Ask and you shall receive, heh heh. I've been doing a bunch of searching on this.

Oh, and that mountain bike video I posted earlier was shot with a R/C heli. A bigger gas powered one, with a r/c camera gimble with a Canon 7D.

I am not expecting to replicate that quality of footy with the GoPro, but I think I can get similar results as below, and I would be happy with that.

my rc helicopter camera mount (1 min 54 sec)

He is using a Align Trex 500 ESP, which is like $500. Here is his thread, which has tons of good info.
http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=239948

I am planning to make my cam mount/skids considerably smaller and lighter. Have a carbon golf club shaft to use for skids. I'd like to keep the weight of the mount to under 200g + 90g GoPro.

That 9050 doesn't look like a bad way to learn. $50 is cheaper to crash.

Originally Posted by thad

Ask and you shall receive, heh heh. I've been doing a bunch of searching on this.

Oh, and that mountain bike video I posted earlier was shot with a R/C heli. A bigger gas powered one, with a r/c camera gimble with a Canon 7D. I am not expecting to replicate that quality of footy with the GoPro, but I think I can get similar results as below, and I would be happy with that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwTfb...layer_embedded
He is using a Align Trex 500 ESP, which is like $500. Here is his thread, which has tons of good info.
http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=239948

I am planning to make my cam mount/skids considerably smaller and lighter. Have a carbon golf club shaft to use for skids. I'd like to keep the weight of the mount to under 200g + 90g GoPro.

That 9050 doesn't look like a bad way to learn. $50 is cheaper to crash.

This looks very nice but the video of the girls was much nicer, from multiple aspects

Well, if this last video give you the quality you'd like to get, you'll to have to up your 200 dollar budget a little bit. Did the 500 for the trex include a good transmitter, and the cost of all the repairs learning how to fly it?

But it's great to see that it can be achieved with rc equipment at least!

Hey K!!
You were right, and I had the same suspicion, the solder joint had shook loose, re soldered it, tail motor was fine. I explained it more in the other forum. Basically, I do alot of soldering, ( amps, pedals and such.) couldn't use a heat sink on these parts.. too small, so I soldered it just to the point the solder wicked the wire to the motor. ( otherwise, you can fry a component if it gets too hot from the iron) It looks as though it wasn't enough with the vibrations last time.

Great news, I buttoned it back up, took my oldest son ( 15 ) to the school yard, to see if I worked out the vibration, not only did it spool up smoothly, but a rock solid hover. Lifted it off twice, then let my son have a go, his lift off was smoother then mine, and his corrections were very nice. he even trimmed it just a bit and had a hands off hover going. We burned through 10 batteries.
The tail was wagging a bit when the breeze blew a little, so I might need to adjust the tailmix gyro setting a bit?
Also noticed, that with a fresh battery, it was smooth and flew like it was on a pole, but after about 3 minutes or so, it would start vibrating.. just a little, not enough to disturb the flight, or shake it to pieces, but enough that I could see the training gears vibrating a little, and sometimes the tail was too. But all in all. it was a great day. My son flew great, and the heli flew like I had hoped.

Hey wasp, a guy, goes by 60something, did a great job explaining to me that FBL systems generally put alot of stress on the servos, more then a flybar system, so the servos take the brunt of any abuse the copter recieves, hence the higher frequency of stripping.


EDIT: I REALLY need to visit Thailand!

Originally Posted by Blayd

Hey wasp, a guy, goes by 60something, did a great job explaining to me that FBL systems generally put alot of stress on the servos, more then a flybar system, so the servos take the brunt of any abuse the copter recieves, hence the higher frequency of stripping.

That makes sense as the gyro/servos would be making a lot more adjustments than a flybar system. So is not that we have a bad batch of WK-7.6-5. If we shorten the servo horn that may help a bit but we have to re-adjust the gyro to compensate for the decrease in gain.

Finally replaced the power connector on the V400D02 with T plugs, so that I can use my existing cheaper batteries . I used thinner cable ties on the ESC to make room for my ebay 1300mAH. They can go in and out easily now.

I found that the V400D02 can take off with 2S if we keep it light. A set of bigger blades, like 450 blades would help. The lower head speed could reduce the damages in crashes if we don't need 3S power yet.

Been thinking about this more... I think it is unneeded to raise the heli up so much with the second set of skids, if you are only going to use a tiny gopro.
I want to delete the risers from the design, and just have a hanging cam mount between the skids. I think I could get the wieght of something like this down to 50-75g.


What are the X and Y dimensions of the skids?

On a V400?

