Paul's Flight Thread
- Thread starter pvolcko
- Start date
Trex 700 repairs are underway. Found a crack in the bottom plate. So got that fixed up. One set of servo gears replaced, one to go. Bearing from the upper block is replaced. Skid strut and pipe replaced, though it doesn't sit even now. May have to replace other pipe and back strut. Think it is either bent slightly or the profile of the old strut doesn't match the new one.
danhampson
Member
good to see your getting the 700 sorted out
Got 6 flights in today. One on the 300cfx (testing some blade pitch setup changes). Two on the gob500 (both testing flights to see if I could replicate the high loading that forced a hard landing the other day). Three on the 550X.
On the gob500 issue. I'm not sure what is going on. The esc logs show unexplained high current draws. Even on low headspeed the logs are showing 80-100A of current draw in hovers and simple sport flying. What's odder still is that on one log it starts off in the 6-10A range and jumps up with no matching voltage sag, power output spike, or rise in the rate of temperature climb. There are no noises coming out of it that might indicate a frozen bearing or other cause for a high load. The motor wasn't inordinately hot after the flight. Flight performance was just fine. And the most telling: the battery lasted to the end of the timer and was right at the voltage level I expected. So now I'm wondering if the esc logs are accurate. If it is reading high loads in error that would explain the shutdown. This is a CC edge 100A esc.
Got a bunch of compliments on the flights today. Rocking some tic tocs (tail up and down, and some ail), large low rainbows across the field, some upright and inverted loops forward and backward, some ail loops, half piro flips, and some way up in the sky attempts at hurricanes. Working on smooth control and corrections to keep things where I want them. Coming along.
On the gob500 issue. I'm not sure what is going on. The esc logs show unexplained high current draws. Even on low headspeed the logs are showing 80-100A of current draw in hovers and simple sport flying. What's odder still is that on one log it starts off in the 6-10A range and jumps up with no matching voltage sag, power output spike, or rise in the rate of temperature climb. There are no noises coming out of it that might indicate a frozen bearing or other cause for a high load. The motor wasn't inordinately hot after the flight. Flight performance was just fine. And the most telling: the battery lasted to the end of the timer and was right at the voltage level I expected. So now I'm wondering if the esc logs are accurate. If it is reading high loads in error that would explain the shutdown. This is a CC edge 100A esc.
Got a bunch of compliments on the flights today. Rocking some tic tocs (tail up and down, and some ail), large low rainbows across the field, some upright and inverted loops forward and backward, some ail loops, half piro flips, and some way up in the sky attempts at hurricanes. Working on smooth control and corrections to keep things where I want them. Coming along.
Graham Lawrie
Well-Known Member
Glad your getting there Paul
Last time i was out with my 550 i had a couple of unexplained hard landings?? Cameron asked what happened there? So not sure? wonder if there is an issue with Ikon/MSH Brain with this? I have not had one since but what you describe sounded like mine to? I wonder if it is battery related? possibly a weaker draw on a cell?
Last time i was out with my 550 i had a couple of unexplained hard landings?? Cameron asked what happened there? So not sure? wonder if there is an issue with Ikon/MSH Brain with this? I have not had one since but what you describe sounded like mine to? I wonder if it is battery related? possibly a weaker draw on a cell?Both the batteries I use on the Gob 500 are pulse packs, a 4500 and a 5000mah pack. 6S. Cell IRs are all good (under 2 milliohms each). If I had a bad solder someplace I'd expect a big voltage sag on hard power hits. If it was shorting out in the motor or something then I'd expect to see some char, smoke, or something getting crazy hot, not to mention the battery would get drained fast and puff out. None of that is happening. The temperature reading on the logs is very noisy. By comparison on my 550X with a 120HV ESC on it, the logs show average current draws of like 10-20A and a more or less noise free temperature plot.
I'm thinking something is up with the ESC. Wish I had another 100A one to swap out.
In lieu of that, though, I'm thinking I'm going to pull the blades off it, and try some bench testing.
I also have a KDE motor sitting here that is intended to be installed in the 550X along with a 160A ESC to power it. I may try to rig up a mount on the bench and power it up with the gob500 ESC to see if it shows the same out of whack current readings.
Looking online, the CC Edge 130 is the same width and height as the 100A ESC I have, but it is half an inch longer. May see if it will fit and give it a try if all else fails and I want to replace the 100A ESC.
I'm not sure how the Ikon could be playing into this. Unless there is something whacky with it's governor. I can set the logs to highest resolution and see if the throttle input is wildly fluctuating. It if is, that could explain the current being high with no apparent voltage sag or power spikes or hit to the battery life. IT is actually averaging out much lower in real-time, but the sampling rate I'm using coupled with a too-high gain setting on the Ikon gov could be tricking out the plot to look way higher than it really is.
