Aframomum

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Something came in the mail yesterday for my mcpx...stay tuned for pictures!!

JPEE

Mark,

Can't wait for the surprise? I'll bet you bought a kit to chop, channel, chrome, metal-flake, lower, fuel injected, nitro, twin packs adaptered your MCPX

Glenn, I am glad that your living HE** is over and you can veg for a few days to make up the hours of studying and sleppless nights. I concure with Mark, what "tragedy" your forced to wait a month for your results[>:]

P

Aframomum

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Just...a...little...bit...longer...

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Okay...long enough.

Got my Microheli swash in yesterday. Not bad just from the looks of it. The balls on it are threaded which is nice and they can accept a mini flat head screwdriver. So got it loctite, greased up the bearing, and will test fly it tomorrow. Everything fit beautifully and they took out the slop in the front balls so no more grommets were needed.

Isn't it purty...and shiney too?

Mark

rotarydoc

Mark,

That's awesome! It looks great on the heli, now you'll have to report on the performance as well...

Did you get a chance to weigh it compared to the stock one? I'd be curious as to the weight penalty...knock on wood, I have yet to break a swash ball off...isn't it funny how we are breaking different things?

My second feathering shaft was stupid though, on a tip over. At the race track, I take off from this super hard clay ground, almost like concrete, and when it tipped, it was wobbling when it lifted off. I think one of my blades was too loose in the grip, and it threw the heli off balance when it spooled up (you know how it's hard to get a slow spool up).

I have tested and confirmed that I like the glue on the link guide, but I have found that RTV works much better for me, it adheres better, and seems much stronger. I just used the Aquarium Glass repair stuff, clear RTV silicone. Just make sure there is no trace of grease or oil on the guide, or it won't stick.

I'll be waiting for a performance report on the new swash.... Did they give you any extra screws or balls with it, my concern would be if I lost a screw/ball, trying to get parts for it? Let's hope that isn't a concern....

I flew 4 packs in the 450 earlier. It was windy, so it made inverted hovering a challenge for me. But, all the better for practice anyways, more of a challenge. Not sure if I'm going out with the MCPX tonight or not. Not if it's as windy as earlier. The 450 was getting pushed around pretty good. I would have loved to see how a FBL system would have worked on a 450 on a day like this...

Hope your swash maiden goes well tomorrow...it sure looks cool!

P.S. Did you have a chance to check your LHS for any feathering shafts, by chance?

Glenn

rotarydoc

Mark,

Cancel the LHS check...I found some on eBay!

Get 'em while they're hot!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

I went ahead and got 4....lord only knows when HH will ship them to the LHS's..

Glenn

JPEE

Hello Mark,

What an ice looking swashplate. It is just crazy that Micro Heli can make this stuff, crank it out and HH can't even supply basic parts........hummmmmmmm what's wrong with this picture?

Glenn,

Cool you got some F shafts


P

jroo

Nice swash Mark! Give us a report when you can man.

I flew 2 packs of the MCPX in my living room and then 2 packs in my back yard. I attempted probably 15 rolls and a few back flips. This thing is INDESTRUCTIBLE. Hell, I even hit my house and nothing got damaged....

Then, I was feeling lucky and went in the front yard. I completed 2 loops. FIRST EVER IN ANY HELI. Hells Yea!

JPEE

A HOT DEAL ON BATTERIES FOR THE MCPX...I THINK?

Just posted 7:44 pm.

GONE

evdreamer

Mark,

Cool swash.

I picked up some goodies today. Harbor Freight had a sale on micrometers and dial calipers, so I picked up a set. I went old school with it and they are the analog versions. I also got some telescoping gauges and a really cheap toaster oven. All my engine parts came today, so I will probably take the bearings out tomorrow.

It looked like a lot of you guys got to fly in the past couple of days.

Nick

JPEE

Hey Nick,

Cool on the tools from HF, I am sure they will help with the engine rebuild. Ya better put that toaster outside when you bake off that engine case LOL.

Yes I got a few flights per day over the last three to four days. However, today it is cloudy and trying to drizzle and tomorrow a chance of rain. No matter,

I never fly on the weekends, the field is just to busy. My buddy and I flew all week, a great "gimmy" for us both being retired

John

evdreamer

John,

I was using the toaster oven down stairs. My mom complained about the smell already. Most of the smell came from the toaster oven than the engine. This oven was worth every penny. The front and rear bearing came out with one tap. It used to take several taps to get the bearings out when I was using the big oven.

