Hiller 450V2 from RcBazaar - Build & Review

Started by satishkbg, July 20, 2011, 04:41:04 PM

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satishkbg

Hi,

Model : Hiller 450 V2 - CF frame with belt-drive version
Class  : eCCPM 450 Heli
Seller  : www.RcBazaar.com

Specification:
• Length: 660mm
• Height: 230mm
• Main Blade Length: 325mm
• Main Rotor Diameter: 700mm
• Tail Rotor Diameter: 150mm
• Motor Pinion Gear: 12T/13T
• Main Drive Gear: 150T
• Autorotation Tail Drive Gear: 106T
• Tail Drive Gear: 25T
• Drive Gear Ratio:1:12.5:4.24/1:11.5:4.24
• Weight(w/o main blade):450g
• Flying Weight:Approx.730~760g

Package contains:
• Hiller 450 V2 kit x 1 set
• 325 Wooden 3DPRO Rotor Main Blades x 1 set

Items used in this build are:

  • FS-CT6B 6ch 2.4GHz transmitter & receiver
    EMAX 3800KV Outrunner Brushless Motor EMAX HL2215 for 450 Helicopters
    EMAX ESC 40A
    EMAX ES08A Servo x 3
    EMAX ES08D Digital Servo x 1
    TP 20C 2300mAh-3CELL 11.1V LiPo
    E-TECH G105 AVCS Gyro
    325mm Carbon Fiber Main Blades (optional)
+ plastic nuts, loctite, CA glue, hex-drivers, ball-link pliers, measuring scale, soldering iron

Build

The box comes with Carbon Fiber main frame, upper and lower (pre-assembled), Fiber-glass canopy, Blue-Metal Main Rotor-Head (pre-assembled), Blue-Metal Tail Rotor system (pre-assembled) with belt, 325mm wooden main blades, plastic paddles, plastic tail blades, fly-bar, metal tail-boom, Blue 150 teeth main gear assembly (with one-way bearing and autorotation gear pre-assembled), plastic skids, ball-links (steel), pack of screws, boom-supports, CF Tail fin and horizontal stabilizer, anti-rotation bracket, CF Battery tray (i like that) and black foam main-blade holder.

There's no instruction's manual, but you may look up any TREX-450 V2 manuals, it's pretty much the same. First look at it and the feeling is of a good quality TREX clone. Few components not included/lack quality are screw-set (could have been of better quality), velcro to fasten the LiPo and Loctite (get your own) and paddles (could be of better quality).
The wooden main blades are of good quality, until you decide to switch to carbon-fiber's (available at rcbazaar).
Overall, the package is good.

As you unpack, you realize the the main rotor head is pre-assembled, and so are the tail rotor assembly and the CF frame. The Carbon-fibre main frame is of pretty good quality and everything is pre-mounted i.e. the main-rotor bearings+mounts, battery tray (cf), tail-boom holder box, tail-drive gear and motor mount. So getting started with the build was easy.

I started by attaching the skids to the cf-frame (be careful with the screws, you can easilty damage them), inserting the main-gear into the CF frame (before doing that, just have to check the 4 screws are secured and for free rotation and be careful not to loose the washer), installing the tail gearbox onto the boom, installing the boom onto the main frames and then inserting the rotor head through the main shaft bearings, through the main gear and securing it in place. You need to install the metal canopy mounts and antirotation bracket. That was it and the chassis was ready.


Tips

Loctite every metal-to-metal screw-joint:
Although the main-rotor and tail-rotor is pre-assembled at factory, you're adviced to dismantle and re-assemble with Loctite applied to every metal-to-metal screw-joint. Careful while un-screwing the main-blade grips from the feathering-shaft, if you slip the screws, it can be very difficult or impossible to remove. Suggest first heating the metal grips with a soldering-iron, while using two hex-drivers to un-lock the loctite. It appeared the manufacturer has loctited one side of the feathering shaft and was easily removed. Careful with
the thrust bearing and washer assembly, keep an eye on their order of arrangement. Then remove the jesus-bolt that holds the
head-block to the main-shaft, remove the main-shafts lock-ring and slide the head-clock along with the swash-plate.

