Need Complete guide on setting up Heli with DX6i

[Jack10525]

Is there a complete newbies guide on setting up a trex clone with a spektrum dx6i and 6200 receiver? I bought a flasher pe and need alot of help on getting everything set up right. Thanks for any help.

[jasmine2501]

There is a procedure that works with any helicopter (and any radio too).

Plug in the wires this way:
Right cyclic servo into aileron
Left cyclic into Aux
Elevator cyclic into Elevator
Gyro gain into Gear
Gyro signal into Rudder
ESC into Throttle

Now there's a few things you have to set up, in order. Look in your manual and figure out how to set these - it will do you good to learn.

0. Find an open memory spot, and set helicopter as the model type and give it a name
1. Set 120-degrees swash plate
2. Unplug the motor - you're going to playing with the throttle, so really unplug the motor.
3. Bind the receiver to the new model memory slot you just created
4. Take out the bind plug and plug in the battery again.
5. Go to your servo reversing menu
6. Move the throttle up and down a little bit - all three cyclic servos should move the same direction
7. If they don't move together, figure out which one is going the wrong way and use the servo reversing to reverse that servo only.
8. Go to your swash mixing menu - you'll see three options, elevator, aileron, and pitch.
9. Move the throttle up - if the swash moves up, you're fine. If not, change the "pitch" number from positive to negative.
10. Push the cyclic stick forward - the swash should tilt down on the front side - if not, change the "elevator" number from positive to negative
11. Push the cyclic stick left - the swash should tilt down on the left side - if not, change the "aileron" number from positive to negative.
12. Push the rudder stick to the right, the tail blades should move so that the tail would push to the left - think about this carefully - the leading edges should move left when pushing the rudder stick to the right.
13. Move the tail by hand - again, think carefully - the leading edges of the tail blades should push against your movement - so if you swing the tail left, the leading edges should push right. If they move the wrong way, then you'll need to reverse the direction of the gyro - ON THE GYRO - not in the radio.
14. Set your normal mode throttle curve to something like 0-50-75-90-100
15. Set your idle-up throttle curve to 100-90-80-90-100
16. Set your normal mode pitch curve to 30-40-50-75-100
17. Set your idle-up pitch curve to 0-25-50-75-100
18. Put the helicopter in idle-up mode (motor still unplugged!!!)
19. Move the throttle stick all the way up and down - you should have zero pitch on the main blades with the throttle stick in the dead center, and about 10 degrees positive with the full throttle, and 10 degrees negative with throttle all the way down. If you don't get this, post what you're getting and I'll try to help figure it out.

Now that is the basics, but there's a lot more to it than this. This method will only get everything moving in the right directions - there's also issues of setting the gyro gain (specific to your gyro), issues of centering the servos, adjusting the linkages so you get proper pitch numbers, blade tracking, etc, etc... if this is your first helicopter, you've got a lot to learn, and I highly recommend watching Finless Bob's Trex 450 build videos over at HeliFreak.com. Other option is to get an experienced pilot to help you.

[Glasswalker]

Awesome! this will be useful for me too once my DX6i arrives lol... I'm sure I would have fumbled through it on my own as well, but this makes it much simpler!

[jasmine2501]

No problem dudes :)

I'm working on a heli setup presentation for my club meeting anyway, so it was helpful for me to write it all down. I think a lot of people get confused because they don't have a step-by-step, and go back and forth setting various things, and that can go downhill real fast. I think also some people get overwhelmed by all the settings that are available, and maybe don't realize that most of the screens can be ignored.

[Cklasse]

I am a newbie and setting up my first heli.

What about setting up the ESC? I have a Mini Titan and I read something about this ESC setting in the recent issue of RCHeli Mag.

By the way, I set up my blade pitch to +5 degrees at 50% pitch curve.

[jasmine2501]

You need to have zero pitch at 50% pitch curve, unless you never want to learn 3D. Being able to find the zero point is super important, and if you keep changing the stick position where that occurs, you'll have a hard time learning 3D.

