Official XK K110 With Gyro Thread

[Beta_Grumm]

Calibrating the sticks gets them so that the radio knows the full range of the physical sticks. That way when you put the stick in the middle of its range of motion, it's actually in the middle of it's range of motion as far as the gimble is concerned.
Building on that, before you level your blades at mid stick, you want to set your pitch curve so that it is 50% or 0 degrees at mid stick.
Then you can mechanically (or sub trim) your swash so that it actually is generating zero degrees pitch at mid stick. (Which is 50% your pitch curve, and your physical stick in the center of a calibrated gimble.)
It's a combination of multiple systems all aligning together.
Gimble/stick in the middle
Pitch curve is in the middle
Then swash adjusted to the middle.
This video example helped me understand this concept and all the pieces at play. The author of the video is working with a flybar head, which obviously the 110 doesn't have so that part is non essential, but the rest of the setup applies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br9YdUTDenQ

Actually, I just remembered. You mentioned having purchased John Salts ebooks. I have not seen them at all. Did you get the one about setting up the head? I'm really curious how he explains it.
Sorry if I'm confusing you. I'm not the best at explaining this stuff. Especially over text. I'm much more of a hands on type.

[cyborblades]

I've been waiting for my 130 to get here and some batteries they shipped them Fed Ex and I just have so much problem getting deliveries from FedEx the packages are at my local warehouse and they sit there for four and five days before they actually get to me and most of the time I have to contact them.
I haven't been doing much on that front I did get those eBooks from John Salt and I know they're loaded with a bunch of information and one of these days when I have nothing to do I'm going to sit down and see if I can make sense out of it. I know I'm going to learn a lot but it's all on big helicopters and none of the procedures that he's doing will work on any of my micros. I don't have any larger helicopters but I do know I can learn something from that so one of these days when it's windy and raining and terrible outside I'll just sit down and start going through them and then I'll let you know.
I can tell you right up front they are well thought-out terrifically produced with full-color great pictures and explanation but I think it's mainly for a larger heli guys because it shows you how to use all the nice cool tools that they have and like I said right now with my micros I can't use any of that so I haven't really dug into it but I will and I'll let you know.

[cyborblades]

I just watched the video you had the link to on the setup of the head and I guess because the size of the helicopters were so much larger and when I looked at some videos where they're using the specialty tooling I just assumed that it wasn't going to do me any good.
I am very glad you linked to this because yes it describes the operation and even though I may not be able to use special tools it's still going to be helpful on even the micros. I guess I'm going to make myself sit down and read the John Salt books because it just seems to me that any information like this will help me learn is going to be a plus I just want to thank you again for putting that link up.

I did have another question I don't remember with all the information going back and forth if I asked you if you were familiar with the k130. I just received one a couple weeks ago and when I went to check the blades and make sure they were even at Mid throttle stick the helicopter started jumping like a jumping bean now remember this is with throttle hold on 3D on and idle up on just like I set up the 110 and the 120.

It only does that if idle Up is on so I just assumed that since the 110 and the 120 that's how you set it up that this was the same. When I found that I contacted motion RC and unfortunately they're not really that familiar with these XK helis but they had me send thrm a video and they said definitely we have to send you another one because that's defective. I just received the other one yesterday and it does exact same thing only with idle up on now I remember I watched John Salt video about 3 weeks ago did a review on k-130 and he crashed it as soon as he started trying to fly 3D so I'm wondering if these things have an inherent problem that would be a cause for a crash. I want to make sure that I'm doing it correctly before I can make that assumption if so I will return the heli. Would you happen to know if the procedure to set 0 pitch at mid stick on the 130 is the same as the 110 and 120?

[Beta_Grumm]

You are welcome.
I've been playing with exponential on my cyclical based on your recommendation. I see the appeal.

