Microbeast setup walkthrough - Rotorscale 450 UH-1 Huey

[F106DeltaDart]

Now that the Rotorscale Heli series is including a microbeast flybarless controller, I thought I would post a brief tutorial and my setup values for the 450 UH-1 Huey.

First off, I wanted to point out some excellent resources for getting started with the setup. The BeastX has a very thorough quick start quide: http://www.beastx.com/download/manua...tart_V5_EN.pdf and wikisite: https://wiki.beastx.com/index.php/Ma...FblV5:Intro/en that walks step - by step through the programming.

Between those 2 sources, you should be able to answer most questions on the setup

One other note is that I had the optional Bluetooth Module on hand, so I did most of the setup through that system. It does make things quicker to adjust, but certainly isn't a must-have. Some of the screenshots that I post below will be from the App.

1. Model Setup: The first step to setting things up is to configure your TX for helicopters. Set up a new Helicopter model and set Swashplate type to "normal" or "single servo 90". This will make your collective pitch channel free of any servo mixing. Make sure there is no subtrim or mixes in the setup. You should also configure one of your channels for setting tail gain at this point. I would also recommend programming a throttle cut switch an this point.


2. Receiver Setup: The beastX has a few options for reciever setup. You can hook up a single Satellite RX direct to the unit, however this doesn't give you any redundancy. I recommend using either a normal RX (I used a spare Admiral 10 channel w/sat) or a srxl receiver. Wiring was configured as shown below:


The BeastX defaults to the "standard reciever" config, so no special setup was required there. If you do need to change your RX type, detailed instructions for that are here: https://wiki.beastx.com/index.php/Ma...eceiverType/en

3. Mounting and Orientation. I mounted my BeastX on the gyro tray of the Huey wires facing aft. To tell this to the receiver, you'll need to power up the system. Make sure your blades are removed throughout the initial setup in case of inadvertent power-up. It will take a few a few seconds to intialize the controller. Make sure the aircraft is left stable throughout this initialization for calibration of the accelerometers. Then, hold down the programming button for 2 seconds until LED "A" is steady. This means that you are in programming mode. Move the Rudder stick left/right to change the color of the "status" LED to correspond to the device's orientation. In my chase that was Red for flat, wires aft:




4. Servo Frequencies: Hitting the setup button again will advance the small LED to Menu "B". Menus B-D can be adjusted as shown below:



I set all of my servos to 200/270 Hz and 1520 us. The servos are technically spec'd to run at 333 hz/1520us, but apparently can get a bit hot doing so. The lower refresh rate should relieve this load and be easier on the servos.

After setting this up, go ahead and plug your tail servo lead into the CH4 slot on the BeastX

[F106DeltaDart]

5. The next step is setting up the tail limits in menu "E". Push the rudder stick until the tail slider is all the way inboard and not binding. Hold it there for a
few seconds and the status light should flash and turn either blue or red. Do the same procedure for the other direction and re-center the stick. After that, move on to the next menu.


6. Menu "F" sets the tail direction. Check and see if things are moving the correct direction. As a guide, the trailing edge of the tail blade should mirror your stick movements (left rudder point the trailing edge to the left). If that is incorrect, reverse the tail servo in your transmitter. Now, we check tail correction direction on the BeastX. Pushing the Rudder stick right should turn the Status Light BLUE. If that is not correct, tap the aileron stick to reverse the colors. This ensures that the gyro is correcting appropriately.


7. Moving on to menu "G" we set the Swash Type. All of the Rotorscale 450s have a 120 degree swash config, so tap the rudder stick until the status LED is RED. You can then connect up your swash servos as follows to the BeastX:

[James]

Great work F106DeltaDart ! Awesome information. I will definitely be picking up one of these for my V1 Rotorscale

[F106DeltaDart]

Thanks James! Continuing to menu "H" we start the most complicated piece of the setup, setting up the swashplate. Each swashplate servo should be set so that the servo arm is at 90 deg to the mast. Once you are in menu H, the Status LED will initially be off, indicating that no trim settings have been entered. You can select which servo to trim using the Aileron stick and adjust its neutral position using the rudder stick. If you end up messing things up and want to restart the trimming, you can hold down the button for 10 seconds and it will reset trim for all 3 cyclic servos.

