I don't know if it was weather related or what, but after a 3-day delay, the last of my parts are in. Now I can get the 450 up and running today.

 

Back in the air.
It was a belt that I was waiting on. None of the shops keep belts in stock here. I see a big difference in quality from the CopterX to a genuine Align belt!
I went with the 13t pinion this round, upping the headspeed to around 3300. Sound is a bit quieter and smoother having gotten rid of the out-of-round main gear and installed a better pinion with slightly deeper pitch depth. The first one was too shallow and not providing full mesh with the main gear.
Resetting no-crash count to 1.

 

Great news! re the belt, but its why i have moved on from clones - not that they are bad, most are fine for general flying and i had a great time with my copterx black angel. Once you start to really throw stuff around (and i think you will get to that stage @Beaver) then having materials that will handle high stress situations becomes more important. So you can buy a clone initially and gradually upgrade the parts that require change. Frames generally are the same no matter what.. same with boom I suppose. But the drive train needs to be strong if it is going to be thrown around.

 

Agreed. I learned quite a bit about the recommended clone upgrades from following Utrinque...... who I still follow on RCG.... and I learn alot here as well.

 

Aaaaah! I finally got to fly out in some open air. I should go back to my base settings, I kicked the cyclic gain up a bit and now I have a slight wobble after harder stick movements. Blades may be out of balance a bit, It gets a shake at different rpms till fully spooled up. I'll check those this evening. I just need a good set of CF blades.
So maybe there are a few minor bugs to trim out yet, but nothing to worry about.....
Otherwise, smooth flight.

 

shaking can be a silent assasin @Beaver. Even with un-noticed shaking the effectiveness of your stabilisation is greatly diminished. So the helicopter would feel less connected, drift slightly or spongy. Remember a gyro works with oscillating sensors and movement from the oscillation plane creates an electrical difference. Do your best to eliminate all vibration. Its critical to ensure you get the best out of your gyro. You can fly with vibes but your heli will not be flying anywhere near its potential..

 

Right. I learned that with the NanoCPx- it acted all kinds of weird if the blades were out or the F-spindle was bent. The 450 blades seem to be in "static" balance from what I can tell, but they are cheap "glass fiber" blades, so who knows. I'm about to guage the head to grip spacings to make sure grips are spaced even, I've found it off-center once already. As I watch the center screw in the head cap during spool-up, it goes off center twice at two different rpm harmonics, but then seems to go to dead-center at full speed around 2800 (11t pinion).... I would not attempt lift-off otherwise. It could be blade swing uneven during spool-up, but blades are slightly loose just under friction point at grips so there is no bind there. Vibes seem minimal spooled up with no main blades. I need to investigate the frequency counter on this Kbar and how to read it on the iCard programmer so I can isolate by frequency calculations. I have yet to determine how much vibration is negligible, so all I can do for now is eliminate or reduce them as much as possible.

 

Usually if you clamp your heli down, and spool without blades the gyro should remain motionless in its plane. IE the swash should be level and the tail should not wonder (look at the tail slider - it should stay in the middle and the main swash should remain level - pitch up and down as well) Spool as fast as you can on the bench to amplify any potential vibe. Tail vibes are the hardest to pick up. They are much higher frequency than the mains and tend to oscillate vertically where as the mains vibes tend to shake side to side. You can usually put the tail blades on while clamped - just be carefull.

 

I've been testing with tail blades on. Tail lock has not been an issue. So far the FBL hasn't shown any anomalistic behavior except today when I pushed the cyclic gain up from 60 to 70.

 

Ok is the wobble on the cyclic or the tail? At anyrate it usually means the gains are a bit high if vibes are not an issue. Also some 1/2 descent blades will make a difference. What size blades do you need? I have a few HQ 325 blades I think...

 

It's definitely cyclic wobble. The cyclic gain is the only gain I've adjusted. Tail has been solid ever since I removed the friction from getting Loctite in one of the slider link bushings.
Yes, I'm running 325mm blades.

 

Gain back to 60.
I finally started utilizing the bank select switch. I only have a 2-way switch, so its bank-0 for mild and bank-3 for wild. I'll find out how that works tomorrow. One of these days I'll get a better radio with more channels, but the DX4e is doing the job rather well so far.

 

BTW, the out of balance shake is only on the ground during spool-up. The in-flight shake was too much gain. I forgot to clarify that earlier.

 

Wow. The dual bank settings worked out great! Bank-0 is nice and mellow, and bank-3 is like flying a Nano CPx!

 

Great to hear! so flying once more! and how is it feeling flying a bigger heli? Bit of a rush hey!

 

I love it! ..... especially now that I'm getting the FBL dialed-in and dual-flight-mode set up for slow or fast response. It's definitely more stable than a micro-heli even with the servo rates cranked up! I'm almost ready to attempt some flips and transition to inverted flight.
I like the versatility of the FBL (Kbar), and being able to plug in my laptop or use the iCard to change the settings.
Everything works as planned..... hand-picking the electronic components paid off! All I need now is CF main and tail blades.

 

Whooooooo!!
I finally found the nerve to go inverted with the 450 as of 15 minutes ago..... my heart is still pounding!!
It was a "now or never" moment, flipped the mode switch to high agility, got some altitude, and pulled the cyclic back and let it flip on over. It stayed nice and stable and responded well, and I held the inverted hover for a good 10 seconds before going back upright.
That wasn't enough..... despite having the shakes from the adrenaline rush, I went for more inversions. I think I went 6 more times, holding it 10 or 15 seconds each time before rolling back upright, till it was time to bring it back in before the pack started getting low.
If anything needs adjusting, I need to get the collective bias maybe a degree more to the negative side. It seemed like I had to put a bit more stick to it while inverted, but then again, it might have been the adrenaline going to my head.
The sim-time is paying-off!

 

Yeah man you got it! I know this moment very well as it isnt that far in the past. Trying the first time to invert that thing like its not even able to fly inverted!! LOL! Adrenaline is a gooood thing haahaha. Keep going on the sim every other day you will see its really worth it.

How did you setup you pitch range? Digital pitch measurement?

 

SMOKING @Beaver... SMOKING! Well done... ride the wave... let it drive you! Congratulations! So happy for you. Remember the bailout is just as important as the trick... Awesome... Im buzzing just hearing your story...

 

Used Vstabil to setup and a protractor app on phone to verify. Running 10° collective and 8° cyclic. I think I can correct the problem at the radio by setting the trim a little more toward negative.