I'm thinking something is up with the ESC. Wish I had another 100A one to swap out.
In lieu of that, though, I'm thinking I'm going to pull the blades off it, and try some bench testing.
I also have a KDE motor sitting here that is intended to be installed in the 550X along with a 160A ESC to power it. I may try to rig up a mount on the bench and power it up with the gob500 ESC to see if it shows the same out of whack current readings.
Looking online, the CC Edge 130 is the same width and height as the 100A ESC I have, but it is half an inch longer. May see if it will fit and give it a try if all else fails and I want to replace the 100A ESC.
I'm not sure how the Ikon could be playing into this. Unless there is something whacky with it's governor. I can set the logs to highest resolution and see if the throttle input is wildly fluctuating. It if is, that could explain the current being high with no apparent voltage sag or power spikes or hit to the battery life. IT is actually averaging out much lower in real-time, but the sampling rate I'm using coupled with a too-high gain setting on the Ikon gov could be tricking out the plot to look way higher than it really is.
So further update on the Goblin 500 issue hunt:
Did a few test flights today.
Flight 1: Turned up log resolution, flew a 1/3 of a battery doing staged head speeds and low impact maneuvers (hovering, slow flips and rolls, long pitch climbs and dives). Log started off with low current (<20A), then when I did a pitch up climb it spiked up to 140Aish and came down to around 100A and more or less stayed in the 80-120A range the rest of the flight. Even when I returned to low head speed and hovering for a solid minute. Very odd. Again, battery use was as expected.
Flight 2: Changed motor timing to Low and redid flight test. Same results.
Flight 3: Changed motor timing back to normal and setup a flight bank in the Ikon where governor is defeated. Setup a throttle curve on idle up 2 with a V curve (100-90-80-90-100). Same flight (little shorter as I was nearing the end of the pack at this point, despite low impact flights). Checked the logs, current was totally under control (spikes up to 100A but returning back to the 20ishA range after the load eased up). Huh...
Flight 4: Gov back on for all modes, but I tweaked the gov gain from the default 50 down to 30. Current was better behaved for a longer time this time, but once I started in on the pitch climb, it shot up again and stayed high like in the prior flights. Also, I did some high agility flying on this toward the middle ofthe pack. Started with low head speed, high agility, but the load hit was nearly stalling the motor from the sounds of things. So I kicked it up to eidle up 2 (2100ish RPM) and lo and behold, the same cutout occured that started me on this journey. This time I was just doing flips and rolls, no tic tocs. It was about 20ft up when it cut out. Managed to land it with no damage this time. Checked for damage, then spun it back up again. Took off no problems.
I'm really at a loss as to what is going on here. I'm going to check the main power wiring to make sure it isn't in a near-short somewhere. Also going to take a look at some Ikon default gov settings to make sure my other gain settings didn't get out of whack somehow.
Wishing I had some way to independently verify the current draw of this thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that the ESC has something wrong with it.
Did a few test flights today.
Flight 1: Turned up log resolution, flew a 1/3 of a battery doing staged head speeds and low impact maneuvers (hovering, slow flips and rolls, long pitch climbs and dives). Log started off with low current (<20A), then when I did a pitch up climb it spiked up to 140Aish and came down to around 100A and more or less stayed in the 80-120A range the rest of the flight. Even when I returned to low head speed and hovering for a solid minute. Very odd. Again, battery use was as expected.
Flight 2: Changed motor timing to Low and redid flight test. Same results.
Flight 3: Changed motor timing back to normal and setup a flight bank in the Ikon where governor is defeated. Setup a throttle curve on idle up 2 with a V curve (100-90-80-90-100). Same flight (little shorter as I was nearing the end of the pack at this point, despite low impact flights). Checked the logs, current was totally under control (spikes up to 100A but returning back to the 20ishA range after the load eased up). Huh...
Flight 4: Gov back on for all modes, but I tweaked the gov gain from the default 50 down to 30. Current was better behaved for a longer time this time, but once I started in on the pitch climb, it shot up again and stayed high like in the prior flights. Also, I did some high agility flying on this toward the middle ofthe pack. Started with low head speed, high agility, but the load hit was nearly stalling the motor from the sounds of things. So I kicked it up to eidle up 2 (2100ish RPM) and lo and behold, the same cutout occured that started me on this journey. This time I was just doing flips and rolls, no tic tocs. It was about 20ft up when it cut out. Managed to land it with no damage this time. Checked for damage, then spun it back up again. Took off no problems.
I'm really at a loss as to what is going on here. I'm going to check the main power wiring to make sure it isn't in a near-short somewhere. Also going to take a look at some Ikon default gov settings to make sure my other gain settings didn't get out of whack somehow.
