DLG Programming on the Futaba 12FG

DLG Programming on the Futaba 12FG This is a guide for programming the Futaba 12FG transmitter for use with a Discus Launched Glider (DLG). It serves two purposes: It serves as a dummies guide for those who are faced with the daunting task of negotiating the 12FG programming for the first time, but it is also useful as a checklist to make sure new models are set up in a consistent manner without forgetting any steps. It is easy to forget all the details after a few months and setting up a new model can be frustrating. This guide describes one way of setting up a full-featured program, but there are multiple ways to get a working setup. Hopefully any desired deviations from the approach given below will be relatively straightforward. The basic steps in this setup are: 1. Define a plan ; i.e., figure out what functions you want and how you want them to work 2. Create a new model in the transmitter memory 3. Set the modulation used by your receiver 4. Create the flight modes you want (called conditions in Futabese) 5. Set priorities of conditions 6. Assign switches for selecting conditions and functions 7. Separate trims so each condition remembers its own trim settings 8. Initialize radio with all trims and sub-trims set to 0 9. Equalize the flaperons using sub-trims 10. Center rudder with sub-trim 11. Set servo limits on flaperons 12. Set servo limits on elevator and rudder 13. Set initial flaperon trailing edges 14. Check servo reversing 15. Set up landing flaps 16. Set up aileron differential 17. Set up aileron throws 18. Set up camber adjustment on slider 19. Final trailing edge adjustment 20. Elevator-to-camber mixing ( snap flaps ) 21. Aileron-to-rudder mixing 22. Other useful settings a) Disable warnings b) Set up flight timer c) Change system timer Lets go through each of these steps in detail. The steps will explain not only how to change the settings, but will explain the reasoning behind the use of each, and will even suggest some ballpark values for settings that aren't necessarily obvious. 1. Define a plan. The following user interface is the basis for this example tailor it as needed, but definitely have a plan in place: a) 5 flight modes: the usual Thermal/Cruise/Speed modes, plus a Launch mode to quickly rotate the glider upward on launch, and a Climb mode for low-lift/low-drag climb on launch. b) Landing flaps on the rudder stick ( no flaps with stick forward, pull it down to deploy

flaps). Elevator compensation with flaps is mandatory. c) Fine control of camber on the left slider. d) Aileron-to-rudder mixing e) Elevator-to-camber mixing (a.k.a., snap flaps ) 2. Create a new model in the transmitter memory. On the transmitter home screen, click on the model name in the upper left hand corner to get to the MODEL SELECT screen. Click on NEW and type in a name for your new model. 3. Set the modulation used by your receiver. Futaba has two basic types of receivers: less than 7 channels, and more than 7 channels. For some historic reason, the type must be explicitly set on the transmitter. On the home screen, navigate to the right-hand column of text and scroll down to where it says FASST 7CH or FASST MULT. Select it and change it to match your receiver. The R6106HFC and R617FS require FASST 7CH, and the 8-channel family (R6008HS, R6108SB, R6208SB) require FASST MULT. I assume the new R6203 family also require FASST MULT. 4. Create the flight modes you want. Futaba calls these conditions. From the home screen go to MODEL COND. SELECT, select a condition slot, click, select ADD, and start typing in the name you want. Continue until you have all the conditions entered. My setup has THERMAL, CRUISE, SPEED, CLIMB and LAUNCH. 5. Set priorities of flight modes. In this example the three basic modes THERMAL/CRUISE/SPEED to have a lower priority, which can be overridden by the CLIMB mode (i.e., when CLIMB is selected, it activates regardless of which of the standard 3 are selected). The highest priority mode is LAUNCH, which activates regardless of any other mode selection switch. To change the priority of conditions, go to the same COND. SELECT screen, click on a condition name, then select select UP or DOWN in the PRIORITY box. Strangely, to many people the priorities in Futabese are reversed, so to realize the scheme described above, the modes are in the following priority: 1: THERMAL, 2: CRUISE, 3: SPEED, 4: CLIMB and 5: LAUNCH. 6. Set switch assignments for flight modes. From the COND. SELECT screen, click on the SWITCH assignment for each condition, set the MODE to SINGLE, and define which switch you want to use. The ON/OFF function allows you to control which switch position(s) will activate the condition. Note that the PRIORITY 1 condition does not have a switch assignment it is the default condition that activates when no other condition is selected. 7. Separate trims. This is somewhat personal preference, but here each flight condition will have completely independent trims, so each condition remembers its own trim settings. From the home screen, go to LINKAGE T1-T16 SETTING, and change T1-T4 from COMB. to SEPAR. This will take care of aileron, elevator, rudder, and flap. The above steps are somewhat annoying to do, but the result is 100% generic. It is handy to save this much as a generic DLG model. When setting up a new plane, simply copy DLG to my new model, to get all the names, switches, etc., already done. Also note that no decisions have been made yet regarding mixes, sub-trims, etc., so no baggage will be carried along from model to model. Now let's start tweaking the control surface settings. Turn on the airplane for the rest of these steps:

