Honey Bee FP with poor lift

[lest44]

Hi,

Could anyone give me any suggestions as to what is wrong with my Honeybee FP. On full power, fully balanced charged 7.2V LiPo batteries (4.1V per cell) the heli will only go up to about 2ft off the ground if I am lucky. Which whilst learning to do basic movements has not been a problem, but now my confidence is growing, I find at full throttle it only just gets off the ground. I have noticed however that at full power the 4 in 1 RX shows a red LED. Is this normal? It goes green when the power is reduced. Is this limiting the power? I have so far, replaced the motor, blades, new batteries. It has been suggested that the blade pitch could be wrong, but surely with a FP design the blade is made at the correct pitch and when bolted on the head it is held at the right angle or am I talking !!

Does anyone have any suggestions before I go and fork out for a new 4 in 1 which aint cheap. Is there any way of testing it first by swapping over channels i.e tail and main motor?

Thanks in advance.

[unwind-protect]

The red light just shows when the throttle is at maximum.

If you've replaced the motors (especially the main motor), you might want to check the gear mesh isn't too tight. You should be able to feel a little bit of free play between the main gear and motor pinion.

[jiberjaber]

In addition, check you dont have a main shaft that is slightly bent. They only take a little knock. That is what culled my flying when I first bought a heli as I didnt know what goes wrong on them back then.

A bent shaft can reduce your headspeed such that even though it looks like it is spinning fast enough, it isnt fast enough to get off the ground.

[mattydred]

the pitch in the fixed pitch blades do change and they do need bending to get the correct pitch. if you look in the manual it should tell you about blade tracking and pitch.

if you are confident flying it and crashes are few and far between then get a set of carbon blades for the century hummingbird v3 that dont bend out of shape and stay at the correct pitch.

i also agree with the other guys that say the motor pinion could be too tight against the main gear or even a bent main shaft.

how many pots do you have on your 4 in 1?. if you have a main pot and mix pot then turn tx on and plug heli in and let it set itself. turn the main pot to full and then unplug heli. whilst heli is unplugged turn the main pot all the way down. plug heli in again let it set and then turn the main pot all the way up again.

let us know how you get on.

matty

[lest44]

Hi Thanks for all your replies guys it is very much appreciated. Unwind-protect - I did change the motor so I will check the play. I read somewhere about putting a piece of paper between the motor cog and the main large cog. Is this correct? Jiberjabber - I have also replaced the shaft a while ago as I had problems getting the little pin in at the top so I replaced the shaft. I will check it again though just in case. Mattydred - The 4 in 1 has two pots, one for gain and the other is proportion. They do something about the tail motor speed and tail wag or something like that. Thanks for your help.

[unwind-protect]

The piece of paper trick is one way of setting the gear mesh, but I'm not a fan of it anymore as it's too easy to distort the frame as you're trying to do up the motor screws, and so mess up your gear mesh.

You need to have the motor positioned so there is just a tiny bit of backlash between it and the main gear; you should be able to gently turn the main gear very slightly, without the motor pinion rotating. The gap between the main gear teeth and the motor pinion teeth is indeed about the thickness of a piece of paper. Check it at at least 4 places around the main gear because they're probably not quite round.

Neil.

[lest44]

I have had a look at the gear mesh and it did feel a bit clunky (if that's a word). There appeared to be too much of a gap which was surprisingly making it a bit stiff to turn. I have now made the gap a bit smaller so the teeth interlock tighter and bingo!! It is spinning more freely and when I gave it a go early tonight it now flies much higher. Thanks for the help, I was ready to spend out for a new 4 in 1, so cheers guys. The missus is pleased to as I will stop moaning about it and I ain't spending any more money! well, for now at least!!

[unwind-protect]

Maybe it was skipping? Well, whatever it was, congratulations. Now you can look forward to the next problem!