Archive for the ‘ T-Rex 550 ’ Category

Out in the field

As I’m off this week I have had a quick fly this afternoon. Put all my batteries through for the Protos and T-Rex 550 and had some great practice with the field all to myself. Flying TodayOn the T-Rex 550 I have had to turn the expo on the rudder channel up to 15% to make it the same as the aileron and elevator channels. I did this as I felt the rudder was being far to sensitive and moving around whilst I was learning my 3D.

One thing I did notice though was that my charger can only output 150W which @ 25v equates to a charge rate of 6A or 1.2c for the 5000mAh batteries I have. Ideally this should be more so when I have more money I will have to look at getting one with more oomph.

2010
09/07
CATEGORY
MSH Protos
T-Rex 550
TAGS



Leave a comment

Bank Holiday Weekend

Just a quick update today. Been out flying as the weather and the wind has finally calmed down to allow such things. I have been out practising the aileron tic-tocs and I’m getting there. I had a good session on the simulator on Saturday and watched a few videos off the internet on how to do it. This helped but I need to work at it.  Still it’s like when I started learning the elevator tic-tocs and they were a bit random but now there much better.

After today’s flying I need to change the main gear on the 250 after a little crash, and the Mini-Titan has a horrible wobble in the head when in Idle-Up. Strange as I haven’t really flown it so I’m not sure where that has come from.


My squadron: T-Rex 550E, MSH Protos, Mini-Titan, T-Rex 250 3G

My squadron: T-Rex 550E, MSH Protos, Mini-Titan, T-Rex 250 3G

btw I  did go to the BMFA nationals at RAF Barkston Heath on Sunday but the weather was awful and there wasn’t much flying.  I saw some bits and pieces, F3C, pylon racing and some aerobatics but not any jets. It was a bit of a shame but at least I tried.

2010
08/30
CATEGORY
General Flying
Mini Titan
MSH Protos
T-Rex 250
T-Rex 550
The Squadron
TAGS

Leave a comment

Tailfin

Doh! Can’t believe I forgot to mention this in my last post but on my 550 I have the same vibration in the tail fin that a lot of people have been having (see here) so I have changed my 550 tail fin with one from the T-Rex 600.

550 tail with 600 fin

550 tail with 600 fin

I also changed the tail supports to the 600 ones as they are stiffer, though you do have to take the horizontal fine off or the tail blades will clip it.

600 tail supports on 550E

600 tail supports on 550E

The current theory is that the 550 fin is quite thin and is resonating to the natural frequency of the heli. As the 600 fine is thicker it should resonate to a different frequency.

2010
08/08
CATEGORY
T-Rex 550
TAGS

Leave a comment

Saturday stuff

Quick update in this post.  Starting to get several flights under my belt with the 550 and beginning to love it.  I mean really love it.  Very quick, agile but very stable awesome! I suppose the only problem is that if you get it in a mess then things happen very quickly but hey… Did have an interesting moment where the battery connector started rubbing on the main gear on one flight which pretty much ruined it.  I was very lucky that it didn’t cut through it and cause a power loss and certain crash, just had to change the connectors in the field.

Started having more of a go at the aileron tic-tocs again and I think I know what I have to do now.  Was trying it yesterday and it wasn’t really working but after some advice from a friend at the club I know what I have to.  Note: the difference “what to do”.  So hopefully by repeating it very slowly I will train my brain in to how to do it. I can then speed it up to make it look good.

2010
08/08
CATEGORY
MSH Protos
T-Rex 550
TAGS

Leave a comment

Getting it working..

So this weekend!  Well it was certainly a 550 mammoth fest. After last weeks successful maiden flight the tail was not working correctly

Weekend Flying with T-Rex 550 and Protos

Weekend Flying with T-Rex 550 and Protos

and it clearly needed some tweaking the wag was just awful.  I thought this would take about 10 minutes to sort but no – 4 hours later and finally it was working.  It would appear with the 3G setup’s you have to be perfect. The swash needs to be bang on level, the tail silky perfectly smooth and the centre of gravity spot on.  Once this was done it flew brilliantly! Thanks must go to one of the guys at the club who helped me loads with this. On Sunday then I had opportunity to fly it for a few hours to get a feel for it and I have to say I love it.   It’s so agile, yet stable and the power is immense.

I will try and get some footage up..

2010
08/02
CATEGORY
T-Rex 550
Leave a comment

550 Maiden flight!

Well yesterday was the maiden flight of the 550. After doing some reading on the internet I decided to fit an external BEC.

Castle Creations PRO BEC

Castle Creations PRO BEC

It seems there have been problems with the one that is built into the ESC and I didn’t want the new heli to turn into a lawn dart. In the end I opted for the Castle Creations Pro BEC (see here at Fast Lad) and fitted it with no problems.

On to the flight. I have to say I double checked everything and then gave it a go! Well it was bloody awful, it had the tremors and then when I went to idle up it sounded like it was going to explode!

Quickly landing it I realised the pitch and throttle curves were wrong (school boy error), this would solve the insane throttle jump but as to the quiver I changed the Elevator and Aileron gain to the 11’o’clock position and tried again.  This time it was much better but the tail wasn’t locked in.  Spent a few minutes messing around with the gain and eventually got it pretty stable enough to fly it around.  However due to the pitch/throttle curve error I had stripped a tooth off the main gear and 3G is very sensitive to vibrations so really that was as much as I could do.

Still initial impressions are very good and I can’t wait to get the new main gear on and get it in the air to tweak it further.

2010
07/24
CATEGORY
T-Rex 550
Leave a comment

T-Rex 550 Build Update #2

Just spent another couple of hours in the cellar T-Rex 550and this is the current build status.  It’s the first time I have put a torque tube in, normally I have to faff with a belt but this was a lot easier!  T-Rex 550So far so good on the build, even though the canopy is on I still need to put all the electronics in properly that is normally the bit that takes ages..

2010
07/18
CATEGORY
T-Rex 550
Leave a comment

T-Rex 550 Manuals

As the T-Rex 250 SE manual is a popular post on this site here is the T-Rex 550 flybar and flybarless manuals.

2010
07/16
CATEGORY
T-Rex 550
TAGS

Leave a comment

T-Rex 550 Build Update

I haven’t had much time of the last few days to much on the 550 but here is a photo of the build so far.

T-Rex 500 build photo #1

T-Rex 500 build photo #1

A picture says a thousand words so another 100 won’t hurt but as you can see I have built the frame up and slotted the head in. The 3G head comes pre-built and looks magnificent in the polished silver and black.   The skids go on early and it makes it easier to build and move around the bench.

Align does get some grief about the quality of its parts and so far I have to say this looks okay.

Next steps are fitting the servos and then the tail..

2010
07/16
CATEGORY
T-Rex 550
TAGS

Leave a comment

** New Addition to the Squadron! **

Well it took a along time and some deliberation but finally I brought a T-Rex 550E 3G.  Oh yes, I’m going flybarless! So why the 550E? Well I wanted to stay with electric as my flying time is limited I can just sling a battery in and go flying which is much easier.

T-Rex 550E 3G

T-Rex 550E 3G with Align 4600mAh 40c batteries

I was tempted by the Align T-Rex 600 but thought that the new technology was better and, to all intents and purposes, this will fly just the same.  It can swing up to 550mm blades so it’s a nice size.   Big enough to auto easily and “hang” in the sky but not too big to be imposing. I hope.

The eagle eyed will spot the two batteries beneath the box –  these are Align 4600mAh 40C batteries which I think will be an excellent size and provide me good flight duration.

As I build it up I will post more pictures and of course there will be 550 page in the squadron section to record all the settings.

2010
07/14
CATEGORY
New
T-Rex 550
TAGS

Leave a comment

Recent entry

Archive

Category