X= 1 5/8 inches
Y=4 1/8 inches

EDIT: Sorry 4 1/8 inches from center to center.

Excellent, thank you. The GoPro is 2.27"w x 1.76"h. So that should work when you figure the foam on the skids will raise it up another 1/2" at least.

Wasp:

The fact that the servos are all plastic was being looked at, in hopes that all metal would take the abuse ( stress and strain )better. Thats why everyone has been looking for replacements in all metal. The fact that even with no crashes, people are seening some failure of the servos gears, is concerning. I made the EXI's work fine, but they too are plastic with just a metal spur gear I belive. The solution might just be if replacement gears were available for the servos... but that wont make it any better if a failure brings down your bird and you have to rebuild it.
I've made a bunch of extensions for the batteries I have, so that CG is good and the leads reach, and made up some adapters for the Blue Lipos I have.

Im happy for you man....

Did you find out what the problem was???

Not 100% sure K. I'm looking now at the rotor head I took off and replaced, I want to see if the feather shaft is bent. Not sure if you saw my earlier post, but watch the bolts for the feather, they were loose on this second one. 60 something said they should be loctited, I might have to take them out and go ahead and make sure I do that. But I'll dismantle the old head first so I can see how they're put together. I don't think there's an exploded view of the way its put together yet from Walkera. The last time I checked, there was no exploded view of the parts. That would be a help.. but I guess since they don't yet sell JUST a feather shaft, ( you HAVE to buy a whole head ) So... not sure what was the exact problem. I really hope with the other V400's, I wont have to replace the whole drive train to get rid of a vibration. The fact that the bolt was sheared that holds the head to the shaft is suspect, maybe the feather shaft was bent and shook the whole thing to pieces. Tail motor is working really well. So, so far... a great day.

Well, got some batteries for my 9053,and wanted to fly. So, I packed up my heli, my V400 in its new aluminium case, and went to my music school. Its not a big room, it can hold 40 people seated, and a 8 peice band on the stage. Alot bigger than my living room....

Still waiting on my rechargable AA's I decided to fly to V400 first, and not have to swap transmitter batteries 2 times.

Power up, swash check, smooth spool up, and hovered for the whole battery. I hate that you cant trim while the throttles up, but I guess its safer that way. This heli keeps wanting to rotate to the right. My rudder trim is now at 35 degrees to the left.

Is anyone else having to do any excessive trimming?

Can adjustment of the rudder/tail mix correct this?

NEway, had a blast, hate that I only have one battery for this heli so far.

Swaped over the transmitter batteries, and got the 9053 up in the air. I must say that it is actually harder for me to control this 3ch than the 6ch. I find the sluggish, maybe I will, maybe I wont, attitude of the Volitation makes me a bit at first. I had to remove the rubber bands and deal with the bobbaly, wobbalies

By the second battery I realized that the CG was off, I was putting the battery to far forward. So, I finnished the battery playing aviod the walls please.....
In some way this is good practice, at least now that I have the control sticks in the right position. (3ch w/ 4ch set up)

After popping in the third battery, in a better position this time, I was able to now hold a hover without all the wandering. I found that I could use very small amounts of input to keep it in the center of the room.

Now that I was in control, I put the rubber bands back up under the flybar.
This really made it feel solid, all bobbing and weaving gone. Much better control as the battery used up its last few mins of juice.

Once again, Nothing broken, good flight....

I'll do a recharge session and full post flight look over tomorrow.

Thanks for the info, guys.

I think I am going to go with a Sky King 8500. 3 channel, $50 heli, should be good for learning and crashing. And it will fly with a Contour HD cam, which is 135g, so the gopro at 90g will be no issue. I will get a real heli, once I learn how to fly the cheapie.

Originally Posted by thad

Thanks for the info, guys.

I think I am going to go with a Sky King 8500. 3 channel, $50 heli, should be good for learning and crashing. And it will fly with a Contour HD cam, which is 135g, so the gopro at 90g will be no issue. I will get a real heli, once I learn how to fly the cheapie.

Are you sure you dont wanna go with a 4ch coaxial?

After flying my 3ch around, I found that for more controled flight (having full control over the direction the heli is going in, or in the case of a heli cam, what it is pointing at) you really need that fourth channel.

Also, pick something popular in the market, so spare/after-market parts will be easy to find.

I would go for a Walkera Lama 400D (under $200). Lama parts are everywhere. You can even up-grade as your skills improve.

Thats my advice.

You were recommending the $40 Volitation 9053 before? Is the sky king that much crappier to learn on? I think it makes sense to learn with a cheap heli. And if it can carry a cam all the better...