Good afternoon guys
please can somebody help me try sort out my issues with my fai machines
i am running the following setup
rave env fai fai ver 2 blades
k$s paddles
scorpion hk3 560 kv
cc esc 120amp
5800 mah battries 10 cycles
I have recently moved to sydney australia from south africa.
now south africa were i stayed is about 1200meters above sea level and the helicopter had more than enough forward speed and pitch it was really good and also efficient.
i have recently got my equipment from shipping and redone all the pitch to and setup just taking a little pitch away being at sea level now.
i can not seem to get any forward speed or carry out of my two machines and they are very lazy i have played with timing and even swopped motors to eliminate that. the castle creations 120 amps timing has been changed from 5 deg to 12 deg making no diffrence at all. but both my machines are dead and dont seem to have any sort of perfomance.
the pitch is now 10/10 and cyclic is 7/7
the down load shows me in flight mode that the headspeed is 2120 but that can not be correct as the machine does not even have enough power to pull into a large stall turn.
The batteries were put into storage mode before i left and were at 3.5 volts per cell the whole time can it be possible that the batteries have lost power or is this not correct.

maybe i have missed something and somebody can assist me with this issue as i should have gained more speed and pitch being at sea level.
thanks

Rossi46

3.5v storage? 3.85V is what I store mine at. 3.5 seems to low.

Friends don't encourage friends to fly helis! It can cause part shortages.

the cells were between 3,7 and 3,5 the new packs were at 3,7 the old packs between 35, and 3,6

Rossi46

Anybody have a pack you can borrow to test your heli?
And your right, it should fly better at sea level.

Friends don't encourage friends to fly helis! It can cause part shortages.

Well not really all the guys at the club are nitro boys. ya i am really blown away it should perferm really well the nitro machines at the field are out performing me wich i dont think makes sense at all. its really frustrating.
I dont think that the batteries are the issue here but like most things expect the unexpected.

Rossi46

If it is not your batteries then it is your ESC. Do a resest and set it up again.

Friends don't encourage friends to fly helis! It can cause part shortages.

Pitch

Sodi,

As a point of reference, i fly the same model and setup in the States at ~150m MSL and carry 13.5 deg pitch in FFF.

Once you assess the condition of your batteries i'd suggest also putting back a little more pitch. I've tried 10 deg and it was a little slow at my altitude also.

Best of luck,

Daniel

What is your battery life like with so much pitch what sort of time are you getting out of the machine and what percentage is left in your packs after the run. Being at sea level should I not be removing pitch due to the thicker air that is provided here.

Rossi46

I'm using cheap 5000 mAh 30C packs. End of the flight, they read at ~22.4v usually. I can comfortably get through both P & F schedules. About 8-8.5 minutes of combined hovering and aerobatics. Headspeeds are 1530rpm hover, 1950rpm idle up.

I'm not at full pitch for very long at any point in my flying, usually just while setting good speed into the manuevers. I have pitch there in case I need it (thanks to electric power) I suspect you'll need 12 deg or so to get the speed you want.

Daniel

Ya I some how do not think it is the battery issue either. I will adjust the pitch up to 13 /13 and see at the moment I am in perminant full stick and don't seem to have anything in reserve. Now that I think about it my first flight was at 11/11 and it was decently better than the weekend. It just blows my mind that I need to increase pitch at sea level not decrease it. I will redo the pitch and go testing and see. With regards to timing what have you found is the best.
Sodi

Rossi46

Timing

I've got my HKIII 4035-530 running well with an ICE2 120 HV on the latest Castle firmware (v4.01), settings are as follows:

PWM Outrunner mode
Timing 0
Gain 17

Daniel

Hi Daniel
Are you flying f3c?
I was running 12 on my pwm setting and timing of 5 gain 5
What is the difference between 12 and outrunner on the pwm setting ?
Sorry for all the questions but just trying to understand the concepts of the esc

Rossi46

IMHO think that cc does not recomend outrunner mode for helis.

Okay so I found that I am running the ver 3.1 firmware and have no updated to ver 4.1 will that be the reason that I have been struggling with power and pitch ?

Rossi46

Unlikely the version of the CC is the problem and I doubt the altitude would make such a big difference, if anything it should be over pitching - why are you so sure its not your packs?

The packs are getting the full flight time and coming back with about 15% life after a full run of the p schedule. I am not sure it is the packs as I have not got others to test but it's not likely that all 5 sets can fail all at once.? I agree the machine should be over pitching at this altitude and not be lazy at all. I was running the first version of the software and have no put the ver 4.01 on so let's see but I can't see that programming can make a huge diffrence like this with regards to power and flight speed. Could gearing make the big diffrence at all with regards to altitude and head speed ?

Rossi46

<Unlikely the version of the CC is the problem and I doubt the altitude would make such a big difference, if anything it should be over pitching>

+1

Yeap, too much pitch could not be a problem at altitude an become one at sea level with higher air density.

Sodi,

Yes I fly F3C. With my HKIII 4035-530 I've run PWM of 8 (as suggested by Scorpion) on previous versions of the Castle firmware. But Outrunner mode seems to works best with v4.01. The governor is happier in this mode and I can run slightly higher gain.

Here's what I've been told regarding timing. Castle controllers have constantly variable timing to maximize effeciency/power. The rate setting you dictate in the software simply suggests the range in which the controller should start from.

Altitude will have no impact to motor performace. If you are geared with sufficient head room, the controller should have no problem making your rpm with that motor. Are you geared at 10.83?

Can you look at the log file the next time you fly and verify if your batteries are holding voltage under load in your aerobatics? Also, are you running set RPM or Gov High?

Daniel

Hi DHiatt,
i want to ask you about the outrunner mode that you have,is it a suggestion from cc or you try it and find out that it works better.

Thank you.