Xieda 9958

In almost all aspect of life, having the right tool makes the job much easier. When flying micro helicopters and quads, everything has to be micro sized in order to avoid adding unneeded weight that may robs the motor of it’s performance.

For wires, magnet wires, also known as enamel wires, are a must have in your tool kit. The bigger brand names such as Horizon Hobby with their Blade lineup of heli, uses magnet wires for their antennas and for the tail motor. Nine Eagles is another manufacturer that uses magnet wires to extend to the tail motor.

I find that a good gauge for these wires are about 30-32 AWG, measuring about 0.0085in or 0.02mm. You can find magnet wires if you search for them online. Locally, my Fry’s Electronics and Radio Shack have them in spools that will last you a long time.

Alternatively, you can find the right gauge magnet wire in small motors often used in toys. Also, fans used in computers is often another source, though I find they can sometimes be thinner than 32ga.

Perfect 32ga magnet wire for these small motors

Simply take apart the motor and unravel the wire. Taking care not to rub against the rough armature and accidentally nick the enamel coating of the wire. One motor yields a lot of wire. After taking them off, you’ll see they are wavy and kinked.

A trick I use is to simply hold a section of the wire between each hand and running them back and forth against the edge of a a cutting mat, metal rod, or any edge that will not nick the wires and will not get damage if the wire start to cut into it. This trick will quickly straighten out the wire with a couple of passes. See the photos below…

Rubbing the wires back and forth along the edge of a table, metal rod or cutting mat will straighten out the kinks of the wire

To solder these magnet wires, you have to remove the enamel that coats the copper of the wire. The enamel is to prevent the wires from shorting out while wound up in the motor. Some people may scrape the thin enamel coating off. The trick I learned is that the enamel coating can be quickly burned off and the wire tinned at the same time using solder.

I put a blob of solder on the tip of my iron and touch the end of the magnet wire to it.

Touch the end of the magnet wire to a solder blob for a second to strip the enamel and tin it at the same time

It takes but a second and you get a perfectly tinned tip, ready to be solder. Easy peasy. :)

Perfectly tinned magnet wire without any hassle

Another tip for you. If you want to lower the overall resistance and thicken up the gauge of the wires, you can twist a few strands of the magnet wires together. I do this by putting one end into the power drill and hold the opposite end. The hand held power drill will make a perfect twisted bundle of magnet wire.

Put a few strands or more of magnet wire to a power drill and it will create a perfect twist

Here, you can see that three 32ga magnet wire twisted together has more copper than the original stock wires that feeds through the v929 boom. Because each wire has the enamel coating, despite having more overall copper, the twisted bundle is equal to the thickness of the original wires with it’s insulation. Which means you can still feed a positive and negative pair through the carbon fiber boom.

Three strands of 32ga magnet wire to replace original stock v929 boom wire

I like to use the magnet wire because it’s cheap, lightweight and it’s coating looks like anodized metal.

One final trick, for aesthetics, I will use the same color for positive and negative. To keep track of the polarity, I simply mark the each ends of the negative wire with a black sharpie so I properly solder it to the negative terminal. Twisted togther, they looks like an performance “upgrade.” :D The cooler looking it is…the faster it goes. ;)

That’s all there is to it.  Hopefully this post helps you guys. Happy modding!!!

I am pretty certain I am not the first to take a sharpie to the surface of a motor, but I’ll share this technique anyways. My wife gave me a bag of Sharpies last night and this was the first idea that came to mind.

I find that the large, wedge shaped Sharpie, stroking in one direction gives a nice even coverage. Here’s a comparison of the larger, wedge shaped Sharpie versus the standard conical shaped Sharpie on the right.

Wedge shaped/chisel Sharpie on right versus standard medium tipped Sharpie

Using the larger Sharpie, I find going in one continuous direction gives a nice even coverage.

It dries to the touch and can be handled without bleeding onto your hands once it’s dried. Unlike paint, the Sharpie allow the lustre of the metal to come through and simulates that anodized aluminum look. And because it’s such a thin layer of dye, it still allow the motor to cool off properly.

However, the drawback is that the faux anodized finish can easily be scratched or scrapped off. Luckily, it’s easy to retouch the scratched up parts. I think the results speaks for itself. It looks pretty nice when all is said and done. Very little effort and zero cost versus the bling, bling anodized CNC parts we hobbyist are always drooling over.

Just a quick post. Some people who have flashed their Turnigy 9x to use the er9x firmware can load my Xieda 9958 model into their radio using the eepe (EEPROM Editor for er9x FW). You can get a copy of eepe for Windows, Mac and Linux here: http://code.google.com/p/eepe/

Then use the eepe program open up my Xieda 9958 model and save it to yours.

Link: Daryoon’s Xieda 9958 settings for er9x

Some info about the settings…

Two primary flight modes:

• The FN switched to ID0 will put your heli in a more aggressive mode. Negative expo to make your cyclic controls more sensitive in the middle. The throttle curve is a little more aggressive. Uses curve 1.
• The FN switched to ID1 has zero expo and a more “gentle” throttle. Uses curve 2. If you want a linear throttle curve. Set your throttle stick to use curve 3.

Flip the rudder D/R switch to add more negative expo to the rudder. If find it’s good to have the head of the heli whip around quicker using the negative expo.

POT3, which is labeled as “PIT TRIM AUX.2” is a mix that adjust endpoint. Fly with that POT at 100% for full throw. Rotate it slower if you need to go into “junior/beginner” mode. Same function as the factory transmitter junior/senior mode, but with more choices in between. :D

The flight timer is set to 5mins and will beep at the last one minute and each of the last 10seconds of flight. It is link to the throttle stick so the timer only counts down when the thottle stick is move away from zero.