Nick

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Hey Nick,

Guess your not going to be cooking any pizza's in that toaster oven huh? Well, maybe if you like a bit of nitro with your anchovies. lol. Glad you found a better way to get those bearings out. Definitely hope the new bearings last longer for you and you get that engine purring again...then you too can say you got to fly today.

How is life now that school is out for the summer? Yeah, those summer classes are usually fast-forward and fly at a crazy pace. Not bad for a history or something like that, but an engineering or math class...no way. []

JPEE,

I see you did take advantage of the nice weather you had.

Jroo,

congrats on your first loops...isn't the mcpx great for learning new stuff?

Glenn,

I stopped by the local heli field (about 30 minutes unfortunately which is why I have never joined...just no time right now) and saw a 500 with a Beast FBL system on it that was just hanging in a hover even though the wind was kicking up pretty good. I was amazed but seeing what it does on our little mcpx wasn't let down. It does a lot for our larger birds.

Sorry but I don't have any sophistacated scales like you, Micheal, and JPEE have...just the kind that you get on and then feel depressed with the number it shows. It doesn't feel too different in weight with the stock plastic. No extra balls though, so I guess if it comes down to it you could always contact microheli and see about replacements. Still no outside flight report, just did an indoor hover and no real change that I could see...will see how things are once I get it outside.

Mark

JPEE

Nick,
I can't believe you did that "downstairs"! I thought forsure you set it out on the back stoop

when the fumes could dissipate?

But I am glad that it worked so well for you.


Mark,

Who is Michael?

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Nick,

That is cool on your Harbor Freight goodies...and I think it's good that you got the analog versions, I think that digital readouts tend to make one lazy. It's always good to know how to read the analog ones first, then maybe later on get the digital ones for conveinience. One of my ASE test questions was on reading a metric analog micrometer....I had to think a bit about that one...

Cool on the toaster oven too...and glad to hear it works so well. Some of those things do have a burning smell when you first use them. It'll probably get better once it gets broken in. I'll have to remember that when I do my bearings.

Mark,

I know exactly what you mean about the heli field, I really dislike driving 50+ miles round trip to go to my heli field...especially when it's so much more convienient to go to the moose lodge or race track...one of the main reasons I am loving the MCPX as much as I do.

I'll bet a well set up FBL system would be cool on a larger heli. I think for now though, I'll stick with flybars. I'll wait, the FBL will get better and more affordable with time, and then eventually become standard equipment like gyros are now.

My little scale is hardly sophisticated! If you have a Harbor Freight down your way, you can pick up one of these like I have;

http://www.harborfreight.com/1000-gr...ale-97920.html

Cool on the swash...I doubt you'll even notice it's there...which is a good thing. Some of the guys on HF seem to like their MCPX's a tad on the heavy side anyways...

Hopefully, MH will offer replacement parts for the swash. I guess it depends on demand. Probably in most cases, you wouldn't need replacement swash balls or screws.

JPEE,

Thanks for the link on the cheap batteries.

Hope your weather clears up for the week's flying ahead.

My weather has been up and down, they called for rain the entire weekend, but it's not been too bad, I got some flights in earlier.



My MCPX flying session was cut a bit short today... Had a little incident where it kinda got away, so I hit throttle hold about 6 feet off the ground (and usually it just lands, undamaged) and I guess it landed in a strange way, and broke the tailboom...[&o]

I guess I'll get to use my 2mm CF rod now...but I am undecided on increasing the length or not....I really have been having good luck with it at stock length so far.

Rob from my plane club (from last year) wanted to know a while back how I liked my MCPX. I copied and pasted my mini review from that first flight session at the Moose lodge and sent it to him...he liked it a lot...so much in fact, that he's going to put it in next month's club newsletter...

He does like the "heli corner" part of the newsletter, and helps with the classified ads, and so forth. That will be kinda neat, reading my own little review in a newsletter...

I'll have to get to work on the MCPX, to get it ready for this coming week's flying. Sure is nice to be done with that studying, now I can get back to the hobby!

Hope everyone has a good week.

