evdreamer

Jeff,

I finally had time to watch your MCX video. I had a lot of homework to catch up on. That thing sure scoots along at a decent pase. I would sure love to be able to fly for 6+ minutes on my helis.

Nick

JPEE

JEFF.......................MOOOOOEEEEEE EXCELLENTEEEEEEEEEEE video of your hopped up MCX

HeliStyle

My Feedback: (2)

well guys thanks for all the help, but I think I found 90 percent of all my issues, I tryed firing it up again after I moved the gyro switch back it help alot, but I still had all the same issues just alittle less, well I had enough, I took the whole thing apart and see what was up. Seeing I bought this used 2 days ago, I found many many problems when I took it apart, first the spindle in the head was badly bent, worst I have ever see on any heli, then I took apart the main shaft, it is sooo bent it wont even roll on a table if you touch it, and last the collar on the bottom of the main gear holding onto the main shaft was completely stripped out and wouldnt even tighten at all, so I'm think all of these are my problems for lift and etc, Im ordering all new parts in the next few days and begin my rebulid. After I do the rebulid I will let you guys know how it went. All I know is whoever had this heli before me had a mess on there hands and now its mine lol thats alright it will be all good when its together and rebulit.

evdreamer

Helistyle,

Good thing you took the heli apart and found some problems.

I got all my parts and I am charging my batteries right now. I didn't think about how much power my charger can handle, so I can only charge at 1/4 the current to get the 15 minute charge, but it is a nice charger. It was a little confusing at first on how to set it up. The shrinkwrap works great to hold the cells together. I almost needed the next size up since it was a little tight to start out with. Now I will be attaching the electronics.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

Nice looking charging setup there, I see now more about the A123's and how you are doing them.

So, you will be using (2) 5 cell A123 packs during each flight....and you said the total voltage is like 33.3?

Are you still going to be able to charge the packs in 15 minutes?

The only thing that I see that might worry me a bit is the wiring for the packs...I was looking at the one pic with the negative wire running along top of the cells...just be careful and check them from time to time...and make sure the insulation doesn't rub through and cause a huge short with the tabs on the cells...especially in a heli, where there is always some vibration.

Nice work! Hope the electronics mounting goes well, you'll have to post some more pics for us!

Glenn

rotarydoc

Hey Heli,

Sounds like you found alot of stuff that might be messing you up on the new heli. Glad you found them, and can get all the parts you need to fix it. Keep us updated on the rebuild.

When are you expecting your DX6i and your receiver?

Nick,

Well, went up and got my tailbooms. The post office looked like a couple of days before Christmas...line was out the door...I'll keep that in mind next time I order something small from any company...I certainly didn't need signature confirmation on a $6 part!! And I had to show I.D. too!!!

I know they want to protect themselves from doorstep theft, but in this case, for a $6 part, they should have used a little bit better judgement.

Anyways, no rebuilding tonight, it can wait until later in the week. I'm gonna just chill and watch some TV tonight.

Keep us updated on the electronics...

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

I just got back from flying the 600!!! This thing rocks. It is very windy out and it wasn't affecting the 600. I seem to have gobs of power with the 10S battery. I only added a little throttle and the thing shot up. And it is perfectly balanced. I don't know how balanced it would be with a 12S, but I am very happy. Well worth the money. And Jeff this thing is very loud now. I will post some pics later tonight because I will be going to Red Lobster soon.

Yeah I have to use 2 five cell batteries in series. I don't know how long it will take to charge the batteries since I have to charge them at 4.5A instead of 10A. But I really want some more batts because I don't want to stop flying it. Jeff you are going to love the 500.

Sorry it took so long to get your tailbooms.

I will get some video tomorrow since it is already getting too dark to fly and I don't have school tomorrow.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

CONGRATS ON THE MAIDEN FLIGHT!!

That is awesome! Did you get to fly it at the baseball field, or the backyard just hovering?

I'll bet it is a blast to fly, pretty stable, eh?

How long was your flight time?

You'll have to post some pics when you get back from dinner!

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

I just did a test hover in the front yard.

Yeah it is very stable. Hands off hovering stable. I think it would be a very good trainer helicopter once someone got over the intimidation of the size and sound.

I just did 4 minutes to see how much of the capacity I used. Then I will increase it once the batteries are done charging and I see how much I used.

I still have some tweeking to do before I go to a field and fly it.

Nick

evdreamer

Oops I posted the same pic twice.

evdreamer

I just got done charging one battery and it took 21 minutes!!! But I forgot to check how many mAh was put back into the battery.

rotarydoc

Nick,

Nice pics there!

That is cool that it is that stable...that is the impression that I got from watching the ones at the field, particularly the older guy, he didn't have that much heli experience by his own admission, and was not having too much trouble flying his 600.

Hopefully you can get some video tomorrow, I'd love to hear and see it hovering!

I am sure that there are a lot of loose ends to wrap up before you really fly it...there is bound to be some.

I have been reading up on the T-Rex 500 ESC some....looks pretty interesting. I am not sure if I like the idea of the servos being included or not..no one has really reviewed or commented on the servos that come with it that I can find yet.

