HDX 450 Build Videos will be here

[broke-again]

2Dog - Enjoy! Shipping from Steve is usually very fast, so you will be putting it together in no time. Im just waiting the arrival of a lipo battery so i can finally test fly mine.

[b0OM]

I have a T7CHP on the way to replace my 6EHX. :D

I am anxious.

Question: One of my blades is TIGHT in the blade grip(either side) and the other one is good. Can i sand or file from this enguagement point safely? Once sanded/filed i realize i must rebalance the blades. Not a problem.

Anyone else ever have this happen?

Thanks,
KEith

[Warp speed wazza]

hi guys, this may be a silly question but what brand of swashplate and alloy parts does the HDX 450SE come with. Is this a major step up from the Align 450 SE??

[Finless]

Ummm I would not say it is a step up. It's just a low cost alternative.

Bob

[Warp speed wazza]

Am i being to harsh on the align alloy stuff, the heli does fly nicely, but does wander around a bit. Head speed is 2100.

[broke-again]

boom - Both my blade grips are tight fits, but i decided to leave them be. Through time & use i reckon they will open up a little.
If they were too tight for my liking, id probably prefer using a wooden wedge to open the grips up a little as opposed to using a file on either the blade or grip..

On another note, I almost made my maiden flight last night, but had to abandon very soon after take off.

No sooner had the skids left the ground when all of a sudden the swash servos & head speed went bezerk. Very scary! I honestly thought my pride & joy was going to hit the dirt sideways but by some miracle it came down in one piece.

Once i had placed my heart back in my chest & thanked god several times, i re-checked everything and couldn't see anything wrong. I had taken a lot of time to put this kit together and had even ran a couple of battery paks through to re-chec k everything, but always below half stick.

My initial thought was "It must be interference" but knew that with a pcm set up that would be rare. So i placed weight on the skids to keep it on the ground and powered it up again. Sure enough, just after half stick all hell let loose..servos jerking up and down, head speed/blade pitch fluctuating. Below half stick all is smooth and normal. It was as if the power was being switched on & off very quickly. Below half stick, its smooth as butter - over half forget it.

So, i am grounded until i can figure out whats going on. At this point i am suspecting the supplied speed controller, but as a relatively nooby i cant say for certain.

The saddest thing about this is that my wife, who has patiently tollerated by recent spending & addiction to helis asked me how my maiden flight went and i found myself lying to her and saying all went well..I simply couldnt bring myself to tell her that after all the time& money it dosent work! How pathetic is that!
:arggg:

[Finless]

Warp speed. If you want a MUCH more stable and more precisly controlled heli get the head speed up to at least 2800!!!!! 2100 is WAY too low. Trust me on this.

Broke-again, please check your electrical connections. I kind of doubt it is the ESC as the servos are twitching and it is a PCM system
First make sure your FAIL SAFES are set to tell the servos to go level (center stick). Thus if you are having interference the servos wont go nuts but go level which they already should be since your trying to hover.

Now if it still does it then I bet power is being intermittenly cut off and such. Bad solders somewhere? Maybe a break or bad wire on the ESC to RX? Maybe even a bad RX? Unhook thje motor wires and while moveing the collective up and down tap on the RX and connections to see if you can cause the servos to go nuts.

Bob

[b0OM]

Thanks for the reply broke-again!

I meant sanding the blade as apposed to the grips :shock: , guess i had one too many adult soda's last night. :lol: One blade is slightly thicker than the other and i didnt wanna risk it coming apart in flight.

Also, i received my T7CHP today and am happy!

Now to decipher the instruction manual. :arggg:

O-my-goodness i totally understand your feelings when the heli went berzerk! I hate that. Pinched antena lead or a loose bolt somewhere?
Did you d/c the motor and try to throttle up thru that point to see if it happens without power to the rotor?

My MX400Pro did something very similar and later i found it to be the control rod(wire) from the tail servo vibrating madly about mid stick.
Since the HDX450SE has a carbon rod i doubt this to be your problem but id check for something that way.

Maybe unplug each servo one at a time with heli anchored firmly to determine if it could be one of them causing the probs.

Thanks so much Guys!

Keith

[broke-again]

Thanks for the input Bob & Keith. Really appreciatte it. I will check the solders etc tonight after work. Will let you know how it goes. Everything on the Heli is brand new, but you never know-it could have been something made on a friday!

Thanks again

[Caliber1]

After approximately four short flights, I've noticed a couple of main gear teeth missing off of the blue gear. There have been no crashes or any hard landings. Wondering if anyone else has seen this. I have not had this problem with the white Align T-Rex main gear.

[Finless]

If your MESH is too loose then you can strip teeth... Helis are not like cars (they have to be tighter and more presice) so if you set it based on car experience then that might explain it. If not sorry for insinuating that......

Usually messing teeth in the main gear means the pinion was set too loose.

Bob

[b0OM]

T7CHP is a bit more difficult than a 6EXH to program...

Anyway almost ready for the maiden voyage.

I love this forum.

Any advice on the Futaba T7CHP and the HDX is most welcome!

Thanks!
Keith

[BarnOwl]

Any advice on the Futaba T7CHP and the HDX is most welcome!

Thanks!
Keith

Well, just look at the T-Rex video's here for setting up the Futaba, there is no difference......

[b0OM]

Thanks,
I didnt realize it was there :oops:

Maiden flight! OMGoodness!

I'm not a very experienced pilot at all, but this one went airbourne quick and gave a solid feel. I LOVE THIS CHOPPER so far!!!!

