Trex 250 head setup completed!

I was able to complete the head setup of the 250 last night, using my Soko kit. I'm getting faster at completing the setup now and I'm really liking it!

I also completed setting up the 3gx on board programming for the head. Next up is setting up the tail, then finalizing the PC settings.

380 repair parts!

My first order of parts to repair the 380 came in!  This order has the boom, tail push rod, pitch control links, a main shaft, and new side frame plate. 

The next order will have the main blades (with free set of matching tail blades!), servo gear sets, and blade grip arms.

Rescue Started!

After crashing my 380 and watching several demo videos of the Vbar Neo Rescue function, I've decided to upgrade my Neo to this firmware. If I had it when I crashed my 380 last Thursday, it would have paid for itself already, as that crash cost me about $200, while the Rescue firmware upgrade is about $120. 

The Rescue function is incredible!  It saved a heli performing complicated tricks, piro flips, piro tic tocs, hurricanes, funnels, etc!  The heli will flip itself upright and level from any orientation!  Awesome!

To easily use the Rescue function with my DX8, I would need to relocate the push switch close to the outer edge of the radio, as it's located on the top, which is hard to reach with my thumbs on the sticks.

I opened up my radio to swap the push switch and gear switch positions on the top left of the radio. Doing this would put the push switch on the edge of the radio. I don't use the gear switch for anything anyway.  The toughest part of completing this switch position swap was removing the rubber panels on the sides and back of the radio case. They covered 2 of the screws and held the 2 halves of the case together.  Once I figured out to do this, opening the case and swapping the switch position was easy. 

My DX8 is now ready to rescue my heli's!  Once I upgrade my Neo firmware that is :)

Trex 250 build update #2

So.  I was able to get some work done on the 250 Sunday 9/27/15. I basically finished building the frame, installed the servos, and the 3gx flight controller.  My Talon 15 esc also arrived and it's way smaller than the stock Align esc. I also ordered some mini t connectors and Pulse 860mah 35c 3s packs. While I have some old 3s packs from 850mah to 1100mah from my Blade CP, the C rating of these packs are much lower. So I'll use those for putting around at low headspeed and the Pulse packs for actual flying and practicing. 

I guess I'll need to wait for the connectors and new batteries to arrive before I can fly my new little heli. 

Crashed the 380! :(

I was flying at Hoyt Park after work, Thursday 9/24/15, and successfully competed a flight to test the head speed at the end (3500 rpm held after 6 min of flying), an auto trim flight, and a main rotor gain test (100% wagged in a hard banking turn, so I lowered it to 95).  My 380 was feeling good and was a blast to fly!  

The street was clogged with parked cars for some reason.

I was flying my final battery and having fun. I attempted a loop followed by a stall turn, when I shouldn't have. I came in too low and slow, with a slight bank angle, at the base of the loop. On the exit of the loop I was again too low and slow to execute a good stall turn and exited it at a weird bank angle and still too low. I pulled up to get away from the ground and lost forward momentum, then lost orientation for a split second!  When I tried to correct, I banked the wrong way into the ground!  It went in with a hefty thud!  I was able to shut the motor off right before it hit the ground. 

The aftermath!

Looking over the damage on my pit table. 

Upon the 1st inspection the damaged parts include:

-main blades

-tail blades

-blade grip arms

-cyclic servo gears (all 3 of them!)

-left main frame plate (cracked may be able to repair)

-main shaft

-tail boom

-tail push rod

-canopy (small cracks, but ok)

The repair cost is about $180 so far, not including a new canopy. If I had the Vbar Neo rescue feature, maybe I could have saved it?  I plan to upgrade to it now, if I can move the push switch on my DX8 to a better location.  

For now I need to order the parts and get this bird back in the air before I let it sit too long.

Hoyt Park Tuesday 9/22/15

I headed to Hoyt Park after work t get a few flights in on the 380. I hadn't planned on going since it was supposed to rain, but it never did. 

I grabbed my gear and rushed over to the field as its getting dark earlier and earlier. I even had to charge my pack when I arrived!  Luckily it only takes 10 minutes charging at 5C (13A). 

I flew my 380 setup using the Soko Helical Kit. I also changed the locations of the ball stud on the cyclic servo arms to optimize the travel range for the Vbar. It flew nice and smooth!  It's starting to feel comfortable to fly also :)

I plan to fly again Thursday after work as soon I won't be able to, as the sun is setting earlier. 