Wishing I had some way to independently verify the current draw of this thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that the ESC has something wrong with it.
Graham Lawrie
Well-Known Member
It really sounds like there is something wrong with the esc or the Ikon It also seems as if it is when it heats up? Could it be a faulty capacitor on the esc?
It also seems as if it is when it heats up? Could it be a faulty capacitor on the esc?Well, today I eliminated the Ikon from the cause list, or more specifially it's governor. I disabled ikon gov and setup CC ESC gov. Same results. In fact I got it to do an overload very early in the flight simply by doing a quick pitch climb while in low heaspeed mode. Temperature was still way low and current spikes were not bad at all since I hadn't don't much of anything yet. It recovered much much faster though this time. BAsically felt like I hit throttle hold for a second and then back on again and it spun right back up. I think when using external gov (ikon's gov) because it was seeing the motor RPM dive even though it was feeding lots of throttle, it decided to give up or do a slow spool up, which is why I ended up doing the hard landings on prior occasions.
I'm going to check the blade pitch. I remember I was having issues with hitting the current limiter earlier in the year with this model. Turned out I was running something crazy like 16 deg of pitch and it was causing the motor to draw like crazy. I think I'm in the 12-13deg range right now, but throw on the cyclic with it and there can be some monster loads being generated. So dialing back on the agility and cyclic pitch may help avoid this too.
That said, the fact that the Ikon Gov is eliminated now and it is still jacked up (reading avg currents in the 80-100 range, when 10A or so should be the norm) means, I think, that there is something off with the ESC itself. I need to do a few more checks. I also installed the latest beta firmware on the ESC in case this was omething they fixed on it. Need to test that tomorrow, weather permitting.
I'm going to check the blade pitch. I remember I was having issues with hitting the current limiter earlier in the year with this model. Turned out I was running something crazy like 16 deg of pitch and it was causing the motor to draw like crazy. I think I'm in the 12-13deg range right now, but throw on the cyclic with it and there can be some monster loads being generated. So dialing back on the agility and cyclic pitch may help avoid this too.
That said, the fact that the Ikon Gov is eliminated now and it is still jacked up (reading avg currents in the 80-100 range, when 10A or so should be the norm) means, I think, that there is something off with the ESC itself. I need to do a few more checks. I also installed the latest beta firmware on the ESC in case this was omething they fixed on it. Need to test that tomorrow, weather permitting.
Ugh. Was playing with auto-bailouts and it didn't restart on one of them. Need a new set of landing skids and brackets, again.
Will take a look at the log later on. Have one more idea on what might be causing the current reporting issue. Unfortunately will have to wait a few days to actually test the theory, now.
Will take a look at the log later on. Have one more idea on what might be causing the current reporting issue. Unfortunately will have to wait a few days to actually test the theory, now.
Logs showed same current problem. So update of firmware didn't do anything for it. I have another change executed, but can't fly it unless I want to try hand launching and landing it.
Mental note: When testing auto-rotation bailouts, do so from way up high, that way if it fails to restart, you still have enough altitude to spin the blades back up and perform an actual auto-rotation landing.
Odd thing is, the logs show the throttle hold event and the motor spin down, but no recovery to 30% throttle. It's as if the ESC simply lost power. Battery was still at 3.9V/cell so no problem there. No abnormal starting events on next power up. Strange. Thinking I should add a new ESC to the order for the skids.
Actually I think I have a couple of coupons for CC products and also with AMain.
Mental note: When testing auto-rotation bailouts, do so from way up high, that way if it fails to restart, you still have enough altitude to spin the blades back up and perform an actual auto-rotation landing.
Odd thing is, the logs show the throttle hold event and the motor spin down, but no recovery to 30% throttle. It's as if the ESC simply lost power. Battery was still at 3.9V/cell so no problem there. No abnormal starting events on next power up. Strange. Thinking I should add a new ESC to the order for the skids.
Actually I think I have a couple of coupons for CC products and also with AMain.
Went to the field today. 2.5 flights. :-\
550x first for two flights. First flight I did auto-rotation practice. First time actually landing them! Landed 6. 4th one I almost had the hell eat itself. Flipped off throttle hold very close to ground and blade stall. Hali skid grabbed some ground and started to tip but I managed to save it and hit th again. Second flight was normal and went well.
.5 ugh. Gob500. First auto-rotation attempt at the end of the flight. Tail grabbed the dirt, slapped the front down, blade caught... Blade tapped the boom and chipped a bunch of paint off it. And the swash bearing is all jacked up. So got to order a new swash and will probably throw on a new esc to try fixing the current reading issue I've been posting about lately.