I read a couple of people that came from a B400 to a T-Rex 500...and say that the difference is "astonishing"....sure sounds tempting...LOL!

I'll check back in a bit. Wanna catch some TV for a few...

Glenn

rotarydoc

Nick,

That is awesome on the charging time! Sure beats LiPo's charging time!

It's also good that the batteries aren't as delicate as the LiPo's...hopefully they will last a long time too.

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

Yeah when I look at the mAh part of the charger it goes up like 2 in one second a lot faster than on my LiPo's. I hear LiPo's are only supposed to last 300 or so charges and the A123 last 1000. I have heard people have gone over the 1000 already and they are still going strong. I just checked out that LiPo's of similar capacity are $30/cell and A123's are $17/cell at least the place I got them from.

Nick

evdreamer

I am at 16 minutes on my other battery and it already put 1220mAh into it.

HeliStyle

My Feedback: (2)

congrads on the 600, I would love to see one in real life lol, rotarydoc there was alot messed up, after buying new parts for it, I should have just bought it new it would have been the same price after all these parts to get this used one up and running lol. Im expecting the dx6i and ar6100 this week, I hate usps they never update there tracking system, the tracking thing says they just have got the package in the system when its been mailed out since like last week lol I have to sell some more stuff on ebay to get some money to fund this helicopter project lol

evdreamer

Helistyle,

Thanks.

Sorry about the new heli.

I just calculated that I can fly for 5.5 minutes to 90% discharge and it would take 30 minutes to charge 90% of the battery.

Nick

Evan T.

For some reason I thought you could run a123s all the way down since they're l-ion

evdreamer

Evan,

You can, but since the voltage drops off very quick right at the end I would have to auto rotate everytime at the end of my flight if I discharged them all the way.

Nick

J-MICHAEL

Nick ~

Great job my friend ! [8D] You dogg you.... I'am working long hours this week again... I'll have to catch up on posts and be back later or tomorrow....


~ Jeff

evdreamer

Jeff,

Thanks. Hope you don't get burned out from working too long. I can't wait to hear how your T500 flies when you get back home.

I am thinking I need a pinion with more teeth since I kind of get a bobbing affect with a low headspeed. It goes away when I go into idle up 2. I also need to try the governor. I have heard that many people can't get it to work on the HV-85. But even if I wanted to try it, it is going to be hard to get to the throttle wire because of where I put the receiver.

Nick

rotarydoc

Nick,

That sounds really cool on the battery run/charge times...and it would be great if you had a second pack, you wouldn't have much down time at all between flights that way.

So, if my math is correct, that 10 cell pack cost about $170 plus some shrink wrap, wiring, etc? Sure does beat $300 a pack for LiPo's!!

I wonder if they are sensitive to matching like NiCd's are at all? I remember in the RC car days, we used to match the cells for the most consistent and longest run times. In other words, so the cells would all be matched to die at the same time. Some packs were so well matched that the car would just come to an immediate stop at the end of the run. But after a while, they would "lose" their matching, and have to be rematched for the best performance.

But that is NiCd, a completely different battery technology. Hopefully, the A123's are less suseptible to those issues.

I am so happy for you....and that the maiden flight went well...or at least the maiden hover...LOL!

I'll bet you were a little bit tempted to test it out a bit...but you wouldn't want THAT heli to hit the side of the house!!

Talk to you in a bit...

Glenn

rotarydoc

Nick,

I was just reading on the T-Rex 500 section at HF...and read exactly what you were saying...the tail will "bob" if the headspeed is too low... or at least the article was saying that about the 500...I would imagine that the 600 is similar.

So, probably nothing wrong, other than the T-Rex's don't like low headspeeds.

Good to hear that it has lots of power.

I'll bet it will fly like a dream out in the open field!!

Glenn

rotarydoc

Heli,

Sorry to hear that the heli needs that much work. I guess there was no way to know... It should be fun when you get it all straightened out though...

USPS tracking is a joke. UPS blows them away...you can tell exactly where your package is with UPS. I sometimes get the package from USPS, and the tracking is still showing it in transit...LOL

Let us know how the DX6i looks when you get it...did you buy it new?

Glenn

evdreamer

Glenn,

I was thinking about getting another TP charger, so it would take a total of 30 minutes to charge both batteries instead of an hour. It would be cheaper than getting the stuff to zip charge it. The parts I found costs around $250, but then I could charge the batteries in 5-10 minutes. But then I have to carry around two big Lead Acid batteries instead of the very light TP charger.

Yeah I think the total cost was around $180 for both batteries and accessories.

I am not familiar with what you are talking about matching NiCd's, but I have balance connectors on the batteries so that should keep them balanced good. I have heard that they are actually supposed to balance themselves, but it was cheap insurances to add a balance connector.

I went up to a story tall and did some forward flight and side in hovers. I really like how well it handles strong winds. It would take a lot of wind for me not to fly the 600.

Yeah I wanted to do some funnels with it, but in my front yard a tree takes up more flying space and there are some cars in the street I wouldn't want to hit.

Nick