Check Main-Shaft for bends:
This is a good time to check the main-shaft for any bends, mine was bent by less than 1/2 mm, and resulted in vibrations
(come to this later). After confirming it's not bent, put back the head-block with swash and secure it with the jesus-bolt and the
two nuts, apply loctite for the second one. Re-assemble the feathhering shaft with thrust-bearings (apply grease if reqd)
taking care of the order of arrangement, and loctite the screws from the blade-grips, note the direction of blade-grips, the
blue side comes down and the chrome side up. Check the grips for free-play without binding. Put back the lock-ring to the
main shaft and loctite it. Now, check for free play of the swash rotation and sliding up/down, and head-block, apply little grease if reqd,
just little or none. Too much grease can attract dust and that's disaster. Ensure the linkages are all secured and are not binding. Although the
linkages are factory fitted, it's good to check their lengths on opposite sides to ensure they are same (check manual for
exact recommended measurements) . Slide the blue-main-gear assembly, with larger gear (150 th) up and smaller antirotation gear
on lower side into the main frame with the lower gear aligned with the tail drive gear. Now Slide the main shaft with the rotor assembly into the upper mount

and then through the lower mount until the lock-ring sits firmly on the upper mount and goes
through the main-gear. Secure the main-shaft with the jesus-bult passing through the lower gear.

Check main-gear-autorotation-gear assembly for warping:
Do not over tighten the jesus-bolt, which could cause wobbling later.
Check for free rotation of the main-rotor without any binding. Next, it's time to secure the tail-drive assembly to the boom.
Fix the plastic tail blades to the grips and secure them (note the dir of pitch). The tail system goes onto the boom on the
side that has a tiny hole, used to lineup the assembly horizontally with the boom. Fix the vertical fin. Also slide the two plastic
tail-servo linkage guides, and also the tail-servo holders.

Decide up-front where you want your Gyro - up/down:
The boom holder box is inverted by default with flat-side facing down. If you plan to mount your Gyro on upper side (like I did),
then loosen the screws and rotate the box with flat side up.

The drive-belt is stiff enough to just slide through the boom (right to left) and collect on the other side. Make sure you don't twist the belt. Once out,

give it a 90 deg twist with your left hand clockwise (see manual) and slide the boom into the square boom holder (you need to loosen the screws) and secure

the belt to the tail drive pulley.

Check direction of rotation of tail-blades w.r.t main-blades:
Before tightning any screws, make sure the direction of rotation of the tail w.r.t the main rotor i.e. when main rotor turns CW,
the tail spins CCW (front to back and away from main rotor, looking from the right side of the heli). If not, then you may have twisted the belt wrongly,

correct it. Pull the boom slightly away from the holder to ensure the belt sits just tight enough with the pulley (not too tight/loose).
Once confirmed, secure the tail rotor system, boom to the main-frame and tighten the screws ensuring the vertical fin is
perpendicular to the boom. Fix the horizontal stabilizer and boom support rods. Rotate the main rotor and check for binding-free rotation.

It's time to fix the motor, the three servos (analog) to the main-frame. Choose a decent motor (3000+KV/rpm) brushless. I used
EMAX 3800KV Outrunner Brushless Motor EMAX HL2215 for 450 Helicopters. RcBazaar has some good motors to chose from. You need
3 8/9g micro servos and one digital servo for rudder control. Pick good quality ones, never compromize here. I used EMAX ones,
and they're pretty good so far.

Decide where you want your ESC to be:
First i installed the motor 13t-pinion (you may chose between 12/13/14, comes with the motor usually) on to the motor shaft (didn't tighten the screw). Then

installed the motor to the main frame with the three wires facing forward (it's again your choice how you want this to face depends on where you want your

ESC to be, mine is in the front). Align the motor, pinion and the main gear (blue 150TH) with a 0.1 mm gap btw the pinion and main gear and then secure the

motor with two hex-screws from the top. Now loosen the pinion slightly
and move it up/down the shaft to ensure vertical alignment with the main gear and secure it (loctite it as well).
It's imp to check the binding btw the pinion and main gear, and best way to do
that is by passing a long pc of paper btw them while rotating, and the paper must come out from op side without any chipping or
tearing.


Have 6 plastic nuts ready for servo mounting:
With the motor and pinion mounted, it's time to mount the 3 servos that control the swash-plate. You will need plastic nuts to mount the servos to the frame.

These nuts are not supplied in the box nor available with RcBazaar (too bad) and I had to make my own by cutting few servo
horns. See the manual for the servo mounting directions. The 2 servos at the front (ail & Pit) sit from inside the CF frame. The servo at the back is mounted

from outside, with the shaft facing into the frame and away from main shaft. Once you have got their dir correct, secure them to the frame. Install the

digital servo on the boom, with the shaft facing right side (looking from back of the heli and away from the main shaft). Do not fully secure the servo

holder brackets as yet, you will need to center the tail-rotor pitch. Mount the rudder control rod. It was easy to get upto this point and all components in

the kit fit well.

