Its true, I'm weak. I could not help myself.

Got home this evening, the wife and kids were out, so wanted to take a closer look at the thing. Took off the canopy ( very carefully ), looked it over to make sure nothing was lose and everything was intack after shipping. It took me a while to put the battery in, I'm still not sure if its in right. The connection to the ECS is very short, and it was hard to get the battery connected.

Got the battery in and powered up the heli. After hearing that "zirp-zirp" of the servos, there was no turining back. Got my 9053 transmitter and swaped the batteries into the 2603. Turned it on and got a instant, steady, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. At first thought that the transmitter is not working with the rx, but common sense tells me the flight mode switch is activated.

O.K. Turned off tx flip the switch and turned it on again. Flashing lights, correct amount of short beeps, servos buzzing, So far so good.

Looked at the swash to see if it was level, check.
Moved the cyclic stick, swash moves to, check.
Picked up heli and tilted it in all directions, gyro working, check.
Put the heli on the living room floor and slowly spooled it up, main motor. check.
Got down to look at the tracking of the blades, straight line, check.
Added some rudder stick, tail motor, check.
Added more throttle until heli was hight on its skids, no vibration in system, check.
Moved cyclic to make sure it was responsive in all direction and returned to neutral, check, check, check, check.

At this point I just had to know......

Move the couch over to make more flight space, check.

To be honest, my hands were shaking, my palms were sweaty, my knees were weak, my heart was pounding, Its more like a first kiss that lift-off.

Got it up about 1 inch and held it there. I was amazed it could do this. The responsiveness is fast, very fast. The smallest movement of the stick was instantly translated to movement on the heli, including rudder control.

At about 6+inches ground effect would move it around, but with quick thumbs you can keep it from getting away from you.

Haveing this much control of a heli is new to me, and I need to take it in stride. Its nice to not have the heli dip when using the rudder. Very Stable.

Did some quick low hover and land practice, cant wait to get it outside. Did not adjust the trims yet, as I could not realy tell if it was groung effect causing the movement.

Anyway, I'm gunna write down the transmitter settings, and rx dial settings, so that when I start to mess with everything, I'll know how to get back home.

Now I can put it back on display, and try not to smile every time i see it.

kdean

Good for you kdean.

JD

Awesome kdean, have done the same thing on my patio. The first thing I noticed was how sensitive it was to stick movement. Got about a dozen mini-flights on it now, and it is getting more comfortable.

Last night, I went to X-Heli to order a second one and they are OUT OF STOCK! Bummer! This morning I went to a LHS were I bought the 9053's to pick up another tail rotor to mod the 2nd 9053, and guess what!? They had 6 V400's sitting the shelf! More expensive, but worth it not having to wait.

SpadCat

I'm giong through the manuals, reading up on setting the curves and extents ect....

I still have no idea what some of these things control.

OK, so it will "change the flight characteristics", but in what way?

Can someone please explain what some of these things do, and how it will effect the flight......

What is PIT?
What is PLT?
What is EXP?
What is GEAR?
What is Rudder Mix?
What does pitch curve do? and what is throttle curve?

Why would, or should, I need to adjust these things?

They tell you how to adjust these things, but not why.

Can someone help me with this?

kdean

Originally Posted by kdean

I'm giong through the manuals, reading up on setting the curves and extents ect....

I still have no idea what some of these things control.

OK, so it will "change the flight characteristics", but in what way?

Can someone please explain what some of these things do, and how it will effect the flight......

What is PIT?
What is PLT?
What is EXP?
What is GEAR?
What is Rudder Mix?
What does pitch curve do? and what is throttle curve?

Why would, or should, I need to adjust these things?

They tell you how to adjust these things, but not why.

Can someone help me with this?

kdean

There is a YouTube video by RTF-Heli that explains some of this. But they are changing the settings (I think de-sinsitizing) so that it can handle their more powerful brushless motor mods. The only term I am familiar with is EXP which is EXPonential. I use it on high performance fixed wing aircraft when I want a lot of control throws, but not around neutral stick. Makes the control "soft" around center stick and progressively more control as the stick is moved away from center. You can dial in how much % of EXPO you want. I like it much better than dual rate (crash) switches.

