Other Source For Roban Apache 700 Parts

[PawPaw]

A couple of ideas come to mind in addition to the above, specifically focused toward the Ikon 2. If the fuselage is a tight fit around the elevated short torque tube it can telegraph vibrations. May try adding foam in that area and/or remounting the Ikon on a thicker pad. A quick fix for some Ikon 2 problems can be easily accomplished by increasing the tail stick deadband value in the advanced setup menu. Also, in heading hold mode, power up the heli on the bench (TH on, of course) and watch the tail for 3-4 minutes. Do the tail blades slowly drift to max deflection? I have one Ikon 2 BT that does that and have spent many hours diagnosing it without success.

[DCORSAIR]

I do confirm what a little tach that what I think I'm flying at is what I'm flying at- of course if you have telemetry running you have that info... I don't have telemetry on any of my, so I just do the math for the equipment/setup I have and set my throttle curves... and verify with the tach.

I'm not an Ikon guy... so I can't be much help there.

I threw out the the head speed/tail fuselage point b/c I have experienced that before- especially with my OH6 and the big vertical tail it has in the way... but even then when I encountered that issue, I was trying to run a really low head speed relative to the setup, and pod and boom setup it was fine, put it in the fuselage and the tail would still hold in a hover, but clearly was struggling in kind of heavy collective pitch adjustments... or wind gusts...
Perhaps you can verify your head speed...b/c 1400 and it not hold at all... idk
Is you tail setup mechanically to hold in rate mode?

I don't run telemetry either, what Tach to you use sir to check your head speed?? I would like to purchase one, I don't run Ikon either so I'm not much help to anyone myself, I do have to say that I have seen more guys with problems running the Ikon gyro, not sure on that really, I think you might be on to something with the large vertical tail on the Apache, mine flies good but at times the tail kind of acts weird when turning into the torque (left turn) turning right is no problem and does it just fne, I am trying new 115mm blades instead of the stock 105mm blades to see what it does and maybe solve the issue of moving more air past the vertical tail.

Getting back to tip22 problem, I think it's just to low of a head speed once in the fuselage, but I'm no expert by no means.......

[tip22v]

I do confirm what a little tach that what I think I'm flying at is what I'm flying at- of course if you have telemetry running you have that info... I don't have telemetry on any of my, so I just do the math for the equipment/setup I have and set my throttle curves... and verify with the tach.

I'm not an Ikon guy... so I can't be much help there.

I threw out the the head speed/tail fuselage point b/c I have experienced that before- especially with my OH6 and the big vertical tail it has in the way... but even then when I encountered that issue, I was trying to run a really low head speed relative to the setup, and pod and boom setup it was fine, put it in the fuselage and the tail would still hold in a hover, but clearly was struggling in kind of heavy collective pitch adjustments... or wind gusts...
Perhaps you can verify your head speed...b/c 1400 and it not hold at all... idk
Is you tail setup mechanically to hold in rate mode?

I'm running the semi-sysmetrical blades that came with the kit. I use an optical tach to verify headspeed, I also have telemetry to my Jeti radio. I use the governor in the IKON2 to set headspeed, it seems to work well, although I need to check the logs to verify that the headspeed is holding when I'm pulling in power to hover.

[tip22v]

I don't measure headspeed on any of my Roban scale helis, I have 2,4,5 blade helis that I fly, they all have the recent stock blades that come with the kits, I just can't get any of them to fly on low headspeeds, the tails just don't hold good on these Roban kits, I just keep bumping up the headspeed until everything feels good and fly them, the Apache is one that you have to crank it up, maybe some guys are flying this Apache tank at low rpm some how but mine is a handful trying to fly at low headspeeds and I have flown mine a bunch believe me, it's so heavy I don't see how it flies as good as it does actually, it requires constant throttle/collective management to keep it looking scale in flight, more than any of my other helis, if you look up Roban factory test flights and watch them do test flights on these scale helis, listen to the headspeeds they run, its not realistic scale headspeeds if you ask me. I guess I need to start calculating or find away to measure headspeed so I can be more helpful.

Here is my Apache that I fly, my buddy sold it to me.

https://youtu.be/VaPdqoQJu70 https://youtu.be/ksenL4QtTbY

That's exactly what I'm finding, it won't even hover on the lower head-speeds, much less fly. Mine weights 19lbs 9oz with the fuselage. When I mimic this exact weight with a wood base (pod and boom) it will only hover about 1" high at 1300 RPM with collective full up (~11 deg of pitch), if I go to 1400 RPM it will hover 12" with a little stick left (still nervous about going higher than 12").

