I received my Lightning Bird today! The first thing I did was tame it a bit for its first flight. I moved the servo rods to the innermost holes on the servo arms and then I moved the connection rod to the shorter ball links on the swash plate. One of the servo arms was not centered so I unscrewed it and centered it and then shortened the rod attached to it by turning the ball link joint clockwise a few times. After a bit of trim it was hovering hands off. I flew it in Mode 1 for a bit and it was really easy to handle. It really let loose when I changed to Mode 2. It was almost too fast for the small indoor space I was flying it in (4 ft of air space between my co workers cubicles and the ceiling). This is my first experience with a v911 and I can tell I'm going to have a lot of fun with it. I'm probably going to move to the longer ball links and stay on on mode 1 for indoor flight. I can't wait to fly it outside on a calm day.

Originally Posted by Heli Pad

Right off the bat, if you require so much trims to hover the bird, it is way off. Using large amount of trims to combat it now, just messes you up later.

I recommend that you center all trims on the control. Find the biggest open area you could find. Hand launch this thing (much easier to hover than to start from the ground) and follow the manual trimming procedures (search the thread if you don't know what I'm talking about). Eventually, you'll have this bird trimmed out perfectly. Reserve the trim buttons for future and minor adjustments. Otherwise, you're going to drive yourself nuts.

I think it's starting to come into line..... still have slight TBE back and to the left trim tweeking to do. I was able to get a decent hover and a few loops in a large room. I realize just how bad i am at FP helos.

Thanks for the replies.

I've been flying my v911 for about a month now. I really love the thing but have had many crashes. On one particularly violent crash earlier this week the canopy, battery and tail rotor blade all came off but nothing seemed broken. Now, every other flight or so the tail stability is lost in the air and the little thing spins wildly. Moving the tail rotor blade out away from the motor sometimes helps for a flight or so, but I've not found anything that works long term. I ordered a BNF version which should be here soon, but I'd rather fix this one in the meantime. Any ideas what could be wrong?

George

I've been playing for two weeks with this bird and reading this thread trying to learn as much as possible. I have a Wfly 9ch transmitter and I wonder how can I upgrade the original transmitter in order to obtain all the benefits of a fully programmable transmitter like my Wfly 9ch.

I've seen that Flysky/Turnigy transmitters are compatible, but I'm not in the mood of expending +60USD in a new transmitter (it would the 3rd: Wfly 9ch + stock transmitter from V911 + Flysky/Turnigy). My first option is a compatible RF Module.

I've been searching around but I'm not able to find a TX module compatible with the V911 that can be fitted into my Wfly 9ch (Futaba module compatible). The Flysky RF module as far as I know is JR compatible.

Any help will be appreciated.

Regards

Originally Posted by georgeintexas

I've been flying my v911 for about a month now. I really love the thing but have had many crashes. On one particularly violent crash earlier this week the canopy, battery and tail rotor blade all came off but nothing seemed broken. Now, every other flight or so the tail stability is lost in the air and the little thing spins wildly. Moving the tail rotor blade out away from the motor sometimes helps for a flight or so, but I've not found anything that works long term. I ordered a BNF version which should be here soon, but I'd rather fix this one in the meantime. Any ideas what could be wrong?

George

Ensure nothing is tangled on motor shaft, check to see if rotor is on shaft tightly, check for frayed wires, and check if motor cap is loose.

Originally Posted by georgeintexas

Now, every other flight or so the tail stability is lost in the air and the little thing spins wildly. Moving the tail rotor blade out away from the motor sometimes helps for a flight or so, but I've not found anything that works long term.

Check the basic things first (links between swash/flybar/main rotors connected properly, nothing obviously broken).

Spinning wildly (turning left/right) suggests to me that the tail rotor is not spinning at the right speed. That could be caused by a problem with either 1) the gyro or 2) the tail motor. I'd suggest changing the tail motor (though as a last resort, as it involves ordering a replacement part and soldering...) Good luck!

sounds like you bent the shaft on the tail rotor, pull off the rotor and have a look...

sounds like you bent the shaft on the tail rotor, pull off the rotor and have a look... i did that after a hard landing on the tail

Originally Posted by georgeintexas

I've been flying my v911 for about a month now. I really love the thing but have had many crashes. On one particularly violent crash earlier this week the canopy, battery and tail rotor blade all came off but nothing seemed broken. Now, every other flight or so the tail stability is lost in the air and the little thing spins wildly. Moving the tail rotor blade out away from the motor sometimes helps for a flight or so, but I've not found anything that works long term. I ordered a BNF version which should be here soon, but I'd rather fix this one in the meantime. Any ideas what could be wrong?