550x first for two flights. First flight I did auto-rotation practice. First time actually landing them! Landed 6. 4th one I almost had the hell eat itself. Flipped off throttle hold very close to ground and blade stall. Hali skid grabbed some ground and started to tip but I managed to save it and hit th again. Second flight was normal and went well.
.5 ugh. Gob500. First auto-rotation attempt at the end of the flight. Tail grabbed the dirt, slapped the front down, blade caught... Blade tapped the boom and chipped a bunch of paint off it. And the swash bearing is all jacked up. So got to order a new swash and will probably throw on a new esc to try fixing the current reading issue I've been posting about lately.
For a video detailing the current reading problem the ESC is giving me on the Gob 500: Paul's Goblin 500 Flights - Page 3
So I decided to order up a new 100A esc with the parts order I put in (bearings for current swash, new swash so I can get up and flying before I get that broken one repaired, and a new fiberglass boom, some others odds and ends). Going to get the heli on the bench tonight and take apart the motor to see if there's anything odd going on in there. Thought about getting a 130A ESC, but seems like overkill for a 500. The thing shouldn't be drawing more than 80-100A at peak as it is.
And I should have waited... New ESC isn't here yet and I just got email that CC is going to replace it. Not only that, they're pre-shipping the replacement to me and I send the broken one after I get the new one! Great customer service (thanks Clint Akins)!
So I'm going to have a new 100A CC Edge ESC here with no home... Guess I'll see if helidirect will accept a return for refund.
So I'm going to have a new 100A CC Edge ESC here with no home... Guess I'll see if helidirect will accept a return for refund.
The replacement ESC should be here tomorrow. Little bit of repair work to do on the Gob500 along with the ESC swap.
I just took the 550X out for a flight. Somehow managed to put it in. Had it about 30ft up and to the right of me. Was yawing around, nose left, in a hover. I put the nose down a bit to move it and it didn't feel right somehow. Wind was pretty strong so maybe it played games with my perceptions of what should have been happening. I tried a few mild cyclic moves to see if I could suss out what the orientation was for sure, and everything seemed off. At this point it was getting dangerously close to me and moving at a good clip, but still up about 20ft, so I cut throttle. I managed to get it level and bled off a bunch of lateral speed (it was going to impact at about 20mph, side in) and headspeed before it hit. Main blades cracked up, lost the blade links, a little bit of mud in some spots. But otherwise no damage from the looks of it. NEed to check main and feathering shafts. Gears, frame, skids, tail baldes and boom all look good though. Battery may be damaged. It ejected, but didn't go anywhere. Got it in a ammo can on masonry stone to let it settle and see what is up. IT was a cheapie turnigy so no huge problem if it is toast.
I just took the 550X out for a flight. Somehow managed to put it in. Had it about 30ft up and to the right of me. Was yawing around, nose left, in a hover. I put the nose down a bit to move it and it didn't feel right somehow. Wind was pretty strong so maybe it played games with my perceptions of what should have been happening. I tried a few mild cyclic moves to see if I could suss out what the orientation was for sure, and everything seemed off. At this point it was getting dangerously close to me and moving at a good clip, but still up about 20ft, so I cut throttle. I managed to get it level and bled off a bunch of lateral speed (it was going to impact at about 20mph, side in) and headspeed before it hit. Main blades cracked up, lost the blade links, a little bit of mud in some spots. But otherwise no damage from the looks of it. NEed to check main and feathering shafts. Gears, frame, skids, tail baldes and boom all look good though. Battery may be damaged. It ejected, but didn't go anywhere. Got it in a ammo can on masonry stone to let it settle and see what is up. IT was a cheapie turnigy so no huge problem if it is toast.
Blackwarrior
Member
Sounds like a strange problem that Paul, what was the cause of it? Could it have just been the wind?
I didn't have the canopy on it. Dull gray overcast day. Strong wind. And turned at an angle that gave me poor orientation view. The canopy off was the big one, I think. Way too easy to lose orientation on that heli. Basically an entirely black frame and boom and tail stab with white blades and white skids. Coupled with the strong in-the-face wind. There was no loss of signal or loss of control. My perceptions vs what the heli was doing got out of whack. Just glad I got it leveled out and slowed down somewhat before it went in.
Blackwarrior
Member
Not a good idea then to leave canopy off, good point noted there...I've just bought a white canopy for my new build and some very bright fluorescent orange and green spray paint, so one side orange and the other green... I'm hopeless with orientation so I'm hoping this is going to help me.
Hope you get her flying again soon Paul, we all learn by our mistakes so I'm sure you won't fly without a canopy next time...
Hope you get her flying again soon Paul, we all learn by our mistakes so I'm sure you won't fly without a canopy next time...