I would like to see someone come up with a video on setting up a V400 for a low time pilot, and I thought RTF-Heli said they were looking into doing a series of set up videos. I would pay good money for that. Also, I think if you buy a heli from them, they will set it up for you to your specs or proficiency level, but don't quote me.

SpadCat


Edit: Here is the video:

WWW.RTF-HELI.COM WK-2603 PROGRAMMING YOUR PIT AND PLT (7 min 38 sec)

Originally Posted by kdean

I'm giong through the manuals, reading up on setting the curves and extents ect....

I still have no idea what some of these things control.

OK, so it will "change the flight characteristics", but in what way?

Can someone please explain what some of these things do, and how it will effect the flight......

What is PIT?
What is PLT?
What is EXP?
What is GEAR?
What is Rudder Mix?
What does pitch curve do? and what is throttle curve?

Why would, or should, I need to adjust these things?

They tell you how to adjust these things, but not why.

Can someone help me with this?

kdean

I guess you are referring to the 2603. I know some of them.

PIT and PLT are for setting the main rotor pitch. (PLT stands for pitch limit??) One sets the range the main rotor pitch would alter when we move the throttle stick end to end. The other would shift the entire range up and down, e. g. for idle up, the whole thing would have to be shifted down and expanded to cover the negative pitch range as well.

Together with the pitch curve they determine the pitch at each throttle stick position.

You turn the two knobs you would be able to figure out how they work. Please disconnect the motor first before you move the throttle stick, and also turn off the throttle limiting switch so that you can really go through the entire range

EXP would make the cyclic or rudder control exponential with respect to stick movement. Usually we use EXP (> 0) to make the control less sensitive at small stick movement close to the centre. Away from the centre, the control would increase rapidly.

Gear refers to the gear channel on a plane. I am not sure which channel it would map into on the V400D02.

Usually there is a switch we can use to flip the rudder gyro from HH to rate. That may be the Gear switch as it is the only one available. However it does not seem changing anything on or off for the V400D02.

Rudder Mix is the one I have no idea at all. It sounds like mixing something with another into something. Rudder should be involved implied by the name. However it could be just the name of a channel on the 2603, and V400D02 may be using it for somthing else. (Otter on the other forum suggested that the channels cover tail and other gyro control.)

The RX2614V has a throttle to rudder mix pot on it. That one works and we need that for a motor driven tail.

Let me know if you figure them all out.

Originally Posted by Wasp09

I have a hard time with the battery.

I think it only slides in from the front, that we have to take the canopy off to do that. And to get the CG right, the battery has to sit at the very front, more or less sticking out of the holder.

It is very difficult to push the battery connector all the way in on the stock battery. It would be super hard to pull it out too if it is fully in.

If you find a more convenient way , please update us.

Thanks.

I dont know if you have seen it, but RTF heli zip tied their ecs to the front of the skid and the rear of the air frame, no obstructing battery cage with zip ties. If you look at the brushless mod pics you will get a clear view of how they did it.

kdean

They need to do a video for the whole tx set up.

I want to take the "jerky", "all to sudden" movement of the elev and ailer control, or swash movement.

I think I need to play with the EXP, but there is also the Balance Delay on the rx. I guess its trial and error, though an error will cost me in spare parts after I crash.

Im going to I turn up my gyro sensitivity, and I dont really want to use dual rates, I need to get used to flying with full swash extent. (just less sensitive)

Before I start to mess with all these paramaters, I'm going to document the stock settings for a default setting, and when I find setting that works for me I will document them as well. (save/load) would be a nice feature..

Would a 2801 pro make this process easier? It would be nice to have one transmitter for all my V400's and their minor differences.

Originally Posted by kdean

I want to take the "jerky", "all to sudden" movement of the elev and ailer control, or swash movement.

I think I need to play with the EXP, but there is also the Balance Delay on the rx. I guess its trial and error, though an error will cost me in spare parts after I crash.

Im going to I turn up my gyro sensitivity, and I dont really want to use dual rates, I need to get used to flying with full swash extent. (just less sensitive)

Before I start to mess with all these paramaters, I'm going to document the stock settings for a default setting, and when I find setting that works for me I will document them as well. (save/load) would be a nice feature..

