Wrench69
11-29-2007, 08:45 AM
I searched for lube but I got no definite answer for what is safe for use in a heli.
What kind of grease/lube should I use. Silcon/Ceramic/moly?
Which are safe to use?
I hope this is ok to post links I live in S.Korea.
I found this lubricant for bearings. Would this work for the ep8
http://buyrc.co.kr/product_html/product_detail.asp?product_number=618
http://buyrc.co.kr/product_html/product_detail.asp?product_number=5813
Grease for bearings
http://buyrc.co.kr/product_html/product_detail.asp?product_number=4528
http://buyrc.co.kr/product_html/product_detail.asp?product_number=4529
http://buyrc.co.kr/product_html/product_detail.asp?product_number=5456
Pinecone
11-29-2007, 01:08 PM
You don't really need to lube the bearings, they come with grease in them.
You do need to use a light oil on the swash and washout slider, and tail slider. Any good light oil will be fine. The RC car guys have some good ones.
You need a silicone oil for the tail belt. Again, the RC car shock oil works fine and is pure silicone oil.
Well, ya know, ball bearing people like to sell ball bearings, naturally. Grease people like to sell grease. Grease is cheaper. If there was a grease that would make a ball bearing last forever... I don't think the ball bearing people would use it in their product. I know, I'm cynical. I guess it's because, if I owned the bearing company I wouldn't use that "forever" grease myself. This probably relates to greed. Oh well.
As a user of bearings, I know that the only thing separating any bearing from its demise is, time. I like all of my helis, I have ten, but there are a few that I especially like and if I had my way they would last forever. I know better. But it would really pain me to see any of them looking like a coat hanger factory after a tornado. It would especially gripe me if a ball bearing was the cause of it. But ya know, as time goes on, and the thing runs and runs and runs, it's easy to forget that time is running out for all the ball bearings. One of them will be the first. I can push that date farther away by making life comfortable for the ball bearings. Ball bearings, like people, don't like to work when it's real hot. Ball bearings get hot when they have to slide their butts around on that raceway. There's friction, and that cranks up the temperature. The idea of grease is to provide a little separation between the raceway and the ball. The balls can whiz around the raceway with much less aggravation if they do it on something silky-smooth and soft. That's the job of grease.
If you plan on crashing your heli anytime soon then you most likely will not have any bearing problem. It's always possible that one will get past the greaser without any grease. Depending on where that ends up in your heli, you might have a problem with that before you crash it. It may be difficult to tell if a bearing has been greased or not. Although it's pretty unlikely that a bearing will cause a wreck before you do, it's possible and you have to ask yourself if the price of the heli is low enough to warrant ignoring the possibility of a bearing-caused wreck. If the heli is expensive then why take a chance?
I use Lubriplate EMB on all the bearings. You can read about it here.
http://www.lubriplate.com/pdf/pds/greases/EMB.pdf
You can order it from Rick's, here.
http://www.ronlund.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=heli&Category_Code=Lubricants
It's about $5.
Also on that page, right under the grease, there is a "Greaser". That thing is kinda expensive, about $40.
I like to tinker so I have a greaser. If a heli is able to survive my pilotage for any length of time, I celebrate by tearing it down and cleaning all its parts, re-greasing the bearings and back together and the whole setup dog and pony show. I get a big kick out of getting it all tuned up with a clean frame and happy bearings. Maybe it's a subconscious effort to wash all my flying goofs off the spirit of the heli. Whatever, I like to tinker.