Trex 250 build update

So. I pulled the MSH Brain off my 550 to test fit on the 250. It's too wide to go between the frames where the 3gx would mount. I guess I'll need to mount it on the side of the frame.  It would look weird with this box hanging off one side though :(.  I guess I could pull the 3gx off my 450 and put it on the 250 and the Brain on the 450?  The CG would probably work out better with the 3gx mounted in the right spot. 

I also pulled the Castle Phoenix 25 out of my Blade CP, since I was considering using it for the 250.  But now I'm worried that the BEC might be too weak?  Maybe I'll go with a Talon 15, which has a bigger BEC. Hmmm. 

Palomar RC Flyers Club

I decided to visit the Palomar RC Flyers club Sunday morning as I'm considering joining the club for the last 3 months of the year. 

There were about 5 or so guys there, mostly flying 700 class helis!  No dozens of quad guys here, although a couple of guys were flying those also. 

They had pit tables and more importantly, shade!  No need to bring a canopy here!  There were 2 roads to get to the heli area. A shorter one which required you to go up and down a pretty steep hill and a longer one. I took the shortcut in and the long one out. The long one was much safer route for my car!

I watched 3 700 class helis fly, 2 electrics and a nitro. I got a few pics of the nitro one flying also!  These guys were also much better pilots than me. 

It's $50 to join for the last 3 months of the year. To get the most of my money I'd need to fly practically every weekend!

Parking and pit area. 

Main flight area. 

Shaded pit tables!

700 class helis!

700 nitro flying 

Trex 250 build underway!

I took my Trex 250 kit with me to the track to show it to a buddy of mine in hopes that he would also get one.  I ended up starting on the build at the track also!  I assembled the rotor head and mocked up the frame before I put it away to race my RC cars. 

Soko Tools Setup kit + Zeal 380mm blades

So. I got my Soko Heli Kit and Zeal blades last week. 

I got the Zeal blades to replace the one stock SAB blade with a hole in the tip, that happened on a tip over landing because of a power loss.  This power loss may have been because of a hot motor (added a bigger heatsink and a fan) or a weak BEC. I twitched the cyclic servos on the bench and was able to overload the Castle 5A BEC and cause a shutdown. I added an external BEC capacitor and repeated the test.  No shutdown!  I may add a Castle 7A external BEC later though. 

I picked up a Soko Tools setup kit because of the app which guides you during the setup process. It also has a feature which allows you to complete the setup without a perfectly level surface. You can also level the swash without taking the rotor head off :).  I repeated the setup of my 380 with the tool and after I got the hang of using it, I liked it much better than a traditional digital pitch gauge.  Mostly because you only need to take the blades off and don't need a level working surface. 

130x repaired!

I swapped out the dead front servo in my 130x last night, as I wanted to get it flying again so I can practice inverted hovering.  I needed to take the frame apart to get the front servo out, which was a pain. Once I got it out I found out why it quit working. A chip had come loose from the PCB and must have been barely hanging on, since it fell out when I removed the servo!

The 130x after I got the front servo out. 

I took a few tries to reassemble the frame and get everything in the right spot, but once I did, it screwed back together easily.  I powered it up and everything worked as it should. Hopefully it still flies ok, since I really can't check the head setup. Lol. 

New electronics for the Trex 550?

I'm considering changing the electronics setup in my 550, when I rebuild it.  Currently it has a Castle Talon 90 and MSH Brain FC. I plan to move the Brain to the Trex 250 I just got, and put a Vbar  Neo with Rescue in the 550.  To use the Neo governor I'd replace the Talon 90 with an Edge 100, as I would need the RPM signal wire. This is the same ESC in my Goblin 380, but the Lite version without the heatsink case.  In the 550, I'd use the version with the heatsink. But, the BEC in the Edge can only support 5A, so I would need an external BEC to run the 4 full size power hungry servos in the 550.  Meaning I'd need to add a BEC Pro.  Hmmm. 

But I'd be able to use the Neo governor, which I'm liking in the 380. A bonus is now having data logging, as this feature is missing from the Talon line of ESC's. 

What to do? Lol!

Trex 250 is here!

Well I got my Trex 250 last night!  I had to open up the box and look at the parts. 

It came with 2 sets of blades, which I didn't realize. A carbon fiber and plastic set. I'll probably end up using the plastic set, as this heli is my training platform  it's also smaller than I thought.  I was thinking it was similar in size to my Blade CP Pro, since it uses the same battery, a 3s 850mah, but after looking at the canopy and blades, it seems to be a little bigger than my 130x. Maybe it's closer in size to a 180cfx?  The 15A esc it comes with is tiny!  I was planning to use the Castle Phoenix 25 from the CP Pro, to take advantage of the governor. But if it's too big, I may need to get a Talon 15. Luckily it's only $30. 

