Official E-flite 650mm Convergence VTOL Thread

[xviper]

Finally going to get a chance to fully maiden mine tomorrow. Hovered in the house fine. Many transitions on the bench to make sure motors didn't cut out. Made the physical set-up changes that Xviper2 is using. Better ball links and rods. Fully charged good quality batteries and an Atomic Fireball candy(a must have for any of my maidens).

What's this?

[Brandon Moon]

Just got notice that HH CS is sending me back a New replacement...apparently the old one wasn't repairable I guess? In any case...replacement is on it's way back :)

[TiredIronGRB]

Finally going to get a chance to fully maiden mine tomorrow. Hovered in the house fine. Many transitions on the bench to make sure motors didn't cut out. Made the physical set-up changes that Xviper2 is using. Better ball links and rods. Fully charged good quality batteries and an Atomic Fireball candy(a must have for any of my maidens).

Amen on the Fireballs, I have a drawer in my toolbox full of them.

[Aros]

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[xviper]

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OK, I get it now. The inference is that it's cold out where you are and these will make heat. Flew this morning in 34F. We don't worry about cold till it gets to about 23F. Then we really dress up.
Watch all the little plastic bits. If the plane gets real cold and you land a bit too hard, things may crack.

[farmflyer]

Atomic Fireball is a hot cinnamon flavored hard candy.

[OV10]

Or a shot of Yukon Jack with a splash of Cinnamon Schnapps(preferably Dekuyper Hot Damn) :cool:

[Twowingtj]

Atomic Fireball is a hot cinnamon flavored hard candy.

This is the one here. This is my "tradition" that I have one of these in my mouth during the maiden of any plane. It helps release the nervous energy and keeps the focus. And they taste good too.

Warbird, yours comes when the flying day is done and the birds are home in one piece. If no one is flying at your field today, you can stop by ours. Several of us are flying today starting around noon.

[Twowingtj]

Well the maiden did not go well. Couldn't even get it to hover. Nice calm day, set it on a nice level surface and plugged it in. It went through initialization and the rotors went verticle. Made sure I was in stability mode and as I started to throttle up all it wanted to do was flip over tail first to the right. Shut everything down, unplugged the battery and went through the initialization process again. Let it sit idle for a minute or so to make sure that no movement would upset the FC board. Attemped lift off again with the same result. I've had some helis that you had to have some significant input to get them in the air before the stabilization would settle in. So I agressively compensated and got it clear of ground effect. It didn't get any better.

As I fly CP helis and aerobatic multis, I flipped it to acro mode and was able to gain control. I kept it in MR mode and got to about 10ft altitude and moved it forward some. Got it back into a hover and thought I would try flipping the switch to stability again to see if it would behave like it should. It went completely batty. It started to flip over forward and to the right, right into the ground. Any attempt to compensate with control inputs just made things worse. Caused quite a bit of damage to the nose and tail. Never even got to think about transition.

The DX9 was set up per the manual. The only physical changes were to better ball links, put in about 2mm up deflection in the elevons for AP mode, and moved the battery aft about half the distance than xviper2 had done. Those last two should have had no affect in MR mode. Will be making the call to HH customer service.

[xviper]

So sorry to hear of this. Just to rule out some things .........................
When you changed to different ball links, did you maintain the same rod length? I've seen some people try to make both nacelles even and almost vertical. They should be different from each other in the way they angle to the sky. This is for torque compensation of the rear rotor.
Are you certain that the switch for stabilized mode and acro mode is clear. IE, you are sure which position is which. Stabilized mode makes the nacelles very sensitive to the planes movement on the bench. If you yaw it on the bench, the nacelles move like crazy. In acro mode, not much happens when you move the plane. Also, in acro MR mode, the sticks are very sensitive and the plane can flip as there is no limiter for roll and pitch. In stabilized MR mode, it self levels when you let go of the sticks. Mine lift off by itself in a level attitude when moderate throttle is applied. I find it much harder to lift off when gradually raising throttle. If you look at my last video, both of us lifted off quite abruptly.
Motor rotation is correct for each motor? Blades on the right direction? IE, top is top in MR or front is front in AP mode?
Getting that out of the way, then there's something definitely wrong with the flight controller.

