RC-Hangout

So, as part of the prize package I won at Northeast Heli Jam, a VBar Neo and a VBar Control were included. I've been flying spektrum since I started in the hobby a few years ago with a mix of AR7200BX and Ikon for FBL units. So I've got a great opportunity now to try out a VBar and the new VBar Control.

I fired up the VControl and got it all registered a couple of days ago. First thing I learned is that the VControl doesn't have everything it's capable of built right into it. Instead you have to download "apps" to unlock functionality. Examples would include a timer alarm app, an idle auto-shutdown app, Bailout/Rescue app, advanced governor and flight settings apps, etc. Many of these apps are free. Some, such as the pro features app and rescue/bailout app are free to download but need to be enabled by use with a VBar unit that has the appropriate license attached to it.

As luck would have it, the VBar Neo on the heli has the pro and rescue licensing already, which is nice because normally it is a $100 license (pro by itself is $30-40), on top of the normal $280 price for a VBar Neo with built in reciever.

I just discovered the upgraded licensing on this unit so I have not yet downloaded and installed the associated apps for the VBar Control. However I have started to play around with some of the settings in the VControl for the heli. So far I've just adjusted the agility and expo settings for the three different bank settings. I also observed that the headspeed settings Kyle setup with this model are quite a bit different than the ones I use on mine. On mine I have three throttle curves setup for 1700, 1850, and 2000 RPM (if I remember right). On the one Kyle setup, however, the speeds are 1200ish, 1500ish and 1900ish. I'm going to leave them set like that for now and give it a few flights at low headspeed to see how the battery life changes and also to see how the flight behavior changes, compared to mine at its "low" headspeed of 1700.

With any luck I'll get some flying in on it tomorrow evening. This weekend was jam packed and didn't have time to try things out yet.

I'll also be starting a thread with some pictures of the build so you all can get a close up view of how Kyle Stacy builds a heli. I myself haven't taken a good look yet, but even with a cursory glance there's a couple things that stand out that may be useful to incorporate into your own builds. I know I'll be stealing a couple ideas myself.

Sounds Great ! Can't wait to hear more !

Werd! I almost opt'd for VBar on the E7SE build... Almost wish I had... But I know nothing about VBar nor its acceptance of Spektrum gear which I use. Definitely expand on this thread Paul... Curious minds.

Cameron has the Vbar Tx and receiver:) He showed me it and it looked very intuitive and everything was on the TX, no need for a laptop:)

Be good to see how Kyle has built it Paul:)

Got a couple flights in today. Concentrated mostly on getting the tail behaving right.

The gain setting was set to 50 to start with. First couple of piro and stops were half good. It maintained piro rate in both directions well in a stationary hover, but the stops were not great. Actually stops on nose left piros were pretty solid. The stop was clean, a little bit of tail rotor bark, and no rebound. Nose right piros were another matter. The stop was sloppy. Tail kept traveling 10+ degrees past where I was expecting, no rotor bark, and a muddy rebound that still didn't end up where I expected the stop to be.

So I landed and cranked the tail gain up to 70. Left piros and stops remained solid, but the right piros and stops were still mushy. Improved, but mushy.

Land and up it to 80. Nose right piro stops improved a bit more. At least to the point of being flyable. So I burned off the rest of the battery flying some slow and fast side to side passes while doing piros. Nose left, again, was solid. Rotation rate was maintained. Nose right, weirdness with the piro speeding up when the tail was away and slowing when it was pointing in toward me. I ended with some idle up pitch pumps to see how well the tail held through those. That went well, however I only tested upright, I need to flip it inverted and try negative pumps too.

Next battery I started to work with the cyclic settings. However, it was starting to get dark and flying without a canopy I didn't want to get into too much for fear of loosing orientation. So I did some tick tocks and traveling rolls/flips. Tested out stops on those too. Did some high speed passes to see if there was any cyclic wobble or pull up tendency. Looking good so far, but I need to put some more flights on it with some different settings to be sure.

I do like the VBar Control with it's ability to adjust everything from the transmitter. What normally took not only a landing but a hook up to a computer was done in a few seconds, allowing for a quick chage and taking off to test again. Coupled with the three bank setup, this is a very nice fbl and transmitter combo. The oddness in getting the tail tuned is concerning me. I have had issues with governor tuning causing tail symptoms when getting a new heli figured out with the Ikon and 7200BX, but I've never seen the sloppy, unsymmetrical behavior I'm seeing with the vbar. I'll try turning up the gain more to see if it will clean up before inducing oscillations. I'll also be grabbing the pro app to see what further adjustments are made available with that feature set. Lastly, I may run through the tail setup to see if maybe something isn't centered up correctly.

Is this a buy or no buy? I have this and the gaupner in my wish list.

Sorry, can't make a recommendation yet.

It is cool stuff, being able to adjust all the fbl params from the TX. Decent egos (switches on the top could be spaced a little more). But it is also vbar only, which is an expensive route to take compared to other options out there. And the TX is expensive too. I do not have enough flight time or tuning time with the vbar yet to say if the cost is worth it or not.

I'm coming at this from a pretty heavy dx9 and ikon bias.

once tuned my kbar did great so I can only imagine how the real deal will do. With the NEO being the improved vbar I can only guess its going to be that much better. Kind of bummed about bailout but I think it could be worth it if it works like it should.