Glenn

JPEE

Hey Guys,

I finally started the rebuild on 600-1 this afternoon. I took the HK CF frame totally apart and sanded it. I installed new bearings into my Align bearing blocks and installed those into the heli. The HK blocks

have the bearings pressed in and have "no" retainer screws to secure the bearing, not me thank you, there in the junk box. I had to cut the frame to squeeze in my big motor the NUE. However, this time

I took just enough out of the frame to get the motor in and not lose as much strength as I could have, and di in the past I think. I Dremeled myself to death today cutting that part out of the frame for the

motor and then noticed that the HK frames don't have the slits in the frame for Velcro straps to go through and secure my ESC and BEC to the frame like the Aligns do, Dremel time again. You can see what

I did in the pictures below.

Next I had to do some soldering and found a surprise there too. This is a used ESC that I upped from stock 75 amper to a 100. It had for the battery lead an EC-5 I think it is called, huge but with little wires

soldered to the bigger wires on the ESC creating a BIG impedance! There are pictures of that too for your review and LOL.

I also took the time on this 600 like I did #2 and removed the degouser on the ESC lead to the rx and armored the wires so they can't rub in the frame. Lastely, I also cut back the clear shrink wrap in the BEC

so as to let more air come acrossed it. I think taking the time to do these little thanks leaves you wuth a better heli in the end and........ hopefully cut down on some furture problemsSo that's my progress for

this afternoon. We have wind and rain until Thursday so I intend to take her out for a fly at the end of the week.


Glenn, congratulations on the getting PUBLISHED, you have to feel good about that forsure!

Re the batteries, HH is selling them at half price right now too.

John

evdreamer

Mark,

Life is a lot slower now that I am out of school. I have been working a lot, so that is keeping me occupied.

I just finished the engine rebuild. I spun it over with the starter motor and it has the same deep throaty sound again. I just dry fitted the engine to the frame, so I will test it out tomorrow. If the engine still sounds good I will loctite everything and take it up for a test hover.

Glenn,

I used my new measuring tools and measured the distance for the rear bearing. For some reason I kept thinking it was the same distance as the OD of the bearing. I kept forgetting how tight the fit was of the bearing. I found it is about .06mm smaller than the OD of the rear bearing.

Sorry about your tailboom.

Nick

jroo

This weekend was perfect. Clear and no wind at all. I got in 2 flights on the 250, and 4 on the 450. We had some family over for my daughters 2yr birthday party and they got to see the 450 fly. It was alot of fun.

I have some Dubro collars on the flybar of my 250 to tame it down a bit. It feels good, but it's starting to feel a little mushy on the cyclic. Can I move them in toward the head to relieve some of that sensation or do they have to come completely off?

I attempted flips and rolls countless times on the MCPX. I have yet to get a good one. To be honest it feels like the negative pitch is not set up right. Guys, I'm at 10' hovering, I give it right aileron to start a roll, and before you know it, I'm buried in the ground. I feel my collective management is good as my tail is not blowing out, but there does not seem to be enough negative pitch at all... Any of you guys need to adjust it from the stock settings? I'm going to throw a micro pitch gauge on it tonight and see what I come up with, but wanted to know if you guys have experience this or come across this issue in a thread somewhere.

evdreamer

James,

That is good you had nice weather to get some flights in.

Yeah, you can move the collars in, but they need to be the same distance on both sides.

Guys,

I let my engine idle for about 30min and it sounds great!

Nick

jroo

Which blades are you guys using for your MCPX?

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

Jroo, back to bullets for me.

Got a flight in this morning and really couldn't tell the difference between the swashes...but that is good. Just going to be checking it to see if any slop develops in the ball links.

JPEE...sorry, I meant Jeff Michael with his fancy scale to weigh everything he had.

Nick,

Terrific job on getting your engine back together and running for a 30 minute idle...jeez, did you plop down in a chair and open a cold one while having it idle? I bet your enjoying your time off from school, just don't get too relaxed.

Glenn, it seems like you and I are definitely breaking different things on this machine...did you stick with the original length boom or try to extend it a bit? Funny on the review going into your club report...hey, you should get an extra mcpx battery out of the writing. lol.

Mark

evdreamer

John,

It looks like you have done a lot of work to the 600. If you wanted to void the warranty you could take the shrink wrap off the ESC and solder the bigger wires right to the pads.

That metal ring on the throttle wire acts like a filter and gets rid of any high frequencies "riding" on the signal wire. It would probably be useful if you have the wire anywhere near the motor.

