts. What this does is somewhat tricky in the implementation. When TREC is first fired up on one of these fully charged stock packs, TREC will see the LiPO cell count as 3, NOT 2, this means that the mix gains have to be properly set for a 3 cell count as well as a 2 cell count. When TREC disables the Safe Start, the red LED light will flash 3 times indicating a 3 cell LiPO count, TREC automatically determines this. After I takeoff and maintain a waist high hover for about 45 seconds, the LiPO cell count will be deduced by TREC as 2 from the initial value of 3. So, there is a "transition" in flight.

*PG-03 gyro setup: Red/Green lights both on if the helicopter is completely stationary with FULL gain set. The Walkera's stock blades generate so much torque with sudden throttle changes that I decided to go from my initial setup value of the 12 O'clock position to the 2 O'clock or maximum gain setting. This really helps big time in keeping the nose straight even with sudden throttle changes, where before, the nose would swing left at up to a 45 degree angle where I would need to correct for this. The noticeable downside though is reduced yaw rates for 360's.

*Rudder trim tab on transmitter: DEAD center With all of the above settings on my helicopter and accounting for the physical setup of it, this will keep the nose straight almost all of the way down until the heli is stuck deep within GE.

*Placed the GWS ICS-300 main motor ESC inside the Walkera box that housed the old 4-in-1 controller

*Placed the GWS PG-03 gyro on the left side of the Walkera 4-in-1 box

*Placed TREC on the right side of the Walkera 4-in-1 box

*Placed the GWS receiver on the right side of the heli right behind one of the
cyclic control servos

Left/right are viewed as from the tail of the helicopter

[Thoughts]
If you guys fly with a TREC, let me know what you use in settings since TREC was the most difficult part of the system to get working. It is a very powerful device with many advanced features and is really not for a complete beginner unless you can get some help with it. I am sure that there could be more fine tuning to TREC with my current flying setup...
05-31-2005 03:13 AM
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6bucks
Heliman
Location: Oxnard, CA

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Thanks Dragon_not_fly for the excellent post. I'm new to the heli hobby but have been flying planks for over 20 years. Always wanted to do heli's but the costs were prohibitive. I finally wore my wife down and bought a Thunderbird 2. Still waiting delivery and in the mean time found this site and have been reading for days. I wish I would have found it sooner as there are some helis in the classifieds that I most likely would have purchased instead of the Thunderbird.

I'm probably going to be having the same problems you've encountered so it was great to read your post with all it's suggestions....thanks!

My wifes intital comments were "Is it going to be like your planes where your buying parts all the time?" No honey..this has everything.
But then I got busted having bought another $75 worth of spare parts and batteries. *sigh*

I sure hope this thing flies.
06-10-2005 04:20 PM
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birdflyer
Heliman
Location: San Diego, CA

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		GWS Dragonfly

Ok Im back on the boards again! wow its been so long sice I have posted anything here Im a field rep for a major GWS dealer in CA so I have been flying planes for the last couple years and My helicopters just sat here collecting dust. I have been flying a stock GWS EM150 helicopter and I thing GWS is doing a good job with there basic kits and since you can get a complete kit now for around $200.00 more and more people are taking up this great Hobby!

Im going to be building a complete EM150 next week so I will post a box to hover report showing there kit!

I see small people
06-11-2005 06:59 AM
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parkguy
Senior Heliman
Location: San Diego CA

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		GWS EM 150 Dragonfly

Ok I Posted under the wrong user info!

I will be building a complete GWS emi50 kit using All GWS gear as a complete combo, I will post information on the helicopter and post pictures as I do my setup and flying.

Please visit my main page www.electricmicro.com for more information about the GWS dragonfly

Its good to be back on the boards!
06-12-2005 03:56 AM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		6bucks fly that Colco Thunderbird!

