I used to have heaps of fun with my 450 and 500 heli but since the advent of Flybarless I followed the rest of the sheep and went to the dark side, put on a Ebar V2 and its just been a pain, sat in the garage for months but this week I hit it again to set it up but are considering going back to a Flybar, with the flybar all my setup was done on the radio and it worked very well, with the Flybarless you have to dumb down your expensive radio and plug in a "box" read a Chinglish manual and attempt to set it up, "The menu is used to set the pitch proportion of accelerated motion ............... it is frequently used in violence flight" sheesh anyway what flybar system is everyone using these days as I might consider just replacing them

I just got back into RC and helis in Jan 2016 after a 20 some year absence. Since then I have used the following FBL units:


AR7200/7210BX
Brain/Ikon
VBar/Kbar clone
Skookum
3G/3GX

By far the easiest one to set up was the Brain/Ikon followed in order (These are all done via computer or bluetooth):

VBar/KBar
Skookum
AR7200/7210 BX (I just don't like programming via blinky lights)
3G/3GX

I can understand your post. Gyros were in their infancy when I stopped back in the 80's. It was quite an awakening to what there is today. I still fly a bunch of flybar 400 sized helis and also an old flybar Shuttle plus nitro. It is amazing the Hirobo line is still going with kits, parts, and upgrades. http://www.hirobofanusa.com

There's an old farts two cents.

I like your username Brokedad yep looking at units now but its interesting the heli say is worth $100 CopterX but a flybar system is worth more than the heli will look at the units you have mentioned

Fbl systems are great and even though u r not using as much power in your radio having that radio is still usefull.

One thingto watchout for is servos that worked fine for flybar may not work for fbl. Fbl servos do alot more work whereas flybared helis load is tsken of by the flybar.

Originally Posted by bazsound

Fbl systems are great and even though u r not using as much power in your radio having that radio is still usefull.

One thingto watchout for is servos that worked fine for flybar may not work for fbl. Fbl servos do alot more work whereas flybared helis load is tsken of by the flybar.

Yeah running digital servos but im suspecting the Ebar is just junk as its never worked that well

Originally Posted by Coopznz

I like your username Brokedad yep looking at units now but its interesting the heli say is worth $100 CopterX but a flybar system is worth more than the heli will look at the units you have mentioned

Your cheapest option where you are will be a KBar from some place in China like Tomtop or Banggood. Possibly EBay . We have a few Aussies around who might chime in to help.

Hi mate I have used a few FBL units and the cheapest easy to set up was the Kbar just use the software on page 3 of the kbar thread , I have this in my 500 cobra scale and in my 500 pro it flies as good as my Spirit pro unit which cost loads more so I would use this on any of my helis with no worry

Coopznz -
Haven't used the Ikon yet (but tried most of the others).
My vote also would be for the yellow Kbar mini. Ordered from Banggood, took 2 weeks to get to Brisbane at $A40. Converted one of the 500 FBs to DFC, no problems at all using Spektrum sats.
Couldn't see any difference in performance to my (genuine) Vbar on the 600, either. Plus plenty of help on the Kbar thread here (if needed).
Cheers! - John

Edit - Get it before July 1, and Gerry Harvey's 10% GST online purchases debacle wrecks the system .

Originally Posted by OldOz

Coopznz -
Haven't used the Ikon yet (but tried most of the others).
My vote also would be for the yellow Kbar mini. Ordered from Banggood, took 2 weeks to get to Brisbane at $A40. Converted one of the 500 FBs to DFC, no problems at all using Spektrum sats.
Couldn't see any difference in performance to my (genuine) Vbar on the 600, either. Plus plenty of help on the Kbar thread here (if needed).
Cheers! - John

Edit - Get it before July 1, and Gerry Harvey's 10% GST online purchases debacle wrecks the system .

Double this. I'm not sure what's gonna happen to eBay, BG etc...

The yellow kbar is excellent and well priced. I've bought mine off Aliexpress for $19AUD and free postage. Just need to search for them.


Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

So what you guys are saying is for average flying you dont need to chuck down a big chunk of money? I thought the Ebar was going to be a good unit at $80 but no................ I will order two today

kbar is popular. easy to setup once you get round it once.

Dont even need a pitch guage, just a measuring tape.

Ive got one on my 250 and one on a 450. both were flying pretty quickly.

The V-Bar way to determine blade angle without a pith gauge could be used with any FBL unit. It's basic geometry.

http://ostermiller.org/calc/triangle.html

Originally Posted by Coopznz

So what you guys are saying is for average flying you dont need to chuck down a big chunk of money? I thought the Ebar was going to be a good unit at $80 but no................ I will order two today

Absolutely, you can't beat the Kbar for bang for the buck. Since it's a reverse-engineered copy of the original, some folks avoid it.

Don't like the sound of that 10% GST! It's not as if the cost of living is low in Oz, either.

The chinglish manual is probably yoiur problem. Yiu need to find someone who has worked it out.


Or just get s kbar snd fomlow the vbar manual.