[tip22v]

A couple of ideas come to mind in addition to the above, specifically focused toward the Ikon 2. If the fuselage is a tight fit around the elevated short torque tube it can telegraph vibrations. May try adding foam in that area and/or remounting the Ikon on a thicker pad. A quick fix for some Ikon 2 problems can be easily accomplished by increasing the tail stick deadband value in the advanced setup menu. Also, in heading hold mode, power up the heli on the bench (TH on, of course) and watch the tail for 3-4 minutes. Do the tail blades slowly drift to max deflection? I have one Ikon 2 BT that does that and have spent many hours diagnosing it without success.

The short shaft is supported by a little foam fitting that comes with the kit, I'm running IKON2 in all my other helis but none of my other helis are scale, just pod and boom, which is why I initially thought I would go with IKON2 for this project. I also have a Bavarian Demon AXON I could try, but I have never used an AXON and have struggled to figure out how to assign head speeds for the governor (I just need to do more research to learn the AXON). In the meantime, I will try adjusting the deadband and also power it up on the bench to see if the tail blades drift. Thanks for the help! - Tom

[tip22v]

I don't measure headspeed on any of my Roban scale helis, I have 2,4,5 blade helis that I fly, they all have the recent stock blades that come with the kits, I just can't get any of them to fly on low headspeeds, the tails just don't hold good on these Roban kits, I just keep bumping up the headspeed until everything feels good and fly them, the Apache is one that you have to crank it up, maybe some guys are flying this Apache tank at low rpm some how but mine is a handful trying to fly at low headspeeds and I have flown mine a bunch believe me, it's so heavy I don't see how it flies as good as it does actually, it requires constant throttle/collective management to keep it looking scale in flight, more than any of my other helis, if you look up Roban factory test flights and watch them do test flights on these scale helis, listen to the headspeeds they run, its not realistic scale headspeeds if you ask me. I guess I need to start calculating or find away to measure headspeed so I can be more helpful.

Here is my Apache that I fly, my buddy sold it to me.

https://youtu.be/VaPdqoQJu70 https://youtu.be/ksenL4QtTbY

I just watched your video, from an audio perspective your headspeed sounds much higher than my 1400 headspeed, it's hard to tell from just audio though, especially audio from a video. Nice flying BTW!

I noticed in the video that your tail rotor turns the opposite direction from mine, our main rotors are turning the same direction, just the tail rotors are turning different. Did the guy that built yours make a mod or is mine turning the wrong direction (I bought mine partially built). Thanks

[DCORSAIR]

I just watched your video, from an audio perspective your headspeed sounds much higher than my 1400 headspeed, it's hard to tell from just audio though, especially audio from a video. Nice flying BTW!

I noticed in the video that your tail rotor turns the opposite direction from mine, our main rotors are turning the same direction, just the tail rotors are turning different. Did the guy that built yours make a mod or is mine turning the wrong direction (I bought mine partially built). Thanks

Yes, the guy I bought mine from did the tail rotor gear mod and reversed it, he also pinned and loctited the ends on the tail rotor shaft so the ends won't unscrew themselves when turning in the scale rotation, that is a must do if you change the direction of the tail rotor.

[sfcfury]

I don't run telemetry either, what Tach to you use sir to check your head speed?? I would like to purchase one, I don't run Ikon either so I'm not much help to anyone myself, I do have to say that I have seen more guys with problems running the Ikon gyro, not sure on that really, I think you might be on to something with the large vertical tail on the Apache, mine flies good but at times the tail kind of acts weird when turning into the torque (left turn) turning right is no problem and does it just fne, I am trying new 115mm blades instead of the stock 105mm blades to see what it does and maybe solve the issue of moving more air past the vertical tail.

Getting back to tip22 problem, I think it's just to low of a head speed once in the fuselage, but I'm no expert by no means.......

DC I use just something like this GT Power Tach:

I don't use the FBL to govern... I have tried it out with the Beastx, it seems to work well, didn't have any issues, but I prefer the slow start of the tribunus.
What size is your motor Tip?

[DCORSAIR]

DC I use just something like this GT Power Tach:

I don't use the FBL to govern... I have tried it out with the Beastx, it seems to work well, didn't have any issues, but I prefer the slow start of the tribunus.
What size is your motor Tip?

Thank you for the tach info, ordered me one today.