[Twowingtj]

So sorry to hear of this. Just to rule out some things .........................
When you changed to different ball links, did you maintain the same rod length? I've seen some people try to make both nacelles even and almost vertical. They should be different from each other in the way they angle to the sky. This is for torque compensation of the rear rotor.
Are you certain that the switch for stabilized mode and acro mode is clear. IE, you are sure which position is which. Stabilized mode makes the nacelles very sensitive to the planes movement on the bench. If you yaw it on the bench, the nacelles move like crazy. In acro mode, not much happens when you move the plane. Also, in acro MR mode, the sticks are very sensitive and the plane can flip as there is no limiter for roll and pitch. In stabilized MR mode, it self levels when you let go of the sticks. Mine lift off by itself in a level attitude when moderate throttle is applied. I find it much harder to lift off when gradually raising throttle. If you look at my last video, both of us lifted off quite abruptly.
Motor rotation is correct for each motor? Blades on the right direction? IE, top is top in MR or front is front in AP mode?
Getting that out of the way, then there's something definitely wrong with the flight controller.

Rods the same as stock, no attempt to mess with original geometry. On the bench, with props off, it behaved strangly in stability mode. When transitioning to AP in stability, all kinds of strange deflections occured. After transition was complete and it was switched to Acro mode, it behaved as you would expect.

When I did get it airborne in MR Acro mode, it seemed fine. There was no auto leveling and it had full input response. It behaved like my helis and unstabilized multis. When I switched to MR Stability mode, it just went crazy and seemed to fight any control input. I went back into the transmitter set-up verify that I hadn't inadvertently reversed a channel. All was as it should be.

[xviper]

I'd say you got a bad flight controller. :@

[Twowingtj]

Just got off the phone with HH. Described the the way the craft behaved. They said definately a bad FC board. They are shipping a new FC boad out tomorrow. They did not want to take the airframe back. Just said to glue it back together. At least it is fixable.

[xviper]

Just got off the phone with HH. Described the the way the craft behaved. They said definately a bad FC board. They are shipping a new FC boad out tomorrow. They did not want to take the airframe back. Just said to glue it back together. At least it is fixable.

What? They aren't giving you a new plane? That's not right. Their faulty controller crashed the plane. They should replace it.

[Twowingtj]

What? They aren't giving you a new plane? That's not right. Their faulty controller crashed the plane. They should replace it.

I agree. Normally HH has good CS, but they indicated that this bird has been a bit of a PITA. And they don't have the spare airframes currently. I'll get her patched up and get the new FC boad in and go from there. If I had paid for the bird, I would be more upset, but my wife won it on FB when HH did thier initial product launch. She gave it to me as this kind of bird is not what she is into.

[rpottsoh]

Been reading this thread. Intersting stuff and thanks for the flight videos. I have the PNP version still in the box. I am planning to fly it with JR 9503 with a 6 channel spectrum rx. Anyone know the channel assignments for stability mode and MC/AP mode, one is obviously gear and the other Aux. if anyone knows which is which would help me out. Which switch throws to use for those two functions would be helpful too. Stated more simply, what is the proper settings for a 9503? :) Thanks

[xviper]

Been reading this thread. Intersting stuff and thanks for the flight videos. I have the PNP version still in the box. I am planning to fly it with JR 9503 with a 6 channel spectrum rx. Anyone know the channel assignments for stability mode and MC/AP mode, one is obviously gear and the other Aux. if anyone knows which is which would help me out. Which switch throws to use for those two functions would be helpful too. Stated more simply, what is the proper settings for a 9503? :) Thanks

I can't help you specifically for JR, but the principle is still the same. The gear switch changes the flight modes (stability/acro). The flap switch is usually AUX1 on Spektrum and on some TXs, it's a 2-position switch while on others it's a 3-position switch. You know which switches do these functions on your TX, right? Just be sure that if you have a 3-position switch for your flap, don't linger in the middle position. Flip past it quickly. The outer positions will give you mulitrotor/airplane modes. Test the positions on the bench and you'll know which is which. Reverse if it makes more sense to you. Either take off the props or have a throttle cut applied.

[Grayghost]

I have had a convergence for about two months, third flight and when it transition from AP to MR it tumble to the ground like a leaf.
Learning a lot ... never buy a Horizon again ... very bad customer service ... and also bad quality control.
I have made several call to HH technical support and all they say is send it back and we will evaluate it ... now they will not even return my calls .... and the wait on the phone is hours.
UPS wants $65 to ship it .... I am not about to spend another 65 to return it and then pay shipping back for a busted up plane that has built in design and quality control problems.
I wish I had read this thread before I purchase mine!

[Grayghost]

I found the problem with my convergence and it may help other that have the same problem .... one motor quits during or after transition either way ...
Mine had cold solder of the connector to the end of one wire of the ESC connection to the motor .
As the motor tilted the connection came lose and the motor quit .

[Brandon Moon]

Yeah, I've had all sorts of problems with mine as well and I'm on the second replacement they sent me already ....NOT Impressed with the convergence at all. When it works it's kind of fun, but...Only when it works, which at the moment isn't often