evdreamer

Glenn,

No I didn't get the chance to fly it since it was dark by the time I finished it. It was windy most of the day, so later on the wind calmed down and I rushed to get a flight in. But I did get to practice an inverted circle going CW, so I can almost do it both directions going forward. It will just take more practice and more time on the sim.

The blades were new, but they were the same type. I got a pack of 3 blades at a discount on Helidirect, so I couldn't pass it up compared to the price for 3 carbon blades.

Sorry it was too cold to bring the Quark to your work.

I am thinking I have some bad bearings near the head. In the grip that wobbles the bearing behind the thrust bearing isn't that tight in the grip. So I am wondering if that might be the problem. I have been flying with it like that for awhile and doesn't affect the flight, but it is just strange that it does that.

Nick

Carljw

Talk about fast service. I placed an order with HeliProz South thursday
afternoon and got the order today. I ordered the Vario linkage rod measuring
device that you put on your caliper tips ony charged 83 cents shipping.

rotarydoc

Nick,

I guess your 450 does have alot of flights, so you can expect some wear after a while...

I also got a good price on some FRP blades for the 500 on Helidirect...much cheaper than the stock CF blades when I crash...[X(]

I was more than just me being tired than it being to cold to take the Quark to work. When I went out to the car, there was frost on the windshield, it was 2 degrees. I didn't have a scraper, so I tried the washers, and they were frozen. I took some warm water and threw it on the windshield, and it froze instantly, making more of a mess than I had to begin with...lol

With a start to the day like that, I figure I'd better leave the Quark at home..

Carl,

I have always had good luck with Heliproz, even when my stuff came from Montana...very quick service, highly recommended!

Glenn

JPEE

Hey Guys,


Jeff first.
Perhaps I should look back to a Blinkie again as the price is right. I have to find the artical that I read about the maximum load they can handle. Like I said I used it on several of my 400 packs and it worked fine. When it smoked I had it on the pack while bring the charge DOWN for storage.
When you charge a 5-6 cell on your TP charger? do you have the Blinkie plugged in during the charging process? That what I read you should do, heck if you did it after then the pack could have a much lower overall voltage, let me know.
You just have to wonder why a Blinkie is $29.00 and a TP Balance is $100.00. I am gonna look for that for information sheet I saw.

No 500 today though I took the entire fleet to a party today and tried to give a air show. My friend lives next to a Park, I mean over his yard wall. All looked great for a 400 flight and there was a breeze, still non issue. Then we go around the fence and carry in the stuff and found a Dad playing catch with his son and a dog walker. So was limited as to my fly space and........the wind came up too. I did fly out one pack but it was bucking me 3-4 feet up and down as I flew my circutes. Twice with my good friend standing next to me during the flight I said OH S*** as I thought I was gonna dart, but I got her back. As Nick says, I listened to my little voice and landed and pack it up!

Glenn, sorry you had a tough cold day. Sunday is your day!

Nick, sorry to hear about the Gaui. Crashes are character builders! "I" have a lot of character LOL.

Carl, I bought the 6' buddy box mono cable from radio shack and tried it and... nothing! Now I must tell you the other day I had plugged in a stereo jack just looking for size and smelled SMOKE so perhaps so I probably fried that part of the CX2 TX. Today when I plugged the cord into the DX6 it turned on automatically! ! ! Then we plugged the cable into the CX2 TX and it did nothing. Then we turned it one an it said it had only 4.8 volts in the batteries and.............it did not work. We unplugged the cord and the CX TX came back to 5.8 volts. So in short... it must be fried. I 'll try again with my Dx6 and DX7. But I'll get my books out and read up FIRST.

Just before I left the party I flew a MCX and CX2 pack each just to show what they will do. The Pickadilly Flying Show LMAO

JPEE
EDIT: JEFF THIS IS WHAT I SAW..."I THINK" BUT AS YOU READ IT IS ONLY A RECOMMEDATION.

View Larger Image
See Reviews
Price: $24.95
Out of stock
Item Number: AF106
Options
Air Thunder Batteries

This Battery Balancer is specially designed for Lithium Batteries.
The balancer accepts one to six cell lithium battery packs.

Now you can see if all cells are above 3.2 volts before charging.

