Blade mcpx settings for a pleb!

[Bluenose75]

Ok so I picked up an mcpx bl from crash-test-tomo today, Dan was really helpful and even spun it up and did a few loops inverted to show just how good the helicopter is when you know what your doing! So this afternoon I Put the settings from the manual into my dx6i and threw the switch to spool it up 100% with the stick in the middle and it took off!, I though no problem I'll bring the stick back to bring it back down and nothing? Had to use throttle hold to drop it! New skids now required! Any tips on settings or the reason it's shot up in the air?

cheers

[tomatwalden]

stick it in throttle hold, and make sure you've got full negative and positive pitch. Best method is to fold the blades back against each other. You should see full negative give a V shape with the blades, then full positive go through to a similarly sized V albeit with the blades swapped.

like this ... https://youtu.be/PtUBlcmhY5w?t=7m1s

EDIT : Also check that you've got collective pitch the right way around! That stick down = swash down .. .etc.

[crash-test-tomo]

Give me a call later dude I will talk you through it

[Peteski]

and threw the switch to spool it up 100% with the stick in the middle and it took off!

For take off you should really be in normal mode with the collective stick full down and then take off by increasing collective/throttle. It should then take off at just over half stick. But in any case it sounds like it didn't respond to your collective stick inputs, which suggests that your pitch curve may have been programmed incorrectly - maybe you've set 100% flat pitch instead of throttle by mistake? I would also suggest lower throttle settings for your first few flights, 100% is going to be a real handful for a beginner!

[myxiplx]

As above, check you have the pitch range you are expecting before you spool up :-)

But there are some other tips that are worth knowing too:
- Set your throttle hold switch to fix the blades to zero pitch. There's no need for pitch control once you kill the throttle, and it stops you getting boom strikes.
- If you get bored of replacing stock skids, pick up a set of AirtimeRC skids, they're pretty much unbreakable.
- If it doesn't already have one, replace the tail boom with a solid carbon boom the first time it breaks. The Lynx extended boom and rear motor wires are good, I don't think I ever had to replace the tail boom again after fitting that, and the stock wires are a weakpoint on the BL, because you can't see any damage to the wires it's easy to short them which can kill the main board.
- If it has a stock swash, think about upgrading that after it breaks. The metal ones take out a lot of slop.

[Bluenose75]

Thanks for all the advice, working away this week to heli at home, what's the correct way to spool up? I though you put stick in the middle and throw the switch to stunt 100% then push stich up to take off?

[tomatwalden]

Pretty much that's right. Most large helis will have a "soft start" that means such a sequence will result in a calm, collected take off.

The mcpx BL though is probably better with a more traditional start - disable TH, select normal mode, and move collective up until you have the blades at full speed, then further up until you get positive pitch. Then flick into IU if you want.

[Bluenose75]

Pretty much that's right. Most large helis will have a "soft start" that means such a sequence will result in a calm, collected take off.

The mcpx BL though is probably better with a more traditional start - disable TH, select normal mode, and move collective up until you have the blades at full speed, then further up until you get positive pitch. Then flick into IU if you want.

what is the point of normal mode? As you have no collective pitch making it impossible to fly without throwing the stunt switch or am I missing something, is it worth me dropping stunt down to 80% whilst I find my feet?

[Peteski]

I find that these Blade micros like to be popped quickly off the ground too. If you hang around too long with a slow spool up the FBL unit starts to move the swash around and they can have a tendency to tip over on you. I start mine in Normal mode from zero throttle and then quickly raise the throttle/collective to about 70% to pop it off the ground and then throttle back a little to get into a stable hover. After a few attempts it becomes second nature. The first time I spooled up my mcpx (standard version) and 130X I was too slow and cautious with the throttle and they just wanted to tip over on me. I found it quite frustrating until I learned to just give it more beans.

The problem with starting in stunt mode is that these little micros spool up way quicker than a big heli and you would have to be very quick with the collective. Especially at 100% throttle on your BL. I don't even run 100% on my standard mcpx yet!

[Bluenose75]

I find that these Blade micros like to be popped quickly off the ground too. If you hang around too long with a slow spool up the FBL unit starts to move the swash around and they can have a tendency to tip over on you. I start mine in Normal mode from zero throttle and then quickly raise the throttle/collective to about 70% to pop it off the ground and then throttle back a little to get into a stable hover. After a few attempts it becomes second nature. The first time I spooled up my mcpx (standard version) and 130X I was too slow and cautious with the throttle and they just wanted to tip over on me. I found it quite frustrating until I learned to just give it more beans.

The problem with starting in stunt mode is that these little micros spool up way quicker than a big heli and you would have to be very quick with the collective. Especially at 100% throttle on your BL. I don't even run 100% on my standard mcpx yet!

So it will pop up in normal mode? Do you then throw the switch to get full collective?

[Peteski]

So it will pop up in normal mode? Do you then throw the switch to get full collective?

Yes it will easily get off the ground in normal mode when you raise the collective, that's the idea. You can use normal mode for take off, pottering around and landing. As a beginner you won't need full throttle on the BL for quite some time. You could set the stunt mode to say a flat 75% throttle with a limited pitch curve (say -5 to +9 deg) and it will have more than enough grunt for you at this stage.

[dillwhacker]

IMO..
Try these..
Normal take off mode - pitch 40-45-50-75-100, take off throttle 0-60-60-60-60
Stunt 1 - pitch 0-25-50-75-100, throttle 85-85-85-85-85
Stunt 2 - pitch 0-25-50-75-100, throttle 100-100-100-100-100
So take off is at gentle power, with full positive pitch range but gentle negative pitch. And Stunt modes have full pitch range, with increasing headspeed.
That way, when you are hovering in take off, the heli won't shoot off when you change to idle-up (stunt) too much - no change in pitch, just an increase in headspeed.
HTH.
T

[tomatwalden]

what is the point of normal mode? As you have no collective pitch making it impossible to fly without throwing the stunt switch or am I missing something, is it worth me dropping stunt down to 80% whilst I find my feet?

Normal mode has collective pitch too! A typical pitch and throttle curve for normal mode will be something like this :

Throttle : 0,35,70,70,70
Pitch : 30,40,50,75,100

Which means that the left stick increases power from 0 to 70% and at the same time, changes pitch from slightly negative (50% is zero pitch), then beyond mid-stick it goes positive.

[Granpappy]

Does the transmitter have a delay mode that you can set so that the transition from normal to stunt1 is slower so you can catch it before it runs away with you?

[tomatwalden]

Does the transmitter have a delay mode that you can set so that the transition from normal to stunt1 is slower so you can catch it before it runs away with you?

No, but if you configure your curves correctly, that won't happen anyway!