A little flying diversion while it's been windy.
Never even seen a box kite in real life, thought I'd try it out.
Quick cheap home made one.

Home Made Box Kite! (6 min 38 sec)

There's Also This:

Grabbed a really cheap tiny usb cam from China for $12
and am having a lot of fun with it on an mQx!
Here are some video links from day #1.

mQx High Altitude Night Flight (1 min 53 sec)

...Continue Reading

You can' t really tell by the photo but that's printed on florescent 'glow' paper.
And it shows up VERY nice outside.
A step up in visibility over the stock canopy, which now that it's cold outside I keep cracking to pieces in simple crashes.

Fun!

MQX-NightFlight (3 min 8 sec)

Eflite MCPx and MQx :-)
Wife ran the cell phone cam.

MCPx test run (1 min 38 sec)

...Continue Reading

Hmmm.. it seems that new USB logitech mice come with a free mQX canopy!

Pulled out of a $1 thrift store discarded nokia cell phone and repurposed.
I have a flashing bright blue in the back from an ESky Hunter.
Changed the resistor for full brightness @3.7V

When this is all I knew how to fly and I couldn't even hover the Belt CP V2..
And I was seriously wondering if I'd EVER be able to.
Lost it in the wind flying 300 feet up and cought some serious wind way up there.
I tried desperately to fly it back but the wind was too strong and I was already over a forest so just dropping it would have also resulted probably never finding it.

Hmmmm....
Do invoicing or go outside and fly the new MQx all day.

Which one would you do?

Sister bought me one!
I'm headed over there to go pick it up now!

But I swear it NEVER works.

Trying to replace the main gear on Belt CP V2 with Main Gear from Eflite Blade 400.

Supposedly it's a direct replacement.
The shaft and main gears assembly once installed is binding (much harder to turn than normal).
But only as soon as I get the little long screw all the way through the holes in the tail rotor gear (bottom) and main shaft and small 'tube'.
The metal 'tube' is the small part that fits into both of the gears (main gear & tail rotor main drive gear and what couples to the one-way bearing on the main gear.

It all turns very nicely and freely until I get that screw through the bottom gear.
The shaft is not bent.
I've had it apart and back together 5 times and am still scratching my head trying to figure it out..

I've disconnected the tail belt to make sure the binding is not anything to do with the tail or the belt drive shaft..

It starts to bind as soon as I get the long screw through all the holes at the very bottom of the main shaft.. I don't even have to get the nut on it before it tightens up the rotation..

It turns but it's much harder to turn than normal
If I simply take the screw out of the bottom of the main shaft it all turns very nicely with ease..

It's got to be a simple problem and I've had no sleep and I'm being stupid.


Crap I need to dig out /find the the old gear and see if this Eflite part is my problem :-(


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OK, that was a fun wasted 4...Continue Reading

This thought hit me like a ton while driving back to the office yesterday.
What I really need to do (once I get everything repaired) is so damn obvious and I should have
Thought of this before..
I need to play with idle-up or stunt mode a little at a time and not all at once as ESKY stock TX
was having me try it.
Now that I have the DX6i I can try this out a little at a time and try all kinds of different throttle
and pitch curves CAREFULLY by setting the basic area RPM+pitch I’d like to play with and try out
in NORMAL mode and be able to gradually increase the stick up to reach this play area at
mid stick or ¾ stick instead of just blasting it at myself with the flip of a switch!!
Geese.. the way I was going about it (ESKY stock style) was to have a perfectly flying helicopter in normal
mode and then flip a switch have it go full RPM at guessed blade pitches have the tail suddenly shift
instantly somewhere between 90-120° from where I had it and have a heli pointing nose-up or nose down close the ground and suddenly have to deal with the situation on a heli that seems super over responsive and all but uncontrollable.
I’ve got out of the mess 4 times but the last time I hit the blades on the ground with a very loud POP!
Crap I wish I would have thought of this better approach BEFORE I wrecked it.
I could have tried higher head speeds and various blade pitches a little at a time and got used to it in stages instead of the everything at once mess this thing is...Continue Reading

Belt CP V2:
I still suck at this thing on idle-up attempts..

I don't really have 'settings' I can share because I just keep changing them..
I was generally setting normal mode to have a bit higher head speed to help get me used to more responsiveness, by applying less blase pitch at mid to 3/4 the way up, also this heli has 315mm blades making it even more touchy.