Did you see Align redesigned the 600 head. It looks a lot like my Velocity head now.

Mark,

I don't have any beers at my place. I was just standing around and monitoring the temps. At first I was scratching my head because my engine wouldn't start no matter how much throttle I gave it. Then I realized I forgot to attach the throttle pushrod.

Nick

rotarydoc

Hey guys,

Nick,

That is very cool that your engine sounds great again! Hope it keeps running well for you...

I know you probably know about carb smart systems. I don't know anyone that runs one, but it uses a thermistor on the engine to monitor temps, and a servo to automatically adjust the mixture with a servo. I have read where some guys love it....some guys hate it. Seems to be kinda hard to set up intially....just something I was thinking about earlier today. Theoretically if it's working right, the engine will not suffer a lean run and overheat. I think they are expensive though and add weight of course....

Jroo,

I am using the hi performance main blades.

Mark,

That is a good thing that you have not noticed any difference in the flight characteristics with the new swash.

I have not yet done the tailboom repair, maybe tonight....I'll probably decide at the last minute, but I'm actually leaning towards keeping it the stock length...I'm having pretty good luck with it that way, and I don't want to have to mess with the CG if I don't have to. We'll see though....

Any tips on how you made the flats on the CF rod? I have a dremel, I'll probably use some attachment for that....

Glenn

JPEE

Hi Nick,

I am glad you got the motor started and it ran well for you! !

Thanks for the information on the ring. I looked that up some time ago and found what it did, it kind of cleans the signal.

On the ESC, no! the wires on the ESC are the right size. It was the previous owner that soldered on the smaller wire extensions. I cut all of that off and just off and put my Deans on and all should be just fine.

No Nick, I haven't seen any of the new 600 heads. I guess it be shown like on a new 600ESP? I can look it up for a peek ah boo look see.


Mark,

Gotcha, yes that was good old (he was young) Jeffery Michael that was always cutting something off to lighten his heli's. He even cut out some of the spokes on his main gears, YIKES! !

Glad you got to fly and I hope that new MHeli swash works well for you, it looks pretty neat. If you can't feel the difference in the flying curve with the new swash-plate, then that's a good thing.


Jroo,

Sounds like you are flying your socks off there Mr.

Looks like your 250 and 450 are still bringing you a lot of happiness and good flying.


Glenn,

Hope your boom replacement goes well for you.


John

Aframomum

My Feedback: (10)

JPEE,

I wanted to say more about your 600 repairs but it was sorta busy at work and so I didn't have time for a lengthy post...you do like my monthly Social Security contributions right? lol

I now see what you were talking about with the ESC being soldered to a smaller gauge wire, didn't catch that initially. Strangely on my 550, the wire from my Zippy lipo is 10 AWG, the ESC wire looks to be possibly 12, and the Castle Creations BEC wire is 16. There's standardization for you.

I think your first experience with shaving down a frame has made you an expert at frame modding...very clean and neat, esp. the cutouts for velcro/tie-straps. I also saw were your motor has those fin-like protrusions running the entire length of the motor, so more clearance is needed for that...nice work overall with that.

Looks like you started this just in time for the bad weather to move in so you don't have to feel rushed. I know that whenever I try rushing a repair I usually forget something and wind up losing more time and don't get the heli finished anyway for when I wanted to fly it in the first place.

Glenn,

I never heard of a carb smart system...I wonder if they are for the larger engines (like those on 20 & 30% aircraft) and gas engines maybe?

To make the flat spot on the tube I just used the cutting wheel and gently applied the tube to get it flat...took a few tries to get it to fit snugly, esp the tail section where the wires have to go through...I did end up adding a bit of superglue to the tail case just to make sure it held.

Nick...dang that throttle pushrod, no wonder the engine wouldn't start. At least it happened in your backyard and not the field for everyone to see.

Jroo,

The reason I went back to the bullet blades after using the high performance ones was I didn't like the way they felt just flying around. They did great with flips and punchouts but with general hovering (upright/inverted) and flight I just like the bullets more stable feel.

But that's just me and you really do need to try out both to see which one's you like better. Anyhow, it just take a few minutes to swap a pair out...just make sure you have both on correctly before you go fly...ah, um (sorry Glenn, couldn't resist )

Mark