I'm building a roban 800 size Md 500 .. anyone have a good method to get ideal pitch setups.. seems to be alot of mechanical servo travel to deal with..

[DCORSAIR]

Just a question on how tight blades should be tighten on the blade grips particularly on scale setups with multiple blades.. I Always have mine basically little if any movement I Know centrifugal force's are at work but new to this type of setup don't want to overdue it.

I know a lot of guys run their blades really tight, I have always run mine a little bit loose, not floppy loose but with a little drag on them, so basically I tighten them up to set them, then loosen them up just a little bit so they will straighten out sooner so you don't get extreme vibes on spool up, just my opinion on that.

[eawings]

One thing I can tell you about is that your servo arms are way too long the reason you have so much travel Use a shorter servo metal arm. Set your radio end points to default - 100%. I have used the Bavarian Demon 3X series and it has the Head gyro rate adjustment assigned to a knob which makes your swashplate travel less sensitive. I suggest using it as well. DO NOT USE THOSE PLASTIC SERVO HORNS !!!. There are a lot of this metal servo horns to fit your Align servos. Replace those.

[eawings]

One thing I can tell you about is that your metal servo arms are way too long the reason you have so much travel Use a shorter servo metal arm. Set your radio end points to default - 100%. I have used the Bavarian Demon 3X series and it has the Head gyro (ATTI) rate adjustment assigned to a knob which makes your swashplate travel less sensitive. I suggest using it as well. DO NOT USE THOSE PLASTIC SERVO HORNS !!!. There are a lot of this metal servo horns to fit your Align servos. Replace those.

[Titason]

Thanks for the info..I have looked for shorter metal horns but have had a difficulty finding one's that would be short enough.. Do you know of any places to find these..

[Herman Munster]

Thanks for the info..I have looked for shorter metal horns but have had a difficulty finding one's that would be short enough.. Do you know of any places to find these..

Use the stock Align metal servo arms and just drill new holes in them.

[Titason]

I'll give that a try..

[Roguemonkey]

Titason, there are some people in here kind of leading you astray. Pawpaw had some good setup advice to get you going, but Heli head setups are pretty easy. Now Roban adds a bit of complexity with its roll and pitch servos not being directly linear to its bellcrank input, all in all its not a big deal.

1. Do not use nylon arms. You’ll be sorry you did and it’s not if, but when your arm fatigues by the swashplate mechanical forces that they have to withstand while in flight/running. The proper length of arm is about 15mm. You can find the proper arm with Secraft. There is a dealer in Queen Creek Arizona named Superstition Hobbies. They do online ordering. I use 15mm on my cyclic servos and 16-17 on my tail. https://superstitionhobbies.com/sear...aft+servo+arms

2. If you are just using a tail gyro exclusively (which I prefer in scale helis) you can adjust your cyclic servo throw in your transmitter, but getting the proper length arm is a BEST practice. Do not do this if you have a flybarless unit unless the adjustment is to get 100% throw in your controller software.

3. Like Pawpaw said, use your motor plane to zero your pitch gauge. I setup all of my blades perpendicular to the Heli on the left side or -90 side of the Heli. Mid stick as close to 0 degrees as possible. All helis are the same in this regard no matter the size or the blade count. However, on my UH-1 and AH-1 I changed my pitch rods from the supplied threaded rod to turnbuckles. This allowed me to get a true zero degrees track. The multi blade heads you are stuck at half +-10 degree turns on your ball links to get a good track. Trust me! You’ll want as close to a zero degree track or else your skids on your 500 will vibrate and crack. Eventually the resonance will disbond the wood framing and then lead to your mechanics contacting your fuselage (usually in a banking turn) and voila! You’ve achieved a midair collision with yourself. Yes I’ve seen it done. The pilot ignored the signs and kept flying even after being told.

4. After all this technical stuff..... have fun! If you’re finding setup frustrating, take a step back. Sleep on it. Then get back after it. Remember, all things she be 90 degrees to get you to the mid stick 0 degrees and a level swashplate. There are many tools out there to use, but I’m not a fan of anything that has you constantly installing and removing the head or swashplate. My buddy Jerry, well he gets his aircraft down to a gnats ass, and endstate, our helis fly the same.

[DCORSAIR]

Sorry sir, didn't mean to be misleading in anyway, looks like we have an expert with some good knowledge, so thank you for your tips, I will be looking forward to reading more of your info Roguemonkey, I'm no expert that's for sure.

