Model shop setups

[antsis]

Hi All

I am not actively flying helicopters at the moment, but I help out at my local indoor club. The majority of the pilots there are beginners so I'm kept pretty busy. One of the members has just bought a 450Pro combo. He built it and then took it back to the shop and asked them to set it up for him on his DX7 tx. He specified he was a novice and could they setup the model accordingly. The shop duly did this and gave it a very brief test flight. Since that time he has been too nervous to fly it and asked me to give it a check over.

The first thing I did was go through the tx checking the sub trims, swash mix and revo values. I was pleased to see that the was no sub trim added on the cyclic. The swashplate was not level, so that was set mechanically. The swash mix was Ail = -60%, elev = 60%, pitch = 85%. There was also 3% revo mix. I cleared this but left the swash mix as is until I could check the pitch range. This was off the scale, so dialed the pitch down to 60% and set the curve to give -3, +5.5, +9 in normal.

I checked the gyro (GP750) and this was set to +50%, -50% in the gyro menu. The travel adjust for the gear channel was set to +63% and +100%. I tested the rudder and when full right stick was inputted, the servo would start to go right and then back to left. I unplugged the rudder servo and gyro leads to check rudder direction which was fine. However, when I unplugged the gyro, I thought I saw that that gain and gyro leads were in the wrong location. When I checked I found that the gain lead was in the rudder slot and the gyro lead in the gear slot. Swapping these over solved the direction issue. I disabled the gyro menu and set everything using the gear travel adjust values. I was able to test the model ok with just the tracking to sort out.

So here we have a beginner who has put his faith in his LHS to setup the model for him. He has accepted their word that the heli is fine, but if he had tried to fly this at the indoor meeting, I expect he would have been back in the shop the next day buying parts. Who can you go to if not your LHS for help?

[bikerflier]

Did a TRex 550 for a friend the other day. Setup and test flown by shop, so they say, it had such a low head speed it shook like a dog with a rabbit. Would have lasted just a few flights before shaking itself to bits.

[Nick B]

Easy mistake to make...














If you dont use the manual

[moyesboy]

Model shop setup will always be pretty hit and miss unless the shop is a heli specialist.

[NiceBlades]

The only way to be sure is to get the person who setup the heli to test fly it infront of you, any heli pilot who has done the setup should be capable of a quick 5 min hover around and indeed when I started this hobby they always did perform this.

[anyw]

Model shop setup will always be pretty hit and miss unless the shop is a heli specialist.

surely if they don't know what they are doing then they should say

[barryorbik]

I think the problem is more that in this hobby everyone sets their heli's up to suit their own flying styles and the guy's in the model shops are probably fairly good fliers anyway, so their memories of those first few tentative hops are long forgotten. Some fliers will also tweak their radio settings to offset mechanical deficiencies in the helicopter, rather than spending the time and trouble to mechanically trim the helicopter out and again the model shop may have done this to speed up the process.

[antsis]

The only way to be sure is to get the person who setup the heli to test fly it infront of you, any heli pilot who has done the setup should be capable of a quick 5 min hover around and indeed when I started this hobby they always did perform this.

The model was givien a quick test hover in front of the owner. I have the experience to fly a poorly setup model and make it look good, but I would not do it and then tell the owner it was fine.

I think the problem is more that in this hobby everyone sets their heli's up to suit their own flying styles and the guy's in the model shops are probably fairly good fliers anyway, so their memories of those first few tentative hops are long forgotten. Some fliers will also tweak their radio settings to offset mechanical deficiencies in the helicopter, rather than spending the time and trouble to mechanically trim the helicopter out and again the model shop may have done this to speed up the process.

My problem was not with the mechanical setup. As I mentioned, I was pleasantly surprised that there was virtually nil sub trim. What I was surprised was that the gyro leads had been connected into the wrong slots on the rx. A basic pre-flight check would have found this. The beginner pilot would not have known any different as he would have accepted the LHS had set the model up correctly.

Just a quick addition. The owner did mention he noticed the shop pilot working the left stick quite a lot. After I had gone over the model and sorted out all the issues, he was amazed to see me hovering it in ground effect just using the cyclic controls. That gave him a load of confidence in the heli.

[Brod]

Thats the theory behind build it yourself,gunna crash sooner or later and being able to rebuild and setup again is vital in this hobby.
If newbs are interested enough in RC they will study the manual and always lots of info online..

[barryorbik]

The problems often come Brod when you are starting out and your 'factory test flown' RTF's manual is in chinglish, with little information about setting things up and with errors in it. My first heli was an Esky King 2 and the manual clearly shows the tail drive belt twisted the wrong way but with the tail blades correct, so full rudder was needed to reduce the piro spin to a slow rotate until I caught sight of a trex 450 manual and corrected it. To make matters worse they carried this mistake over into the King 3 manual as well.

Getting to a heli orientated flying club is definately the best answer to learning quickly and then finding out how to set it up and repair it yourself after the inevitable crashes is a must.