The ESC usually comes with a manual about how to program it. On helicopters, the only really important thing is to make sure the brake is turned off, and the low-voltage cutoff is set to off or the special helicopter setting - and then time your flights... you don't want to run a helicopter battery all the way down! Ask me how I know ;)

[Cklasse]

Thanks, so I will setup my ESA after I am done with the pitch curve setting. Yes! you are right that I am not going to do 3D, they are just not like real helicopter. I want to fly scale and learn to fly it like the real thing. :D

[Glasswalker]

Ok I walked through this setup, and it appears when I have the heli in "stunt mode" which I'm assuming is idle up. It has zero degrees pitch at zero throttle, and 15 degrees at full throttle...

Does that mean I don't have enough travel in my servos? What should I do to adjust this? should I adjust the linkage length? move the horns on the servo? or use sub trims in the radio? or should I use the travel adjust in the radio? (I'm still not fully up to speed as to what the proper case is to use each of these things).

I know the goal is for 9-10 degrees of pitch both plus and minus so a total of 18-20 degrees of travel. right now everything is offset positive by several degrees, and I don't appear to have enough travel. So moving the servo horns should get me closer to "center" and then using the linkage adjustments I should be able to fine tune that more? and finally the travel adjust should let me get more travel out of the servo? and lastly the subtrim is for fine tuning once I'm test flying? do I have that correct?

Thanks!

[Glasswalker]

Ok nevermind, I think I got it. I moved the stick to center. Then manually moved servo horns to center (as close as I could get). Then I used subtrims to get them perfectly center.

Then I used pitch guage and adjusted sub-trims until perfect center stick was exactly zero pitch on both blades.

Adjusted linkage between flybar guide, and blade holder on the blade that was out of whack. A couple turns of the ball link gave me a couple degrees adjustment (one blade was a couple degrees out of the other).

Then once blades were both on center, then I adjusted the swash mix, turning up (or down in the case of a negative) mix percentage to increase the travel until I got +10 at full stick and -10 at zero stick.

Then double checked both blades. They appear to be +/- 10 degrees now with center being exactly center stick.

Thanks!

[jasmine2501]

Ok nevermind, I think I got it. I moved the stick to center. Then manually moved servo horns to center (as close as I could get). Then I used subtrims to get them perfectly center.

Yes that is the correct method for centering the servos, just make sure you're at 50% on the pitch curve - this is more accurate than eyeballing "center stick" which might not even be 50% pitch.


Then I used pitch guage and adjusted sub-trims until perfect center stick was exactly zero pitch on both blades.

Don't use subtrim for that part - do it by adjusting the links.


Adjusted linkage between flybar guide, and blade holder on the blade that was out of whack. A couple turns of the ball link gave me a couple degrees adjustment (one blade was a couple degrees out of the other).

Then once blades were both on center, then I adjusted the swash mix, turning up (or down in the case of a negative) mix percentage to increase the travel until I got +10 at full stick and -10 at zero stick.

Then double checked both blades. They appear to be +/- 10 degrees now with center being exactly center stick.

Thanks!
Yup that sounds good :)

[Glasswalker]

I took the time to remove the subtrims, and re-center everything to zero pitch at exactly 50% throttle pitch, using only the mechanics. So now it's 100% centered with no sub-trims at all...

Thanks for the tips!

[Jack10525]

Jasmine2501 double awesome!!!! This is great info. I really appreciate it.

[jasmine2501]

No problem dude... as a computer programmer that's kinda my approach to life - "There must be an algorithm for this problem" :D

[Jack10525]

Hey Jasmine,

I am having trouble setting up the receiver. When you say right and left cyclic, do you mean as you view the heli from the nose or tail? Also these are the servos up front on the heli. I only have 5 connections that go into the receiver: 2 servos toward the front of the heli on the right ant left sides, 1 servo just behind the rotor that looks to increase pitch, 1 tail servo that is plugged into the gyro (the gyro plugs into receiver) and the ecs connector. I tried various ways to plug them in and could not get them to work together with the throttle stick. By the way I k-balled the servos and gyro off of a walkera 36. This might explain my situation. Thanks for any help.

[jasmine2501]

What kind of helicopter is it? Right and left always mean viewed from behind.

In most helicopters, the three servos work together to move the swash up and down, and this causes collective pitch. There's some helicopters that do it different though... so I need to know which kind it is.

