TRIMMING - and plenty of it needed!

[dongle]

I'm having a hell of a time trying to get the tracking correct on my pic, and I'm getting hacked off with it to be honest! at the moment I've improved it greatly - there is only about 1cm difference(??!) now, but that just don't seem normal!

I've read through Pauls site, and tried his methods, but it just does not seem to want to run true. Is there anything I could have put together incorrectly that could be causing this? When I power up the thing jumps all over the place until about 1/3rd throttle, when it calms down, but more worrying is I can see the servo's and swashplate moving, but nothing seems to happen. Following Radd's School I tried to just "slowly" increased the movement of the stick - I get nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing - oh, it's suddenly fallen over.

HEEEELP!?

cheers

Dongle

[rdn1153]

Hey dongle, hang in there. What heli are we talking about here. Is this the CP or Fun or Eco? On my Eco, I found it difficult to get my pitch perfect with the stock flybar paddles. It was OK, just not perfect and would wobble some at various RPM's depending on how I tweaked the original paddles. I switched to the Pro Paddles based on other's successful posts, and bingo, 'spot on' as our friends in the UK would say.

[dongle]

It's the Fun Pic in bog standard trim. It wobbles chronically at very low rpm, but does steady out way before the skids start to get light.

My 2 main concerns are the fact the track is so far out, and that no matter what I'm doing with the sticks, the heli just does not seem to respond. Perhaps I've just misunderstood Radd's theory here, but I was expecting some sort of (semi) controlled movement from the helicopter on the floor as I twiddle away - as I say though, I get nothing until the point where it falls over and flaps about like a freshly landed fish!!!!

As this was the first heli I put together - I've just been re-reading the instructions to make sure nothing was on upside down/ back to front - but it all looks OK?!

with the feet on the ground, the vibration can be amplified so only worry about vibraion in the air.

well less vibration is better, but dont kill yourself over it a wobbly piccolo can still fly better than a pilot can conrol it.

a test, try holding the piccolo by the tail and powering up ... hen try holding by the skids and powering up ... way more wobble.

also training gear can add alot of wobble.

i hate to suggest people spend money, but the alum flybar control arms make it alot easier to align the arms.

[dongle]

Must admit - 10 minutes fiddling with those plastic jobbies, and the aluminium flybar bits are beginning to look damn attractive...

plus if I order them now, the y should arrive shortly after the plastic ones are broken.!!

Tried your little wobble test - thats quite surprising isn't it!

One thing I'm really enjoying about doing Radd's school thing - I've never got through a WHOLE battery pack without breaking something before - be it in the air or on the floor!!!

[reflex]

Fun Picc. = metal mainshaft.
it may be bent.
Remove it and try rolling it on a flat mirror.

On your control probs.
Make sure the swash and flybar ball links
are very "free"

[Radian]

I am sure you have checked this but. . . You don't have the controls reversed on your controller do you? I have 2 pics one of them I has gws servos and the other hitec. I have to reverse the stick controls for the gws pic or it just flops over as I move the stick because I forget to reverse them relative to the one with the hitec.

Also, a bad rotor head can cause tracking issues like you see. Check to see if one side of the head lifts off of the bearing or bushing more than the other side. Also, make sure the head tilts freely on the bearings.

[rdn1153]

Once I had things trimmed, the Pic lifted off relatively smoothly, for the most part straight up with a little right stick thrown in. After I got out of ground effect, it was even more stable and actually F-U-N to fly, all 15 seconds !!!

To get successfully off the ground for the first time, I added throtle to the point it just wanted to fly, then a tad more to see which direction it wanted to go, set her down immediatley and added TX trim to correct. I repeated this until she basically tried to lift straight up. Even though the heli was balanced and the blades tracking well, with the training gear on, it required a lot of temporary TX trimming. I'm about ready to shake the training gear which is 1/4 in dowel & ping pong balls (orange, 'cause they look cool).

[will p2]

ifyour swash is moving when the heli spins yessomething can be bent but also check thatyour ballls and links are free to move at the slightest touch with no friction.

[dongle]

I would have said earlier that my ball links were "free", however the more I play with them, the more I am beginning to wonder if they really are free enough. I'll give them another little "squeeze" to see if I can get a bit more freedom to them. I think I will also check the main shaft - Don't know how hard they are to bend, but it's had enough opportunity to now!!

Other than that, I think I'll also take it into the model shop to see what the big boss reckons - My thought are if he wants to see £300 of mine for a r/c unit - I'm sure he'd like to check the pic over as well

At least I have mastered the tail control on the floor now!