Well, I just got done flying the Apache with the new Align 115mm tail blades and it flew great, they do keep the tail locked in the whole flight, it didn't solve the left turn issue completely like I wanted but it is almost perfect with the bigger blades, going to turn down the gyro just a tiny bit on the one dial and see if that will cure it, I think I will stay with the 115mm tail blades, it does fly better and never felt like I was going to lose the tail like the 105mm blades do at times, so I will paint them flat black when the weather gets warmer to make them look more scale.

[sfcfury]

Thank you for the tach info, ordered me one today.

Well, I just got done flying the Apache with the new Align 115mm tail blades and it flew great, they do keep the tail locked in the whole flight, it didn't solve the left turn issue completely like I wanted but it is almost perfect with the bigger blades, going to turn down the gyro just a tiny bit on the one dial and see if that will cure it, I think I will stay with the 115mm tail blades, it does fly better and never felt like I was going to lose the tail like the 105mm blades do at times, so I will paint them flat black when the weather gets warmer to make them look more scale.

Yea I have used the 115mm blades from RJX from jump Street on my Cobra and Huey...

[DCORSAIR]

Oh thank you, should have did more shopping before I bought the Align ones, those would work great on the Apache too, maybe I will pick up a set of those as well.

[sfcfury]

Nothing wrong with the align ones... even with the RJX ones I still put a light coat of flat black on them...

[PawPaw]

tip22v, may sound like a stupid question, but have you verified the correct gear ratio in your Ikon 2 governor setup? I don’t own an Apache but my 4 other big Robans are all 13.8. That might account for the HS difference.

[DCORSAIR]

See, I'm no expert, didn't even think of that......

[PawPaw]

If you ain’t no expert, what does that make me? I’m still in kindergarten! 👨🎓

[PawPaw]

tip22v, also verify your esc governor is disabled with your Ikon 2 governor. You didn’t mention which esc you are using, but the menu language can be a little confusing on some of them.

[tip22v]

tip22v, also verify your esc governor is disabled with your Ikon 2 governor. You didn’t mention which esc you are using, but the menu language can be a little confusing on some of them.

I'm running a HobbyWing 200 ESC, I have it in Airplane mode/Gov disabled. I checked my gear ratio, I had it set to 13.3, but when I compared the headspeed from Telemetry (Jeti) to the optical tach they were different by about 150 RPM (When Optical Tach reports 1200 RPM, the Telemetry is only reporting 1050). To get the Telemetry to match the Optical tach I had to drop the gear ratio down to 11.5?? So, something is off here, perhaps I have a setting in the ESC wrong (number of poles perhaps?).

[PawPaw]

Ok, here’s my suggestion: Set the gear ratio in Ikon 2 to 13.8, which is the actual ratio. Then, determine how many poles your motor has. If it’s an 8 pole motor then the “pulses per rotation” value in the advanced governor setup menu would be 4, or 8/2=4. Poles divided by 2 is the correct value. Next I would just check the opto HS against the desired value you set in governor, and adjust the desired HS value up or down until the actual opto value is what you want. Rarely does telemetry exactly match and personally I wouldn’t focus on perfect numbers. Gear ratio and pole divider correctness are equally critical!

[PawPaw]

Just reread your last post, duh me. On older Hobbywing ESCs the correct setting to disable governor would be “Linear Th”. Newer ones changed the language to “Remote Gov” which makes more sense. In “Linear Th” setting the ESC still thinks it has soft start. In “Fixed wing” it doesn’t. Hope that helps!

[tip22v]

Ok, here’s my suggestion: Set the gear ratio in Ikon 2 to 13.8, which is the actual ratio. Then, determine how many poles your motor has. If it’s an 8 pole motor then the “pulses per rotation” value in the advanced governor setup menu would be 4, or 8/2=4. Poles divided by 2 is the correct value. Next I would just check the opto HS against the desired value you set in governor, and adjust the desired HS value up or down until the actual opto value is what you want. Rarely does telemetry exactly match and personally I wouldn’t focus on perfect numbers. Gear ratio and pole divider correctness are equally critical!

Thanks! Got it, the motor is a Scorpion 4035-500kv, which I believe is 10 pole based on what I found on the internet. Therefore my pulses per rotation should be 5 according to your formula, it was set to 3. After making the change to 5 the telemetry RPM and Optical readings are very close:). Now I just need it to warm up a tad to test hover. I'm really excited to get this flying, I can't believe it's been 17 years since I flew the real thing!