I personally do not have any experience with a k130 (though I want one).
The procedure should be exactly the same.
I'm not quite sure I understand the issue you're having as I'm having trouble picturing what you are describing, but I would absolutely expect the procedure to be the same.
It is possible that the channels are a bit different on the k130. As in some of the switches maybe are interacting with different things? Or perhaps the channels are not the same, as in maybe the gyro channel is mapped to the pitch or throttle or something like that or channels are reversed etc.
Sounds like a misconfiguration or something of that nature to me, but again, I'm not clear on the issue. I would have to see the configuration of the radio and the behavior of the helicopter to get an idea of what to debug, but that's my first thought.

[cyborblades]

I have a video of it doing it if there is a way I can upload the video here or somewhere else then link to it because I don't know any other way to explain it. When I have the helicopter bound to the transmitter and both are on and I want to check to make sure the blades are even zero pitch at Mid throttle stick I put the throttle hold on I put the 3D switch to on so it's in 3D mode and then I turn the idle up switch to idle up and as soon as I do that and as long as the blades are pulled back along the length of the Boom the helicopter just start jumping and freaking out.
I have a video of it I was under the impression that the only way you can check the blades to make sure it's zero or negative pitch at Mid stick is to do it as I described.
Basically if you're unable to because the thing is jumping all over the place then you would not be able to make that adjustment. I was curious if I was not doing something correctly but now it appears that I am doing it right there is just a problem with the helicopter.

Of course then you have to wonder if there is something wrong with the helicopter then maybe that's why people are crashing because whatever is causing that to do it at that point it could do it again when you're flying.

I did find another person who posted on here that actually has a k130 and I asked him the same question and he said his does it too and if you have throttle hold on and the throttle at Mid stick when you power on the radio it won't do it but I'm not sure how you can do that because if I try that the radio will not initialize until I pull the throttle stick down.
I'm going to pose that question to him but if you can suggest on how I can post a video I can do that so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.

[cyborblades]

I did want to mention that I got the receiver board in for the k110 and I'm just now starting to get it installed when I was removing the plug from the board that comes from the ESC I found that the wires were worn through all three wires and it seems like they were pulled down around the edge of the side of the board and it's very sharp and I'm guessing just the vibrations and the movement of the wires wore the insulation off and then either it caused noise or it shorted out something on the board. I repaired the wire so they're no longer bare so when I get the board replaced and tested I'll be back to tell you what the results are.

[cyborblades]

You asked if I would update you about this board. I have it in and I've tested it and it definitely was the problem. It doesn't do the roll to the right anymore it comes off the skids just like my other 110 now nice and gentle no problem.
I'm guessing that that board was bad ever since I got it from new because this thing has done that ever since I got it and since I always had one flying I never really worried about it always figured I'd get it fixed and then I just let them sit for a couple years and now it's fixed so now I have two great flying 110's.
How did you make out with your expo trials? So far the settings for me have been working pretty decent. I'm using them with the 110 and the 120 and I'm going to test the 130 here next. I believe the 130 I'm going to have to probably adjust them somewhat because it's just much more powerful than either the 110 or the 120.

[ridgerunner]

FYI

Here is the blog post recently referenced:

XK K110 - Mini review and beginner settings

The recommended initial tame settings in that blog post were obtained from this (hopefully also) helpful thread over on HeliFreak:

XK110 Pitch & Thrust Settings

[cyborblades]

Yes that's the one thank you very much I had come across that and wanted to locate it again and I didn't save the URL I knew it was a blog post but I just wasn't able to find it thank you very much for posting it I'm sure it's going to be a help to many.

[fpvrobot]

If I missed this some where in the thread sorry. I have a tx16s radio master and I am setting up for the k110 when it arrives. For XK products do I need to set the expo to negitive?

[ridgerunner]

If I missed this some where in the thread sorry. I have a tx16s radio master and I am setting up for the k110 when it arrives. For XK products do I need to set the expo to negitive?

On your TX16S, (and all other OpenTX radios), POSITIVE EXPO softens the curve at center stick. On the XK X6, NEGATIVE EXPO values soften the curve at center stick.

[fpvrobot]

tanks, mani tanks.

[Beaver]

Just picked up the XK K110 from MotionRC. Having owned 5 Blade helicopters previous to this one... I have to admit this one fly's better than all of them. Nice packaging, but not so great manual. Wondering if anybody is greasing the main gear to protect from wear.

