I crashed my blade 400 and now I'm lost!!! I replaced the.....

[Bradley Jones]

I replaced the blades, and two sets of servo gears. One set of gears was the lower servo if you are looking at the "driver side" of the heli (there are two servos stacked) the other set of gears I replaced was I believe the servo that controls the pitch :thinking its the servo that is under where the battery velcros on. Well everything is back together and I'm pretty good with tickering on stuff such as that BUT, the Heli blades don't spin straight. They would lean too much to the left so I adjusted the linkage rods and then too much to the right :arggg: I finally got it decent and then they lean too much front or back!!! I'm new to this and I regret going big and buying a blade 400 right off the bat, but hell, I guess thats half the fun :YeaBaby: . Does anyone have any info for me, the manual is very vague and the video section on this forum don't seem to work on my Mac. By the way I never messed with anything except the position of the linkage rod on the lower servo and the elevator servo arm on the front servo. I had to take those off to swap out the gears so I'm assuming thats whats out of wack now. Thanks in advance guys

Bradley J.

[Roadking]

Bradley,

Have you had a look at the Blade Bible? ( Its on a sticky) There is a link to a repair section which outlines all the parts likely to have been damaged in a crash. I have a Twister Storm 3D and usually have to change main and feathering shafts after a crash which takes out servo gears.

Take is slow and check the setup again using the info in the bible. Fixing it is half the fun, believe me, I know!

Regards

Mike

[Bradley Jones]

RoadKing huh???? I got an FLHX. thanks for the info!

[Slyster]

What an FLHX? Go one more forum down.. the B400 forum... your almost there!

[Jasmine2501]

I assume you checked all the standard stuff for after a crash? Flaybar, feathering shaft, main shaft, gears, all that?

Yeah go look at the Blade 400 Bible - there's videos there about how to line up the head. If you changed the gears it's possible you need to re-center the servos or something like that.

[Bradley Jones]

Thanks Jasmine but I got it all straitened out. Turns out the elevator servo was junked. Worked out pretty good though, after replacing the servo it still needed tuning and after watching a few youtube vids I learned how to tweak it in to perfection. I'm sure there will be some more problems down the road I won't know how to fix right away but I'm sure I will learn and thats half the hobby (at least for me it is) I frown down on paying the local hobby shop $25/hour to fix my heli, only to mess it up again and not have learned a damn thing. This morning I was hovering fine (By the way I'm a newbie:YeaBaby: ) so hovering is a challenge, anyway i was going smooth when I strong wind came out of no where and sent me out of control. I shut it down asap but the main blades were still spooling down and it was too late by the time it slid sideways on the pavement on it's landing gear right into a fence. I bought 2 new sets of blades and 2 main shafts and my heli was back together in 15 minutes. Worst part was that I just installed my training wheels which I fabbed up out of a fiberglass rod and nerf balls, so I thought I was safe from blade strikes :YeaBaby: Apparently the training wheels don't help when there is a fence involved :thumbup:

[Entityofme1]

"I'm new to this and I regret going big and buying a blade 400 right off the bat, but hell, I guess thats half the fun"...



Man oh man you have no idea. You thought you spent some money on that blade? LOL...Just wait until you decide to buy your next machine (hopefully it won't be a blade). Seriously I hope you grow to love the hobby as much as I have and decide to upgrade into a better heli. No offense to blade fliers, it's just that in my opinion this heli basically can either bring someone into the hobby further or nastily turn them off from the hobby for good. I had a friend who owned a blade 400 and he constantly battled mechanical failures which caused crash after crash. It didn't take very long at all for the spare part spending to exceed the overall kit price. Later he purchased a Trex 450 with some qaulity electronics and was amazed at how much better both he and the machine flew.

The bad thing about buying a blade is that the hobbyist doesn't learn as much about proper set-up and radio programming as those that buy a kit which requires full assembly. It forces you to have to learn in reverse once you crash the blade the first time. It's much more beneficial to have your hands in the air with a new kit that is in pieces and gruel away at the steep often frustrating learning curve ( lots of help from finless videos) than have something that is ready to go out of the box. Once you buy your first kit either electric or nitro,expect to be totally confused about radio programming, mechanical setup, and heli terminology for a good two weeks if not longer unless you have a friend or local expert who can assist you.

One thing the blade 400 has going for it is the DX6i remote. It is a very good first remote and is simple,intuitive, and flexible enough to learn a great deal about radio functions in relation to heli mechanics. You will however outgrow it rather quickly if you decide to stay in the hobby and move on to larger nitro heli's, although they can be flown with it too, albeit with less features. I'll quit babbling on and end with a word of advice. Ask yourself if you really enjoy the hobby so far and is it enjoyable enough to allow for a considerable amount of your money to be spent on it each week because thats what it is going to take. This hobby isn't cheap. Most of us here work jobs and I'd be willing to bet most of us have good jobs too. It costs some serious cash to participate in this hobby in even the smaller heli's let alone the 90 size machines. Subsequentially, this hobby can also be one of the most rewarding hobbies one can participate in as well. This is likely due in part that not everyone is capable of flying heli's successfully and the hobby has a high turn-over rate because of this. It is in fact one of the most difficult hand eye coordination exercises in existence. So feel proud if you have already learned to fly because many do not and end up quitting. If you do not already own a simulator ( G4, Reflex XTR, Phoenix) then that should be your next purchase. It is a MUST HAVE and is crucial in learning quickly and more importantly less expensively.

By the way here is what going big is. A fully built Miniature aircraft stratus 90 with high qaulity electronics and power plant will run roughly $3200 ( minus the remote)...;)

:hug: