PicXXz Helicopter

dogbreathracing · Post by **dogbreathracing** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:52 pm

....anyways...heres the latest on my body mods. The initial modded body was a hair over 11 grams when finally finished, thats a gram over stock. Didn't seem like a big difference till I flew it against two others this last weekend...the difference was fairly large, my battery life suffered by about three minutes. SOOOOOO I had to lose some weight.

I wanted to keep that type of skid landing gear, but downsized them some.
The body was also redesigned, narrower, shorter, and cut out alot of excess. When done the heli was a whopping 9.1 grams and has full forward flight, can bank it hard to the left and settle for a few seconds of hover.

Now to seal and paint the new body.

....oh and it flys beautifully!

hovering over the car

Clint · Post by **Clint** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:19 pm

loaded the body up with some non expanding latex "touch 'n foam" from
Walmart(blue bottle $4.47). It's still wet.

I dont even want to go near the gram scale right now, but it dries nearly
weightless. Sprayed out a 5"x1" chunk last night. let it dry overnight then
squished it down to basically nothing

this stuff rocks. It should give
me the rigidity i need to get this thing to a more flyable weight.

sanded down(kinda cool winter cammo thing going on here)

cut up

and gutted. There's not much left, it's actually getting pretty flimsy.

DBR, loving those skids, did you make them from styrene?

Maxximum Attack · Post by **Maxximum Attack** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:50 pm

I have a HELI!!!!!!!

I fired it up, but it's not hovering well. I bought some cheapo batteries for the TX, its not flying high or stable. It has a little ff and that worries me. it has some slight rotation. I'm assuming it's the batteries in the TX and that they're very weak. It's a real rush to get it off the ground. but I don't like the randomness of it's flight currently. I had to lean back cuz one time it got too close to my face, that pic that betty posted flashed before my eyes

.

That was the only time I got it to head height btw.

I'll probly toss this on my shelf till I have time to have fun again.

Maxx

Clint · Post by **Clint** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:22 pm

Nice.
That sounds typical of a new one.
Check out the picoo-z faq on rcgroups.

Definitely get fresh batts.

Add weight up front|front canards|tape mod for Forward Flight, as
this will take the randomness out of it.

For stability, check to see that there's no play in the main rotor,
there's a simple mod to tighten the rotor on the mainshaft. Also,
you can bend the sticker on the tailshaft to help compensate for
the tail swinging left/right.

Most importantly...
After each crash, make sure the tail rotor is not jammed all the way onto
the motor shaft. There should always be a small ammount of shaft visible
between the rotor and the motorcan. Otherwise, it'll create extra load on
the tail motor, kill battery life and cause premature death of the tail motor.

Maxximum Attack · Post by **Maxximum Attack** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:44 pm

Well I got her hovering before I saw your reply Clint, but thanks. I'm on rcgroups looking and learning. When you sent me there I said to myself "What? there's no link on BP for this?"

Anyhow, I'm what you call "hooked". Once I get this thing behaving predictably, I'll have LOTS more fun.

Maxx

micro RTF FAQ <---click

dogbreathracing · Post by **dogbreathracing** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 1:42 pm

.....ohhhh man am I in trouble now...............

..I was taking the Picoo for a short spin about the bedroom....not even a full charge, just a couple of minutes of fly time while the wife sat on the bed and watched. Things went well for the first few seconds, made a nice wide arch around the room....then disaster struck....I had flown the Picoo to close to her head and she waved her arm to keep it fro hitting her, the air motion did quite the opposite and buried the Picco deep into the hair on the back of her head!!!! Now she has very long hair and it ended up twisted into the rotor shaft and gears to the point I had to use a pair of shears to remove it.....needless to say she isn't too happy with me right now......

....LESSON #1...Don't fly your Picoo near wifes long hair!

Post by **CaboWabo** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 3:25 pm

That's hilarious!
Kind of... well, maybe not for you right now, but.

Feel bad for ya, you're not gonna be able to get another RC for awhile is my guess.

Still kinda funny though.

My wife woulda stabbed me in the chest with the scissors.

dogbreathracing · Post by **dogbreathracing** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 3:33 pm

Birdie is very understanding.....no stabbings....and I can still buy R/C's (I keep a R/C account seperate from the household accounts...and she knows that these little projects are what keeps me sane...sort of)

I couldn't ask for anything more from her

SuperFly · Post by **SuperFly** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 5:23 pm

dogbreathracing wrote:...and she knows that these little projects are what keeps me sane...sort of)

That's my deal, too. There's so many other activities I've had to abandon that are either more expensive or more time-consuming or both. Things like skiing and golf that lots of other folks do are orders of magnitude more expensive.

Little R/C stuff is downright cheap and takes place in the basement.

Maxximum Attack · Post by **Maxximum Attack** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 5:40 pm

"Honey! you ok?!?.......Don't move, let me grab my cam"

dogbreathracing · Post by **dogbreathracing** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:17 pm

Maxximum Attack wrote:"Honey! you ok?!?.......Don't move, let me grab my cam"

I was gonna'...but then thought better of it...that would have really gotten me me hot water!

Maxximum Attack · Post by **Maxximum Attack** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:25 pm

dogbreathracing wrote:
Maxximum Attack wrote:"Honey! you ok?!?.......Don't move, let me grab my cam"
I was gonna'...but then thought better of it...that would have really gotten me me hot water!

Damn straight!!
That birdie would have been PISSED

Back on topic: What does "removing the throttle sping" do. Everyone says it makes it more stable, how?

The weight I used on my heli seems too heavy. plus I'm not getting any FF from the nose scoop method either.

With me getting fast FF, too fast for my cramped room, so I took it outside. But I can't seem to make it turn around, why? It always ends up flying down the road and I can't turn it around to fly back

Fill me in, this seems to be my new "using" RC.

Maxx

evoraptor · Post by **evoraptor** » Wed Nov 01, 2006 11:31 pm

Removing the throttle spring is basically what it is.. the throttle on the controller. Right now you have to hold it there, but remove it and you can let it just hover without holding the throttle control.

Maxximum Attack · Post by **Maxximum Attack** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:15 am

WOOT!

I flew my heli around my mom and back to me. I'm using the scoop for FF, when I blip the throttle I get a little forward. I'm still having trouble steering it tho, but I did it

Now to aim for consistancy
Maxx

dogbreathracing · Post by **dogbreathracing** » Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:56 am

The key to good steering is to have it trimmed out right then lots of practice with a very very fine thumb on the right stick, use the smallest, slowest adjustments possible.

Just finished up the latest mod and test flights prove it to be pretty dang stable.....we'll see when we get all three birds in the air at the same time....it's kinda a game we play, to fly above anothers heli and let our rotor wash cause him to lose altitude, in some cases clear to the floor, then to try to hover or circle close enough to keep him from taking off again, all the while keeping an eye on the third bird who is trying hard to get above you! Makes for great fun with three birds in an empty garage with room to fly!

Anyways, this will be my entry into this weekends contest!

Finished Picoo Z Heli

http://www.zippyvideos.com/6439335486227666/dcao1866/