[MarkRocha]

Does anybody know how to bind and to program this xk xk110 to a futaba T16SZ transmitter???

[Captain MoMo]

I am seeing a strange behavior on my XK110 when using new Amazon batteries. The battery has enough power but my controls do not respond as they do on the stock battery? I am wondering why there is difference? Has anyone else had issues using other batteries in these?

[98transam]

It sounds like your swashplate is not level.
When your swash is out of level, then switching in and out of 6G will tip the swash quite a bit to correct for it.
I recently rebuilt my xk k100 for the same reason.
While it was stable in 6G, it would track really hard backward and off to one side if I switched 6g off.
Likewise, if I stabilized it in 3d mode, and switched to 6G mode, it would be off as well.
I eventually solved this by calibrating and re-setting up the head, and leveling the swashplate as it did not come level from the factory.

Steps:
I first calibrated the radio sticks to center as my mid stick was quite a bit off.
I then made sure to set my throttle curve such that mid stick was 0 pitch.
I then checked to ensure servos were as centered as possible. They were.
Then, while at mid stick, with 6G off, subtrim 0, gimble trim 0, I leveled my swashplate via the linkages using a zip-tie. See video example of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHXW9Sv1bQ
NOTE: I recommend this over eyeballing it. I found it to be a much better quality leveling result
While doing the above step, I would switch in and out of 6G mode, to see how much it would shift, as it would shift a little, and I adjusted it to be as level as possible given both modes. Again, this is with the mechanical linkages, not sub trim.
After leveling the swash mechanically, I then centered the blades parallel to the tail boom, and leveled them with each other at mid stick using subtrim. NOTE: Initially, I had to add quite a bit of subtrim to get these centered. So instead, I zeroed the subtrim and first got these as close as possible using mechanical adjustment by adjusting the linkages in or out all BY THE SAME AMOUNT EACH. This keeps the swash level, but moves the whole thing up or down to change the pitch of the blades.
I then used subtrim to finish this off.
Test it at this point before you adjust your max and min pitch. You should be able to go in and out of 6G and still hold a steady hover.


So in all that, my recommendation would be:
- Reset your subtrim and gimble trlm to 0, and level your swash mechanically via the linakages
- Re center your blades with subtrim (or mechanicaly adjustment if needed) and test.

This should get you what you're looking for.
Let me know how it goes!

This should be a sticky and very good info. Even though this is several years old, it still holds true!

[Nacrugs]

I just got this one yesterday. I have been a fixed wing guy for 13 years. Wanted to try something different. I was trying to fly yesterday and one of the harder landings did something to the copter. I don't know the correct names of the parts... The large sprocket on the bottom that turns the rotors is not lined up with the motor sproket anymore. Its not bent it is just sliding up and down vertically on the shaft, freely and does not make the correct connection to spin the rotors enough to lift off. I saw a youtube video and a guy just pushed the big sprocket back up he said. I am pushing pretty hard and its not moving. I don't want to crush it. Can someone help me out?

[HPCR]

Make a few DETAILED pictures and post. So, yes, typically a crash can disengage the motor from the rotor so to speak.
Turn the heli upside down and check to make sure that the gear ( the big black ring with teeth on it) gets adjusted ( turn slightly) so the cogs are meshing with the rotor and grab the heli like a HAMBURGER, two fingers on top and two fingers on the bottom and squeeze hard.. The idea is to push the rotor shaft into the black ring. Make a few pictures..just in case you have a different problem. Good luck,.

[Nacrugs]

So HPCR I got it going again only to blow the rotors off after being stuck in the grass. I believe I am missing a small washer?

[HPCR]

Possibly.. so... download a picture of the part list ( alibaba.com or similar sources) and see what you are missing. I am going to give you some free advise. Unless you have never flown these 6 channel helis, you are going to need SPARES! The best way to get some spares is to buy a COMPLETE XK-110S for about 65 dollars and keep the heli you have for spares, you can disassemble it and see how it all has to be put together. You will need that skill and experience. BWY There are lots of video's on this BUT nothing is as good as hands-on practice.