I purchased one of these because - well, just because. Set it up yesterday on my LUM Pocket Knife XL bipe. A great flying 3D foamy bipe. Simple set up. The unit came with no instructions or connectors. You'll need 3 male-male servo extensions to connect the stabilizer to your receiver.

I immediately ran into a minor head scratcher The unit has two aileron servo outputs labeled Left and Right. However, one of the outputs is reversed which means both servos move in the same direction. Not sure what they were thinking here. There is only one aileron input, if you have a normal two servo aileron setup where the servos are working properly you can't use this. The only way I could get it to work was to use a "Y" harness. Off to Radical RC to pick one up, I haven't seen a "Y" harness since the days of glow engines and 4 channel receivers It looks like there's a pin set that can be used to "flash" the board, hopefully this will eventually be upgradeable.

Other than that the set up was pretty simple. Proper polarity is indicated on the battery slot, but nowhere else. NOTE; Battery input is not required, It is probably there to power the unit when it's flashed.

Flight Report. The unit cannot be switched on/off in flight nor can the gain be adjusted in flight (Hey, it's $15) I found the gain adjustment to be very sensitive, go easy with the screw driver. Once set up, it performed flawlessly. Personally I had a problem initially since I was trying to compensate for the wind myself and so was the unit. Once I figured that out everything was great. It did feel odd to watch it moving without moving the sticks.

I think my choice of a 3D Bipe to evaluate the unit was probably not the best and I wouldn't use it in a 3D plane again. However, in something like a Bixler that would be affected by wing gusts or an FVP plane it would be a good inexpensive choice.

Azarr

I have 3 that came in the mail and wanted to run them on a 2 servo aileron set up.... Can I reverse one servo via transmitter and make it work or maybe use a servo reverser on one of the servos?

No, because there's only one aileron input, so you can't go from the aux channel on your receiver to the stabilizer But yes, either a servo reverser or Y harness will work.

Azarr

Hi Azarr, thanks for the review! I have been eyeballing this item for a few weeks and now it's on my wish list. I am very curious to try it on my scratch-built foamies!

Hi Azarr,
Thanks for the info! Would you mind spelling out the raw concept of using a Y harness to achieve 2 aileron servo service on this unit?

I'm really lost...

Thanks!

Originally Posted by syzygyQ

Hi Azarr,
Thanks for the info! Would you mind spelling out the raw concept of using a Y harness to achieve 2 aileron servo service on this unit?

I'm really lost...

Thanks!

Sure, hope I'm not too basic here.

In a "normal" two servo aileron set up, you have one servo in the aileron channel and the second servo in an auxillary channel and the two are mixed in the transmitter or you have a "Y" harness to join both servos to the aileron channel. If you have two identical servos, they're installed so that the servo arms are either facing each other or facing the wing tips which results in the servos moving in different directions to get the ailerons moving one up, one down.

With any flight stabilizer or gyro system, you cannot do in transmitter mixing, any mixing has to be done either in or after the stabilizer unit. There is only one aileron input in the stabilizer to connect from the aileron channel in your receiver to the aileron channel in the stabilizer; however, there are two aileron outputs, labeled "L" and "R". Unfortunately, one of these is reversed so that if you have a "normal" 2 servo aileron set up both servos will move in the same direction, not opposite each other as they should.

Without a software upgrade to the unit, the way around this is to use a "Y" harness which is just a splitter to join two servos to one channel. So, you connect your receiver aileron channel to the input stabilizer channel and then use a "Y" harness in the "R" aileron output and all is well.

There are actually two other solutions, different brands of servos rotate in different directions, so you could use one Futaba servo and one JR servo in the unit as designed and the ailerons would operate properly. Or, if you're building new, you could set your servos so that the arms are both facing the same wing tip, that would accomplish the same thing.

Hope I didn't confuse the issue more, please ask if you need more info.

Azarr

Ahh -- OK, I think I get it. To work around the reversed polarity of one of the aileron outputs on the stabilization unit, you run both servos out of one servo output on the SU (right aileron), relying on a "normal" servo installation on the bird to achieve the desired symetrically opposite flap movement?

Originally Posted by syzygyQ

Ahh -- OK, I think I get it. To work around the reversed polarity of one of the aileron outputs on the stabilization unit, you run both servos out of one servo output on the SU (right aileron), relying on a "normal" servo installation on the bird to achieve the desired symetrically opposite flap movement?

Yes, that's correct.

Azarr

Hi
I have just ordered the Mk2 version , hopefully it might arrive by xmas
has switchable on-off by the retract switch

regards emma