Now you can Balance your pack while you are charging.

Now you can Balance your pack after you are finished charging.

Now you can Discharge individual cells that are over charged.


Now you will know that your batteries are balanced.
Connector has 0.100 in pin spacing with 0.025 square pins and fits

most brands. Pins should be in order: red, black,

black and black with no gaps or missing pins in the sequence.

NOTE: The Astro Blinky Balancer is designed for smaller packs and has limited power. AirThunder does not recommend using the Blinky with LiPo packs of capacities greater than 1500 mAh as it may take a long time to balance your packs.

JPEE

Hey Glenn,

I was always told that if you throw hot water on a windshield it would make it EXPLODE due to the quaik temp change?

evdreamer

Glenn,

It sounds like you had quite the ordeal this morning.

JPEE,

Cool to hear you got to fly today.

I was thinking oh S*** when I crashed the Gaui since I had my FRP blades on and those don't usually survive after a crash, but I only stripped the crown gear and bent one spindle screw. So I got lucky on that light crash. But I am really excited to try the Gaui with the new motor. So I guess it was good I crashed or the motor would have been sitting in the box for awhile.

Nick

Carljw

Jpee
When i had the first mono cable it run down the batterys fast in the Cx2 tx and did not work.
I got the srereo cable and it works good and ya when you plug it in the Dx6i it will turn on itself
and I had to turn on the CX2 tx with the switch.

JPEE

OK Carl,

I got there and was in a hurry and "I THOUGHT" you had said mono not stereo...............A mind is a terrible thing to waste and I am proof.


Hey Nick, like me you had some luck, remember my last two 400 crashes had little damage too. I can't wait to see what that motoer is going to do for you.


Glenn must be shopping?

evdreamer

JPEE,

I hope I can fly tomorrow, but I will have to wait and see what the weather is like. But if I do fly I will let you guys know how the motor performs. And if I have time I will try and get some video.

Glenn,

I just checked my 450 and one blade was warped by 5 degrees. And I didn't want to adjust the linkages a lot for that one blade since I like to have opposite links the same length. So I put a new pair on and one blade was warped by one degree and I didn't feel too bad turning a link out one turn to bring it back to 0 degrees. I hope I can test it out again soon. But I won't fly it in cold weather again, so a belt doesn't snap.

Nick

J-MICHAEL

JPEE ~


I use the blinky before, after, and during the charge... Someday I'll get a better balancer and came close a few times, but still haven't done it yet. For now I've had good luck using it for now...


It was foggy here all day... I did get a chance to fly the 450 in a friends small backyard. I did a loop, but in such a small space I almost hit the deck...LMAO... About 3' and it would have been a lawndart. Made a sweet recovery and just practiced doing short circuits in a small space, as I'am usually used to having a much bigger area when I would fly. The 13t pinion that I installed after taking off the 15t didn't do to bad, but I can tell the headspeed decreased.... And I can tell the diff when I did the loop... Now I can't wait to take out the 500 with the 15t since I took off the 16t now... I was watching Jason Krause's video of his Trex 500 and he was using the same 5-cell 3300 mah TP lipo's with a 15t and the heli seemed to do very well. So we'll see in time weather permitting...


Glenn ~


I can't wait for a 500 video !



Nick ~

I have a bunch of blades that are warped that are for my 450. Even a Carbon set... Now I only use the CF blades because I got tired of the quality of the woodies and carbons...LOL... I wonder how a guy would 'undue' the warp in the blade ? I thought maybe steam at one time, but I dunno....



~ Jeff

evdreamer

Jeff,

It sounds like you are getting pretty good at the loops. Maybe next time you are coming out of the loop and that close to the ground it will be on purpose.

It probably didn't help that I had a bunch of junk on the blades. But for the price they seem to do just fine flipping the heli around.

Nick

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Nick,

Glad you found the blade issue, and got it fixed...congrats on the inverted flying progress too...I'll never catch up at this rate...LOL, but I have about 6 months to try to get where you are....fat chance! [] Keep up the great work!

Jeff,

LOL, glad you didn't do any plowing in the field at the end of that loop! [X(]

No 500 vids anytime soon...maybe next weekend, won't be so tired from work, and they are saying 45 degrees by Thursday...it'll be like springtime!! But don't expect too much, unless I can find a bigger place to fly...feel kinda cramped in that baseball field...gotta look around some..

