Mikado Vcontrol

[murankar]

SInce its out already I am waiting for my new vcontrol. I have been wanting this radio since I saw the first video of it with Nick Maxwell and that German Mikado engineer. When I was in the market for a new radio at the beginning of the year it just was not feasible. I would have been stupid to spend that kind of money at that time. Since my settlement came in I was finally able to get one. Anyhow back when I was looking at radios I was serious looking at this radio and the Gruapner MZ24 (I think). Both were out of the price range but what sealed the deal this time is the battery tracking tool that is now available for the VControl. In a nut shell all I have to do is wave the battery near the radio and the radio will track the flight on that pack. Once your done for the day you can download the files to the PC and keep a log on the packs. This will also let you know if you have a discharged pack also. Not sure how that works but it does.


Next is the learning curve series with the radio once it gets here. I also have a NEO shipping with it.

[Graham Lawrie]

Nice one:) Cameron has the Mikado as well:)

[murankar]

Guess whats at the P O as of 3:24 am. Which means I will now have a new TX in hand tomorrow.

[murankar]

Guess what did not get delivered. The short is I accrued $15 in shipping on free shipping. Okay I goofed lesson learned. So the mail man left a ticket for the cost. Went tithe po to pick it up-and-coming guess what, the carrier has the box. Livid at this point. Left the po to ship the dx6. Had a schedule conflict on Saturday so it went out this morning.


After that I went to the title bureau to see about plates today. Found out my out of state inspection was out dated and had to pay for a new one. If things go well I should get the van legal by tomorrow.

Went back to the po to pay the fee so the package can be delivered tomorrow. My mail comes really early like around 10am. So when I wake up I should have a new VControl.

[pvolcko]

Woot!

It's an impressive radio. Lot of new stuff to learn and fiddle with.

[murankar]

Lot of new stuff to learn and fiddle with.

That's what I am most excited about. Taking the time to learn something new. The other part is no more laptop or cell phone to tune. It's all at your finger tips. I might do a wrap on it.

[murankar]

I think the rc god's are hating me today. Still no sign of the mail man. Time for work. It better show up today or I will be extremely livid.

[murankar]

FINALLY!!!!!

IMAG0056.jpg (2.6 MiB) Viewed 6526 times

[murankar]

Issue 1: Got the vbar control center installed, updated the drives for windows 10, plugged in everything and vstabi says ready not connected.

Issue 2: went to register the neo and the serial number is invalid.

[murankar]

Okay got it figured out. I cant connect to vstabi because my gyro is not registered, I cant register it because I supposedly have an in valid serial number.

[murankar]

Issues solved. Everything is working. I will post what has to be done. If no one beats me to it.

[murankar]

Damn I am so on coud nine with this new radio. One issue; It has a steep learning curve. For some reason I am finding it difficult to remember what switch does what. Yes you can assign them but knowing the Vcontrol will help out a lot. SO I am running the setup stuff on the radio. I am seriously trying to do everything on the radio, which you can except a few things. Those few things are the governor setup of your esc and that about it. Since I am on the Phoenix Edge Lite 50 I have the white signal wire that serves many purposes. Problem is that it can only do one thing at any given moment. So if you set it up as the arm lock then you cant use it as the esc rpm output sensor. At this time I have removed the arm lock stuff form the Gaui (more to follow about what has changed on it) and now I have a huge hole where it used to be.

So after looking at the main setup stuff (which still needs done) I went and looked for the throttle curves and pitch curves. After almost 30 minutes of looking for it I had to google it. Apparently Vcontrol does not use these. Thats why it is heavily governor dependent. So if you dont know governors and want this radio you will need to learn it.

The break down of the radio is as follows: 6 thee way switches with two being sping loaded in the full up position (lower two shoulder switches). 2 knobs and zero trim buttons. Yes no trim, why because the vbar will auto trim while in flight if you chose that mode; plus you dont need them with fbl units. The radios screen is not in color but it is ver well lit and slightly odd to look at. Its not the same as a normal lcd screen it has very high contrast with out adjusting the contrast. The sticks are soooooooooooooo smooth compared to the DX6. While the DX6 does have smooth sticks the vcontrol is more smooth.

Now that the Gaui is almost done i think I should be flying by the end of the weekend. One thing to remember is that this radio (at this time) may not work with real flight 7 unless you spen at least $110 USD for the make shift adapter Mikado came up with to solve this issue. The radio will plug in as a usb controller. So if your sim can do usb controllers then it SHOULD work. One suggestion I found is not to mess with the radio for the sim, use the in sim set up to run it with the sim. Mikado says that you could mess with the model setup if you use the radio for setup.

Last thing: Your Vcontrol will automatically set the model in the radio based on the NEO or Vbar plugged in. SO no more changing models, I like this because the day I get my Mikado 550 SX (or is it SE).

As I go on with this I will add more info.

[Graham Lawrie]

I noticed the difference with the sticks on Camerons as well:) Quality:)

You should PM Cameron if you have any issues:) He would be more than happy to help:)

[murankar]

I am trying to learn it. I finally got the motor to work.

