600e Main Gear - Machined or molded?

[Gregor99]

Due to an ESC mishap, I'm replacing my main gear. I found these two at Amain and ordered the molded one. But now I'm wondering if the machined one is worth the extra dough.


Molded $8.99

http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/cPath/2_375_1189/products_id/142752/n/Compass-Model-Molded-Main-Gear


Machined $17.49
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/cPath/2_375_1189/products_id/142750/n/Compass-Model-Machined-Main-Gear

[Ah Clem]

Assuming there are no other differences, I would opt for the machined one.

The original main gears in the Knight .50/Knight Pro were delrin and did not wear at all.

[Finless]

Crashed my 600e TWICE and did not strip a main gear! Of course you should always be ready to hit hold! Your finger should be on it the entire time you fly... Not just main gears but hitting hold when you know your going in, saves a lot of other parts! Heck I saved a full set of blades once! LUCKY but I do attribute it to hitting hold on a E heli as fast as you can!

Bob

[Gregor99]

Of course you should always be ready to hit hold! Your finger should be on it the entire time you fly...

It happened on the ground. I have a HobbyWing Platinum in GOV mode. One thing I don't like about the HW is each time the heli starts up, the GOV overshoots the headspeed by quite a bit, then quickly settles down. The momentary HS increase sounds bad, and causes the tail to wag. Once it settles back down, the tail and GOV work fine.

I was trying to get around the overshoot problem and tried first spooling up with a ramped curve in normal mode. Then I'd switch to idle 1 that has a flat curve for the gov. Spool up went fine, but when I switched from normal to idle 1, the throttle shot up rapidily and tore a tooth off. The normal mode curve had too big a gap at the time I switched. I would have done better to more closely match the throttle position at the point I was going to switch. But I wasn't worried about it because when I switch between idle1 and idle 2 the ramp between the high and low gov settings is very gradual. I guess the normal mode hadn't kicked in the GOV yet.

[webstep1]

I've used both the molded and machined main gears. I've stripped the old black type, a couple molded and at least 1 machined - all in flight. I currently have a machined in my K3D and a molded in my K600e. I cannot tell the difference and have since started ordering the molded version for spares.

[Gregor99]

Thanks Webster. Good to know the molded ones are worth using. Do you know what caused your gears to strip in-flight?

[webstep1]

I can only guess the Delrin main gears are getting weakened by certain events then stripping later.

Some events I can point to: One of the stripped ones on the K3D was a couple weeks after I did an auto with a blown clutch and didn't know it until after I hit throttle hold, it sounded angry. Another was a couple weeks after a crash. One on the K600e was soon after a straight to idle 2 spool with a HW 100HV - there is not much soft start on that thing. Each time on inspection they were fine but didn't live long afterwards.

I'd blame it on OE but there is no gear mesh adjustment on either Knights. Compass needs to offer a case discount on those suckers though and I'm thinking about some sort of modern art sculpture for the dead ones.