I need help PLeaseeeeeeeee!

[Dan Taylor]

Hi all:

This is my first post on this forum. This Christmas morning I have been very frustrated with the Walkera 36. Last year I got my son a real cheap $20.00 heli that right out of the box, would not fly. He was really dissappointed and the store didn't carry them anymore. This year I got him this one and got it out of the box and just the look of it overwhelmed me. I can see that it is a very advanced machine for him and maybe even for me at this point. I looked in the manual and became even more frustrated at the poorly written thing. I have to say, I have never seen a manual so poorly written. It doesn't even say anywhere how long you need to charge the battery. There was a computer type cable in the box that I can see attaches to the radio controller on one end but I have no idea what the other end goes into. The manual doesn't even mention this cable. I also see where the radio controller has a place to plug power into but there was no cord to attach to it in the box anywhere. I put AA batteries in the controller and hooked up the battery pack of the Heli to the power adapter. I didn't know how long to put it on for so I let it be on for 30 mins. We tried it and the blades turned pretty fast but the Heli never did leave the ground. It only lasted for just a few moments and then I couldn't get it to do anything after that. I tried another 30 mins and the wings would move to adjust pitch and that sort of thing but they wouldn't actually turn round. Again, my son and I are very dissappointed the Christmas Day. Can you help me please. My email is taylor777@verizon.net please respond if you can figure anything out for us.

[blue_corsair]

Hiya Dan,
Hmm, where to start..ok, first questions, the Manual, yes it is poorly written, the company is based in China and I guess they do the best they can. That could be a book in itself, ok now the battery charger, there should have been like 2 more pages with the manual, one for the Gyro and one for the batt charging, anyway, are you charging a LiPo batt (a silver rectangle) or the Ni-MH batt (green covered, looks like a bunch of AA batts in it)? You have 2 different type of chargers? Well, either way it takes about an hour to charge the batt, and should have 2 lights, one will be the power LED and the other the charge/saturation LED, charge it for an hour touching and observing the battery every few minutes, if it gets hot, not warm but hot, unplug it, if it starts to bulge/swell run out of the house!! no, just kidding... but unplug it! Otherwise the charge light should turn green after the batt is charged. Like I say, should be about an hour to an hour and a half. The computer type cable is for a Simulator, it lets you use your radio on the sim.
As for the spinning up and not taking off, all I can say is, thank goodness!
there are several things here you need to know Dan, And I am not the one to tell you because I don't know a whole lot yet, just a newb myself, trying to get my Walkera set-up to go myself, believe it or not.
First of all, this is way too much heli for a brand new beginner, trust me on this one. Drat, there are about one million things to tell ya bud,...First, do ALL the research on RC helis you can, go to all the forums, get on the comp and hit key words like RC heli, RC heli Forums, mmm..anything connected to RC Heli you need to read!!!
2nd, no RTF heli under $200.00 is really gonna be any good, except..for a few training helis, which are perfect for you and your son, they are not toys, here are 2 great ones, and there are a few more, all around 200 dollars...
http://www.techmodelproducts.com/lama.php
http://www.hobbyzone.com/rc_helicopt...e_blade_cx.htm
Wow! I can't believe the Lama is like $120 dollars!! that is a nice heli too.
3rd, Walkera is known for bad electronics, they usually need to be replaced with better ones to make it a very nice heli, it is not a bad heli, but you get what you pay for, in everything, right?? an average price for a decent heli is around $500.00 and up,... to many thousands.
This is my recommendation Dan,
Put the 36 in a nice protected space for now, go get a simulator, there are several to choose from.
After you get a sim go get one of the training type helis like I just mentioned, I have the E-flite BCX, has taken a lot of punishment!!
They are called "coaxial helicopter", notice the 2 sets of blades on the single shaft? makes it VERY stable, VERY easy to learn to fly.
After you have mastered the Coaxial heli then....you can break out the 36!
This is the most important...Read ALL you can on RC helis!! Visit all the Forums, read everything!!! Type in RC helis keywords on you comp, Anything to do with RC helis you can think of, type it in! And read up on it. This is a very involved and complicated hobby!! But for those reasons I love it, as do many others, it isnt like cars where you can just plug it in and go for a spin down the street, ANYONE can do the cars. I am not trying to scare you off Dan, it would be great if you joined the community!!!
I just don't want you to get discouraged, AND I do not want to see you or your son get hurt!
Research, research, and more research!!!
Hope it all works out for you, I will try to help all I can, and after X-mas the really big PROS around here will help out also i'm sure.
Blue

