Radio Setup - Overview

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As you may know there are many steps to installing the radio system. Each are not overally complicated but to do it right will take some time. Depending on your expertise it can take 1 to 3 hours (or more). If you don't like this part of the build, don't worry once you get everything setup you rarely need to change it. Almost all of the tweaks you will do later will just be changes to the throttle curve. Before I get into the procedures I want to answer one of the most common questions: What are my radio settings? Go back to the main page and click on Configuration for each of the three helicopters and you can see the settings I currently have. Having said that I want to stress that every helicopter has small differences so you can't always use the exact same values. For instance your servo end point (ATV) values more then likely will not be the exact same, they would be close, but not the same. Where as I might have 97/100 on one servo you might have 99/94. These few points difference could cause binding in your servo. Binding can pop links off as well as take more current then normal from the battery so it's important that for things like this that you set this up for your specific helicopter. However there are some things that make it nice to see someone else's configuration. To a lot of people the mixing functions can be confusing to setup and it makes it easy to see a configuration that already works.

Overall Concept:
1. Servo directions - Set the direction of all servos.
2. Centering & end points - Work with one servo at a time and for each the first step is to set centering then end point limits. Note that because of the way the servo arms are made, if you run into a situation where the servo arm will not center (one notch is too far and the other is not enough) then you can rotate the arm 180 degrees. This should put it in the center.
3. Pitch and throttle curves - To give a smooth hover I set the 1/4 and 3/4 throttle points to 10% above and below the middle point. For beginner mode set pitch to 0,5,9
4. Gyro setup - Set direction, gains, and pirouette speeds.
5. Mixing functions - If you are doing advanced tricks then you should set the cyclic to throttle mixing.
6. Dual rates - If you are just starting out I recommend 80% dual rates on the aileron and elevator. Sometimes when people are learning they make a sudden stick movement, kinda like chop stick but for the cyclic. Dual rates limit the total amount of movement unlike expo.
7. Rudder spin rate - I set the pirouette rate so the tail does not spin fast with little movement of the stick. For heading hold gyros this is done by setting the rudder atv's (end points) to a low number, 60 to 80 each side is a good starting point.
8. Expo - I think the pinch technique is best for holding the sticks but if you use the thumbs method then you may want to use expo. I have found most airplane pilots that take up helicopters use about 30% expo (-30% for Futaba) to help with unintended interaction with the controls. In other words as you move the aileron left or right, you may not realize it but you are also moving the stick up/down slightly.

For the first four steps I recommend you follow the steps on my Radio Setup page. The fifth step is covered on the throttle mixing page. Also read the page on holding the radio.

Tip: <click here> for tip on securing two servo connectors.