Thanks Guys for EVERYTHING. Even the Wife was impressed! :shock:

[broke-again]

BOOM-WELL DONE! :D

It must be so satisfying to see something you put together get airbourne and do what you expect it to do. I hope to trying mine out again as time permits.

I was able to find the problem with my electrics and Finless (Bob) was right on the money. It was a bad solder, not my strongest point i must admit. Im a better welder :glasses: by the looks of my soldering job!

Re-did the solder and problem solved.

[hkb817333]

broke again, which part you got bad soldering?

[broke-again]

hkb817333, It was a solder i did on the deans connector (battery). The wire was actually loose inside the solder, from the colour of the solder i think i may have applied it at too high a temp, it was almost dark grey in colour, very dull and quite brittle too. At mid stick everything was as it should be, over half stick it was a different matter. The load, coupled with natural vibrations must have been enough to loose power for that fraction of a second. Just glad it happened at an early stage and not 30 feet up. As a noob at both soldering & flying heli's i still have a lot to learn. Bob makes it look easy on his soldering 101 vids, just like everything else he does. His experience really shows & it's great that we can all call on him in times of trouble.
Same goes for everyone else here who take the time and trouble to help others. You make a challenging, often frustrating hobby that bit easier for us noob's. So thank you.

[broke-again]

Well tonight i swapped my tail servo to a S9650 to replace the S9254 that had came with my 401. Had quite the time setting it up! I also received my charger and an Dynam 11.1v 2200Mha 3 cell battery from helidirect. What a difference it makes to have a better battery. Anyway, i checked everything over and hurried out to finally try and get a decent maiden flight in. She lifted effortlessly and the tail was rock solid, but the heli did wander a bit. I was in the process of trimming when a freak wind came along, i panicked and brought her down a bit hard. The hard landing caused the collar below the swash plate to loosen, allowing the head/gears to drop a little. I replaced the grubs and went out again and up she went...by now i was sweating in places i didnt know you could sweat from...sheer nerves i think.

I hovered for about 4-5 minutes at 3 feet when i discovered i had lost tail control. No response to stick. Landed ok and inspection showed that the small screw that is used to hold the boom to the servo arm had gone! Cursed or what?

So, its back to the bench for me, but even though i had a couple of minor problems i had the time of my life.. :D

[Finless]

Barn Owl.... your doing such a GREAT job helping people with the HDX how would you like to be a moderator (Forum support) of my forum here?

Bob

[BarnOwl]

I sent you a PM, Bob........ :wink:

[broke-again]

Went to spool the heli up and without warning the main tail shaft bent. This happened at 1/4 stick!

I have no idea what happened to cause this, the tail only had less than 5 minutes of use on it and my pre-flight checks were fine. As soon as some throttle was applied the tail spun up normally then stopped dead. This caused the whole tail unit to actually move counter clockwise about 30 degrees on the boom. The unit was very snug on the boom too, so it really took some force to move it.

As soon as it happened i emailed helidirect and someone called Vu replied asking if my blades had slop in them - in other words if your tail blades have even the slightest bit of play - it's going to bend your main shaft!!!!!

I dont know enough at this stage to comment on this

All i do know is that the blades seemed fine to me, not too tight and not loose either. There was no binding, no vibration- nothing - just died.

Had it been in the air id be even more angry. I thought my $345.00 would at least get me something that would last more than 5 minutes.

I also think i read an earlier post about someone else's tail seperating.

Anyway i would suggest that everyone double check their tail unit on a regular basis to be safe and to check the tail blades if that is indeed the problem.

The tail unit came assembled and was checked over for loose screws etc before use and everything was fine.

I am so fed up right now. :bomb:

I will let you know what Vu/helidirect do

[Finless]

The way longer tail output shaft on this bird is VERY sensative to any vibrations caused by the blades being out of balance or track. I bent my shaft just by bumping it against something and when I went to spool it up it bent worse due to the vib it had. Was it possible this shaft was slightly bent somehow before spool up?

Bob

[broke-again]

Thanks for the reply. If it was Bob, it must have came to me that way or had some kind of weakness. I never noticed anything out of the ordinary and the tail has never made contact with anything. Prior to applying power i checked the tail movement as usual and it was smooth as butter, no binds and once power came on it was all systems go - then wham! (it was on a flat,level surface) The amount it bent shocked me, especially at such low stick. I would understand better if i had collided with something, but ive never done anything but hover it once for a few minutes and the tail hasent even touched a blade of grass. I am at a total loss :dont know. In a way im just glad i wasnt at full power & in the air-it would have self destructed into a million pieces.

I did have one hard landing during my maiden flight on the skids, but by hard i dont mean "thud", just not as gentle as it should have been.
Prior to that i ran two battery pack through well below half stick after the build just to be 100% sure that everying was smooth and that nothing came loose prior to putting it in the air. Honestly i am gutted, this is one case where i did everything by the book, checked and double checked-then this!

Im beginning to regret my handle name!

[b0OM]

Man,
Sorry to hear the misfortune. My tail has sliced and diced grass and some soil on the last couple flights and the blades are brown and green now. No tail vibrations so far. Flys like a dream. Double checking my set screws on the tail gear to make SURE there is no possibilities of a failure. Maybe a titanium shaft is the fix for this?

As of this point i have hovered 3 packs out and am in love...... :D

[skid]

That shaft was just plain junk. Too soft. I've been a tool maker for over 30 years. I can see from that pic that it just gave up. Take a small fine file and run over it. I,ll bet it cuts like butter. Most likely missed heat treat.

Good Luck and don't give up.

One more observation after looking at that pic again. I seem to notice some blue areas. Possibly from spinning in the bearing. That will cause heat and take the temper right out of the shaft in that spot.