[Dan Taylor]

Hey thanks so much for taking the time to reply. I do feel this thing is a little over my head. I don't want to spend anymore money on another one though. I did figure out that I wasn't charging long enough. After about an hour it did get warm and did act right. I still haven't gotten it to go off the ground and when I really rev it up it wants to tip to the side instead of lifting off. Do you think I need to adjust the blades somehow and if so how do I do it? The battery is the green one that looks like a bunch of double A's. I sure appreciate your help alot.

Thanks

Dan

[blue_corsair]

Hey,
Well, you CAN learn on this heli but...it is not going to be easy, did you get any training gear with it? Like sticks with ping pong balls on 'em?
Umm, Dan, I really can't help you too much, I barely know the basics, what I do know is from flying a Co-axial heli, ALOT different in some ways from a CCPM heli.
Here is the best site so far on learning to fly:
http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html
there are some good topics on the left of the page also, good to read.
You need to get the heli set-up b4 you attempt to fly, if you push it now you are going to put your flying on hold, Till you get replacement parts, at the very best you will ruin the blades. That is what I am doing now, trying to get all the servo horns and the main rotor right. This requires more explaination than I can give. Everyone is away for X-mas day, I need some advice also,
what I am doing is typing in Google "how to set-up RC helicopter" and looking at other Forums and this one of course, to see if any posts, old or new, have any good info.
http://www.heliwolves.com/forum2/index.php
http://www.helifreak.com/index.php?s...f7cfba87dae119
http://www.helitown.com/TrainningGear.html
http://www.rchelicopterweb.com/Setup/SetupIssues.htm
http://www.walkera-heli.com/forum/index.php
http://www.runryder.com/
I'm sorry Dan, This is the most complicated and involved of the RC hobbies, I wish I could do more for you but I am not competent enough...yet. It takes tons of patience and a fair amount of money to keep 'em flying, there are the crashes you will have and there are upgrades that make 'em fly better, = $$
But..like I said, there will be the big time Pros' coming online after a bit, they might solve your problem in no time.
Only advice I have to offer is just have alot of patience and do alot of research.
Hope it goes better for you. Anyway, other than the heli incident hope you have a safe and happy Holiday.

Blue

[New-heli-pilot]

If you dont want to spend more money on a new helicopter, go to http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html and download FMS, its free. Its a bit easier than a real helicopter, but it will still teach you a little bit. You might have to download a program called PPJOY to get your transmitter to work with your computer. It can be found here: http://www.simtel.net/product.downlo...s.php?id=75176 .

As far as the heli trying to tip on lift off, this is just something you have to learn to compensate for. All of them do this, the small ones even more than the larger ones. Smaller heli's tend to be a lot more twitchy anyways. Also, go over every nut and bolt on that helicopter, Walkera is not known for putting helicopters together carefully. Do this before every flight as well. A blade flying off of something that small wont kill you, but it will hurt like h***. Get into anything larger and it could easily put a person in the hospital. If you have Locktite Blue, or something like it, use it on any screws that are already tight, or seem like they really need to be tight.

Something else to do, make yourself a pre-flight check list, maybe somene on here can recomend one. I would say try something like this:

1.Check all nuts and bolts.
2.Unplug motor(and tail motor if there is one), turn the transmitter on, then the reciever. Backup a ways with transmitter antenna extended, and check make sure everything works from a ways away. Turn the receiver off.
3. Plug everything back in, then turn the receiver back on.
4.Finally, good luck, and have fun learning to fly the greatest version of RC vehicles ever invented.

Just always make sure that the transmitter (TX) is turned on before the Reciever (RX). I cant go into to many details about what to do, as I have never owned a Walkera. Anyways good luck.

Hope it helped, and happy holidays,
John