Tighten all screws on the main-frame:
It was time to tighten all screws on the main-frame. The frame is rigid enough and feels solid at this point.

Mount Gyro where you can make fine adjustments:
I then mounted my ESC (EMAX 40A) on the front, under the battery tray and secured it with binding wires. Do not connect the three
ESC wires to the motor. Then it's time to mount the Gyro. I use GY105 AVCS dual-rate gyro. I chose to mount it on the top
side, so that it's easy to make adjustments to the gyro. The gyro has to be secured with a dual-side foam adhesive. Pick a good
quality industrial one here. I then connected the servos, gy  to the Receiver (6CH 2.5Ghz) - The FS-CT6B 6ch 2.4GHz transmitter & receiver is a
good one. It is programmable using T6Config s/w. I set up the Rx as follows

CH1 - Ail servo
CH2 - Ele servo
CH3 - Throttle (from Esc)
CH4 - Gyro/Rudder servo
CH5 - Gyro Gain
CH6 - Pit servo

Don't worry about the servo directions, as these can be set on your Transmitter/T6config s/w.

Always have full power on batteries on the Transmitter to perform T6CONFIG:
I first leveled the swash with swash leveler. Then went into T6Config s/w for the Transmitter on my laptop and configured the
servos, channels etc. Below is my initial setting. Channel directions and sub-trims will always differ for each setup. You may play
around a bit to get it right for your flying.

END-POINT : All 100% - 100%, except CH4 : 80% - 80%
REVERSE : CH1, CH4
SUB-TRIM : none
DR : CH1 100 & 50, CH2 100 & 50, CH4 100 & 100
MODE : MODE2
TYPE : HELI-120
ThCurve : [NOR] 0, 25, 50, 75, 100
PitCurve: [NOR] 50, 50, 67, 82, 100
SW AFR: ALL 100
Mix1: VrB, CH5, 100%, 100%, SW-ON
Mix2: CH4, CH4, 100, 100, ON
Mix3: CH1, CH1, 100, 100, OFF
SwA: Throttle cut
SwB: nULL
VrA: PitchAdjust
VrB: NULL

Save, turn off the Tx.

At this point all the servo horns and 90 deg to the main shaft and in correct directions relative to each other and the Tx stick
movements. The eCCPM heli's use at least two servo's to control the swash and it's imp to get this set correctly on your
Tx. With that I connected the linking rods from the servo horns to the swash. Ensure at this point the swash, the washout arms,
fly-bar, and main blage grips are perfectly flat. I then had to ensure the rudder servo and connecting rod were setup
exactly 90 deg with sero pitch on the tail blades.

Always connect  rudder servo and check direction first before adding the gyro:
I turned my Tx On and then the Rx (motor still disconnected) and checked for swash movemenent, rudder movement (connected to
CH4 directly first wo gyro). Then connected the Gyro to the Rx and rudder to the gyro and re-checked tail pitch movement. You
have to get this correct. If reversed, then reverse the gyro dir switch this time (not on the Tx). Witht this set, I then connected the motor to
the ESC and checked it's turning dir. You may try different combinations of the 3 wires until your main rotor turns in correct
dir. At this point I also checked the tail rotor dir. Also gave it some rpm's to check for any vibrations in the main rotor.

Bent main-shaft can throw all your settings:
It's imp to do this (ideally with just the main shaft/ main shaft with head) to ensure the shaft is dead straight. Like I
mentioned mine was bent a bit from factory and had to replace it with a spare one. It's imp to do this to get all mechanical
parts to move at all speeds and set firmly with eachother. If any vibrations at this point, make sure to check the main-shaft,
feathering shaft, fly-bar and paddles. My paddles were not well balanced, so had to replace with a spare one. With all
vibrations eliminated, I then fit the main-blades. I went for carbon fiber ones straight away as mine were well balanced ones.

The wooden ones that come with the kit are pretty good too. You still need to do blade balancing before mounting them.
It was time to do some blade tracking. I was surprised I had to do little here as the tracking was good enough due to the
quality of the rotor system. With blades tracking well, It was time to focus on the Tail.

Eliminate all vibration to get the Gyro setting accurate:
I had to play with the Tx, t6config, and the G105 Gyro to get the tail to hold in HH mode. With that done, i did some
spool-ups and spool-downs and the Tail holds pretty well. At higher RPMS the heli sits prettly solid.
Overall, the kit is pretty good, if not the best. Setting it up was easy, if not for the shaft.

