Alright, had a incident on ground where I let the heli stay on down too long, tilted to one side and ended up scraping off the end of my brand new blades. No big deal, just $70 down the drain. In the process of checking out the mechanics prior to installing more blades, I noticed the swashplate is so far out of level I had to remove elevator servo wheel and reposition it. Not good from my point of view as nothing was damaged on heli other than the blades and no settings in the transmitter were changed. Fine, got that part straightened out then discover that the pirouette consistency setting has changed direction from what it originally was.

That alone is enough to make me want to return this unit as how can I now trust it to perform its function when it seems to change settings on a whim. Did I waste my hard-earned dollars?

I am sorry, but I am sure we can find very logical reason for what you are observing.

If it really changed something on its own, then you are very first. Technically it is impossible, because unit can't change any settings without user input.
There are few possibilities what probably happened.

First from all, if you are using something new that you don't know yet, there are plenty occasions for doing something incorrectly.
Also there is no room for states about loosed dollars, since we are doing full support with free of charge verifications, etc.
Each customer has 2 year warranty, so there is nothing to worry.

Can you describe how did you configured the unit (PC wizard?). Did you saved the settings to the unit after configuration was done?

Remember, that you have to always save the settings to the unit else if you disconnect it from power supply old settings will return - this is very normal and correct behavior and possibly occasion where it happened for you.
Also it is enough if you just change some servos, swap cables in the unit, playing with Bank switching or just start the wizard and select some profile there.

Because of safety, preflight control should be done always before each flight. This can prevent from similar issues.

It is important that you are not doing anything in hurry. Everything on the model must be done very carefully with a proper tools. Same with the settings. I recommend to double check everything what is possible when modifying some parameters.

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Spirit System developer

Hi,
this rises a few questions to me:
- In what mode are you trying to lift off? stabi-mode or normal-mode?
If you are not an absolute beginner I would recommend to do the first flight in normal mode
(from the FBL point of view this is easier)

- Did you check the Sensor compensation? i.e. If you tilt the heli to one side, does the swash try to compensate that?
Whenever you have changed anything significant you should verify this before starting the motor

- Was it tilting slowly to the side or suddenly?


This might indicate, that either the servo or the servo-horn got damaged by this crash.


IMHO even if "pirouette consistency" is set wrong, "normal" flying (no self-level or rescue) should be possible

It was not really a crash. just scraped off the tips of the blades, not like the copter had any other damage. Servos were not damaged, no evidence of broken gears or noise when actuating servos. Settings were properly saved and setup was done following steps in the manual, even had someone at LHS where I purchased unit go over the settings prior to first flight. Took about 2 weeks to put in first flight, so no hurry there.

As far as any changes, no work was done between the time I had LHS person go over settings and the 3-4 flights I did prior to this incident, Actually went through settings to triple check the day before the incident and all were where they should have been.

Let me say that I am not a professional or anywhere near that caliber, so I am not good enough to try taking off in stabi mode. I would not even try that if I were a pro. (Oops, reading stabi but thinking rescue. Why does the [s] [/s] code not work?) Do not have the stabi mode enabled at this time, want to get it flying correctly before adding any additional complexity, or features if you prefer.

I should have put the old receiver back in for comparison after finding the servo so far out of position, but did not think about that until after I made the adjustments. I am not comfortable flying this thing again as I do not want to chance another possible settings change while in the air.

Thanks for your info.

Who is LHS and where you bought the unit? The units can be bought just from Espirt Model and our eshop.

If you think that your unit is not OK you can send it to us directly or to examine by Esprit Model if you bought the unit there.
In case that you do not want to fly with the unit, how can we help you then?

There is nobody more competent that can tell you what can be wrong.
Normally we are helping everybody until each problem is solved, but if you think that there is no solution and reason for that, then it is a problem.

Actually if you say, that you have triple checked your settings day before, then it can be moment when it happened.
As I said, it is technically impossible to change settings on its own. If something is not possible, then it really can't happen. As developer of the system I can really assure you, that it is not the case. If you wish, I can describe you technically why it is impossible.

Only thing that is possible "on its own" is when processor flash memory is failing due to various reasons, but in this case whole settings is restored to very default (including receiver type to PWM) and it can happen only during initialization, mostly unit will not boot at all. Here solution is replacing the processor.

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Spirit System developer

Don't underestimate the forces when blades hit the ground with full RMP.


I think we could agree, that Spirit can't do mechanical changes
So, if it wasn't wrong in the first pace, than there must be something damaged.


Fine, so did I.
But that means, that a wrong "piro optimization" setting would not lead to a "tip over"

You did not answer my previous question:
- Did you check the Sensor compensation?
i.e. If you tilt the heli to one side, does the swash try to compensate that?


I am not affiliated in any way with "Spirit-System". Just a normal customer.
My Spirit did never change any settings on its own.

Greetings
Manfred

Yes, I purchased at Esprit so I think I will just take it in to them for a checkout.

linux:
I have learned that there are many strange things that can happen in the world, especially when you are me. I can tell you that the heli did not leave the ground, just bounced a couple of times. Since I am using the unit as receiver, the unit must run via some version of linux or something similar, and you can change the position of servos using the Spirit software, then that could explain how the elevator servo position was changed if for some reason system was glitched. Another possibility is that since system is controlling servo, maybe centering was changed when piro setting switched. That could also be reason piro setting changed. That may be unlikely, but again, possible. As for your question about compensation, it is set up properly in that respect and the 3 times I flew prior to this incident, it was a joy to fly.

Bottom line is that something happened that was not normal and I would really prefer to swap that unit for a different one. Going to Esprit today so will take heli with me and discuss.

I am sure that the unit is OK and swapping to different one will not make any difference.
Theoretically, if there is some problem, then it could be only in the software on the PC side, but it needs always user input so anything can't change without this input.

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Spirit System developer

If I looked at settings prior to flight, unless I clicked the "Save" button on the Backup page, no changes made would be transferred to the unit, correct? So if I make a flight and look at settings again and see something had changed, how did it happen? Piro comp was set to "Reverse" as it was after I had Esprit go over settings with me and found that I had it set incorrectly, before any flights. That was setting was same for each of the 3 good and 1 bad flights and at end of 4th flight, operation was same as it was before I had Esprit go over it with me. I understand what you are saying, but I made no changes that should have resulted in operation reversing like it did. Just to let you know, I am not saying that unit caused incident, just that I have lost trust in proper operation of this particular unit. As many pieces of telecommunications equipment I have had my hands on, I have seen lots of glitches that happen to one unit but not a similar one. Will see what they say today though.

There is only one solution, send the unit to ZeXx86 and let him check it inside out.
No matter what people say, for your peace of mind you need to get it tested.

Let us know how it ends.