6bucks, good to see your post. When I was younger, I used to fly gas powered airplanes, they were a ton of fun, I too, always wanted to fly a heli after that, but was unable to do so, because of the huge cost, this was in the late 80's. As far as the Colco Thunderbird II is concerned, I have no experience with it myself, but as best as I can tell, it looks to be a complete rip off of the GWS DragonFly micro electric helicopter. I am not sure about the transmitter, however. I have seen a few posts in the past with some flyers that have purchased this helicopter and the one common complaint that I saw was a lack of take off power due usually to main rotor blade incidence(pitch or angle of attack being too low) or flybar paddle problems. It should get the job done, I believe that you made the right choice in buying it since it is CHEAP to fix, fixed pitch, in which the fixed pitch rotor assembly is far simpler, less costly to maintain/fix/setup and harder to fly than a collective pitch helicopter. You might be asking what is the merit of having a harder to fly helicopter........in my opinion, if you can fly these little skittish micro helis WELL in ALL attitudes, then you can fly just about any other r/c heli including the collective(variable pitch main rotor blade) ones, this of course does not mean you could do "3D" flight right off the bat. The advantage of these micro helis, particulary, the fixed pitch ones is that they can take a BEATING to their rotor assemblys while you are trying to learn how to fly it. Keep at it, I knew NOTHING about r/c helicopters 6 months ago and now with my Walkera DragonFly #4 I can do forward flight, turns, 360's, nose in hovers(I can hover a pack down now), figure eights, and fly between door ways. Let me know how you make out with that heli, I always liked how the Colco Thunderbird looked, especially with the all black canopy.
06-15-2005 02:39 AM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Tail Motor Problems Take 2

Have you noticed a common thread to all of my babbling? I have two words for you regarding this, TAIL MOTOR. I am sure most of you reading this long and at times technical post fly twin rotor, twin motor r/c electric helicopters. We are interested in flying r/c electric helicopters, particulary, electric micro ones, right!? The vast majority of these have two D/C motors to power/control them, one main to lift the little devil off of the ground and another as a torque cancellation/control system(tail motor). Flying ANY of these micro electric helis that have two motors using the stock electronics in them will cause the tail motor to wear out, lose power or just flat out burn out after several flights, especially if flying with 3 cell LiPO packs. A 3 Cell LiPO pack is MURDER on these cheaply made, 7.2 volt typically, D/C brushed tail motors when flying with the stock electronics. As I mentioned before, most of the stock electronics just do NOT provide a high enough tail motor operating frequency to reduce the effects of voltage spikes/arcs with the digital output. I know what you are thinking, some of you might be saying, so what?!?!; I can always replace the tail motor with a new one right??!! You are correct, you can replace a tail motor with a brand new one.....the question you should have been asking yourself is at what INTERVAL will I need to replace the failed/worn out tail motor with a brand new one....

[Tail motor wear out/cost cycle in a typical stock setup illustrative example]
Helicopter = Walkera DragonFly #4 with a complete stock setup
Tail motor cost = $7(illustrative purposes)
Tail motor failure = on average 5-7 flights we'll be generous and say 16 flights

[Flying frequency]
8 flights per week * 52 weeks per year = 416 flights per year

416 flights per year / 16 flights per tail motor = 26 tail motors required to generate this many of flights

26 tail motors * $7.00 per tail motor = $182 per year excluding shipping/handling
for a "stock" of tail motors

If the tail motor only lasts for 10 flights before burning out, the total cost will be
$287!!!!! holding all other things constant from the previous example.

Personally, I generate about 10 flights per week and at the time of this post have 62 flights on the same Colco Thunderbird II tail motor using my setup as fully detailed in a previous post. I have to admit, I believe the motor is starting to go and will probably wear out at flight number 70 on it; that's 70 flights on the same tail motor which costed me $6.00.

