jroo

Sounds good. Ichoose the 2nd hole because it was 90 degrees from servo arm. Thanks!

dbailey3887

<div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 9pt">It's really disappointing to spend your hard earned money for a product and get ripped off. I had a bad experience with helicopterheaven.com I purchased an eflite blade cx3 from <span style="COLOR: black">helicopter</span> heaven and I received a helicopter that was used. The canopy had glue and scratches all over it; the top of the canopy was ripped, and the motor wouldn't work. I took it to a hobby shop about 40 miles one way from my home; the guys at the hobby shop were able to get it to start but when they did they said the 3 in one gyro was damaged and the inner shaft was bent. I phoned the company and told Steve the unit was used but he denied it. He said he damaged the canopy while installing lights. He new the helicopter was damaged but he sold it to me anyway. The light job was shabby; there was glue from a hot glue gun all over the canopy and any where a light was installed glue bulged out around it. It looked like a kid had attempted to install the lights. The instruction manual also had writing inside of it as if a kid had drawn lines inside of the book.

If he test the units I wonder why I stayed on the phone with him for about an hour attempting to bind a supposedly RTF ready to fly helicopter to a transmitter that wouldn't bind. He couldn't walk me through the process to get the helicopter to successfully operate. The helicopter wouldn't work until I took it to the hobby shop to find out it was damaged. </span></div><div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div><div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>

rotarydoc

Nick,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Figured I'd get that in, since it's now official!

Glenn

evdreamer

Thanks Glenn.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Nick,

Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday. (of course you can hear the singing, right? ) Did you ever get that refueling cap for you nitro fuel? This is what I use on my gallon for my planes:


I think dbailey posted in the wrong place, sorry to hear of your mishap with HH.

Mark

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Jreue,
Sometimes it does take starting from scratch to get things right. Trying to get all linkages at 90 can be trying but in the long run it will give for a better handling heli. Were you able to get things straightened out?

Right now I am measuring out the linkages for the head so in a bit I will be pulling my hair out (not much left anyway ) getting the head at 90.

Never had the chance to congrat you on your new 250 - what a deal you struck! I too have been looking at the Turnigy line of chargers, have my eye on the Accucel 150W model. I remember either Glenn or JPEE recommending them.

Tarot is a brand that makes clones of the 450 Sport and Pro - thier models are barebone units and so give you the flexibility to add your own components. There is a thread over at HF that includes all the issues that people have encountered with these 'new' clones - and they really are minor enough to make it worth while, at least to me.

Glenn,
Sorry for the bad picture, hope these are a bit better. Yes, the parts for the Tarot are interchangable with Align's Pro parts. In fact a few things that had to be replaced off the bat were the main shaft and main drive gear, which I replaced with Align parts. Other than that, though, I will be using it stock.

I have been going through the build with some excitment but have to hold back a bit so to not forget to alott some family time, otherwise I will be having a not-so-happy household. Hoping to have everything ready for a maiden sometime in early Feb.

JPEE,
Think I read somewhere in these countless pages that you were putting $100+ of gas into your truck - yikes.[sm=drowning.gif] And here I was complaining of $40 for my lil'ole Saturn.

Mark

JPEE

Nick,
May today be the best day of your life.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Have fun and buy yourself something special today.

JPEE

jroo

Lame. My Trex 250 was shipped to my house yesterday, but for some reason, it was sent to the postoffice because I was not home. Bah, well at least I know I will have my hands on it tonight...

evdreamer

Thanks guys.

Mark,

Yeah I got the fueling cap. I also have the same exact fuel lines as you.

It looks like you got a big tube of green loctite in the kit. I love using that stuff for securing bearings.

Jreue,

That has happened to me a lot, but I am glad they do that especially with expensive orders.

Nick

jroo

My 2nd Blade 400 I bought off ebay, the guy sent it in the original box, except it was not wrapped. When i got home, there was the enormous BLADE400 3D HELICOPTER box sitting there on my front porch for all the world to see. Amazing.

jroo

uh oh!

9sec240

Love at first sight!!!

jroo

more loot pics

evdreamer

Jreue,

Have fun with the build process.

Nick

jroo

Well, as hard as it was, I forced myself to not start on the 250 until the 400 was fixed. Istarted from square one and began to setup my head properly. I watched the finless CCPM videos and started watching the sokal videos again. Finless made mention to this and I saw it on sokals videos as well. For one thing, I had the balls on the outside of teh servo arms rather than on the inside. Just looking at the heli from teh nose, you could see the angle of the linkages were far from straight up and down. Another thing is that I had the balls on the first holes giving it very little throw. I zeroed out my transmitter, starting from scratch. Ithen put the balls on the 2nd hold in the servo horn and I'll be damned it one cracked... and I dont have any more. hahah. Back to the hobby store tomorrow....for the 3rd day in a row....

Good things is, I stopped in the hobby store today and picked up a pair of ball link pliers. I'm in heaven....something about the right tool for the job....

night all.

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Wow Jreue, Happy Birthday to you too! Looks good.

I've heard some horror stories about packages left on the doorstep, bummer on the missed timing. At least now you have something to play with.

Mark

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Not much new going on here....sleet, snow, freezing rain tonight/tomorrow...

The packages left on the doorstep thing is amazing sometimes...I have had them leave things on the doorstep that I wish they wouldn't have....and other times, I have to make a special trip to the post office to pick up a low cost item....I guess it's up to the individual carriers whether to leave it on the doorstep or not.....and whether it's marked signature delivery. I always have to go to the post office to pick up Hobby City stuff, they always use signature confirmation, which is annoying on a small order....