8. Initialize radio with all trims and sub-trims set to 0. On the home screen, ensure that all digital trims are centered on all flight modes. In the LINKAGE SUB-TRIM menu, make sure everything is set to 0. 9. Equalize the flaperons using sub-trims. The first step in getting symmetrical movement of flaperons is to get them matched when the servos are centered. Many people build a with the linkages set up so that with the servos centered, the flaperons are drooping down slightly to maximize flap function. This step gets them drooping exactly the same amount. From the home screen, go to LINKAGE SUB-TRIM and adjust AILERON (left) and AILERON2 (right) until the trailing edges are at the exact same deflection. Adjust these two settings symmetrically, raising one and lowering the other by the same amount until they match. This ensures that the minimum amount of sub-trim is used. 10. Center rudder and elevator with sub-trim. While in the SUB-TRIM menu, go ahead and adjust the RUDDER and ELEVATOR to be at your best guess of centered. 11. Set servo limits on flaperons. The second step in getting symmetrical movement of flaperons is to set the servo limits so that at the extremes of motion, the left/right surfaces have the same limit of travel. With centers the same, and limits the same, they should move relatively symmetrically throughout their travel. This step is not intended to define the final range of motion of the surfaces rather it sets them up evenly and removes any binding or stalling. Final throws are configured later. To set the limits, go to LINKAGE END POINT, and set the AILERON and AILERON2 TRAV. settings while waggling the aileron stick. This should activate full travel of those servos, so adjust the end points so that the surfaces move smoothly without binding or stalling, and so that the extremes of travel are the same for the left and right flapperon. 12. Set servo limits on rudder and elevator. The goal here is to get uniform left/right travel on the rudder, and to eliminate any binding or stalling on both surfaces. In the LINKAGE END POINT menu, simply change the TRAV setting for these surfaces to achieve that goal. 13. Set initial flaperon trailing edges. Setting up the rest of the functions would be difficult with the flaperons drooping, so move them up to a neutral setting. Once again, this will not be the final configuration (that comes later), but will make things easier to work with. From the home screen, go to MODEL TRIM MIX 1. a) On screen 3/4, change ACT/INH to ON, and leave GROUP as GROUP for now (this will change the settings on all conditions simultaneously we'll change that later...), leave SWITCH as --, and MODE as MANUAL. b) On screen 1/4, change OFFSET for AIL and AIL2 to raise the trailing edges up so that the flaperons are in-section. These will have to be changed again later this is just a starting point. 14. Check servo reversing. This could be done at almost any time, but with things generally sane, now is as good a time as any. From the home screen, go to LINKAGE SERVO REVERSE and change any servos that are waggling backwards. 15. Set up landing flaps. This example will use the Butterfly function to manage flaps. From the home screen, go to MODEL BUTTERFLY.