[Titason]

A big thanks for all who given advice.. I have not flown it yet but I will admit I was a little nervous flying 800 size blades on nylon arms and actually was going to change them.. I'll go to the site you mentioned and order the metal arms.. A very timely post Thanks

[Roguemonkey]

Sorry sir, didn't mean to be misleading in anyway, looks like we have an expert with some good knowledge, so thank you for your tips, I will be looking forward to reading more of your info Roguemonkey, I'm no expert that's for sure.

Mr. Corsair,

I hope that misleading comment wasn’t taken out of context and by no means am I an expert. What I have found in flying these contraptions is that everyone has their “technique”. Some of them good, some of them bad. Some are best, and some you should really steer clear of. I started my scale ships with RC Aerodyne way back in 2008 with an EC 665, then a Bell 206, then an Agusta 109 and then a UH-60 that I highly modified. In this time, I’ve used almost every major flybarless controller on the market and varied my setup techniques based on advice and experience. I’ve gone through a slew of motors and blades and even recently switched up my thinking based on building UH and AH-1’s with a buddy in Tucson. I’ve toyed with a multitude of blades and rotor speeds and come to a general conclusion; you can’t get scale rotor speeds without modifying these kits. For many years I was dumb and threw money at problems ranging from over-temping ESC’s and motors to wrong sized arms and control throws, to poorly setup controllers. I just try to keep people from making the same costly mistakes. And now with over 15 of these flying death traps, I’m still learning better ways or updating my techniques with the current hardware, software or firmware.

By the way, for anyone picking up one of these aircraft, I suggest a motor KV in the 560 ballpark. I have gone from 410-630 and generally on 700-800 size ships this works best. I use scorpion motors and Castle ESC’s. I’ve recently started trying Kontronik’s and that’s a whole other ball of wax.

I hope this clears up anything.

[PawPaw]

Misleading. Is that PC for “ Bull****”?

[DCORSAIR]

Oh no it's all good, I have years of experience setting up fly bar helis and mostly scale and last year decided to try a fbl controller for the first time, so I bought the 800 Roban AH-6 with a 5 blade head for my first try, yeah I was way over my head, but I studied it for a year before I flew it, it went great, got lucky I guess, so now I have the 800 Roban Hughes 500 Magnum PI and the 800 Roban OH-6 Cayuse, love these big helis, so I like to hear what's right and wrong on these Roban scale helis and fbl controllers because I'm new to this size, so any expert advice that comes along is welcome by me. I am using 450kv motors in both of mine and they seem perfect, no heat, very slight warmth on the motor, ESC and batteries, 30% headroom on the Kontronik 160, really scale headspeed, so you would recommend a 560kv?? Thanks.

[Titason]

Thanks for the reply this hobby of ours particularly with helis is a very unique.. it's tough we have very little margin for error we have to be almost perfect.. I joined this group because I have no one flying these birds to interact with where I live so I enjoy this community of ideas which will help me to better my setups and flying skills...

[F106DeltaDart]

Oh no it's all good, I have years of experience setting up fly bar helis and mostly scale and last year decided to try a fbl controller for the first time, so I bought the 800 Roban AH-6 with a 5 blade head for my first try, yeah I was way over my head, but I studied it for a year before I flew it, it went great, got lucky I guess, so now I have the 800 Roban Hughes 500 Magnum PI and the 800 Roban OH-6 Cayuse, love these big helis, so I like to hear what's right and wrong on these Roban scale helis and fbl controllers because I'm new to this size, so any expert advice that comes along is welcome by me. I am using 450kv motors in both of mine and they seem perfect, no heat, very slight warmth on the motor, ESC and batteries, 30% headroom on the Kontronik 160, really scale headspeed, so you would recommend a 560kv?? Thanks.

A 560kv is about what I’ve gone with in the 2 Blade Robans (Bell 222 and Cobra). The 450kv is definitely better suited to the 4-5 blade models where you can bring down the headspeed a bit more.

[Titason]

I run a 455kv on my 700 size roban md500 keeps headspeed around 1200 on idle up 2 castle creations setup.. runs smooth with plenty of power..

[DCORSAIR]

Yeah, I'm staying with the 450kv motors on the multi blade heads, it just works for me, I could see the 560kv on a two blade head.