On idle-up I was using a straight 0-25-50-75-100 for pitch curve (like the stock TX was)
And for throttle curve I had 100-85-85-85-100 (like stock TX)..
Stock TX had a problem where at mid stick if you switch back to normal mode the blade pitch would jump to +5 and the heli should shoot up 25 feet into the air.. when switching to idile up it would do the opposite, and was NOT settable or programmable...
With the DX6i I've tried to adjust normal mode to a higher head speed to match the hovering point so I could switch to idle-up and have about the same lift-level and ~85% full rpm..
I've not got it quite right and yesterday I made it even 'touchier' than stock..
As soon as I go into Idle-up it's all over the place and I'm fighting to get it back under control.
I had this same problem with the stock TX.. but saved it the other 4 times I tried this..
yesterday I lost the battle and wrecked it.
I feel like an idiot!! I've been flying it for well over a month without crashing..
The moment I try to experiment and play with idle-up I wreck my helicopter that I had all setup so nicely.. and was flying very...Continue Reading

Part 1:
Well I just started trying inverted flight for the first time and crashed in the grass
& popped one link off & simply snapped it back on.
Killed the throttle on during crash so it crashed hard in the grass under power but did not sit there under power after crashing.
Ever since the crash I now have very little tail motor power.
This is NOT what I expected from crashing!
I thought I'd be replacing broken links blades shafts etc.. once I started trying
things & crashing in the grass, not losing my tail motor or 3-in-1 board ($70)
on my FIRST real crash in the grass!

Is this normal? How long do these motors usually last? and how do they handle
thumping into the grass?
I've got about 7 hours of good flight time on my MCPX V2.

Anyone else lose your tail motor or have it suddenly become weak?
How many flight hours should you get out of he stock motor?
And what kind of crashing or impact usually destroys it for you?

I'm not ready to go brushless, so far I've been very happy with the stock performance for now it will be awhile before I outgrow it.

I'll be extrememely upset if the problem is a blown part on the 3-in-1 board..
They're really expensive.

Motor seems to have just suddenly dropped in power at around 1/4th it's original
torque level..

I can still hover but have to give the tail lots of of right stick to keep it from spinning.
It will not climb out withot spinning violently due to lack of motor power.
blade is NOT...Continue Reading

The usual around here.
Always windy.

MCPX V2 in 20+ Mph gusts. (1 min 25 sec)

Okay I feel like an idiot.
I am building up a custom 450 helicopter from parts, mostly Esky Belt CP V2.
I've decided to use an Orange RX (very inexpensive) I've already range tested it
and it is excellent for the need and have studied how well others have done with these on helicopters and non- long range applications.

What I didn't realize is that even though the RX (either Orange) or the actual Spektrum receivers are rated to run on up to 9.6Volts, the servos you generally hook up to them ARE NOT!

I also assumed that even if you were running an RX at 9.6V that it would properly
power the servos at their required voltage range *WRONG*!

I'm not really sure why these recievers are rated to run at 9.6V if you can't practically hook up the servos to them.. unless maybe they make servos designed to work at higher voltages, all the ones I've encountered and used are ~5V.

I had been previously testing binding and range testing the receivers both the Orange knock-offs and actual Spektrum parkflyers right off of a 2cell (2s) *not sure what "s" means I'll have to look it up later.. 2 section vs. 2 cell?
And they have been working fine at 7.4V for testing purposes which is quite lower
than the rated 9.6V.

What I found out today while testing some Esky EK2-0508 Digital servos is that
They chatter terribly as if getting some kind of analog feedback to themselves
and get very warm quickly while plugged into an RX that is being powered directly from a 7.4V...Continue Reading

Got my MCPx V2 last night!
Got over an hour of flight time on it already today with most of it in 10-15Mph gusty wind.

http://www.windfinder.com/report/ann_arbor

It's pretty awesome I can fly it without crashing (unlike the CB180d) nose in, all the usual stuff except inverted.. not tried that yet and I'm not all that good at it on the sims.
I can do it on the sims but it's rough and all orientations/recoveries are not automatic for me yet. Inverted flight (all orientations) is yet another new language I need to learn.
There's a lot more to it than just flipping the heli over and then back upright :-)

MCPX is really really cool though, not perfect but really really cool.
I notice the power dropping at about 2 minutes and then you get another 2 minutes at 75%
power with the stock 200mAh cells that came with it (3).
We all know already you can't climb out at full power without tail failing to keep up.

I'm a little iffy about that computer doing so much work.. it's a little easier to fly that I expected.. the computer does a TON work automatically that makes flying in the wind easier. ( I know I'm not this awesome at flying).
I kind of would like to be a little more hands on with that with a switch or something to tone it's correction down a smidge.

But it beats crashing and having to wait WEEKS for calm days to fly the CB180D or coaxial out there.

I think the charger LED indications are humourous..
1. Charge rate selected
2. Single light blinking (...Continue Reading

Okay that was dumb..
Lately I've been flying my modified Esky Hunter Coaxial 100-200FT ABOVE our office!
This nice calm morning today I pushed it between 200-300 and caught
some wind up there and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it back.
It was nearly out of view at this point and for awhile I was confident I could get it back but just kept getting further & furhter away and I couldn't keep the nose (with a very bright white twin LED array) pointed back at me.
Finally went completely out of view between 1/4 to 1/2 mile away.
Estimated it came down over a very thick forest, and 1 hour on foot and twitching the cyclic hoping I'd hear it somwhere or spot the very bright LED array laying in the brush.
It's just a $70 Esky Hunter but it was my first helicopter ever and was a gift..
I've been flying it now&then for over 3 years.

So Sad!