Lastly, the throttle cut function works. Just activate the throttle cut switch and your main motor shouldn’t spin. Good safety.

Let me know if you guys have any difficulty and I can write up a more thorough guide. Also, remember you need to calibrate not only your sticks, but your POTS as well. It’s all done in the same location. I do it each time I flash the firmware.

If you fly micro helis such as the Solo Pro, Trex 100 and v911. You’ll quickly find that they each employ their own proprietary battery connector. What is an easy way to be able to hook these battery up to your programmable charger?

Simple. Take a clothespin and insert two tiny screws 5mm from each other. Then wire it up like the photo below to create a charging clip.

You can make more than one and wire them up to parallel charge. It’s easy to clip on and off and works great.

Pertinent Links:
RC Groups forum post

Here’s an easy mod for those of you who fly with the tail fin removed because it requires heatshrink where the tail fin normally sits. The goal is to prevent the tail motor holder from sliding up the boom and severing your tail motor wires. Securing the tail motor holder is important on the 9958 because the tab molded into the tail motor mount isn’t very strong. On hard impact, this stopper tab will break away and the motor holder will slide up the tail boom and nick or severe the motor wires. It is one of the biggest weakness to the 9958. The resulting cut wire is obvious, but when it’s only nicked through the insulation, the bare wires can short and cause the RX to reboot or weird tail behavior during flight. It can be hard to see the nick wires.

This is one of the first things I do to my 9958. Desolder the tail motor wires so I can remove the boom. Then slip on a 3/16″ heatshrink tube in my choice of color. On one end of the heatshrink tube, I use a pair of tweezer to prestretch the heatshink tube to the max it will allow without tearing. This allows me to fit over the plastic motor mount.

Then slide the heatshrink tube as far as you can get it on and use a hair dryer on high settings to shrink the tube. You can put a tinsy amount of glue at one end of the heatshrink tube if you so desire to strengthen this mod even more. The final result is a highly decrease risk of nicking or cutting the tail motor wire while still allowing easy future repair should the boom become damage.

Heat shrink used to keep the tail motor holder in place

Here’s a video I made of the Xieda 9958 with Bravo SX head. The Bravo SX and Solo Pro head are the same. You can use either one. See this post: http://www.hacksmods.com/2011/12/xieda-9958-with-solo-pro-head/

I was asked the following:

Would the holes for BSX match up with holes for V911 main shaft. I plan to get this jig to make main shafts for 9958, V911, Bravo SX from 120SR tail boom.

Well, the jig does a good job of keeping your drill bit straight and true. And if you know what you’re doing, you can definitely use the 9958 jig to drill out holes for other helicopter’s main shaft.

The unique thing about the v911 is that they did a very good job of cloning the Solo Pro. I believe the Solo Pro stock main shaft is a direct bolt on. And because it’s already made of carbon fiber, buying the Solo Pro main shaft and fitting it on the v911 is probably the easiest way to go about it.

For those who like to hack and mod their stuff. Or those who can get hollow 3mm CF tubes, or even those who wants to make their main shaft out of a solid CF rod, then the following photos should help.

I took apart my Solo Pro so I can put it’s main shaft on the jig for comparison. You should be able to use the jig in two steps to fabricate a Solo Pro/v911 main shaft. As you can see, the top two holes of the Solo Pro lines up this way.

That means, from the front…line up the top of your carbon fiber tube to the BSX line. Secure with some tape.

Flip over and drill the top two holes. (Top two “ALL” position)

Once the first two holes are drilled, flip the whole thing back to the front. Remove the tape. And move the CF tube up to line up with the bottom of the word: MSR.

Again, secure with tape. Flip the jig over. Drill the hole, then cut the CF tube using the bottom of the jig as a guideline. Take extra care not to splinter you CF tube.

That’s all there is to it. It’s pretty easy once you do one.

I just wanted to share a drilling jig that Jim Stoll made for us Xieda 9958 modders and hacker. I came across his jig on one of the forum. As a hobbiest, he created a drilling jig so he can make new main shaft for the mCPX helis. I guess going CP means more likeliness to break main shafts. Well, soon enough, he was making jigs for friends and forum members.

So I approached him, hoping he can do something similar for us Xieda 9958. That way, we have something that takes the guesswork out of making carbon fiber main shafts for the 9958. The photos below are the result of that collaboration. It’s really a labor of love for Jim and a way to pay it forward. At least that’s the feeling I get from collaborating with him over the holiday break.

The CNC machined aluminum jig will help help you drill your holes at the appropriate locations while keeping the bit straight and perpendicular. The bottom edge serves as a guide as to where to cut. It really simplifies the whole process for those of you who want to experiment with the various heads on your 9958. Switching from a metal main shaft to a CF one shaves about 0.8g. That’s pretty significant.

The best part is, the jig itself is pretty inexpensive. Go to http://stollstuff.com and email Jim to get one of your own.

Here’s a mod to try if you happen to have some broken 9958 blades you want to resurrect. Use MicroHeli mSR aluminum balls. Drill a hole were the ball broke off and screw on one of the MicroHeli ball to resurrect your 9958 blades.

How many of you are breaking off the link guides like I am prone to doing during hard crashes? I put some 9958 canopy grommets on them and hopefully they reduce the breakage rates. Give it a try and let me know if works out for you.

I use tweezers to open up the o ring so they easily slip over the link guides.

Left: Example of the link guides breaking off on the rotor head. Right: Using tweezers to open up the o ring so it easily go onto the link guides.

Adjust the o ring so they don’t rub against the linkage.

Get the o ring as close to the linkage as possible, but don't allow them to rub.