George

It's a good learning experience to try and diagnose the problem before throwing on some new parts. If you have already tried stonecutter's ideas without success then also try these.

If it happens 'on every second flight' and 'moving the tail rotor out' seems to help, it might be something as simple as the tail rotor slipping due to a crack or just wear. Try the spare rotor if you still have it. Or, very carefully put a smear of CA at the end of the motor shaft, let it dry, and press the rotor back on for a tighter fit.

Hold the heli in your hand and throttle up a bit. Now turn the nose left and then right. Can you hear obvious motor speed changes? If so, the gyro is probably ok.

Of course this could also be an early sign of a bad tail motor. Sometimes they don't take too kindly to getting banged around. You can buy a prewired motor and tail assy for about $3. If soldering to the pcb is a problem, just cut the wires, solder together, and cover with some shrink tube.

A BNF is a very economical way to go. But you may find you still want to repair the old one, so you can fly one while the other is cooling, assuming it's not too far gone.

regards . . . g

Originally Posted by gordonzo

...You can buy a prewired motor and tail assy for about $3.

You mean this one? http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale-Wl...t-p-38689.html

Quote: You can buy a prewired motor and tail assy for about $3

You can buy a prewired motor and tail assembly for a y911 copycat heli which also can be used on authentic WL Toys v911 if you can remove the glued boom from the main frame without destroying the tail boom receiver section.

Check here for a prewired motor and tail assembly:

http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale-V9...t-p-49036.html

Originally Posted by gordonzo

It's a good learning experience to try and diagnose the problem before throwing on some new parts. If you have already tried stonecutter's ideas without success then also try these.

If it happens 'on every second flight' and 'moving the tail rotor out' seems to help, it might be something as simple as the tail rotor slipping due to a crack or just wear. Try the spare rotor if you still have it. Or, very carefully put a smear of CA at the end of the motor shaft, let it dry, and press the rotor back on for a tighter fit.

You were absolutely correct. Turns out the tail rotor hub split out one side all the way through. Had to flex it to see the crack.



Not a very good picture, but hopefully you can see it. The rotor was able to spin on the shaft. It's a wonder it worked at all. When I put the new one on it was much tighter on the shaft. Flies great now. Thanks all of you for your help.

George

I have pondered about purposefully loosening the tail rotor so that it slips a little in order to prevent damage to the blades and/or the motor.

Originally Posted by stonecutter

The servo hesitation you noted in 1) is not normal, but not uncommon. I had something similar on a wl toys v911.

Thanks for the reply. I did some more testing tonight and don't see the hesitation that's obvious in your video, but I do have the noise while idle. More information to follow...

Thank you for the replies regarding my new Lightning Bird and its servo twitch. I tried to contact Halleys R Us via Amazon to find out if they considered the servo noise/twitch normal, but it appears that Amazon handles their communications and interpreted my message as a request for a replacement. They credited my purchase price and my original overnight shipping then told me to order another one, which they'll cover the overnight shipping on. So I have another one on its way, but at the new higher price

However, after going through the mechanical trimming process outlined by Daryoon on his blog, it seems like the twitch is gone. I'm not sure if manually moving the servos a little while trying to pop off the arm did something, or if I got lucky in the subsequent RX/TX bindings. How susceptible are these units to ambient Wi-Fi and other signals in the 2.4GHz range?

I still can't accurately tell how well the bird is hovering due to the size of the rooms I have access to at the moment. I went into a larger room, but I think it's still too small due to sudden movements that I see vertically and horizontally which seem to be due to rotor wash near objects, walls, ceilings. Overall, I think the mechanical trimming helped. A new item popped up while testing though...

I noticed that the tail motor seems to be making more noise when it spins up. If I hold the bird in my hand and increase the throttle slowly I notice that at certain positions, the tail rotor seems like it's trying to spin but can't. It moves a quarter of a turn intermittently and in a jerky way. This might be an edge case and not a problem, but it's interesting. Maybe it's a combination of holding it in my hand, the relatively low throttle/rudder position on the TX and a confused gyro? Or could my tail rotor be a dud? It seems to do well in flight until the pack runs down, which I believe is normal based on what I've read.

One more question (I'll probably have more shortly )... I just ran through a pack until the bird drifted to the ground and didn't really have any lift. I decided to measure the voltage at the connection points on the PCB, so of course it was still on and drawing power, I saw around 3.4V. Is that usually where the packs drop off? Just curious. I also measured a couple of packs fresh off the charger (red LED went out) at around 4.17V, so I guess it's doing a good job at cutting off the charge before the LiPo voltage gets too high, right?

Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading.