CNC upgrades.....first things first

[futura]

With so many beautiful CNC and Carbon bits available for the Shogun, I'm wondering what to get first.

For those of you that have upgraded.....

what CNC bit provided the most "bang for the buck" eg stability, manuverability or efficiency.

I know about the belt drive and may go there eventually. I'm more interested in sticking to the stock configuration of a drive shaft for now.

I'll be nixing the zbends ASAP and really am wondering if I should pay more attention up front to the tail or main rotter head.

This heli is so much more stable mechanically stock than my Hornet II.......I'm actually having fun and flying instead of tinkering...but I'm always looking for a better widget.

I've got about $100 for this first upgrade order....so not looking to fully replace the main rotor or anything so drastic as that.

thanks all

[RCMADHELI]

Whatever you do, you probably should also first upgrade to the belt drive (already for less than $20,-!!!) Have another look at this thread: http://www.helifreak.com/about3643.html some people have done it themselves and with good results. I also received pictures from Captain-Pete and it looked great for under $20,-

Let's say you would invest in other nice bits first, but say you loose control over the heli because of a malfunction in the tail...... you may have bent/distroyed your nice new CNC hopup(s).... I have destroyed quite a few nice hopups because I couldn't get the setup good enough :arggg: with my Piccolo Pro in the past..... after my last crash I was so fed up with it :twisted: that I threw the heli aside and bought a Hummingbird Elite CP, which was easy to setup and flew much better than the Piccolo....

I have just tried to get the parts for the belt drive this week in Holland but no luck so I will order them from the States over the weekend.

Anyway I hope to see more replies as well since I would like to know what's best to order next after my belt drive..... maybe better tail rotor blade holders? Let's see.

[Jungle Bob]

Hi
Just thought I would throw my opinion into the ring. Disconnect everything from your stock swashplate but leave the mainshaft in. Manually move your swashplate around on the shaft and see how freely it 'doesnt' move. Upgrade your swashplate to an ali cnc and feel the difference...it's huge. Smooth swashplate equals smooth head input. Belt drive next...I have trashed 6 tail drive shafts (some of which happened in flight!) with crashes leading to expensive repairs. Brushless motor and esc then you are done, the rest is 'bling' Oh, tail gear box...get an ali one as the stock plastic one is a weak area. Happy flying

[futura]

I agree with those as being the first upgrades. I also got rid of the play in the head with CNC mixers washout set getting rid of the zbends and found that to be a perfect match to what EF's cnc swash does.

I don't agree that the belt drive, EF's, Microheli's, Hubdaves's, are an essential upgrade....non have the efficiency of the shaft drive. I use microheli's "4bearging/CF shaft/blue input gear" package with microheli blue beveled tail gear set and titanium shaft. I put them on close to 45 hours of flight ago and its showing very little wear. I've only had to adjust them three times...(perfect mesh is critical)

I have both of those belt drives. They fly great....but....I loose almost 4 minutes of flying and my JGF 400DH gets considerably more hot.

I can certainly see the need for belt drive if you hit the tail often or get into some serious grass. I just can't get over how much drag the belt adds...I may be setting it up wrong or something. It flies great though...just less efficient.

BTW...
the stock input gear is junk and I had two fail in flight :( before I upgraded to the microheli drive. I've been through 12 stock input gears durring the first 100 hours.

[darkside212]

I would suggest the cyclone 400 heli....It is on special for $169 and is basically a SE shogun. I am biased though because I sell them ;)

[Danyboy]

Hi folks,

I'd like to add a further question here...

What are your expiriences with the standard Tail-Pitch-Slider?

Reason for the question being, that mine is simply worn after around 40 battery-charges (~6-7hrs) and has quite some play on the tail-rotor's axle, which leaves a *lot* of play on the tailrotor's pitch, guestimate of around 3-5°...
It is definitely flyable, but I understand now, what the option of "play in tail-rotor-steering" in the Sim is... ;)

But before upgrading to any fancy alu-mod, I'd rather like to know, whether I'm fighting a design flaw or had simply a bad piece...
If the former, I'd rather save the bucks and invest them later, when I'll be able to feel the difference of a tuning-upgrade...
If the latter, well, tuning-time... :)

Thanks a lot for your opinions!

Cheers,

Daniel

[futura]

Well, two things....

one, the part wears about as fast as you have experienced....faster if you have vibrations.

two, IMO the tail pitch lever and slider design is flawed. In many cases, the pin falls out and really should be secured better up front (pre first flight modification)

It does work though and replacing with OEM parts is rather inexpensive when it gets worn.

I recommend this for a permanent solution...$60 for the set!

Microheli - MH-4193SE & MH-4026

http://www.microheli.com/mhshop/images/MH-4193SE_a.jpg
http://www.microheli.com/mhshop/images/MH-4026_a.jpg