Would a 2801 pro make this process easier? It would be nice to have one transmitter for all my V400's and their minor differences.

Yes it may, but who is going to default the 2801 pro for us?

On 2603, the tricky thing is that some of stuff are set by the knobs. And more than one knobs are activated under some menu and there is only one number display which tends to show us the value of the changing knob. It's really hard to figure out what it was set without changing anything. I guess we have to understand what we are doing after all.

If someone has a good documented 2801 pro set up for V400D02, perhaps we may trying to set up the 2603 accordingly.

D/R is fixed at 50% by flipping the switch on the 2603. We don't have to worry about configuring that.

Originally Posted by kdean

I want to take the "jerky", "all to sudden" movement of the elev and ailer control, or swash movement.

I think I need to play with the EXP, but there is also the Balance Delay on the rx. I guess its trial and error, though an error will cost me in spare parts after I crash.

Im going to I turn up my gyro sensitivity, and I dont really want to use dual rates, I need to get used to flying with full swash extent. (just less sensitive)

Before I start to mess with all these paramaters, I'm going to document the stock settings for a default setting, and when I find setting that works for me I will document them as well. (save/load) would be a nice feature..

Would a 2801 pro make this process easier? It would be nice to have one transmitter for all my V400's and their minor differences.

kdean,The main thing is to get the swash level with the trim's at center this takes time as the 3 axe gyro will try to level it if the heli is not level so set it on a level surface. The only change I did to the Tx is the EXP I set mine at 30 to using the V2 make sure that V1 is in the center for normal throttle curve. With my EXP at 30 it soften the sticks up some that is the only change I have made to the V400 I have not touched the gyro.

JD

Also in the V400 handbook on page 7 it talks about the flight mode setting 6.3
under 1. adjust mode what is going on here is turning the gyro off so that you are not fighting it in this mode you can use the trim to level the swash once done you must adjust V1 tell red light is back on with the gyro on you can not use the trim or the gyro will fight it. So I did it by test flying with out going into the adj. mode hope this helps.

JD

Today I hovered and trimed in my livingroom. I think I added some curve to my cyclic servos, not sure if i saved the setting. And put my gyro sensitivity to 100%. Alot more manageable in this close space. It is still a little 'twichy' but this came in handy when I had to pull some drastic manovers to avoid the side of the couch.

This heli is more forgiving on landings that I thought. Was able to land safely at strange angles. The landing skids really stick.

I tried the dual rates and hated it. Both throttle and swash extent sucks the life out of the heli, and it feels strange haveing the throttle so high and no climbing action.

Nothing broken = good flight.....

Kdean

Glad to see you got yours in a hover Kdean. Neither of my three have flown. I know its tempting to fly it in the living room, but this can end REALLY badly. Just touch a blade against something and your in for a repair job. ( Or worse)
I removed the zip ties on the ESC. Its taped with electrical tape right now, around the entire frame, until I figure something out. This clears the way in the battery cage. RTF-HELI zipped they're ESC to the skids I think, on the other side. Not pretty, but accomplishes the same thing. Clearance for the Batts. I make my own extensions for batts, since the ESC connection is so short, and I also make adapters now, since it seems that most batts, I think, are set up with Positive= female banana. Its clear that Walkera has made the V400 very much proprietary I think.
60 Something has helped me to understand alot, especially expo's, pitch/throttle curves, and alot more....read up on him here and in the other forum. Your doing good if you can hover it so close to the ground, like I said, I havent gotten off the ground. Keep up the good work.

Thanx blayd,

Its only getting better......

Charged my only battery, until my shipments come in, and trimmed it out. I also, fixed th EXP on the transmitter, set it to 30%. I had to trim the rudder 39 degrees to the right. Tail just wanted to go that way all the time..... But now she is solid as a rock.

I could not stop smiling. Hold hover at 1 meter up or even at 1 inch off the groung.

One problem im haveing though, after a steep slide from either side or front to back the heli dips to the ground and will bounce off the skids. Is this normal? Is there a way I can tune that behavior out with the electronics? Or do I just have to get used to pumping the throttle during a bank slide? My FMS sim does not do this...LOL

Charging, 2 hours

Flight Time, Priceless

kdean