RE: How puffed is "puffed" ?
Dude! That's awesome! Did the aircraft survive? No, my packs only get very slighly "puffy" after a long (10 minute) flight, and then they go back to normal after about a half hour. They are labeled as being 15C, and I only pull about 5 amps constant with bursts to about 8 amps with the packs geting just slightly warmer than ambient in use. This does seem a bit odd as I wouldn't think they would show any temperature increase at all in that environment. I'm putting around 780mah back into a 900mah rated pack after each flight, so they seem to be holding up okay for generic stuff. I'll likely continue to charge them in my homemade flower pot "battery bunker" for safety, and see what they do. Thanks for the great photo!
Posted on: 4/14/2009 1:12 AM by Author "geniuspic" in the forum "E-Flight Power Sources"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8679368

How puffed is "puffed" ?
Hi all ... I have several generic 2S 15C packs which I have been using regularly in a CoCo Lama coaxial with great performance so far. Lately a couple of the packs have been very slightly inflated, so little that it almost seems like the shrink wrapping isn't as tight anymore, but the packs behave normally. The packs have spacers between the cells, and there is still the normal gap there. They barely get above ambient temperature when used, and are charged with a Cell Pro 4S. I guess I know that I should probably toss them; I'm just cheap like the next guy! A new pack is cheaper that a new model ...
Posted on: 4/5/2009 10:41 PM by Author "geniuspic" in the forum "E-Flight Power Sources"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=8652597

RE: Another Falcon 3d newbie with Qs!
Thanks for the confirmation Kenneth! I'm anxiously awaiting the weekend so I can wrench on the Falcon some more! I found a LHS which specializes in aircraft, and a self proclaimed "fairly experienced" pilot of I think a T-rex 450 said he would take a look at my bird and offer an opinion on set up and all that. Yippie! I just know there is something not quite right which is causing the cyclic commands to result in the extra unwanted pitch direction! This is definitely an issue, as the heli does both the commanded and uncommanded actions, as one would expect. If I request "forward" I really want forward and not forward and also left! Call me picky! haha. I'd better enjoy learning to sort this thing out now, because once I figure it all out all I'll have left to do is fly it and then fix the crash damage!
Posted on: 5/16/2007 1:07 AM by Author "geniuspic" in the forum "RC Helicopter Beginners Forum"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=5860941

RE: Another Falcon 3d newbie with Qs!
Oh yeah, it's 0140 here in smoky Florida, so I'm off to bed now! Thanks again for helping me! I'll be back tomorrow night sometime!
Posted on: 5/15/2007 1:37 AM by Author "geniuspic" in the forum "RC Helicopter Beginners Forum"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=5856481

RE: Another Falcon 3d newbie with Qs!
Thanks mrasmm! Yeah, I didn't think about the gyroscopic effect of the spinning rotor blades .............. about the same plane thing: I fired it up to remind me, when the main rotor blades are pitched using cyclic inputs, the flybar seems to pitch the same way, but with more travel, so the paddles look like they go up into the same plane as the main blades. I'll see what happens when I get rid of the pitch on the paddles ........ maybe just normal stuff. I don't know what "normal" is yet! I did notice that the of the two ball-end rods connecting the flybar control arms to the inner swashplate ring, one is about 3mm longer than the other due to maybe a bent flybar control arm. I'll try to even those out. I have the main blades tracking to within about 2mm of each other right now, and I balanced the blades also. Should I also balance the flybar and paddles? I seem to get a little vibration from the flybar and paddles when spinning up without the main blades attached. I did check to make sure the flybar and paddles were equal distance on both sides of the rotor head. I sure can tell I'm going to have a lot of fun learning how to set everything up on this bird so I can actually fly it some day! It's exciting to learn all about how helis fly and how the controls work! Thanks always for your help!
Posted on: 5/15/2007 1:33 AM by Author "geniuspic" in the forum "RC Helicopter Beginners Forum"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=5856475

Another Falcon 3d newbie with Qs!
Hi all! OK, I read most of the forum threads and got me a Falcon 3d! Well, as we all know the instructions are useless. I found some better stuff here (thank you so much for the re-write Gary Morris) and around the web, but not everything yet. Anyway, here are my current issues showing my ignorance: 1) should the flybar paddles be flat (in the same plane)? mine have about 5 degrees of + pitch and I don't think this is right. 2) this is maybe the big issue! when I have the blades spinning and heli just light on the training gear, full forward cyclic causes the main rotor to pitch forward and left, full back = back and right, full left = left and back, and full right = right and forward !! the unrequested pitch direction can be corrected by applying full opposite stick; also when looking at the blades at eye level with full requested cyclic pitch and full correction for unrequested pitch, one flybar end moves into the same plane as the main rotor blades! wow! - I know this is all wrong, but don't know what to do to fix it! help! It goes without saying that the heli won't even begin to fly with any sort of control like this! It just wallows around with a mind of it's own. Sorry for the long post! I'm a perfectionist and very meticulous with most things like this! I want my heli set up the best it can be! Thanks, you all are the best!
Posted on: 5/15/2007 12:28 AM by Author "geniuspic" in the forum "RC Helicopter Beginners Forum"
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/fb.asp?m=5856300