[Jack10525]

It's a flasher PE which is a new Trex clone.

[jasmine2501]

Watch this... it should be the same kind of thing. The three servos need to work together, they don't control individual channels - they will always move together to do collective, and pitch and roll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6_7MOCriuo

[Mcdyvie]

Hi, is this set-up applicable for a CX3 helicopter as well on a DX6i? I think the Swash should be at 90° though, but what about the rest?

Thanks in advance,

[jasmine2501]

No, the CX3 should be set up as a standard 4-channel AIRPLANE. It does not need helicopter programming, it is designed to fly with a regular 4-channel airplane transmitter. If it has remote gyro gain, figure out what channel that is on and use ATV menu to set the gain.

[Mcdyvie]

ah bummer, I was hoping to get the Heli pic on my DX6i, oh well, thanks anyway!

//Mcdyvie

[Jack10525]

Hey Jasmine,

I ended up getting a new gyro (xmhobbies g401b) it has all the connectors you originally posted to connect to the rx. I have installed it but some of my servos are reversed and for the life of me I can not figure out how to change them. I am about to give up. I appreciate all your help so far but maybe this is over my head. :eek:

So when do you decide to throw in the towel? I have at least $400 into the current build and I am still building/setting up. I wasted at least another $500 on Walkera crap. I am about to give up. If you have felt this way and are still flying today, tell me how you did it. I think I should have just bought a completely built system and had it set up right. :confused:

[QiW]

get into your swash mix menu .. change the value of either the AILE or ELEV or PIT (whichever servo that is reversed) from either positive to negative or vice versa .. keep the same number value ... just change the positive or negative

[jasmine2501]

get into your swash mix menu .. change the value of either the AILE or ELEV or PIT (whichever servo that is reversed) from either positive to negative or vice versa .. keep the same number value ... just change the positive or negative

Only do this if the collective moves all three servos in the same direction. If you put collective and one of the servos moves the wrong way, then you need to reverse that servo only, in the servo reversing menu. The swash mixing menu affects multiple servos, for whatever function you change. So, for example if your collective pitch is moving all three servos together in the same direction, but the aileron command goes the wrong way, that is what you fix in the swash mix menu. Go back and look at my steps again - you can't skip any steps, each step depends on the previous step being done right.

NEVER GIVE UP! Setup is the easy part.

[QiW]

Only do this if the collective moves all three servos in the same direction. If you put collective and one of the servos moves the wrong way, then you need to reverse that servo only, in the servo reversing menu. The swash mixing menu affects multiple servos, for whatever function you change. So, for example if your collective pitch is moving all three servos together in the same direction, but the aileron command goes the wrong way, that is what you fix in the swash mix menu. Go back and look at my steps again - you can't skip any steps, each step depends on the previous step being done right.

NEVER GIVE UP! Setup is the easy part.

yeah .. swash mix is IF a particular servo is going the wrong way in the swash
individual servo direction can be changed in the servo reverse menu ..
jasmine2501 is right :)

[jasmine2501]

You have to be careful how you word that. Swash mix does not reverse servos. It reverses mixing, which can affect all three servos at once. Servo reversing works on one servo at a time.

[Jack10525]

Ok you guys have given me new hope.

[Jack10525]

Ok I finally got my radio set up right I think. Every thing moves the right way. Now I need help setting the pitch on the blades. I would say I am 15 degrees negative and only about 5 degrees positive as I move the throttle stick up. I have a pitch gauge and have put on the blades but I cannot figure out how to read it well. What are my reference points? I tried searching google for a video but for some reason could not find one. I am sure I have seen one in the past. Help please. :D

[jasmine2501]

Start at the top...

Set the blades to zero pitch, then check the mixing arms. They should be perfectly level - don't think you can adjust that on the Blade 400, but other helis have adjustable links up there.

Then check the washout arms - if they are not level and even with each other, then adjust the linkages until they are.

Those two steps will help you figure out where the swash needs to sit at zero pitch. Adjust the servos and the three links on the servos until the swash sits at that point you found, with the servos centered.

[igotit]

lots of info here ....thanx guys!

[yogibbear]

Woohoo just used this to setup my dx6i again. Thx jasmine ;)