Balancing Xtreme blades help required!

[Lightwavejunkie@mac.com]

Hi everyone,

I recently upgraded a few bits on my cx2 like the xtreme longer inner shaft, the alloy blade grips, alum lower rotor head and xtreme blades.

Since doing this I have little control and think its down to unbalanced blades.

I could clip the stock ones together to balance them but the xtreme ones in the clamps are a different setup, how do i go about balancing these properly to solve my problems please?

Thanks in advance for any advice here.

Andy

[whoanelly]

you know i bought 2 of the CX2 s and did the same thing yur saying to 1 of them and left the other stock,,the one i modified is a piece of crap now and never did fly right again..the stock one is still perfect.but let me know if you find anything out cause im frustrated with it 2..

[carlo_the_wonder_frog]

Extreme rc heads/rotors/blade grips are notorious for not working very well. You will probably not get it to fly until you go back to stock heads and blades.

[Lightwavejunkie@mac.com]

you know i bought 2 of the CX2 s and did the same thing yur saying to 1 of them and left the other stock,,the one i modified is a piece of crap now and never did fly right again..the stock one is still perfect.but let me know if you find anything out cause im frustrated with it 2..

SHE FLIES!!! OK heres what I did.

Stripped all the upgraded parts out and upgraded the motors to the xtreme 180 motors.

While I was gonna have it in bits I thought I might aswell do the lot.

On stripping down I found I had huge play when holding the lower gear on the inner shaft I could twist the shaft a good 5 degrees or so, this could not be good. I also noticed the grub screws used (and supplied with) the rotor heads had worked loose. I retightened and held in place with the stock screws this time.

After making sure the bottom bearing near the gears was properly attached to the flat area again and tight as a mofo, i began reassembly.

I double checked everything and trile checked all was tight at every stage. the blades I did not change from the new xtreme ones I stayed as I was parts wise.

Setting all my trims to centre I tested with power up on the floor to check rotation, adjusted the proportional gain POT as required and put in a fresh charged battery.

This all took about an hour and guess what, yep I can get a 1-2ft hover hands off on the left stick with minor moves on the right to control.

The extra power given by the upgrades also makes it much more responsive so I found myself overcorrecting to start with.

Now shes pretty perfect and I tried another experiment.....

I made a cardboard shelf and stuck it between the skids, I added about 4 or 5 grams of weight in the centre and she became even more stable. I plan to add an airwolf fuselage and retract kit as soon as it arrives and this will add weight (the reason I upgraded all the parts to get more lift in the first place.) So stability should be ok.

It appears lowering the centre of gravity by adding weight below the gears / battery housing makes a huge difference too. The xtreme parts are heavier than stock plastic ones and I believe this shift of C of G was a contributing factor.

My advice in short is check your blades are ok, strip it down and centre your trims.

Rebuild CAREFULLY paying attention to the small but important details like the flat on the inner shaft and rotor head assemblies.

Adjust your proportional pot to get rid of any drift to get it in the ball park and its doable.

With these xtreme parts it is a different beast , twitchier, harder to fly but much more powerful and thus a bit more like a blade 400 or even a raptor 30 to hover.

Hope this long winded reply to my own post gets you somewhere.

The parts have quirks but are not useless, they just need more precise setup than the stock parts.

Hope you get your upgraded cx2 to fly again soon whoanelly.

Thanks for the posts to you both by the way.

Andy

[singingperry]

If parts are aluminum they will bend easily and stay that way until you straighten them. Plastic ones flex and flex back. Next time I'll get a stock cx2 put the boom(the skinny ones)skid xtreme combo on change to xtreme 180 motors with their batteries, modify existing plastic blades so they become blade holders only, get the xtreme lama blades and matching canopy and install,makes for an extremely light and nimble ship. I do recommend getting an LED flybar, one paddle red, the other blue LEDS just for flash. VERY mesmerizing effect. Like looking at a blue lazer with red sparks in it.

[Lightwavejunkie@mac.com]

If parts are aluminum they will bend easily and stay that way until you straighten them. Plastic ones flex and flex back. Next time I'll get a stock cx2 put the boom(the skinny ones)skid xtreme combo on change to xtreme 180 motors with their batteries, modify existing plastic blades so they become blade holders only, get the xtreme lama blades and matching canopy and install,makes for an extremely light and nimble ship. I do recommend getting an LED flybar, one paddle red, the other blue LEDS just for flash. VERY mesmerizing effect. Like looking at a blue lazer with red sparks in it.

