450 Wow Finally flew my Heli for the first time ever.

Wow. So i have owned an Align Trex 450 pro 3GX since the end of May & have bought everything imaginable for it as far as any upgrades or add ons not installed anything yet and i havent flown it at all even once because i havent taken the time to sit down and configure the stupid thing as far as the gyro unit so i went ahead and bought me a Blade 450 3D because i own a DX7S and it was a bind and fly heli so i figured i wouldn't have to get frustrated trying to set it up or anything. Today after finally switching out the battery connectors last night to work with my batteries i flew the heli for the first time. Given i didnt get it off the ground more than about 2 feet because i have not only not flown it but i have never flown any heli. So i just downloaded the files from Horizons site for my TX and it was that easy. But anyway i only flew for about 3 minutes on and off and then i decided to push the throttle a little bit just to get it off the ground then i noticed it was flying towards a ladder so i quickly let off the throttle completely and it was alittle to late and the blades hit the ladder and broke but nothing else luckily broke so i actually feel pretty good about this cuz atleast i finally flew one of the heli's. No i didnt get any video sorry it wasnt even long enough.

So now i have to replace the stock wooden blades then try it out again, but while i was trying it out i noticed it always was pulling towards the left even after i was adjusting the trim tabs so i need to figure that out aswell. Thanks tom
 

EyeStation

Well-Known Member
Congrats! I'm only about a month ahead of you with a T-Rex 450xl. I learned to keep enough room to bail if necessary. As you are still close to the ground, I believe the lean to the left is common. I kept the subtrim window on my Tx open when doing those first low hoovers. I would lift the skids and see which way she leaned, put her down and add some sub to correct that tracking. I found as I got further away from the ground I had to tweek out some of the trim I needed lower. I focused on 1 servo at a time till I got something predictable. Then I would watch the servo throw as I took out the sub trim and try to adjust the linkage to that amount.
My last two batteries I used outside, i was actually able to let go of the left stick when it was 10 ft in the air. Now I am focusing on the aileron trim ad linkage.
I hope we are both doing circuits by the end of next month.
Good Luck!
 
Oh good to know. The trim I was talking about was the little physical tabs on the side and bottom of both sticks. Are u talking about a menu option? What tx do u own?
 

EyeStation

Well-Known Member
Oh good to know. The trim I was talking about was the little physical tabs on the side and bottom of both sticks. Are u talking about a menu option? What tx do u own?

Spektrum DX6i. And I am sure you have more bells and whistles. On mine it is the 3rd menu below the Model select on the Tx. This is me from this past Sunday night,
[video=youtube_share;ZWQu3_J5nsw]http://youtu.be/ZWQu3_J5nsw[/video]

- - - Updated - - -

The times you see me touch the ground, I am being thrown by the wind. I bail a lot less than two weeks ago in the family room.
 
Oh wow sweet. I cannot believe it, until I just saw your video I completely forgot that I have that training landing gear haha, im going to go put those on and try it out again hopefully giving me better results this time plus ill fly it somewhere alot more open as far as obsticles go. Lol
 
Haha thats the sad part I already have phoenix 4.0 but it seems nothing like actual flight now that I know what it feels like. Off topic but does anyone know on lipo batteries and my helis once I have run them down to 3.7v/cell will my helis shutoff automatically or is there a risk that I can over use them and go below 3.7v/cell? I think that may be why my first battery puffed up and was garbage cuz when I first got my heli trex 450 pro I didnt know much at all and kept playin around with it inside until the heli started acting weird and then stopped rotating its blades. Isnt there some sort of warning buzzer I can install on my helis that once I reach low power they will alarm me? I mean I already know about the timer option on my DX7S but it seems that it would be more reliable to have a buzzer of sorts so I can always get full potential out of my batteries.

Isn't there some sort of volt meter sensor if I wanted to setup either of my helis with telemetry with my tx? If I where to set either up with telemetry system by Spektrum could I somehow make it easily removable therefore sharable between birds rather than buying 2 full telemetry systems? Or atleast make the main telemetry unit sharable and only buy 2 seperate volt sendors if they have to be hardwired in
 

stokke

Well-Known Member
I believe that the Align ESC should have some sort of voltage cut-off, but I do not think it's enabled by default (you'll have to enable it yourself). When my 450 PRO was outta juice it started to loose power fast, and landing as quick as possible became the task at hand LOL.

Hobbyking sells a voltage buzzer that connects to the batterys balance plug.
 
My 450 pro has been upgraded so it does not have the stock reciever or gyro unit from align cant remember whats on it till tommorrow but cool ill check it out
 

murankar

Staff member
Or you could use a telemetry module for the battery pack. Most escs won't kill the motor on lvc. Its best practice to use only 80% of the mah.
 
Yes that is what I've heard before but it proves quite difficult to watch the heli drain 80% of the battery without going over drained. Thats why I wanted to know alittle about the buzzers. But im leaning towards the telemetry option more and more then ill make the main telemetry unit the ? 1000
 

Tony

Staff member
On my helicopters, I start out with 5 minutes of flight time. Once that is done, I will go in and charge my pack. Once it's finished charging, I look at the MAH that went back into it. If it's less than 80%, I will add a little time to the timer. And keep doing this until I hit that 80% mark. The more you fly, the harder you will fly, so you will need to keep an eye on it.
 

pvolcko

Well-Known Member
I use the timer on the DX7S without issue. It has the option to either beep or beep and vibrate. Set the timer for 5 minutes or so, do a flight and then recharge and see how many mAh goes back in. Adjust timer accordingly until you put 75-80% of capacity back in on recharge.

As you progress and start using idle up more and flying more aggressive maneuvers you will find you need to shorten your timer in order to avoid going over limit.

And as mentioned, there are buzzers you can plug into the battery to go off when below a threshold voltage.
 
Yes if I dont get a telemetry right away then ill do a buzzer cuz I want to always get the fullest potentional I can out of them.
 

Dirk

Member
I use telemetry on my 450 PRO DFC. I have set my alarm on my DX8 to go off at 7.5 minutes. My battery voltage is then at 3.7 V per cell. You'll have to experiment on your setup to establish your flight time/minimum voltage. The Align ESC does have a low voltage cut off. I have mine set so that I will start losing power when the voltage drops too low. It has never happened though because I fly according to my telemetry voltage.
 
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