Next up, the build!

Hoyt Park Dr, Sunday 9/13/15

This time I went out to Hoyt Park as I didn't feel like being surrounded by quads again or deal with the wind.  I also went out there in the mid afternoon, hoping that it would start cooling down by then.

For this session I took out the shims between the head block and blade grips to smooth out the rotation of the blade grips, as I remembered they were notchy during assembly. I also pinched all the binding ball cups in the linkage. I was hoping these changes would get rid of the head bobbing that I've been dealing with. I so increased the headspeed to 3500 rpm. I had no luck though, as the heli was still bobbing. At least it's only noticeable in a hover and not in flight, but still!

I was braver with the 380 this time, attempting some flips, rolls, loops, and stall turns!  Now that the headspeed is the highest it can go with the gearing I'm using the heli feels much better to me. I'm thinking of trying a higher style setting which is supposed to fly more locked in and sim like, which is what I want. 

My pit table in the shade.  I was flying alone, but the occasional dog walker passed by and one car parked across the street watching me fly I guess. 

SEFSD Session, Saturday 9/12/15

I loaded up and headed out to my official flying field, SEFSD next to Sea World for my 1st session there with the 380.  I arrived about 10:30 am and the helipad was clogged up with quad copters :(. Where have all the helis gone!  I setup my pit and prepped the 380 for flight.  

Quad guy. He's been here every time I've come out since May!

Another quad regular. 

Getting the 380 ready. 

My new motor mount with a bigger heatsink and mini brushless fan!  My motor temps are at a steady 130F now. 

The Goblin 380 ready to fly!

I continued my testing to see if the motor would shutdown, but this time with my fan setup. I flew both batteries for only 4 minutes, then landed and sat on the pad with the motor running, to see if a shutdown would occur. Nothing!  I increased my time to 5 minutes but at a lower headspeed. Nothing!  Cool!

After I felt that she wouldn't drop out of the sky, I started flying around trying out the different agility setting I had in each flight mode. But by this time the wind was picking up and my turns were getting sloppy and the heli was sliding around more and more. So I decided to pack up and head home before something bad happened. 

Will the 380 lose power again?

So this session I was parinoid that the power would shut off again, so I stayed on the helipad for the first 2 packs, then cut my flight time to 3 minutes, landed, then stayed on the pad for 3 minutes. No shutdowns. Next session I plan to increase the flight time to 4 minutes and stay on the pad for 2 minutes.  When I can fly around for 5 minutes, I'll increase the headspeed to 3600, 3300, and 3000, then go back to tunning my Vbar Neo. 

Brought a pit table to work on this time. So much better!

My view of the flight area. 

380 crash landing!

I was flying the 2nd battery when suddenly the heli lost power and dropped to the ground!  I was only hovering at the time and all I could do was turn the motor off, but I guess it already was off?  The heli flat landed and tipped over!  The tail blades got scuffed up, one main blade had a small hole in it, and the boom had a paint chip. Pretty minor damage. I'll probably replace the main blades to be safe. I was pissed about the failure though. I'm wondering if the motor or ESC overheated? Maybe the battery is bad?  It was pretty hot out and I only waited about 10 minutes to fly again after my 1st pack. The damage was minor enough that I flew my last battery with no issues.

When I got home I tested the suspect battery. It was able to hold a constant 20A load with no problem. It's IR and capacity rating are what I would expect. I downloaded the data logs from the flight where the motor shut off. The esc temp peaked at almost 170F.  There were no drops in the BEC or battery voltage.  The only thing I can think of now is the motor was too hot?  Maybe a loss of the radio signal and it went into fail safe?  Maybe the Vbar governor cut the throttle?

I'm going to attempt to run the suspect battery again, but on the ground and see if it shuts down again. I'll need to pay attention to any error codes from the ESC or satellite receiver.  I'm also bringing my temp gun to get a reading on the motor. 

380 Session #2

Well I headed out to Hoyt Park after in hopes of getting rid of the bobble in the main rotor. I tried turning up the headspeed to 3100 rpm but that didn't seem to do anything. Next I used the Neo flight banks to test higher and lower main rotor gains. I set up bank 1 with a gain of 50, bank 2 with 70, and bank 3 with 90. Bank 3 seemed to eliminate the wobble!  I need to try it again to confirm though.

