Not real sure I am going to keep the DFC head

[Raydee]

I am thinking I may convert my 550 back to the standard head. When doing some piro flips with my 550 I swear I hear what sounds like little boom strikes. When I land the heli and check it over everything looks fine. On top of that the blade noise I have with the DFC head is like no other noise I have heard with any other heli I have ever owned. It sounds like the blades are being stressed to the max. At first I thought I was just hearing things but even my buddy commented on the noises that were coming from my heli last night. I did have a issue when I first flew the heli where the main gear was rubbing on the carbon servo plates when I would do hard collective maneuvers but I shimmed the main gear so that would not happen again. I am not sure if that is possibly the noise that I am hearing that sounds kinda like a mini boom strike. I think I will just stick the original head on the heli and see if I still hear that noise. There are so many people that say that the DFC head is a very poor design so not I am getting nervous to fly the darn heli.

[Fredneck]

Would like to know some details in your setup, like blades both main and tail, motor, headspeed, and dampeners.:)

[Raydee]

I am running the stock mains and tails. Stock motor, 2600 headspeed and the hard dampeners that come with the DFC head.

[Raydee]

I wonder if its possible to use the stock head with the DFC shortened main shaft?

[Fredneck]

Man it is hard to imagine that with what you are running setup wise, that you are boom striking, and with no obvious damage. I'm not implying that you are not and I know you said it's just a sound.
Are you running blades tighter than normal to eliminate lead-lag flex?
You say you have hard dampers. Are they in fact POM (delrin)?
Could your blades be damaged in a way that is not so obvious? I had this on a 450 with carbon Align blades. Internal damage at the root that could only be noticed if I manualy flexed them.

Other than that I would start looking elsewhere for contact, maybe in the main gearing. :)

[Raydee]

I take back what I said, I just took the head apart and they are NOT in fact the hard delrin POM dampeners. I am sure that is what I have to be hearing. I am a little suprised that the head being as new as it is did not come with the POM dampeners. Looks like this heli will be grounded until I can get a set.

[Fredneck]

You can start there for sure.
I feel there are plenty of DFC kits flying with the rubber dampers that are causing some of the issues that come up from time to time. Most people probably don't fly as hard and will never have a problem.

It appears that not all DFC upgrade kits were sent out with soft dampers.
http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=431190

I hope that is the root of your issue.

[Raydee]

Yeah the dampeners in my DFC head are VERY soft, that would def explain why it sounds like the blades are going to come apart in the air. They are probably flexing like crazy and I got real lucky that I didn't have a boom strike even though it sounded like I did a couple times.

[ryem3]

If you did have a boom strike it HAD to leave a mark on the boom. Would be easy to check about where the blades would hit, even if they only nicked it. Any evidence? I'm running the DFC, need to check which dampers I have...

[Bonkievan]

http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?p=4082501#post4082501

It seems as though what you get in DFC kits, whether its new or old, is totally random......:thumbdown:

[Raydee]

Yeah it looks that way. Can't really expect much from Align I guess. I was just telling my flying buddy how Align has really came a long way but there are still lots of problems.

[Raydee]

After some thought and a lot of reading I think I am going back to the Stock V2 head for now. In my opinion the POM dampeners are just a bandaid for a poor head design. I may be totally wrong and if so I can always put the DFC head back on later but my 500EFL has the stock head and flies perfectly. I can live with the higher head look, shoot my Logo head is real high and that heli flips and rolls faster than any heli I have ever flown.

[chrismechanic]

put a compass hv6 head on the 550 and never look back......:thumbup:
chris

[1004ron]

put a compass hv6 head on the 550 and never look back......:thumbup:
chris
That's the one I'd get if I felt the urge to splurge on a new head.