liam.mccaffrey
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 09:36 AM |
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RC copter bought
jus bought the following
http://www.rcscale.co.uk/eshop/proddetail.php?prod=DRAFL04
thought i would try out something ive always wanted a go at, good move bad move chaps, i know there are some rc people on here opinions anyone?
cheers
Liam Mc
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liam.mccaffrey
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 09:51 AM |
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thanks cal, i should have asked advice before but it was an impulse buy, and i make no apologies for it
i will keep you posted on how it goes wish me luck!
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scottc
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 10:25 AM |
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oooh reckon it will be a good present for my little bro?
He hasn't flown a copter before?
Sorry to hijack your thread.
Scott.
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liam.mccaffrey
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 10:30 AM |
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no worries all contributions gratefully recieved
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MikeRJ
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 10:53 AM |
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I have had a few Dragonfly helis so a few tips:
1) They are thrown together and rarely fly well or at all out of the box. You need to spend a fair bit of time making sure the pinions mesh properly
and setting the gyro gain and mixer. Also spend some time getting the rotor blades balanced as well as you can, it makes a big difference to the
smoothness and stability (aim to get the weight of each blade the same, and also the end to end weights the same, like matching conrods in an
engine).
2) Make sure the paddles on the ends of the flybar are set level and clamped up nice and tight, and that the length of the flybar each side of the
head is the same.
3) The tension of the screws holding the root of the blades to the head is also critical, there must be enough friction so the blades don't fold
up when you apply throttle, but not so much friction that they can't straighten themselves out (you will see the heli trying to shake itself to
bits if it's too tight or too loose). Trial and error is the only way of setting these.
4) The NiMH batteries are heavy, they fly far better with a Li-Po. Suitable batteries and chargers can be had from Ebay, but note that these cells
are potentialy dangerous, and should never be left charging unattended.
5) They are too big/fast/unstable to safely fly in a typical living room. They are fine outdoors provided there is at most a very gentle breeze, and
preferably dead still. Finding suitable places to fly it is the reason mine has been sitting in the loft for the last 12 months!
6) The undercarriage uses some quite brittle plastic sections to join the carbon rods that will probably snap the first time you land heavily. Really
quite a poor design. Buy a bottle of superglue!
7) The tail rotors are also fairly brittle, and you are very likely to break it if you land heavily on the tail. Buy some spares.
8) The tail motor's don't last long at all. If you manage to get the hang of flying it, you will find you need to wind up the mixer as
the tail motor wears out. You can fit higher quality motors with a direct drive prop to give longer life and more tail authority.
9) The stock rotors and head assembly are a bit flexy which leads to "coning" which makes fast forward flight unstable. Dosn't
matter so much for hovering or going slowly. These bits can be upgraded using higher quality Hummingbird parts if you feel the need. Would be a good
ide to get a couple sets of spare rotors anyway, if you fly into something hard it tends to chip big lumps out of the ends of them, or even shatter
them. Balsa wood blades are available and are far superior.
These small heli's are very twitchy/unstable. If this is the first heli you have flown don't expect to be able to fly around within 1/2
hour like you can with the small RC planes, it takes a lot of practice.
The Micro Heli's section of
RC Groups is probably one of the best online resources for these heli's.
Good luck and have fun!
[Edit]
Just realised this is the four channel version, so it has no collective control, i.e. the blades have fixed pitch. You adjust lift on these by
varying the rotor speed which has a few important consequences:
a) Speeding up or slowing down the rotors puts a lot of torque on the heli which the puny tail motor and gyro can't really cope with, hence
expect the heli to turn somehwhat as you increase lift, especialy during takeoff!
b) It takes a finite time to accelerate the relatively heavy blades, so the reposne on these helis is somewhat sluggish. Worse still the response of
the heli is somewhat proprotional to rotor speed, so at very low throttle settings you will find the whole heli very difficult to control.
I nearly lost my first (fixed pitch) heli in a thermal, it accelerated up at a huge rate of knots, and the only way I could get it down was by almost
totaly cutting the throttle which meant virtualy zero control. With the 6 channel Dragonflies, you have collective control so the blades run at a
constant speed and you adjust the pitch. This means you can generate negative lift which is very useful sometimes (and essential for any
aerobatics).
[Edited on 14/12/06 by MikeRJ]
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macnab
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 12:28 PM |
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Ohhhhh goddddd…. I got one of those things when they first came out. Bloody awful. I can fly 60 class heli's no bother, inverted and all... but
give that thing 5 mins in the living room and it’s all over the place and heading for the dog. It just stirs up the air till it can't fly
anymore. Hopefully yours is not fixed pitch cos if it is its pish. Take it outside even on the calmest day and it upside down and heading for the
ground before you know it. Main blades are quite tough but use to blow up the tail rotor all the time. Eventually knackered it and through it on top
of the wardrobe, saw it last night when I was looking for some resin. Piece of crap, cost me £300 at the time!!
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macnab
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 12:35 PM |
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You know I once flew a raptor 30 in the living room as a dare! (we had just removed the furniture for repainting) Ha Ha the wind and smoke was
unbelievable!!! Got it to head height and hovered for around 10 secs and that was more than enough!
