Hi Orv,
No photos from my re-build yet, as I'm having a sort-out - there
are hundreds of them
On another subject, the 'heli-chair', I have built a (very) poor man's
one using a cheap 'Honey-bee' r/c electric heli, and it certainly
is challenging practice. I have just written to a member of the R/Fun
forum who asked me about it, and thought you might be interested.
I will also post it on the ROG forum, but you should have first go,
for all the help you give us. From seeing someone flying the more
advanced Honeybee, that has full rotor pitch control and can do autos,
I can see it being a very good starter for quick-stops and autos as
well as hover practice. I would appreciate your opinion/experience.
Attached are some pictures of how I made my 'poor man's heli-chair'.
I do not know if you have electronic experience, but it's very simple
in any case. All I did was to add another socket in the controller,
that connects to the chair controls, and a switch to switch the
controls for the throttle and tail to the chair. This means that
the controller can be used normally as well, just take it out of
the chair and switch to normal control.
Remove the back of the controller, and identify the control for
throttle (up/down on the left joystick for Mode 2) and left-right
for the rudder control, which will become the pedals. Cut the track
to the middle leg of the control, and solder a wire to each side
of the cut. (see photo 1 and 2) This brings the feed from the control
and to the electronics out on 2 wires. I used the same color as
the wires already there, but anything will do. Do the same with
the other control, and as well, add to the red and black wires off
one control.
Now, the control (blue and yellow) wires go to the selector switch
which is a 2-pole changeover mini toggle switch, with the wire that
goes to the electronics soldered to the center (common) pin of the
switch Blue to one pole, yellow to the other. The wire that goes
back to the control in the main unit goes to one of the end contacts.
Now, add a wire from each of the the remaining end contacts (one
blue and one yellow) to the new plug. The switch now acts as a changeover
from internal to external control.
I used a 6-pin mini-DIN plug and socket, as I had it lying around,
but almost any plug with 4 or more contacts will do. The plug is
wired with the red and black wires which are the reference voltage
and ground, and the blue and yellow wires from the selector switch.
I used a length of 4-wire security cable to wire the chair up with,
but again almost any flexible wire will do.
The controls on the actual chair are two 5Ohm linear potentiometers
(available from any hobby electronics store) with ordinary cheap
plastic knobs on. Wire up as shown in the photos. The red and black
wires go to the outside contacts on both, and the control wire goes
to the center pin. The yellow wire to the tail-rotor pedal, the
blue (which is green in the
alarm cable) to the collective. I joined the wire in a tee-junction
at the end of the seat, with all wires joined. That's why there
is a spare strand at each control. I have drawn a very rough circuit
diagram for each part, see the last 2 photos.
Now for the mechanical part, ...... Again, I used whatever was
around to make the chair up. I started with a bit of 300 x 600mm
custom-wood (MDF)for the base, and built a pocket on to the front
of it to hold the controller so the joystick for the direction (now
the cyclic!) is centered in front of the seat base. I made a strip
on the left side to mount the pot on, made a 'collective' lever
out of a length of 20mm plastic pipe, added a bit of wire that goes
from the collective, twice round the control's knob, and back to
the collective, via a large rubber band to keep tension on the wire.
(I used wire because I didn't have anything else; light braided
nylon cord would be better) I hinged a length of wood on to the
front of the controller pocket, and made a very crude pedal cross-bar
out of another length of custom-wood, pivoted on a single screw
with a washer either side. I then made a control drive set-up similar
to the collective, with a bit of wire round the control knob that
is anchored to each end of the pedal bar. Another bit of plastic
pipe to extend the joystick into a cyclic, and that's about it.
The hinge on the length of wood that supports the pedal bar is
to allow the whole thing to fold up a bit smaller for travel or
putting away, allows for any height chair to be used, ..... and
it's an easy way to join the two pieces!
Now, plug in the controller, switch to external, sit down and go.
The 3rd-last picture shows my friend Don trying to fly the simulator
on my laptop. I have set myself the goal of mastering the simulator
before trying the model. Certainly from my experience so far trying
to fly the simulator from the heli-chair, it is a lot like the real
thing, and good practice to get the reactions working right. I find
myself making all the same errors that I made when trying to hover
an R22, and hopefully
will overcome them in time.
Any questions, just e-mail me and I'll answer as best I can.
Have fun, Bruce.
--
Bruce Burdekin,
1 / 31 Heywood Terrace,
Christchurch, 8013,
New Zealand.
T: +64 3 942 2154
M: +64 21 341 820
E: bwburdekin@clear.net.nz
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