Brand New Blade CX2 - New Version With Improvements!

[BryMeister]

Hello everyone. This is my first post at Helifreak.com. I have been into R/C aircraft for a couple of months now. I have a park flyer airplane and today, I have a brand new Blade CX2. :lol: To my pleasent surprise, it seems that E-Flite has quietly introduced some improvements in the CX2!

The first thing is that they now have the inner shaft w/ Aluminum head / hub as a standard load-out. They have also installed PTC re-settable fuses in line with both motors. Last, they have now gone away from the 4-in-1 control unit in favor of a separate Spektrum AR6100e 2.4 GHz DSM2 Microlite receiver unit and a 3-in-1 control unit. This new 3-in-1 unit allows the ability to add a heading-lock type gyro. There isn't much more information available on that, though. The part is not yet listed on their web site. What is listed is a new Aluminum CNC battery tray!

I am attaching some pictures of the new setup. I have already run through the initial checks and put it through it's maiden flight. It was rock solid!



L8R!

[bullaculla]

Wow, thats very cool :shock:
No change in price?
BTW, welcome to the freak! :mrgreen:

[BryMeister]

Thanks! I have been hanging around for a couple of weeks and thought that I 'might' be the first one to share this new information. I think I got lucky, because most of the LHS' near me said that the new units were on backorder. E-Flite must have only released a few of the new units initially.

I am going to upgrade the CX2 as much as I can, including getting the new head-lock gyro when it is available. I plan to get the Blade 400 when it comes out in November and, probably next fall, I will start building my first T-Rex V2 from scratch. I love flying Helis!:lolol

All of the above is based on me not blowing my whole budget on a new fixed-wing, though!

L8R

[BryMeister]

Oh, and no change in price. I got it for $189 at a LHS.

[rabidguineapig]

O...M...G... nice, can't believe it has the ar6100e :WOW

[BryMeister]

Being fairly new to RC Helis, I don't know much yet about the new AR6100e. I take it from your post that this is a good unit?

[rabidguineapig]

Yep, the ar6100e is very nice, its about $60 on its own, and I would use it in any one of helis. If you ever decide to upgrade the radio to a DX7 you can use that receiver with the new radio. Great deal on the heli, wish I had one of those instead of my old cx to play around with :YeaBaby:

[BryMeister]

Here is the URL that has the same information that was inserted into the CX2 manual on the new mods.

http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Support.aspx?ProdID=EFLH1250

[ev0l]

pretty cool stuff. Welcome to the sickness that is RC Heli's.

Nice changes to a great "ice breaker" chopper as I call it. That thing is responsable for a lot of folks getting involved in heli's myself included. I had the original CX, and I still own a CX2:)

[bullaculla]

Yep, CXs are great! I still have two!
Brymeister, people are impressed that they are putting the AR6000 in the CX2 because its a great RX, costs $60, and you can use it in any mini heli.
So when you move on to that SE, you can take that RX with you. before, you couldn't cannibalize anything from these little RFT helis.

[BryMeister]

I appreciate the clarification. I thought that it must be something like that. I don't know that I would want to cannibalize it, though. I can see keeping this thing around for a while, especially if I do the Aluminum upgrades and heading lock gyro. I wonder what kind of gyro they will feature? There isn't any information available on it yet at Horizon or E-Flite.

[rabidguineapig]

They're doing a gyro for the CX2???? what??? why???

[BryMeister]

Here is the information on the head-lock gyro straight from E-Flite:

All other functions (including arming and adjustments) of the 3-in-1 unit will be the same as those outlined for the 4-in-1 unit throughout the manual. However, the 3-in-1 unit also features unique software that allows the main motor mixer and rate-mode piezo gyro to be disabled. This, along with the separate Spektrum AR6100e receiver (SPMAR6100E), allows an optional heading lock-type gyro (sold separately) to be used for yaw control. Please visit the Blade CX2 (EFLH1250) product page on www.E-fliteRC.com (http://www.e-fliterc.com/) or www.HorizonHobby.com (http://www.horizonhobby.com/) and click on the “Support” tab for more information and instructions regarding the installation and use of a heading lock gyro.

I am very interested to learn more.

[BryMeister]

Here is a video I made of the new CX2's maiden flight. Pardon the newbie flying, please. :lol: (Though I do finally get a nice circular FF thing going at the end)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=594175382495894146

[NogaroHeli]

Wow, I wish I could fly nose in that well when I first started with a CX2! Good job, you're going to love that thing!

[rabidguineapig]

Even if they have some sort of gyro for it, I wouldn't buy it, not worth it on a CX2

[BryMeister]

To me, it will depend upon (a) how much it costs, (b) how good it is, and, to a lesser degree, (c) how it is mounted on the CX2 frame.

I agree that paying $100+ for a good Futaba gyro for a CX2 doesn't make sense. I have a very slight yaw problem that can be tamed by proper adjustment of the gain and proportional mix, using the trim tabs and simply flying the tail.

On the other hand, though, there are plenty of folks who just want a stable CX2 to fly around and have no intention of moving up to a CCPM single-rotor Heli. Folks like that may wish to purchase this upgrade. There are a lot of people who wish that some compony would make a bigger, more powerful and more stable coaxial Heli.