I do NOT recommend anyone try’s this its really was pretty dodgy...
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liam.mccaffrey
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 12:49 PM |
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looks like im in for a bit of fun/dissapointment then
ive always wanted to try this so this is my chance.
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Moorron
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 01:01 PM |
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ive just got into model helis also, i first went with the walkera 52, a very small heli but with collective pitch control meaning it can do 3D flight.
But i quickly found out the motors dont last long and after trying to find an upgraded alternative i gave up and bought a twister cp2 v2 (also known
as the esky cp). This is twice as big and about the same size as the one u have chosen.
Its much easier to fly, being less twitchy i can fly it indoors better than the 52. But im finding it hard to move past the mastered hover. Im trying
to teach myself to hover side on which is going well, but anything ober head height or nose in and i seem to be unable to catch it if it heads out of
control.
I also lost mine in a thermal. i was getting confident at hovering over head height in the gargen, but it must have hit a thermal as it just went up
and up to the point of panic, then as it started to come down it turned nose in and i 'gave up' and tried to limit the damage that i was
waiting for. I was lucky it didnt go thru the conservatory roof but it bounced a good few feet off it. only breaking the carbon blades and bending the
main drive rod it was a cheap fix (£15).
Now i am too scared to fly it over head height until i have mastered total control of it.
Yours is fixed pitch but it will prove a very challenging toy, which for me has proved the best bit. Just dont get too cocky and run before u can
walk.
PS! please set it up before flight, this took me 2 battery charges at least to get it smooth and tracking correctly. if u dont u will get very
fustrated and bin it as it wont fly! lol
Sorry about my spelling, im an engineer and only work in numbers.
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Moorron
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 01:09 PM |
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ive founf www.heliguy.co.uk and www.buzzflyer.co.uk (or .com?) are the cheapest places for spares and i strongly recoment getting some now.
Main blades, main rotor pin (the one that transmitts motion from the motor to the blades) and a spare motor or two. Ive got at least 4 sets of blades
now but im getting better at not crashing so i dont use them as much.
As said, lipo batteries are much better but can set alight when they are used or charged so u have to keep an eye on them. u need a different charger
for them too.
good luck mate, dont b tempted to fly in windy or even breezy conditions as this it a no no.
Sorry about my spelling, im an engineer and only work in numbers.
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macnab
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 01:11 PM |
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Lost it in a thermal!! how high were you!
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macnab
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 01:48 PM |
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Height works for planes but not unfortunately for heli's. Why? there's not much to see, the blades are all but invisible so all you have
this little black thing (remember against the bright sky you'll just see a silhouette) doing something strange and it's getting stranger
by the second and heading for the ground. Don’t Panic!!!
The higher they are the harder they fall...
[Edited on 13/12/06 by macnab]
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MikeRJ
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 02:53 PM |
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I first had a Jabo heli which was a fixed pitch design very simmilar to the Dragonfly, but with a much better landing gear design. With a bit (a
lot!) of practice it was perfectly flyable, but by the time you get to that stage you will be looking to move on to something better.
I did most of my initial practising in a field full of long grass which saved a huge amount of damage (just make sure you throttle back to nothing
before you actually hit it or it can cause even more damage). However, it was very difficult to find the heli if you took your eyes of where it
landed for even a second, and I managed to tread on it in the grass once 
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macnab
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 03:35 PM |
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throttling back before you crash, yip that’s a good idea with a i/c powered one as well or else its full throttle parts flying time Ha Ha!!
One of the guys at the club, Mike had to jump on his heli to kill it after a crash! god it was so funny!!!
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liam.mccaffrey
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 04:41 PM |
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http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=355881&pp=15
interesting thread
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k33ts
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 04:47 PM |
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you should get this before attempting to fly.
it will make hell of a difference
http://www.reflex-sim.de/reflex-sim/shop/catalog/faqdesk_index.php?faqPath=20&osCsid=9618e9215377ae5007be80062e9e0fd7
[Edited on 13/12/06 by k33ts]
tukcustoms.com
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PaulBuz
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| posted on 13/12/06 at 05:07 PM |
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As has just been pointed out the simulator has revolutionised heli flying.
It probably also took me 3 months just to hold a stable hover.
You WILL crash from time to time, & for me the average repair cost was in the £100+ every time.
Buy a decent sim. & practice your nuts off!
You'll soon be nose in hovering & doing slow CONTROLLED piroettes(sp?)
ATB
Paul
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MikeRJ
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| posted on 14/12/06 at 05:17 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by macnab
Lost it in a thermal!! how high were you!
Well, maybe not a thermal, but some kind of hefty updraft. It got so high I could barely see it, had to cut throttle totaly and let it drop
[Edited on 14/12/06 by MikeRJ]
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JoelP
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| posted on 3/1/07 at 08:57 PM |
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well, i ordered one, it arrived yesterday... and today, im already ordering a repair kit
Bloody blades wouldnt spin, sat there trying to work out why, when it suddenly sets off at full speed. Starts chopping at the christmas tree! None
of the controls would stop it so i had to whack it Twatting thing.
I really should've taken liams advice and tied it down first...
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