Yet more flying

I've been flying at least once a day for the last month! :)
I've now progressed back into forward flight and covering a lot larger area than before.
Will be getting back into aerobatics over the christmas break when I can get some decent time to have a fly.
I've put on some fibreglass blades and can't tell any difference between them and the carbons to be honest, so fibreglass it will be from now on. Especially for $12 a pair!!!
No real accidents to report, and everything seems to be holding up quite well.

Flying and more Flying

I've been flying most nights for the last few weeks.
Confidence has returned and I'm now doing lots of low circuits and general flying here and there.
All of this has been done in quite a small area. I will soon start to get it really cranked up in a bigger space for some decent fast forward flight.  Once that becomes easy again i'll move into doing some light aerobatics :)

Mishaps & Spares

Since getting the heli flightworthy i've had a few minor scrapes of the blades.
I bought some main shafts from Trademe but they weren't straight so decided to send them back and get a spare belt instead.
I went to Hobby Hangar and bought myself some new Align mainshafts that are considerably better made, and straight!  I also picked up a few main gears as I noticed that mine had a few teeth that were a bit broken.
The heli is now considerably quieter and wobble free.

Goodies

I decided to buy a few items, some spares and a battery alarm.
2x Sets of Fibreglass blades which are very similar to the carbons i'm currently using.
Bought from DuncB on Trademe.co.nz for NZD$12 a pair!!!!

Some spare main and feathering shafts, always useful to have around.
A Yeah Racing Lipo Alarm which in my opinion is the best looking alarm you can buy! Most look a little homemade in appearance. Also bought from PugSpeed on Trademe.co.nz for NZD$10.50!!

Flying

Well I've been flying a lot, here are some pics my wife took while doing a little hover practice.

Flying and Update

Well I've been flying as much as I can, getting at least 1 flight a day under my belt.
Confidence is slowly returning, and I expect I'll be back doing circuits and mild aerobatics in no time.
I've updated the page tabs at the top of the blog, i've filled them with info on setups, manual downloads etc.
Take a look and see if you can find anything useful.

Maiden Flight

Got up reasonably early, did a preflight check after doing a light oil with some Triflow.
Installed the battery, canopy and started to spool it up.
Cyclic needed a few clicks of right and forward to correct, tail seemed pretty steady with the gain set to 72% on AVCS mode.
Lifted off a little to check the handling out, then dropped it down and spooled down to make sure everything was still okay, and it was.
Did a few more hovers and a little bit of a circuit and it feels great, can't really tell the difference between this and my Align made heli to be honest!!!
I'll post some pics soon.

Gyro & CCPM/Radio Setup

 Made sure my Gyro linkages were mechanically setup perfect as this can cause trouble later on.
Ball is 7-8mm from centre of servo arm, 90 degrees to rod as per the V2 SE Manual.
Check for full movement and set the limits on the gyro so you don't stall and burn your servo.
I then spent the rest of the night setting up pitch and throttle curves, if you have trouble with these please check out Finless Bob Whites video series in the Heli Setup tab at the top of this blog.

Build Complete

The build is now complete, I bought some velcro and canopy grommets from HobbyHanger.  I tried fitting the canopy and had a heap of trouble trying to get clearance to servos etc.   Seems I bought a canopy that only suits the old TRex 450 XL!  Its substantially narrower and will not fit a V2!
A trip to HobbyHanger and the purchase of a new albeit a little expensive, prepainted TRex 450 SE canopy.
Fits a treat and came with stickers etc, personally I think it finishes it all off and gives it an air of class!
The differences can be seen here:

Wiring Complete

My Flexo PET finally arrived, which is the special nylon overbraid for the protection of my wires.
Takes a bit of skill to put on the wire, you have to remove the servo plugs and then I used a portion of the tip of a pencil to spread the braid, then followed that with a straw. Finally once its all pushed onto the straw you feed the wires through the straw and slide the straw out.  Then you cut some small pieces of Heatshrink to stop it fraying and shrink them on to the ends.   I used a contrasting blue to match the servos.

All of the wires are now braided except for the motor and main power leads, they aren't really needed as they are tucked away neatly.

More on the build

My HK410B Gyro arrived today. I decided to do the "2 Minute mod" to it.
Took it apart, hot glued the internals and checked the soldering.
Installed the gyro on top of the tail boom holder with the supplied gyro tape.
Shortened the leads from the gyro to the tail servo, the esc to receiver lead and neatly tucked things away.
Installed the motor with some longer fixings, and cable tied the receiver in place.
Still waiting to get my PET wire covering to really make a neat job of it all.

 

Next jobs: finish the rest of the wiring, get some velcro for the Lipo, fit the canopy properly...

Construction Begins

I started construction straight away, most of the frame was prebuilt so just a quick check of the screws etc and it was soon complete.

The tail and head were pretty good, linkages were preset at the correct lengths as per the Align TRex 450 SE manual.  Loktite was applied to almost all of the screws, always worth checking just in case.

Package has arrived

4 Days from Hong Kong is not bad!

Some people have had trouble with missing items from Hobbyking but i've never had any issues in 3 decent size orders.