dragon_not_fly
Heliman
Location: US
My Posts This: Topic Forum | The devil is in the short connectors??Well, it has been awhile since my last post, but I am
sure you will not be dissappointed with what I have
found with my new setup. The part that I am talking
about in this post is: `004 SHORT CONNECTOR'
as listed in the Walkera #4's manual.
[Current flying setup]
* GWS PG-03 rate/gain gyro
* GWS ICS-300 brushed main motor ESC
* 10 toothed RK-370SD brushed main motor
without a heatsink to save weight
* QTY = 2(HiTEC HS-55 economy sub-micro servos)
* Castle Creations Phoenix-10 brushless tail motor ESC
* Feigao brushless 12mm "gold can" tail motor
* GWS 4530 tail rotor used as a DIRECT DRIVE setup
* Great Planes Electrify 8-cell 9.6 volt 650 MAh NiMH
flight battery pack
* HiTEC Electron 6 micro 6 channel FM(negative shift)
receiver
* Futaba T7CHP computer helicopter radio transmitter
* Physical structure of helicopter all stock, the entire
structure was purchased from rc-expert.com and was
the "bare bones" Walkera #4 DragonFly helicopter; no
servos, mixer board etc...
NOTE: If you have read this entire long winded post that
I have started, you may have noticed that my setup used to
contain a GWS Pico 4 channel FM receiver, do you notice
how it is no longer listed in my current flying setup....?; more
on this later.
Getting back to the post subject of, "The devil is in the
short connectors", to make a long story short, I was flying
on a windy day and had "glitches" in the setup and was
close to trees so I had to set down fast, unfortunately, the
heli tipped over as the blades still had sufficient RPM to break
off one of the ball joints on the rotor head. This rotor head
came with the "bare bones" kit and had a "flat head" as
opposed to the "round" older style Walkera rotor heads used
to have. Since I had no other rotor heads laying around, I
placed in the older style "round" topped head and snapped it
into place. When I went flying I was surprised to find that
after about 4 flights outdoors I could barely maintain a nose
in hover, it was almost impossible, while it was also very
difficult to maintain any kind of stable hover or symmetric turns.
I did not pay attention to it too much since, I was busy con-
centrating on the wind conditions, severe radio glitches at
times and short flight times; more on these later. I remem-
bered one night as I was working on the heli of this problem,
so, this time, not to forget, I removed the short connectors that
came with the "bare bones" kit and placed in the ORIGINAL
short connectors that came with my kit that I snapped onto
the ORIGINAL stock rotor head that also came with the kit; the
one with the "round" head. I took off and could not believe how
much EASIER the helicopter was to fly, this time I could do nose
ins, piros, turns and stable hovers, where before, the heli was
EXTREMELY difficult to fly and was literally NO fun to fly. As
a note, not a single parameter was changed in the helicopter's
setup, except for the original short connectors. The only thing
that I can think of is the diameter of the holes that are used to
snap onto the ball joints on the rotor head are LARGER than
the ones on the original short connectors that came with the kit.
I have no tool in my home capable of measuring these fairly
small tolerances, but I have noticed, beyond a shadow of any
doubt that the STIFFER I get the rotor head/flybar "see saw"
action, the more STABLE and EASIER to fly the helicopter is
while still maintaining good cyclic control response. After I
documented this, I have increased stability further a bit by
placing 2 more flybar collars onto the flybar where the 2 new
flybar collars are right up against where the short connector
snaps onto the joint/housing that the flybar rod goes through. |