Mark,

If I didn't know that was a clone, and it didn't have the markings, it would sure pass for a 450 Pro!

I wonder how they get away with making a heli so close, and not violate patent and copyright laws?

I guess in a way Align likes it, they surely must sell (as in your case with the mainshaft and main gear) additional parts...

Jreue,

Looks sweet, keep us posted!



Glenn

jroo

Well the 250 is still in the box. Like I said I want to get my 400 up and going before I start on the new bird. I just dont want to neglect it and leave it sitting; broken.

I zeroed out my transmitter last night, bought some new servo horns and started to put the horns on the collective servos @ 90 degrees. My aileron servo is acting funny again. It wont center reliably. Last time i fixed it by cleaning the potentiometer, but I have not even put 1 battery pack through the bird and it is acting up again. I am going to pick up a new hs-65MG today and work on the old one on the bench.

Other than that, not much. Starting over; going slow. The weather is awesome here. was 75 degrees yesterday!

jroo

I working on setting up my head on the Blade 400. On the Finless CCPM videos, he states that you should set your swash mix to all 50% starting off. As I follow along, Igot my servo arms at 90 and my swash is dead on level. The next step is to ensure the swash is in the right position vertically on the main shaft. He states that you will want, at full negative pitch, the washout block to almost be touching the head. Well with only 50% pitch in my swash mix, Idon't come anywhere close. Iwould have to let out alot of thread to get it there i suppose. If Ijust increase my swash pitch mix to like 75%, it gets me right there. Is this correct in his way of doing it? I just don't see how he is operating through the video at only 50% pitch in his swash mix because he was 'way' more throw than Ido at 50.

Can any light be shed on this?

Ijust looked and the default swash settings for the blade 400 is ...

aile -75%
elev -75%
pitch +85%

evdreamer

Jreue,

Yes, it is ok to just increase your swashmix.

Nick

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Just checking in....not much new here.

The weather caught me off guard today, it was actually flyable...about 41 degrees, and 5-7 MPH winds...by the time I realized it, and realized I didn't have any packs charged, it was too late. I put a couple of packs on the charger, but that thing takes forever on my old Rhino packs to balance them, almost 2 hours...so I missed out.

I'll have them ready for the next warm day I guess....that's one of those drawbacks to lipos...I want to store them at storage voltage, but then a nice day will come along...

Oh well, a couple of more months, and it will be all good again...lol...

What's new with everyone?

Glenn

jroo

Finally.

Well, I just put in about 4 or 5 hours on this head.

Ihave to say now though, when someone asks "is your head setup correctly?", I will a) know what the fully means, and b) answer "yea!"

I got everything spot on.

servos arms at 90 degrees
swash level at low-mid-high
washout arms level
flybar cage level

flybar rods equal length
flybar paddles level

main rotors -10/0/+10

feels good

evdreamer

Glenn,

Sorry you couldn't fly today. Maybe you should look into the new Outrage 5C or some Hyperion G3 batteries for times like those?

I haven't had much new going on either. I have been trying to get my microcontrollers to communicate with each other, but I haven't had much luck. I got one version to work, but when I put the same code into another version of the same controller it doesn't work.

Nick

jroo

I'll have to tell you, I had a hell of a time getting my main rotor blade pitch all working.

Iwas getting -12/0/+9 on one and -10/0/+9 on another.

Iwas rather baffled because everything was spot on up until here.

Well Itook my head of, but took note as to what washout linkages connected to what ball on the swash by using a magic marker one of them.
I wanted to ensure I did'nt spin the swash and then put the linkages on the incorrect ball.

I rechecked my swash. It was absolutely perfect.

I then started to analyze the swash. The I rotated the swash and looked at the oncoming balls horizontally. There was some very slight variation in the vertical position of the balls.

Rather than putting the linkages on the original balls, I rotated the swash by one ball, so now the linkages would hook to not their original ball, but the one next to it.

I rechecked rotor pitch.
Iadjusted to mid-stick 0 pitch again

now I have -10/0/+10

JPEE

Nick,
Sorry our controllers are not speaking to eachother, godda be frustrating.

Jreue,
Congrats on sticking with it and reaching success on that darned head. That training will now carry you through the hobby forever!

Glenn,
Sorry you got knocked out of flying. Are you saying that your big HC 150 watt charger takes two hours on a Rhino 2200 pack? It kind funny becasue with all of our rain I knew I would not be flying for quite awhile so I have been using the packs but not charging them in antisapation of the down time. Then when they said rain for a week I drew down the rest of my packs to storage charge. Today we were surrounded by snow on higher mountains but it was clear with blues skies and butt cold, but I was kinda like you, no packs. I thought for just a moment about charging some and gave it up. I have so many things going on right now and more rain is due next Monday and Tuesday here........what the hey.

I did take some time today and installed my bigger motor in my T-28 (just roughed in). I did get a taxi with it in the front yard but thats it. Now I will take it all apart and Loc-tite motor mounts and such and re-assemble for the long haul. My prop wont fit this motor shaft so I have get a new one that fits.

I finished my garage finally Friday. I have now have new A/C Heater in and I mounted a mondo size TV wall mount for my 42" LCD HD Tv. Now I can pull out the diesel and have a huge space just like today to work on my T-28 or other toys. As you know I am blessed to have a little lady that likes to be out there with me so that way she is not a heli widow alone in the house. N ow she can watch her shows.

My next fly day might be next Thursday "if" my Club Field is not under water. It is located in a riverbed next to a river. drove up there last week on one of our worst rain dates and the road was was under 2 feet of water and it was closing in the runways, who knows what I'll find up there?

Thats it for guy...............JPEE