I have been reading and have asked a few questions on posts regarding the Blade CP and ESky HoneyBee 2 CP micro electric helicopters and here is what they had to say, "Range is anywhere form 3 to 30+ flights" on the ESky HoneyBee 2 CP heli and for the Blade CP without a tail motor heat sink, a 3 Cell LiPO main battery and flying aerobatics, the user was averaging 8 flights on the tail motor before it would burn out. At the time of writing this post, the N30 D/C brushed tail motor that powers both the Blade CP and ESky HoneyBee 2 CP helicopters is about $10 PER tail motor. Again, both helicopters were being flown with stock electronics typically. Using the prior tail motor wear out/cost cycle example, this would generate an annual cost of $270 for 27 tail motors at 15 flights per tail motor with an annual number of flights of 416. People, this is unacceptable, these helicopters, in my opinion, are flawed and the engineers that design them need to rethink tail motor construction and onboard electronics characteristics.

[Possible tail motor burn out reasons]
We(Engineers/manufacturers) do not want them(us/purchasers) to know that we know that they know that we know(of the tail motor burn out problem).

Selling replacement tail motors is just too profitable

Too costly to redesign the electronics and/or tail motors for longer longevity

Techincal considerations concerning the pitch of the stock main blades and their typical low head speed operation, the pitch of the tail rotor and overall weight along with other aspects

Manufacturers just don't care about the tail motor burn out problem and just accept this as a facet of flying these machines

And I am sure that there are other possible reasons that I have not stated...

[Conclusion]
I hope, if anything, that I got your brains going in trying to come up with ideas on how to fix D/C brushed tail motors, find places to purchase just motor caps/brushes instead of complete tail motors, cheap brushless setups(an unlikely scenario) and/or raised awareness of this problem. I hope you do not come away from this and just shrug this off and think/act that this is just the "cost" of flying these micro electric helicopters.
06-15-2005 03:43 AM
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6bucks
Heliman
Location: Oxnard, CA

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Well, spent about an hour today on my Thunderbird 2 that came. I was dissapointed because the name on the box is Cyclone but it looks like the Thunderbird picture. Balanced the blades and set the paddles best I could and did all the checks in the manual. I couldn't get the training gear installed correctly because of these strengthening tabs on the landing skids. I'm going to have to carve off about 1/8" to get them to fit. Set it on the floor and ran it up to where it was skittling across the floor. Lots of vibration that I'm going to have to get squared away. Hopefully after reading Dragon_not_fly's posts I can get most of the bugs worked out before trying to get it off the ground. Looks like it will have plenty of power though. I was glad to see there were heat sinks on both the main and tail motors. I really need to spend more time on G2 before I'm brave enough to actually lift it off. Does seem pretty sturdy though even though it shakes a bit.

We'll see if I can really get this thing in the air.

....and keep the post coming Dragon. I'm soaking this all up.
06-15-2005 04:05 AM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		great site parkguy

Hey parkguy, didn't you have your site(www.electricmicro.com) initially for the Century Humingbird? I loved your site's pictures and videos of those Hummingbirds. What happened, why GWS?
06-17-2005 01:30 AM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		6bucks -- Thunderbird hovers are coming soon

6bucks, at least I know this advice works with my Walkera #4, make sure that the rotor blades are either perpendicular to the flybar or offset at the same angle from the flybar with each rotor blade securing screw/bolt tightened at the same torque tightness with the screws/bolts being tight, not loose. When I started flying(crashing) my Walkera #4, I had to fly in a 7 foot by 7 foot wide space in my garage. I just went for it; that is, I "popped" the heli off of the ground and tried to keep the heli in the air as long as possible, if I started losing control I would just chop the throttle. This caused the heli to come crashing down onto the concrete floor. To eliminate the effects of the rock hard landing surface, I put a large blanket down so that when I had to kill the throttle, it wouldn't have such a hard surface to impact upon. Make sure that your first flights have training gear on, any tip overs(easy to do as a novice) will more then likely result in broken flybars. As you progress with the helicopter to the point where you find that the training gear are no longer necessary, take them off, you will find two benefits for doing so, the first one being greater STABILITY in the hover and less "penduluum-effect" as I call it and longer run times due to less weight and drag if doing forward flight. 6bucks, watch out for the "penduluum-effect" or marble in a glass bowl effect that these micro helis are infamous for, if youu are not careful it will fly out of its hover zone and smack into a wall or something. Make SURE to give yourself as much room as possible for those first few hovers, don't try the stupid small hover space that I was stuck with. Remember, for the first few flights and at least until you can yaw the nose around, FLY the NOSE of the helicopter and keep the tail as I say; that is, to yaw the helicopter, watch the nose, NEVER the tail, but make sure to keep the tail facing you at all times for AWHILE...trust me on this. Let me know if you need any help.
06-17-2005 01:44 AM
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dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Tail Motor Problems Take 3