I tried flying around and the tail yaw rate and collective responsiveness seemed weird. I think it was because I was using the sport/beginner mode. I'll need to change that to 3D mode and see if the response feels better. 

I also got my first "crash" out of the way. I was trying to land and either the collective was super touchy or I lost power somehow, and it dropped from about a foot off the ground into the dirt next to the heli platform!  Luckily the only damage was a scrapped tip on the tail blades. 

Also, trying to tune by landing and hooking up to my laptop is a pain. Makes me want to switch to a Vcontrol radio. Hmmm. 

The plan for the next session is:

-change the pitch curve for Normal to a flatter curve for landing. 

-confirm 90 main rotor gain eliminated the wobble.

-perform an auto trim flight

-try 3D agility mode and see if the response is better

-tune tail gain

Trex 250!

I caved and picked up a Trex 250 using a Labor Day 10% off coupon at Heli Direct!  The plan for this is to be a training heli to try new maneuvers with, that flies better than my 130x and is cheaper to crash than my 380 and 550. I'll probably begin flying my 450 less, as it's getting hard to find replacement parts for.

I plan to use the speed control (Castle Phoenix 25) and batteries from my crashed and retired Blade CP, since it uses a similar power system.  I will also use the Brain FC from my 550 for it and install a Vbar Neo with Rescue in my 550 when I rebuild it. 

Goblin 380 maiden flight!

I flew the maiden flight of my Goblin 380, Labor Day, 9/7/15, in the late afternoon. 

It was uneventful, but it did have a head bobble, while in a hover. I hope it was because I was running a low headspeed for it, about 2600 rpm, per the manuals suggestion, for the first few flights, to break in the drive belts. 

The other issue I found was that the motor belt had moved up the main pulley to rub on the frame as it was going by. This resulted in some rubber bits inside the canopy and heli.  Unfortunately I didn't have any tools with me to adjust it, so that ended my flights on the 380 until the next session. 

I repositioned the motor belt such that there's more clearance to the frame and I'll bring some tools with me to adjust it at the field. 

Goblin 380 Build Update

I was able to finish my 380 on Labor Day, 9/7/15. 

Motor and servos installed. 

I got stuck during the build at the speed control install as I wasn't sure if I wanted to use the quick change battery kit I got or regular connectors. The 2600mah batteries I have are a tight fit on the battery tray and I needed to figure out how to wire the connector.  After a few days of messing around with placement of the battery and routing of the wires, and figuring out how long to cut them, I came with a method to install the battery onto the tray :)

I used a big wire tie and double sided tape to secure the battery on the tray. 

Figuring out how to route the servo leads and mount the Vbar Neo. 

Done!

Leveling the swash plate and setting the blade pitch was easy, but centering the tail pitch hub was a pain!  I tried different horn positions, ball link holes, and adjusted the tail rod length to get the correct servo throws!

I was finally done with the setup after l was happy with the tail :). Onto the maiden flight!

Oops! Hoyt Park

Scrapped my tail blades on the rocks 1 minute into my 1st flight :(

I headed out after work Friday 9/4/15, for some tunning of my 3gx FC after updating the firmware to v5.0.  I flew with the broken tail blades, trying to tune the gains, but soon gave up as the tail was doing weird stuff.  I also kept turning up the gains in a hover, but nothing wobbled or wagged, so I ended up with really high gains. Then the first time I flew a figure 8, the heli wobbled and wagged!  I guess I need to tune the gains in normal flight?

Also, Hoyt Park is becoming my favorite place to fly since its so close to home. I like that there are trees for shade also, so no need to bring my Quick Shade. The bad features here are no pit tables, or helipad. It is just an empty lot though. 

Vbar Neo setup for the 380

I was able to bind the Neo to my DX8, complete the radio calibration, and initial setup. How the Neo handles flight modes, governor functions, and throttle hold is different than what I'm used to and will take some time to figure out. 

At least I can finally install the servos!

UPDATE:  Well instead of installing the servos, I reprogrammed the Neo and my radio to reassign the functions to the switches I'm used to using on all my helis!  The only difference was the "Throttle Hold" function, which needs a 3-position switch while my other helis use a 2-position. I was able to assign this function to the rudder d/r switch for the Neo and all my other helis. So now my switches will control all the same functions for all my helis. Whew!

Now I'm considering upgrading to the Pro Resuce firmware for my Neo and buying a 2nd one for my 550 rebuild, also with Pro Rescue. I will also need to open up my radio and swap the bind/trainer and gear switches.