Got any photos of that? sounds cool I would like to see that!

[singingperry]

Will in the future but photos won't do it justice, ya gotta be there,glistens like a jewel, ya gotta try it!

[singingperry]

OH YEAH! Now I remember why I logged on. Solved the bent wobbling upper rotor shaft problem. Had some scrap carbon fiber rods that happen to be virtually the same diameter as the original (soft) steel ones. Just snipped to the same length,lightly sanded (very little) down to fit through the bearings but fits as is into the upper rotor head and bottom gear. Carbon fiber will flex and flex back into history. To take the upper rotor head off the steel shaft, loosen the allen screw at the bottom of the head, clamp some vise grips onto the shaft (once off the heli) and twist off the rotor head with your fingers. The bearings fit so snug they won't slide past the slightest little bur on the steel shaft so you might have to sand the burs down completely. You'll note that the stock shaft has notches filed into themd for set screws but the resin in the CF shaft has enough give that putting notches on it won't be necessary, just screw tight. Put it all back together and after balancing the lower extreme blades (way off) NO MORE HELI HULA HOOPS! To balance those blades with the aluminum blade grips just disassemble and reassemble off the rotor heads,balance the balls (no laughing) on your fingers and snip off a sliver of plastic off the heavy end of the blade assembly with a pair of scissors till it balances out. I was ready to give up until I did those two things (balance blades, And carbon fiber upper rotor shaft) Good luck!

[singingperry]

Update: Flew my CX2 outdoors in a10mph wind with some gusts today, was bouncing around indoors off the furniture feeling a little bit too cocky with a nice smooth inner shaft. Outside the battery started losing steam and a gust shoved the heli into the ground under power and sheared off the CF shaft. Broke but not bent, Went to the LHS got a 40" length of .080" cf for under 5 bucks, enough to do 7 shafts. Plenty easy to do once you've done it, took quite a hit to break it so I'm sold on the mod. Beats a wobbling CX2 anyday.

[Lightwavejunkie@mac.com]

nice! like the idea of carbon fibre shaft but im not sure i have the necessary skills to do that myself. I'll keep a look out for that guage CF rod though and i'll experiment.

My airwolf looks and flys awesome now and I highly recommend Mike Manrow for custom Heli fuselages, cheap and awesome looking and the retractable gear works a treat.

Check out Mikes stuff here
http://www.mmanrow.20m.com/

Thanks for all the replies I love my cx2 again!

[singingperry]

with a set of mini screwdrivers and allen wrenches all you need is patience. My CF scrap must have been .090" my LHS stock is .080 and raw looking.A spray coat of paint brought it up to size. If you get lost send me a message. Update: Went ahead and replaced with .080" stock staight on without the paint, spun up even smoother, not as rigid as the previous CF shaft,seems like it was self dampening. Grinning from ear to ear. Took less than 5 minutes to change it out now that I know exactly what to do. To get the frayed end of the freshly cut CF shaft to fit through the bearings just sand with strokes going away from the shaft. Also didn't clamp the set screws on so tight, could have contributed to the shearing effect.

[BigAl07]

Sounds like a VERY good idea! It's very good as long as it doesn't continue to "Shear" off easily. I may have to try this on one of my birds in the near future.

Keep us posted :)

[singingperry]

Been banging around again, got it so crash proof that I'm getting reckless, no more shearing so far.

[waspo]

Nice mod mate! Will try it soon!

[goldslinger]

They do make a Carbon Fiber Tube the exact same diameter of the steel one.

I've made an outer shaft for all four of My CX-2's and they work great!

Just use a centerpunch to knock out the factory steel shaft and re-use the gear.

While I was at it, I cut the C.F. tubing 5mm longer and made a inner shaft out of Titanium also 5mm longer. No more blade/ flybar strikes!

Now, I can run close to stock flybar length (also C.F. flippin' fantastic!) for the added stability and still get good forward flight characteristics without the hesitant affect that the COAXIALS do when they go a few feet.

This with the XTREME (not EXTREME!) GRIPS and blades, and the heli is virtually indestructible. Carbon fiber allows Me more aluminum upgrades for the same weight.