Could it be, I know what you are saying, more to say about tail motors....you bet. In this blog or post I am going to illustrate a possible modification to my helicopter that I have been toying with for some time, something that could take it to the next level and a few beyond that. Talk is cheap, it's the details that are important, below is what I have been toying with.

[Possible future mod]
QTY 1 Futaba 7CHP 7-Channel Computer Helicopter Radio
retailing at the time of this post at $170
QTY 1 Castle Creations Phoenix 10 brushless speed controller
retailing at the time of this post at $55
(used to control the Feigao 12mm brushless tail motor)
QTY 1 Feigao 12mm brushless tail motor
retailing at the time of this post at $40

Total: $265(without shipping/handling/props/mounts)

[Why]
In theory, no more tail motor burn out problem. Huge advantage of going from a simple, non-computer 4 channel airplane radio(GWS GWT-4A II) to a 7 channel computer radio that does almost all collective pitch mixes while also having built-in revo-mix functionality...hint hint, replacement for T.R.E.C(Tail Rotor Electronic Controller) where the 7 channel Futaba radio also has a 10, yes a 10 model customization memory. Simply put, 1 transmitter can control 10 different models.

[Relative cost to current setup]
Assuming that I can consistently hit 70 flights per Colco Thunderbird II tail motor and at $6.00 per tail motor with 416 flights per year, the total cost would be: $30(without shipping/handling) or 5 Colco Thunderbird II tail motors required to generate a total of 416 flights. This is: $235 LESS than the proposed brushless modification. One could argue that , the real cost would be: $95 or the cost of the Feigao tail motor and the Castle Creations brushless ESC, however, without a tail-lock or HH(Heading Hold) gyro, there is no way to keep the tail straight with my current setup, so, in theory, I could purchase JUST the brushless tail motor and brushless tail motor ESC, but I would need to buy a ~$100 HH gyro. The huge, compelling advantage over the cost of the 7 channel Futaba radio is its longevity; that is, its usefullness in the future, particulary if I were to go to a collective rotor head setup.

[Dream micro helicopter(current version)]
QTY 1 Barebones Esky HoneyBee 2 CP V2 helicopter
retailing at the time of this post at $75
QTY 1 Futaba 7CHP 7-Channel Computer Helicopter Radio
retailing at the time of this post at $170
QTY 1 Castle Creations Phoenix 10 brushless speed controller
retailing at the time of this post at $55
(used to control the Feigao 12mm brushless tail motor)
QTY 1 Feigao 12mm brushless tail motor
retailing at the time of this post at $40

[Why]
No more tail motor burn out problem in theory, awesome transmitter, it's Futaba, you know it's good, good micro electric helicopter with decent performance in the wind(from what I have been reading) and good advanced sport flying capabilities; i.e., flying inverted, barrel rolls, loops etc..., cheap/simple design on the helicopter, easy to repair and cheap to fix compared with other CP electric helicopters.

[Conclusion]
All theory, no real hard facts...yet. Can anyone confirm my hunches?
06-17-2005 02:54 AM
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6bucks
Heliman
Location: Oxnard, CA

My Posts This: Topic  Forum		Thanks Dragon for all your help. I actually got to fly it for a whole 30 seconds.

Then this.... http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/t184759p1/

I'm bummed.
06-17-2005 03:35 AM
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