Gpro Any Good...!

[waveydavey]

Interestingly Chris, a heli at the club today with the GPro fitted was looked at by AndyK and to get the tail working he dialed in settings he would have used on the V bar and low and behold sorted. I did base setups on both V Bar software and G Pro software and the numbers gains, etc were identical. Would you say the same

[ChrisB]

I think there are some similarities going on there for sure,IMHO it feels very much like the V Bar to me,a chap at our club reckons he read that an ex programmer at Mikado went to Align but i thought Ralf and Uli did all the V Bar stuff,so that could be a fairy tale.

More likely i reckon as i said before,Align have got hold of the V Bar firmware currently coming installed on almost every new unit coming out of China and they have just made an effort to build on it to disguise it and of course build their own setup software.

With all this in mind,you still cant beat a £20 Kbar which we know is a Vbar.

[tourerjim]

I think there are some similarities going on there for sure,IMHO it feels very much like the V Bar to me,a chap at our club reckons he read that an ex programmer at Mikado went to Align but i thought Ralf and Uli did all the V Bar stuff,interesting to here his view could be a fairy tale.

More likely i reckon as i said before,Align have got hold of the V Bar firmware currently coming installed on almost every new unit coming out of China and they have just made an effort to build on it to disguise it and of course build their own setup software.

With all this in mind,you still cant beat a £20 Kbar which we know is a Vbar.

Ive got the fubar/Vbar & tried all all settings to get tail dialed in & with no luck but with Gpro & slighty larger tail blades is perfect on default setting so has to be little difference between then but one person i think would know is Ian (coolice) so be interesting to here his view.

[waveydavey]

Are you being serious Jim, you couldn't get the tail dialed in on whatever heli you put the V Bar on. Without doubt the V Bar tail is the best I have flown, on a poxy 600, 700, e700 it is faultless. But you fit a V bar clone and larger tail blades and it's now okay, do you think your tail issues were maybe down to the blades in the first place.

It can be absolutely no mistake (call it whatever you like) that the tail settings/parameters in the VPro are identical to the V bar. You know what Ian will know but as he's sponsored by Robbie Schluter he won't post his real thoughts, he can't, and I don't blame him. Align have copied the V Bar, I'd bet next years wages on it, they've cleverly designed their own front end and have different cyclics but the tail is V Baaaaaaaaaaa

[ChrisB]

Yes its very odd,we all know different fbl systems have their own feel which as individuals we choose which suits us best,i have tried a few systems,felt the subtle differences and yes the V Bar is where i feel most in my comfort zone.

I dont know whether i am unknowingly convincing myself there is a connection between Gpro and v bar or not,but i have to say if its Aligns work from the ground up,which i am sure they are very capable of doing without copying,but if it is their own programming its remarkably close to the general feel for me.

[coolice]

Hey Guys.

While the similarity's are there, we've got to ask ourselves how many different words can we make up to describe the same parameter being represented.
I am sure Align have looked at all the top selling FBL units and said to their engineers "We need something as good, or better than these". Also a lot of people complained about the 3GX setup procedure, so that wrinkle was a big area to fix and make more user friendly. The goal for Align was simple, make a product that worked better than it's predecessor, was easier to setup and won back customers ultimately. I think they've done this in the Gpro and I've long been (and still am) a Vbar fan.

I wondered if it was a Vbar or FuBar clone, but don't think it is. While there are similarity's between these units, there is also some differences in the way they feel in flight.
The Vbar for example on my old 550e was very whippy in piro stuff, the Gpro on this 550L if there is any is every so slight. I've not had to do anything magical to my tail setup to get it to work, I always use a slightly shorter servo arm than the manual states for the tail and this allows me to run a higher tail gain before wag sets in. This logic I've applied to the Vbar on the stock settings on my 700e DFC and it works great.

Cyclic feel, the Vbar does still seem a little more solid and accurate. It's difficult to describe, but both the Gpro and the Vbar feel good in the air, but the Gpro seems a little more edgy. Of course I am comparing two different size models, as my 700e flies great I am not going to remove it's Vbar to do testing with a Gpro in it's place.

With my 550L I have deviated on the manual with the control ball positions on the cyclic servo arms, the manual says to use the outer holes, but I've gone with the inner ones to reduce mechanical movement/gain and allow me to run the sliders higher in the software for travel and gain. Seems to work very well, you have to be careful with binding, but I've not seen any yet.
On my old machine I was eager to fit the KDE extended blade pitch arms to reduce mechanical movement at the blade grip, I was going to do the same to this model, but there are none in stock so I chose to try the model as it is and I don't feel I need to add them on this machine.

Overall I'm impressed, people know I'm an Align sponsored pilot but I'm not in the habit of saying something's good or without it's faults if it's not, I'd look a fool and my reputation is worth more to me than sprouting BS. Having said this I've got no problems suggesting people try the Gpro if they get one in a kit or are looking to buy another FBL unit, just make sure your BEC/power supply is good enough as normal.
Also I think Align have paved the way for other manufacturers to produce IOS (Apple) wireless capable software to tune their FBL systems, Mikado never offered this with their software, but I think even they will now see the audience is there to justify the costs involved.
.

[tourerjim]

Are you being serious Jim, you couldn't get the tail dialed in on whatever heli you put the V Bar on. Without doubt the V Bar tail is the best I have flown, on a poxy 600, 700, e700 it is faultless. But you fit a V bar clone and larger tail blades and it's now okay, do you think your tail issues were maybe down to the blades in the first place.

It can be absolutely no mistake (call it whatever you like) that the tail settings/parameters in the VPro are identical to the V bar. You know what Ian will know but as he's sponsored by Robbie Schluter he won't post his real thoughts, he can't, and I don't blame him. Align have copied the V Bar, I'd bet next years wages on it, they've cleverly designed their own front end and have different cyclics but the tail is V Baaaaaaaaaaa

Sorry Dave should have said, was my 250 don't think ive tried it on my other heli's i also tried larger blades then, i just couldn't get it to set it up with Vbar i think it was just trying to understand the different language compared to my familiar 3gx im used to, Gpro with lager 250 blades just seems to have worked from default setup, i could try my Fubar/Vbar on ether my 6 or 700N's which would save me another Gpro if on my 700 Dave maybe i could pinch your Vbar parameter settings.

[tourerjim]

Yes its very odd,we all know different fbl systems have their own feel which as individuals we choose which suits us best,i have tried a few systems,felt the subtle differences and yes the V Bar is where i feel most in my comfort zone.

I dont know whether i am unknowingly convincing myself there is a connection between Gpro and v bar or not,but i have to say if its Aligns work from the ground up,which i am sure they are very capable of doing without copying,but if it is their own programming its remarkably close to the general feel for me.

The thing i find strange about all this Gpro business is when they announced the 3GX it was going to be Bluetooth & also remember a mention of having 3 servo 140* which im sure Ian (coolice) would remember from previous forum posts, so if there was a copying of Vbar as Dave (waveydavey) mentions why not when 3GX came out which never happen, so now read the posts doe's make me now wonder with the Gpro, which now has 3 servo 140* & Bluetooth.

[tourerjim]

I'm impressed with this bit of kit that's now on 4 of my heli's unbelievable performance as well as Gpro 4min flights leaves me with 51% in the packs, 3GX was leaving me with 37% just shows power it was taking.