With all the servos centered, adjust your linkages so that the swashplate is leveled, and your have 0 deg pitch on the main rotors. The linkages should be pretty close from the factory, mine hardly needed any adjustments.



For anyone using the Bluetooth adaptor to do the setup, here are the values that I got setting up the Huey:

CH1: -35
CH2: +87
CH3: -81

[F106DeltaDart]

Advancing to set "I" you setup your servo directions for the collective. This is done much the same way as the last setup, using aileron stick to switch between servos and rudder to switch direction. Both CH1 and CH3 had to be reversed for me.


Menu "J" sets your swashplate throw. The BeastX manual says to set for 6 deg of swash movement as shown below:



For anyone using the Bluetooth module, that resulted in a setting of +642.

[F106DeltaDart]

Step "K" will set your collective pitch and direction. Triple check that your blades are removed and throttle cut is on, then advance to full collective on your TX. The LED should turn BLUE. If it does not, use the aileron stick to switch the setting until the blue light is present. This light should be solid. If it is not, increase or decrease your positive collective endpoint in the TX until it turns solid Blue.


After that is set, use the rudder stick to set your positive and negative collective endpoints to +12 and -12 degrees pitch respectively. In the bluetooth menu, this gave me an upper limit value of 779 and a lower value of 300.


In Step "L" you will set your swash plate limits. The manual asks that you set your limits at just before the swashplate binds, which would give a HUGE amount of cyclic authority. Since these 450s are scale machines and are running high headspeeds, I elected to back off even farther from that, setting my max cyclic throw very close to the 6 degrees we set earlier. Feel free to set more, but it will make your aircraft more sensitive.


For those using bluetooth for the setup, my cyclic limit value was +800.

[F106DeltaDart]

The last step to the main setup (step "M") is to set your swash directions. Check that the swashplate is following your stick in both elevator and aileron. E.g. Right should tilt the swash to the right, and down elevator should tilt it forward. If that is not the case, reverse the corresponding channel in your TX. I had to reverse my Aileron channel for the Huey.

Then, check that the microbeast is reading the inputs correctly. For both Down Elevator, and Right Aileron, the status LED should turn Blue. If it does not, tap the rudder stick until it displays the correct color.


The next few steps set up the governor, but since I am using an external receiver, those steps were not applicable. And for the most part, that was it for my setup. Going deeper into the menus, you can adjust more, but I found the stock setting to be fine. Here is the menu if you decide to change anything though:

[F106DeltaDart]

For the final settings on my TX, here are my throttle and pitch curves. My pitch curve was set for around -2 to +10 deg of pitch. The throttle curve that starts at 0 is my “ normal mode” curve since the ESC does not have a slow spoolup option. After advancing to flight RPM, I switch over to the other throttle curve to maintain RPM at low pitch. My flight testing showed the optimal tail gain to be around +28 for me, your results may vary. There seems to be a bit of wag still in the system in wind, but I believe that’s just due to the stock tail servo. Hopefully this guide helps other in getting their Rotorscale models off the bench and in the air!

[Gravythe clown]

Great job. I did miss mentioning adjusting the control rods after setting the cyclic servos to make the swash level. I did my normal quick glance and saw it was good. But I should have gone through that step as if it wasn’t.

But as you suggested here is a link to my setup video.

https://youtu.be/UhEFj1nT_pc

Gravy

[Gravythe clown]

Crashed my Huey today. Came out of a left bank and was flying toward me when the tail started wagging. Called tower and told them I was on an emergency approach with tail not responsive. Brought it back in front of me and started to flare. 2’ off the ground and she played wheel of miss-fortune. Round and round she went. I hit the kill switch and and let happen the Inevitable.

not much damage to the body. I’ll change out the whole top end, blades and main head. I’ll need new skids and left side bubble window. I only need to buy the skids and try to find a bubble window replacement. I have a whole main rotor set new in m parts bin.

I did find the culprit though. Looking inside the body and down the tail, I see the tail servo horn snapped off. I don’t believe that was from the crash but the cause of the crash.

I’ll fixed it after I finish my 600 Airwolf. Then I might sell it as I’m really liking the bigger helicopters.

Gravy

[Tahyi]

How do you set the timer on the huey