600 Derek's Align Trex 600e Pro DFC

Tony

Staff member
To check for vibrations, you need the blades on it. Needless to say, do this outside lol.
 

Graham Lawrie

Well-Known Member
Maiden maiden maiden:) Lol:) I have still to do my 550, although I flew it before I bought it:) Enjoying the thread Derek and the progress:)
 

Derek

Well-Known Member
I just noticed on the Align website, the DFC head is different from what I have. The two ball links on the swash on the DFC head are parallel to each other. They come out from the swash and they are turned to the side. The swash on my helicopter looks like the normal swash but two of the ball links have been unscrewed and the other two ball links are inline with each other. Is this ok?
 

Tony

Staff member
Yes and no. If your ball links or the threads on teh balls are loose or weak, then you will have a link pop off. The ones like on my 600 are the new design where the links actually push teh swash. Either will work, but make sure everything is in like new condition.
 

Slobberdog

Well-Known Member
The DFC swash balls push the ball ends on when the swash is rotating, the swash you have would be the same as for the normal fbl head where you would still have a swash follower that takes the strain and long blade grip links, where the links don't take the strain of rotation,
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
You may not need to use three banks once you get it all dialed in, but they do come in handy while going through settings changes (gov settings, tail precomp, finding out what mode you like of the pre-sets, what adjustments to tail rate or roll rate you want, trying out self-level, etc.) and getting things dialed in. Once you're set, yes, you'll probably use one or two, not all three.
 

Derek

Well-Known Member
I met up with Paul, on Skype, tonight. He was kind enough to spend about 45 minutes online with me explaining different areas of the Ikon programming setup. I'm pretty excited about everything now. I'd like to give a big "Thanks" to Paul for his time. It was a real pleasure to talk with him.

Unfortunately, I am still not ready for a maiden flight. I placed an order with A Main Hobbies tonight for some parts and some cosmetic pieces but I imagine those will be here by Friday. Possibly a maiden hover attempt shortly after that.

oh how I hope the weather cooperates...
 

Derek

Well-Known Member
I have the Castle ICE2 80amp HV ESC on my 600. I have two 6S 3700mAh 35C lipo's. I have a "series" adapter so that I can get the 12S voltage. I imagine that I'd be ok with just plugging the batteries into the series harness and then plugging into the ESC. I'm curious...would I be better off to just solder the series harness to the ESC leads? That would mean two less plugs and therefore two less points for resistance.

Any thoughts?
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
On my 700E I soldered the connectors in series right to the ESC leads. Didnt' see a good reason not to and saves a male and female connector set. With the Gob 700 I just picked up, though, it came setup with a single plug on the ESC and a series y adapter.

If it is soldered/crimped well, the adapter/harness method will be fine. I'd check the heat build up at the connection points during the first few flights to make sure nothing is wrong. Then check intermittently after that, maybe every 10-20 flights or so, to make sure fatigue isn't causing resistance build up and heat build up at those connection/solder/crimp points.
 

Derek

Well-Known Member
ok Paul, thanks for that.

Now, I'm having an issue with the tail rotor. I have perfect slider travel when moving the rudder stick to the left (nose left) but excessively way too much travel to the right (nose right). I can move the rudder stick to the left and I can click the + and - and I can actually see the tail blades move each direction. When I move the rudder stick to the right and click on the + and -, I get nothing. I'm at a loss here, so I just turned it off for now.

another issue is that I can't seem to get 100% travel on the elevator in the fourth menu, Transmitter Setup. I can highlight the numbers on my DX8 and I can scroll the numbers, but the numbers on the Ikon programming won't change when I have the elevator stick up nor down. I can center the elevator stick, then change the numbers on the DX8 and then move the stick up and down and the numbers on the programming have changed but I haven't been able to get them to 100%.

Again, I'm at a loss, so I shut it down.
 

Derek

Well-Known Member
Ok, here we are, just a few hours later, and I have some good news to report.

I got frustrated with the setup of the Ikon on my Trex 600e Pro DFC, so I shut off the programming, the tx, and the laptop and went out to the garage to work on something else. Ok...that's not the good news, lol. The good new is that while I was out there, I happened to remember that there was a selection to reset the programming back to default settings. Hmmm, can I do that and also reset the profile in my DX8 and just start completely over from the start? Let's do that!