+Ves
Very good carbon fiber main frame
Good metal main rotor and tail rotor set
Easy to setup with most imp parts pre-assembled at factory
Good quality wooden blades
Overall good quality T-REX CLONE 450 eCCPM Heli for the price.

-Ves
Screw set quality could have been better
Bent main shaft (probably i was unlucky)
No velcro for battery

When you order the kit, make sure to order a spare main-shaft and feathering shaft as well.
Will try to post some videos sometime soon.

Cheers
- SKBG









satishkbg

few more snaps attached

RcBazaar

 {:)} satish good build and review... infact am doing a build video of the same myself (took the heli apart to its bare minumum) with settings. Should be up here soon - hopefully in within a week's time... i personally would like to upgrade to the metal tail pitch slider unit for my 3D flying.

sujju

satishkbg

Thanks sajju, that'll be great to see some videos of the build.
I have one just after the build

I'd like to set mine up with V3 head, what's your op? are they interchangeable?

Great going RcBazaar. Look forward for more.
- skbg

controlflyer

very neat build and explanation! what is you pitch set to in the negative side?
Money flies when the transmitter is ON...

RcBazaar

Quote from: satishkbg on July 20, 2011, 05:37:42 PM
I'd like to set mine up with V3 head, what's your op? are they interchangeable?

Great going RcBazaar. Look forward for more.
- skbg
the v3 head can be placed as it takes up the same dia of the main shaft. however the geoemtry of the link will change as i think the rotor heads are wider and am not sure if this needs to be done on the first place

sushil_anand

Hangar: Zlin 50L -120, CMPro Super Chipmunk, Ultimate Bipe EP, Imagine 50, Christen Eagle 160, Ultra Stick, Super Sports Senior

satishkbg

Thanks, Yes, it was set to slightly negative pitch .

shubhambilawar


i need help
i lost my configuration settings
as i converted it to mode 1
so pls tell me
this settings can be used for 450v2 also ??? :headscratch:http://www.rcbazaar.com/products/876-450-v2-ready-to-fly-with-transmitter-lipos-and-charger.aspx
FS TH9x |450v2|seagull 40|Hiller pro 450|Futaba6ex|Scanner| Futaba 6EA|paragon |Hirrobo Suttle Plus|
www.facebook.com/shubhambilawar

satishkbg

Yes, you can use, but with CAUTION!

Firstly never have your motor connected to esc while testing, disconnect them first.

Now, Remember that CH1 & CH6 can be reversed on your helis Rx since they are interchangeable. Then, any f your servos itself can be reversed in direction they move, this needs to be corrected in the t6config. Then make sure to verify the swash by moving the stick on Tx to confirm they move exactly way they shud.

Also, sub-trims are local to each heli, so finetune yours by applying +ve or -ve subtrims (0 to 120 +/-) to level your swash.

Pitch curves & Throttle curves are set as per your flying style. I'm still learning to, so I set it to my requirement, but it's good enough for learning so you can use it aswell.

As mentioned in post1, always have fully charged batt on yur Tx while doing T6Config.
Save your settings in the end to a file, so you don't have to remember all the time. You can restore them if you make changes accidentally.

- skbg

shubhambilawar

FS TH9x |450v2|seagull 40|Hiller pro 450|Futaba6ex|Scanner| Futaba 6EA|paragon |Hirrobo Suttle Plus|
www.facebook.com/shubhambilawar

satishkbg

#11
Flight video I almost forgot to upload from last year



That actually completes the build :) . Hope to see some videos from others who fly the same.

- Satish

satishkbg

Few settings or changes I have made since my first build

I use a different pitch-curve (before it was more -ve on low throttle stick,may be useful if flying in windy conditions)
I have switched to HK-401B Gyro, just getting bit more locked on feeling. Everthing else remains same.

RPM
One of the key things to get the head-locked is the head-speed itself. Don't fiddle with gyro gain, rudder-servo, horn, hole distance etc until you have the correct head-speed. Pinion plays a vital role here. I use 13T, whih is a 150/13 = 11.5 ratio

That results in 3800KV x 11.1V x 0.8 / 11.5 =2934 RPM which is a bit hight, but nice on theedge feeling.

Use this link to calculate the right pinion for your heli http://www.heliguy.com/MotorPinionCalculator.html

For V2 TARGET for something like 2400 - 2800 rpm.

Gyro setting
Once you have a good head speed, the secret is to play with rudder servo horn hole (start closest and without arching) and Gyro gain, to be able to get the highest Gy gain without a tail-wag.

Satish