[pvolcko]

I didn't get to go through setting up a helicopter with it. Just tweaking a setup.

Glad you got things figured out on registering things.

[murankar]

To register the VControl and/or NEO:

[*]Setup an account on Mikado's web site: http://shop.mikado-heli.de/

[*]Log into http://vstabi.info with your new Mikado id and leave the browser open. You will need an active session for this to work.

[*]Download the VControl Center and install it like any other app and follow the instructions as the appear

[*][*]Once its done installing you will have the vstabi tuning software and the control center
[*][*]You may have to go to device manager and update the drivers for both the radio and/or Neo. You should already know how to do
[*][*]do this. If not let us know.

[*]Plug in either the Vcontrol or the Neo and launch the control center. at this point it is going to update what ever you plugged in.

[*]After the updates are done you will need to click the applications button on the top right side of the window. This should open a new tab in your browser showing you a list of registered products. At this point everything should be registered. DO NOT try and register straight through vstabi.info, it wont work for the NEO.

If you want to use vstabi to help in setting up your new Neo you will need to down load your keys file which is linked right under your Neo info. Once downloaded you will need to move it to your vcontrol root file under program files x86 (i believe). Once you open the vcontrol file past or move it to there. When you launch the vstabi software it should read the keys file. Now you should be able to use your usb cable and plug in to set it up.


I found that leveling the swash was easier in vstabi than the radio. I have not figured out how to adjust individual servos in the vcontrol just groups. Since I follow the Soko method for setting up it was easier for me that way. Now supposedly the free swash app for the vcontrol gives you that option but have not figured out how to do it. Right now the Gaui is waiting for the trim flight witch should be right after I wake up.


Now for the infamous throttle and pitch curves, good luck finding them. They don't exist in the radio at all. SO for castle its not that tough to setup since we are dealing with an external governor. On the Motor screen (BTW you will need the castle link to do this) uncheck auto bail out, set it to external governor and for the sensor wire (the white one) set it to rpm sensor and plug it into the Neo sensor port in the back of the unit (near the antenna wires). In the radio you will need to set the percentages of throttle and what head speeds you want along with the magnet count divided by 2 along with your gear ration. My gear ratio is higher than the max for the Neo, So I need to consider an 11T pinion at the minimum. FOr now I will stick with the 10T and see what happens. When selecting your esc in the radio it gives you an option to choose an ESC I chose Castle for obvious reasons. When I did that I got a QR code that I scanned with my phone and the stup page came up in chrome on my phone. Followed that and got it to work. Pitch curves are all linear not matter what.


Now in order to use the radio you will need to know where throttle hold is along with the safety switch. The safety switch renders the model useless except servos. I believe the safety switch is used for throttle hold while the throttle cut is a three way switch that gives you motor on, motor idel and motor off.

Bank switching is going to be NEEDED thats it no choice really. So what does this mean, you can have up to three different setups for the same heli based on which bank your on to include your governor. So with that said I set my banks to be the same on agility and style while setting head gain with three different values at 10 points apart, lowest number for higher head speed and and highest for lower head speed. Thats it everyhting else is the same in all banks. Now for the fun part, set your 2 knobs to a tune setting, go fly and while your flying adjust the knobs as need to tune out any issues and that should get you really close to a good tune. All that's left is fine tuning if you feel you need it. Most of us wont but for the 5% who do then keep going to your content with the tune. Last thing the knobs can be your worst nightmare. On some things the knobs are relitive and on others they are absolute. You will need to RTFM to figure that out. I did RTFM and that's how I found that info out. just do some reading first.

FOr now that all I have on the radio. I will be diggin in more as time goes on and I start fly again.

[murankar]

Lets get the formalities out of the way. One I dont have my canopy on yet, missing a standoff. I for the life of me cant find it, however I have some on the slow boat from Taiwan. 2) I was flying in a space that was not big enough for me.

First impression of the radio and fbl: Love em already. So setup is different than what I am used to but managed to get everything working as they should. First spool up was uneventful until I hit the throttle and it disappeared from the ground. For the radio it felt alright in my hands. Switches seem to work for me at this point. One down side is that there are to spring loaded switches. I think I can get rid of one of the springs and have a better option for throttle hold. I have the lower right shoulder switch as the main power cut and the right upper shoulder switch set to motor stop, motor idle and motor run.

Once I got the trim flight done I just moved the heli around in the air jut to get a better feeling for the setup. The gimbals were just as smooth as the servo travel, at that is how it looked. Response seemed damn near instant and felt connected. If there is any delay between stick input and heli reaction its very minimal. Today has some good sun light and with that the screen was very easy to see. What ever they did for that display it worked. As for everything else I would have to fly more before I can give and opinion. As of right now this is my new radio and dont think I will be looking anymore. I finally found that "Last" radio.

[DOG]

Patience murankar. I'm waiting on servos also but found out that hurricane Joaquin put a delay in delivery. They say," Don't fool with mother nature." I'm suppose to get delivery tomorrow.

[murankar]

We will see what happens. I hope its not a long delay. I have helis to fly.

[DOG]

ME TOOOOO!