Hello All

[Grees01]

Just wanted to take a moment to say hello to everyone. Been in the RC hobby for quite a few years. Mostly with surface, a little with planes, and new to helicopter. Bought a RTF Align 250. Pretty unhappy so far. Took it to my flying club and had the president take it up for the maiden flight, 25+ year pilot, sponsored by Spektrum. 2nd time out he was running it around a bit, and it shut off mid flight, and fell from about 30ft in the air to the ground. Significant parts damage. I called Align, and got an RMA. Sent it over there for approx a week and just got it back today. Practicing a little very basic up and down maneuver and the tail blade just decided to stop spinning. Looks like the pinion gear is slipping on the shaft. I haven't even got to really fly this thing yet. I also bought a 450 dominator and assembled the kit. Using the Futaba radio from the 250, and bought the matching receiver, and I'm having a real headache with setting up the 3gx. Compensation just doesn't want to work right, it works for left and right, but when you tilt it forward or backward, all three servos move the swash plate up and down rather than tilting it forward or backwards. I have a nasty headache, and bad taste in my mouth so far with regard to Align products. I will be contacting Align again and this time, I want my money back or a brand new kit, we will see what happens, If someone has some insight into the compensation problem with the 450 and Futaba radio, I would really appreciate the help> Is Align just a bad product? I've watched a few of the setup videos too, and so far all of them have been with Spektrum radios. Thanks in advance for anyone's help.

Glen

 

[Tony]

Align is NOT a bad product. However, the 250 is not their best helicopter. The 450L is a GREAT helicopter though.

I usually don't answer questions in here, but you seem pretty upset so I will help out real quick.

Your compensation sounds like your elevator servo needs reversed. Once that is reversed, if the swash is tilting back when pushing forward, then you need to go into your Swash AFR menu and reverse the elevator in there. On Spektrum, you would go from 60 to -60. Not sure how you do it on futaba. But that should get your elevator working like it should.

Please keep posting questions. We are always here to help in any way we can. Please post them in teh helicopter forum where more members can come in and help out. The more eyes, the better.

 

[Lee]

Welcome to the forum Glen.
The 250 is not the best heli to start with as a beginner.
The 450 is great, and with the steps Tony has told you, should fix things.

 

[Admiral]

Hi Glen, welcome to the forum, my suggestion would be concentrate on the 450 and go back to the 250 later, they are too twitchy for beginners.

 

[cml001]

Welcome! Get the 450 set up the way u want and torture that thing! It's an awesome bird!

 

[Graham Lawrie]

Welcome to the forum Glen from Scotland

 

[Blackwarrior]

Welcome to the forum Glen, yeah get that 450 in the air....and some videos taken

 

[Grees01]

Hello Tony, and all the rest that welcomed me to your website:
Sorry for being a little late with regard to a reply post. My wife and I went out of town, up to Newport Beach area in California for some long overdue R and R time. Just got back home and thought that I should check in, say thanks for the replies, and to Tony especially for the help, and suggestion with regard to the compensation problem on the 450L. I have been able to resolve the compensation problem and complete the initially setup of the 3gx. With a little help and advice from Tony, a cool little tip from watching "Freddy can Fly" and in the basic set up of the servos "looking for the odd man out (that one servo that doesn't move in the right direction with regard to the other two) and some over the phone help from Tim Terrenos at Assurance RC in Los Alamitos, was able to get the servo reversing correct, then setting up the radio to get the movement of the sticks to move the swash plate in the correct direction. Tony's videos also were quite helpful. I struggled a bit with the rudder setup, and still seem to have a little issue, the tail servo seems to creep in one direction to its endpoint when the bird is powered up and just sitting there. Once rudder input to the radio is made it snaps back to center, but after a short bit of time, will start to creep again to one side. I talked to Tim again with regard to the tail creep and he told me, "It shouldn't do that, that's not normal" I mentioned that in that basic rudder setup, like the other 3 servos that I used sub-trim to center the servo arm at 90' and then adjusted the linkage to center the tail slider, he told that don't use any sub-trim on the rudder. I ran out of time to try to address that issue, but will be looking at that soon. While I was down in Newport, I bought a Dx8 and satellite receiver. I don't really like the Futaba radio and the use of so many jumper wires to make it communicate with the 3gx, and setup on that radio is more complicated (IMO). One of the last things that I did before leaving was to take it into the garage and spool it up to speed, check for vibration issues, and look at that blade tracking (which looked good to me) I set it up with Align's digital pitch gauge, so it should be good, and that was it. I have to sort out that tail creep problem before I am willing to try any practice flying, and I should spend some more time with my simulator really. I hate the thought of crashing and breaking stuff. Let me know if anyone has ran into the tail creep issue with the 3gx, I have found some press using Google with regard to that issue, and what the correction was for you. Thanks again to all for reading my post and for the welcomes, and advice from Tony. I will post again when I make a little progress.

 

[Tony]

Make sure you have no trim or subtrim added to the Tx. This will cause the tail creep. But I have seen some that will creep like this. It's annoying. One thing you can do is set up a position on your gyro switch that is in rate mode, and flip into rate mode (to center the tail blades), then back into HH mode. If there is no trim anywhere, this should stop the creep so you cna get into the air. Either that, or the helicopter was moved when initializing.