JPEE,

I used cold water, which I figrured was safe...but in those temps, there is no tellin'...so I guess it was a bad idea...but the windsheild survived..

I will be glad when these ridiculous temps go away...lol[>:]

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

If I didn't have the Gaui I would still be flying upright. Because it was less intimidating and cheaper to fix, it gave me the guts to try out flying inverted. And I am glad that I tried inverted flight because it is extremely fun and addicting.

Jeff,

Here is some pics of the T-Rex 450 V3. I don't like the land gear and a lot of people feel the same. But I like the black head and the TT. It reminded me of a mini 500.
http://helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=114024

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

Yeah, I should follow in your footsteps when I go to attempt inverted for real..and use the Gaui for the reasons you stated...I need more sim time first though..I am not completely comfortable with all orientations inverted..I'm OK tail in...but need more practice with nose in and side in inverted hovering...

That new 450 looks pretty cool...and yeah, the landing gear look downright cheap...lol[]

Glenn

J-MICHAEL

Nick ~


Yeah I noticed the landing gear right off also on the new 450. Maybe there a high quality plastic that will be unbreakable or something... They do look like they might be durable, but lof course there god ugly...LMAO... I still have my stock aluminum skids on my 450 for just over a year now and they've held up fine and look much better than the new ones in which I agree with ya guys...


Glenn ~


Yeah its really hard to find a good area for the 500... Even in the last video that ya just saw of me sport flying it in that field was kind of challenging somewhat. It just wants to keep moving and the area will get small really quick and before ya know it the heli is farther than what your comfortable with, but then G4 kicks in and you remain calm and bring her closer...LOL...

I just got done tightening my belt on the 450. It would be set perfect in the house, but then as It gets accustomed to the much colder temps outside it would get pretty loose. It was so loose today for my flight that I could push the belt mildly and it would hit the otherside of the belt. Plus I could hear it loose in flight. But it did fine for the 5 minutes I buzzed it around... The 500 is so nice for the Torque-Tube's !


~ Jeff

evdreamer

Glenn,

I practiced inverted tail in a lot with the Gaui, so that would be my saftey position if it got hairy in another position. G4 helped, but the helis are too stable, so I still had a lot to learn on the Gaui for each orientation.

Jeff,

Yeah TT's are great. That would be a mandatory thing for me if I ever got another heli.

Nick

JPEE

Jeff,
EDIT... Jeff, how long do you fly the 500 and and are you at stock speed or stunt? With my two 2,200 packs together I have 4,400 mAh
What a great bunch of snap shots! WOW YIKES and everyother word that comes to mind. Thanks for the feed back on the Blinkie. But at the end of the day I think I will bite the bullet and just get the TP 210 that is made for TP charger and be done with it. It will be right and it will be faster than a Blinkie. All of my other chargers have built in balancers so this would be exclusive for the TP.

Yesterday thinking there might not be to much wind, that the party would break up earlier and we guys could fly our MCX and dog fight I took three chargers. My friends both have their stock MCX towers. I took my DN charger that will do 3 MCX at once and my Eflite C505 that will do 1 and I took MY MCX stock tower that now has a wall plug adapter so we could charge our brains out. But it was not meant to be. To many people stayed late and there were to many small children to fly safely in the house.

Congrats on pulling out of a low loop, your skills talk bunches!


Nick, Hope you get to fly even if you have to brave the cold today. While it was in the 80' yesterday the wind was to hard to enjoy flying. I so remember than when I started this hobby if there was a leaf a stir NO FLY day for me. Now I dont care how hard it blowing, I'll gedder done out there BUT its just is not fun trying not to crash all of the flight time. Honestly, one of the things got me out to the wind was Glenn's friend Rob. When Glenn told the story of Rob saying, "wind" that means nothing to me, the only thing that hampers my flying is the distance I can't see that far anymore. So I thought if he can do it I can too! When you stop to think about, the only thing you can do crash. So your looking at $30.00 to $60.00 on the high side for damages. Heck man get out there I say and do it....or at least try.
NICK how long do you fly the 600? or can you give me an idea of how long I sould make my first flight with the Air Thunder 5000 mAh?