a) On screen 2/3, change ACT/INH to ON, and leave GROUP set to GROUP. Leaving it in GROUP will enable flaps in all conditions that's fine with me, but if you don't like it, change GROUP to SINGLE and activate it on only those modes in which you want flaps. b) On screen 2/3, change OFFSET to 0%. This is done by holding down the select button on the OFFSET value the radio will ask INITILIZE ELEVATOR CURVE? ; select YES. The OFFSET value creates a little dead-band at the end of stick movement, requiring that you pull flap a little distance before anything at all happens. I don't like that, so setting OFFSET to 0% allows the flaps to start to move as soon as the stick moves. c) On screen 1/3, set AIL and AIL2 to +100%. Test your flaps to check that they move symmetrically and don't bind at the bottom-end. Adjust the AIL and AIL2 values until you get symmetrical movement with the desired endpoint. d) Set up elevator compensation to prevent the plane from pitching up during flap deployment. On screen 1/3, select ELE SETTING, then go to screen 2/2. RATE1 and RATE2 define the amount of elevator compensation. The appropriate value depends on the characteristics of the plane and how much elevator authority it has. Start with something like +30% to +50% for both rates. Adjust them during testing so that the plane maintains its glide angle when flaps are dropped. 16. Set up aileron differential. Even if you plan to use differential start with no differential with a new model and add differential in latter as needed. From the home screen, go to MODEL AIL DIFF. a) Set GROUP to GROUP; this will adjust all conditions simultaneously and provide a good starting point for all flight conditions. I personally just leave it that way (since I don't use diff), but if you want to use different differential on each flight condition, set GROUP to SINGLE and set the diff as desired in each condition. b) Adjust AILERON and AILERON2 in both LEFT and RIGHT to get up- and down-travel the same on both flaperons. 17. Set up aileron throws. Mos basic DLG setups have about 1/2 to 5/8 of aileron throw. At this point in the setup, the throws should be symmetrical and even, so all that's left is to adjust the aileron rate to get the desired throw. From the home screen, go to MODEL AFR, then on top of screen 2/2, select AIL and go back to screen 1/2. Adjust RATE A and RATE B to set the maximum throws. As usual, be sure that you maintain symmetrical movement. Tip: in the bottom-right corner of that screen, there is a little S in a box. That indicates that RATE A and RATE B are set separately. Changing the S to C will couple the two rates so you only have to change one to adjust both values. When happy with the throws, go back and check AIL DIFF. again, to compensate for any differential created by linkage asymmetry. 18. Set up camber adjustment on slider. This is strictly personal preference if you don't want or need camber adjustment on a slider (or knob, or ), then skip this step. From the home screen, go to MODEL CAMBER MIX. a) Set: ACT/INH to ON GROUP to SINGLE SWITCH to LS (or whichever control you'd like) COND. DELAY to 0 CUT-SW to -- b) Select AILERON in the CURVE AND RATE box, then go to screen 2/2. RATE1 and

RATE2 define the amount of adjustment that will be assigned to the control. Try something like 10% in all fields as a start. Waggle the control and see if the throw seems appropriate for a fine-tuning. Remember that you will have to configure each condition independently I have something like +10% for CRUISE and THERMAL, and -10% for SPEED. Note: this may mess up your trailing edge offsets don't worry, that'll get fixed in the next step. c) In the ELEVATOR section of the CURVE AND RATE box, you can tune the elevator adjustment that goes along with the camber changes. Probably leave this alone for now this adjustment really requires some flying time to get an idea of what changes are needed. 19. Final trailing edge adjustment. Here is where the final trailing edge offsets are defined for each flight condition. From the home screen, go to MODEL TRIM MIX 1. Go to screen 3/4 and change GROUP to SINGLE this allows us to set the trailing edges independently in each condition. Go back to screen 1/4 and adjust OFFSET for AIL and AIL2 to get the desired trailing edge offset for each flight condition. 20. Elevator-to-camber mixing ( snap flaps ). If you want snap flaps, go to MODEL ELE->CAMBER, go to screen 3/3 and change ACT/INH to ON, and GROUP to SINGLE. On screen 2/3, set RATE1 and RATE2 for AIL and AIL2 to some modest amount. Something like +15% in each field is a good starting point. I enable this for CRUISE and THERMAL only. 21. Aileron-to-rudder mixing. If you want aileron-to-rudder mixing, go to MODEL AIL->RUD. On screen 2/2 set ACT/INH to ON, GROUP to SINGLE, and leave SWITCH as --. Then on screen 1/2, set RATE A and RATE B to give the amount of rudder mix you want. The default is +100, which is fairly aggressive, but is also my starting point. 22. Other useful settings. There are a couple other things that are nice to set. a) Disable warnings. If the radio detects a non-standard situation on power-up, it will squawk about it, and if you don't answer properly, it wont enable RF! Could lead to a crash. The solution is to disable all the warnings. Go to LINKAGE WARNING and set all warnings to OFF. b) Set up flight timer. I like to have a timer start when I release my flight preset, and give an alarm at 3 minutes. To do this, go to LINKAGE TIMER, select TIMER1. Set MODE to UP, ALARM to 3:00, and MEMORY to OFF. For my setup, I use SF for my launch preset, so I set: RESET SW to SF, and in ON/OFF, set it so that it is OFF normally, and ON when launch preset is pulled. Set ALTERNATE to NORMAL. START SW to SF, and in ON/OFF, set it so that it is ON normally, and OFF when launch preset is pulled. Set ALTERNATE to NORMAL. STOP SW is --. c) Change system timer. The 12FG has a small timer in the lower-left corner of the home screen, which shows the total time the transmitter has been used. By default, this shows the TOTAL usage. It can be more interesting to know how much time each model has been used instead. To change that, to to SYSTEM SYSTEM TIMER from the home screen and change MODE from TOTAL to MODEL.