I came back inside, fired up the laptop and got everything started from square one. I went back through the Ikon programming, step by step. Reversing a servo or two, making changes to the DX8 profile, and I couldn't believe how well it went this time. I am done with all the setup with the exception of a few things. I just have set the Ikon to level and then that part will all be done. I leveled the swash plate with the new Align Swash Leveling Tool that I ordered the other day. It showed up today with a few other parts that I ordered. So, the swash is in good shape.

I changed out the main shaft, feathering shaft, and head dampers. Did they really need changed? Well, the two shafts, I don't think they really "needed" replaced, but now I know that they are new. The head dampers, on the other hand, were showing some wear, so I replaced those. I ordered the head stopper button and added it to the heli. It's a nice and shiney silver. I couldn't locate a black one, so silver was better than the grey or blue that was offered.

Oh, I forgot to mention...since going back to default settings and setting up the Ikon all over, I have the tail rotor working exactly the way it should be. It's a thing of beauty now. Poetry in motion. I'm very happy with that now.

Now, I'll put the DFC head back on and I'll have to set the helicopter aside for a bit until I get new canopy mounts. I guess I could just keep using the rubber grommets but I will upgrade those as soon as I can.

I think I have the two batteries mounted a bit too far forward on the battery try, so I'll work on that tomorrow.

I'm just happy to see positive progress happening on this helicopter.
 

BOKI

Member
mountaindewdude76; Derek never got to downloading the Ikon set up yet ! Going to see & old RC guy today who is Excellent @ everything ! I'll ask him to check it out & give me his opinion ! Good Luck Eric & it looks like you are doing pretty Good !!
 
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Derek

Well-Known Member
No disrespect, Dave, but my name is Derek.

...and yes, my helicopter is coming along nicely. I've learned a lot about these bigger helicopters while going through this one. It's been frustrating at times, but it's been fun.
 

Island Breeze

Senior Rc-Help Member
Cool! exciting to get things going huh! as you can tell every one is anxious to see the maiden, but that is all when you are ready and we will just have to wait to see. great job bro.
 

BOKI

Member
Derek; Sorry I put down the wrong name @ night I never noticed I did ! My best friends name is Eric ! No disrespect to you I just Goofed up typing ! Have to stay off of here at night ! Your doing a Great Job Derek !
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
I ran into a similar issue with my Ikon and DX9, trying to adjust things to +/-100 after changing from DX7s to DX9. I realized it was because I had some channels reversed. I manually copied the DX7s setup for the model tot he DX9, then went in to the ikon and tweaked as needed. This is out of order, which was resulting in high stick being full negative and so when I adjusted max travel it wouldn't show up on the screen. The adjustment was actually for the full negative stick position. It was confusing. :)

Not sure what was happening with the tail adjustment for you. HAven't seen that happen before, myself.
 

Derek

Well-Known Member
Cool! exciting to get things going huh! as you can tell every one is anxious to see the maiden, but that is all when you are ready and we will just have to wait to see. great job bro.

Yep, it's coming along! It's just such a big helicopter to me, lol. It seems like my 500 was pretty "straight forward" and easy to setup. This one is similar in some ways but also very different, and then add on the Ikon and it's a completely different animal, lol.

Derek; Sorry I put down the wrong name @ night I never noticed I did ! My best friends name is Eric ! No disrespect to you I just Goofed up typing ! Have to stay off of here at night ! Your doing a Great Job Derek !

No problem, Dave!

I ran into a similar issue with my Ikon and DX9, trying to adjust things to +/-100 after changing from DX7s to DX9. I realized it was because I had some channels reversed. I manually copied the DX7s setup for the model tot he DX9, then went in to the ikon and tweaked as needed. This is out of order, which was resulting in high stick being full negative and so when I adjusted max travel it wouldn't show up on the screen. The adjustment was actually for the full negative stick position. It was confusing. :)

Not sure what was happening with the tail adjustment for you. HAven't seen that happen before, myself.

I might try to make a short video, later today, showing what is going on with the Elevator settings on the Ikon and my DX8. That part still isn't 100%. However, the tail, like I mentioned, seems to be perfect now. Sometimes it just pays off to step away for a bit and collect your focus, lol.
 

Derek

Well-Known Member
I just noticed that I don't have a "Swashplate" option on my profile settings for this helicopter. My 500 settings show a "Swashplate" option. Is that because my 500 is flybarred and my 600 is flybarless? Or did I do something wrong?
 

Tony

Staff member
If you have your Tx set to 1 servo 90º, then I don't think it will have that menu. Not sure though, at work and my Tx is at the house put up. No matter though, if you are using the ikon or the BX, you do all of the setup within the gyro anyway. Including pitch settings.
 
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