Glenn,
I have high wind again today ICK! and it will here tomorrow as well. Then Tuesday maybe too. Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun all possible rain. Will this ever end for all of us where we live so we can fly???


JPEE
8:00 a.m.
ANOTHER EDIT, 400 FLIERS LOOK AT THIS

http://cgi.ebay.com/E-Flite-Blade-40...3A1%7C294%3A50

Carljw

evdreamer

JPEE,

For your 500 I assume you are talking about 2X 3S packs in series? In that case you would still have 2200mAh of capacity instead of 4400mAh. You would need them to be in parallel to have 4400mAh.

It is 45 degrees here!!! And there was hardly any wind this morning, so I got a flight with the new motor and I am a little disappointed. The headspeed is higher, but it doesn't seem like a big improvement on power. And the batteries are a lot hotter after a flight too.

Good to hear you don't care about flying in the wind. It isn't much fun waiting for a day when it isn't windy.

I fly for 4.5-5min at 1900RPM's. I hear that people get around 5-6min on a 5000mAh pack. I say that would be a good starting place then when you charge the batteries you will have a better idea of how long you can fly. I don't know if the previous owner set it up for a high or low headspeed, so that will also affect your flight time.

Nick

JPEE

Carl, this is what I use on my 400s. It is soft bendable plastic.

JPEE

Nick,

Yes I am running the two packs. But in series you go from 11.1 volt to 22.2 (24 volt). Now your the doctor here but...... even in series you still have within those packs 4,400 mAh don't you? If not, then why? You dont have to get into depth, just basic, I am sure I can follow.
S****, now after I right this I am thinking of my RV trailer. I put two batteries paralle to get more running amps to keep the lights on longer................hummmmm I think I answered my own question! Another senior moment I guess......JPEE

JPEE

Nick,

Did you buy a head speed tac or do the math to figure your head speed. They have those hold over your blades tac's and I had thought about getting one.

Thanks for the estimates too.

JPee

evdreamer

JPEE,

I forgot the reason why it only does one or the other, but I know in Series you add the Voltages but capacity stays the same, and in parallel you add the capacity but Voltage stays the same.

I have an Airplane Tach, but it is not safe to use with a helicopter. This is the proper tach to use with a helicopter. It is more expensive, but you can figure the RPM's by standing from a distance. http://www.helidirect.com/product_in...oducts_id=7027 I hear the CC governor is pretty accurate by like +/-30 RPM's and I have mine set to 1900RPM's. So that is how I now my headspeed.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

Glad to hear about your weather....must feel like springtime!

Sorry your motor was a bit disappointing though....just didn't feel like it had more torque/power, eh? And at the expense of lowered flight times, that is disappointing... sorry..[]

JPEE,

I'm still catching up with posts from yesterday..lol...sounds like you had some nice flying except for the wind...and no break in sight? Seems we all are having the weather blues to a certain extent....except maybe Evan, I think it's like 72 and sunny most of the week...LOL[>:]

I still follow everybody's weather, even Heli's up in CT....lol..kinda become a weather watcher...lol..never paid any attention a year ago...before I got in this hobby...just like I know where all the flags are in a 3 mile radius of home...LOL

Jeff,

Nice stills of the loop, that is cool how you do that!

Heli,

Got some snow, I see? Is the new heli still in transit?


Carl,

Sorry to hear about the car repair bills, they can really add up...

I have heating oil bills coming...and then Uncle Sam is going to hit me hard this year....no new helis any time soon...

Did I remember you saying that Horizon dropped your order for the CPP2 tail and motor stuff from your order? [X(]


Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

Yeah it feels great outside.

When I flip it acts like the stock motor and takes a second or two to bring the RPM's back up to go into another flip or recover from the previous flip. I lowered the pitch range to help from using too much pitch and bog the motor even more. Actually the flight time is down only 10 sec. I was expecting a minute or more by everyone's posts. I still don't see how Bert Kamerer (sp?) can flip his Gaui around with the 5150. It seems like he has so much more power than my heli does.

I also took the 450 out today, but the tail isn't holding like it used too. I guess my Belt CP belt isn't working too good compared to the Mavrikk belt.

Nick