Total Beginner needing help

[R3d1]

Hi All

Please take pity on a total novice. I've recently inherited all the parts necessary to rebuild an electric 'Minipred 3D' helicopter. My pal bought it about a year ago and promptly crashed it first time out.

He tells me that he asked a mate to help him set it up (thinking this bloke knew what he was doing), but it seems there was some confusion over the settings on the radio. On the initial flight as soon as the model was switched on, the main rotor spun up to full throttle automatically. The pred took off briefly before crashing and spreading itself over a wide area.

So, could anyone out there provide me with a diagram/list of the correct settings for the little switches at the bottom of the controller, please? Also, I'd be grateful if anyone has the correct software settings for using FMS as I'd like to check these and have the chance to practise whilst I'm slowly rebuilding.

Cheers for any help and advice,

Red

[MedinaMan]

Best advice I can give is to bin it and start over. My Mini Pred never flew properly. Too much slop in all the connections, tail slider etc. Even one of the top pilots in the UK advised me to scrap it.
Try Align Trex 450 or something similar. Far better engineering.
Good luck.

[R3d1]

Cheers MM, good advice but I was rather hoping this would be a good chance tp see whether or not to take RC Heli as a hobby. I figure that trying to rebuild will give me an opportunity to get to know my way round. Plus it was free! Thanks though.

[Boggy]

MM is kinda right. the mini pred is not a good heli at all and is a pig to set up.it also uses an old style setup with the pitch servo pushing a wire up through the main shaft which is prone to sticking with disastrous results.

however that said its free and done right it should fly! and you will still learn alot from it.

do you have a manual for it?

[cupracing]

The trouble is, starting with an inferior heli will only make your first heli experience a bad one and as a result I expect you will give up quickly and move on. Your better off with contra rotating heli which will be stable, will teach you a lot and still be enjoyable. You can also enjoy it indoors when it's raining or windy. Another bit of advice is to forget the fms sim. It's not realistic and won't teach you anything. That's why it's free.

[R3d1]

Cheers, Boggy and Cupracing...Once again, great advice and gratefully received but I'm going to try and stick it out with the pred as it was free and I don't want to invest money in this just yet. Part of the experience will be to rebuild the pred so I know my way around every inch. I'm sure there are better helis available but not for free.

Somebody out there must be able to give me the info I need. I have a manual which I downloaded but the English is terrible and therefore it isn't very helpful. Without the right settings on the controller, FMS isn't much use for practise and I've certainly no chance of setting the pred up properly without a bit of assistance.

Cheers all,

Red

[Boggy]

try hear i lost the will to live reading it!!

RE: New Mini Electric is here the Falcon 3D!!

post #623and #626 seem to support the switches being
1=norm
2=norm
3=rev
4=rev

dont worry about the title a minipred is actually a falcon 3d

[easypickingsere]

As Ron said and 6 is normal to.

[dam74]

Yes the initial outlay cost you nowt but you'll have to buy spares as I doubt all of the parts that you have are perfect/workable. So what you have to consider is the cost in the long run using this heli. Just keep an eye on how much you do spend and keep it to a minimum.

My advice if you do decide to bin it and want a good starter helicopter take a look at the BladeSR. It's about £170 new, it's a CP helicopter and comes complete with a TX so it's RTF. Out of the box it's pretty docile and stable for beginners and if you do decide to progress you can get a more advanced TX that will allow you to play around with the settings and enable you to perform Sport/3D flight with the SR. If it had been around when I was starting out I would of gone this path as I ended up going the Blade400 which cost £300 at the time.

[jamesb72]

You should post your location, best bet will be if someone nearby can check it over and test fly it for you - also remove the blades (main and tail) before checking radio and get someone else to hold the tx, that way if it does spool up it won't break anything, and you can unplug the battery quickly and try again once you've tweaked switches.

If you can see it flying and know its trimmed, at least you can have a go with some chance of a quick hop - you will also need some training gear (couple of rods and ping pong balls cable tied to the skids so its harder to tip over)

[Ewan]

Yes the initial outlay cost you nowt but you'll have to buy spares as I doubt all of the parts that you have are perfect/workable. So what you have to consider is the cost in the long run using this heli. Just keep an eye on how much you do spend and keep it to a minimum.

Think Daryl has a very good point.

Before you even start I would very carefully look at every part and assess if it needs to be replaced. I am no expert on how you would assess the electronics, TX. RX, Gyro, Motors, Servos but if many of these need replacing then the bill could get big quite quickly.

If you dont try and work out exactly what needs to be replaced before you start and buy bits piecemeal then you could very quickly spend more than the cost of an RTF SR which is likely to give you a much better experience of flying helis.

One other observation, I recently purchased a completely new heli rather than buy some spares for my existing one as the cost of the spares was a significant proportion of the cost of a new heli.

[R3d1]

Brilliant advice, once again. Thanks all.

[dam74]

Check out Helituning.com for a "Whats In the Box / Overview" of the Blade SR done by our resident reviewer Ashley Davis. Hopefully there will be a Flying Review of the Blade SR done sometime soon. Not sure if he plans to bring it along to the next Totton Meet or the Calshot Meet. Would be good to get a first hand glimpse of it.