I was fortunate to beta test a new heli product. It's a headspeed governor called the "Throttle Jockey". It's a really compact unit and will easily fit in any heli from a 30 on up.
The unit is solid state as you can see from the photo above it is indeed quite small. You can also see my optical sensor mounted to the engine. The governor currently ships with a std. hall sensor/magnet set similar to the Futaba GV1. The optical sensor works very well with the GV1 and we were hoping we'd have the same sucess with this new governor. The Optical Sensor kits I sell will work with this governor, there is a slight change in the schematic for the Throttle Jockey and the GV-1. I will continue to sell the sensor kits for $15.00 shipped and will include wiring schematics for both governors.
I'm pleased to say that the optical sensor works very well with this unit. The wiring diagram will be a little different (simpler actually) than the current GV1 schematic.
The unit I have is one of the first ten prototypes. I had to modify the governor itself and make a unique wiring harness to get it to work with the optical unit.
The production units will no modifications to the governor itself, it will only require the optical sensor be assembled per instructions for the Throttle Jockey.
The photo above shows the governor with both the green and red LED's illuminated. The red LED indicates a pulse from the sensor (A count trigger), as you can see in the photo, the silver spoke on the cooling fan is aligned over the sensor causing the unti to trigger. The rest of the fan has been spraypainted with flat black Pactra polyurethane paint.
The green light is illuminated because the governor "effect" is enabled. This means the master Governor On/Off switch is in the On position AND the ATV is high enough to engage the governor AND the throttle is above 25% above idle or more.
The unit is quite simple to setup, here's a quick overview of the 9ZHP setup.
Setup is rather easy, you turn the radio on and quickly toggle the Aux. switch to enter calibration mode. The green LED on the governor will flash rapidly. Now you need to input the throttle limits (Normal mode) by moving the throttle from a low idle to full power and back to idle, toggle the Aux.1 switch again to store the throttle limits. The green LED goes out once the throttle range is stored.
Now you can verify the governor is working by making sure the Aux.1 switch is ON and raise the throttle, the green light should come on around 1/4 stick.
Flip into IdleUp (make sure manual throttle curves are set to a V-Curve) and move the throttle from limit to limit, the green light should stay on. The green light is on during active governing.. Next test Throttle Hold in Normal and Idleup to make sure the green light turns off when Hold it activated. If so, you're good to go on to headspeed setups. Finally check your failsafe, just set your throttle to go to idle on failsafe. Turn the transmitter off and make sure the green light goes off and the throttle servo is moved to idle.
I started out with my Normal ATV at 50%, actual headspeed indicated was 1550. Computed headspeed was 1552.
I then switched to 60% ATV in Idleup1. My headspeed read 1685. Computed speed was 1682. Idleup 2 the ATV was set to 65% for 1750 headspeed.
The unit was easy to setup. I set my 9Z up using Aux.1 channel mapped to my A-Switch. This switch toggles the governor on and off (Master Switch). Then I just changed the Aux.1 ATV in each flight mode to my desired RPM.
I was very pleased with the holding accuracy of the Throttle Jockey, it seems to hold as well or better than the GV1. My throttle curves were a bit low in Normal mode and I noticed when the governor kicked in the RPM raised and leveled off nicely. This governor seemed to lock the head in faster and tighter than my GV1.
For the money, it looks like this will be a promising alternative to the GV1. I don't know about durability as it is still rather new but looking at the components, I don't see why it wouldn't be as durable as a GV1 and it certainly has a lot less components.
