Anyone Else destroy their Extreme ?

[steve28]

Had my new Extreme 50 in the air for the first time this past weekend , had just finished 5th tank breaking in the engine and was leaning it out when I lost a servo arm ( forgot locktite ) the heli crashed , about 350 worth in damage

main blades
flybar
pitch arms
tail boom
main shaft
tail shaft
feather shaft
fan
fan shroud
Rx battery
landing skid rails + one leg
battery tray
both side frames (CF )

so sad , however the canopy wasnt on at the time so I still have a nice paint job : )

[I3DM]

Gotta hate it when this happens due to a small error, but the only thing left to do at this point is learn the lesson - double check that all metal to metal connections are loctited !

Hope you get back to the air soon.. and enjoy this awesome machine.

[psindrup]

Bummer! :(

What was missing Locitite? The screw that holds the servo arm in place?

Peter

[steve28]

yah small error = big destruction , all I can do is learn the lesson and move on , now should I just replace what I broke with spare parts or just buy a new kit what would be more cost effective , is it worth it to get all the extra stuff from the kit and hold on to it in case I need it ?

it was the screw that holds the servo arm in place on the servo oputput knob .

[Foxden]

MG Servo's typically have a small star washer to hold the screw in place, at least that's what I've seen in my Futaba tail gyro 9256 servo, or as you mentioned a dab of blue loctite would surfice.

[steelie600]

oooh bugger my heart goes out to ya, not binned mine yet but it is inevitable now i can do piro flips! hope you get her fixed sharpish and get her in the air. the x-treme is the ****in shizzle, best heli ive ever flown by a long margin and ive just now moved the mixing arms to nutter position and it really is a beast

[steve28]

"nutter position " LOL

[steelie600]

well it is!!!! the less responsive settings as per manual are too soft around 0 pitch, the standard settings are fast and lively and the most responsive settings are bloody bonkers ergo "nutter setting" put it this way it took me 3 tanks to get a proper stable hover again as i was over controlling it to death

[steve28]

also it was my first experience with nitro in my life , first heli was a 450 electric then a 600 electric , sold the 600 because flight time was frustrating I never crashed that one in 20 hours time in the air .
I underestimated the vibration in a nitro and during break in there was oily exhaust residue and dripy fuel all over the place , and what with having to remember the glow plug igniter I actually went into the air 2 times with the igniter still hangin from the heli, also on the 3rd flight I had the RJX pipe crack right in between the mounting holes ( at first when the muffler fell off I thought those bolts had fallen out ) . with the pipe still hangin from the pressure line I landed and found the bolts and nuts still fixed in place to the motor holding the end bits of the pipe ( warrenty ? ) . replaced the pipe and put a few more tanks through but the way things had been going it was almost inevitable that somthing was going to go wrong .

[Zaaaguy72]

Steve,

It sounds like you have quite a lot of vibration, more than normal. Did you dial indicate the clutch and fan. My Xtreme is very smooth, but before I learned to dial indicate the fan and clutch on other nitro's I too had quite a lot of vibration that caused mechanical failures.

Chris

[steve28]

in the air the hei looked smooth and the blade tracking was perfect once I adjusted it . Didnt dial indicate anything . going to rebuild and try again .

[Zaaaguy72]

I would dial indicate your fan and clutch this time, you can drastically reduce high frequency vibrations by doing this and things will tend to stay together better.

[steve28]

if I dial indicate the fan and clutch and I find its not perfect what adjustment is even possible it uses these 2 brass cone shaped collars to help align the fan hub and clutch onto the motor shaft when you tighten the nut

[Alfred]

There is a heap of alignment you can get done.
MA's use the same system and nobody would even consider not to dial indicate the fan.

My Fan started at around 8 thou out.
I was able to get it down to get it down to 0.5 thou, using a metric indicator, as it's graduation is finer and gives you larger reflections of the needle for finer runouts.

The general exeption in the heli community by expirience has now been for a while that for a smooth heli, a fan runout of no more then 1 thou or lower is required.

[steve28]

you mean just the fan , and not the fan hub ?

[Foxden]

You need to dial indicate the hub to make sure it's running true, as well as the fan

[steelie600]

must admit ive not done mine, but ill doit soon just to be sure even tho it runs fine with no vibes!

[Foxden]

Steelie,

If your not expieriancing any vibes, leave it and go burn some fuel. With the upper and lower cone design I haven't dialed my hub or fan and have not had any shakes or vibes with my heli's, the only one I actually took over an hour to dial in was my Gasser. Unless your getting a vibration your generally good to go, I do however snug up the hub and give it a final twist as I'm locking down the nut and a very tiny bit of Triflow oil on my finger tip and I wipe it around both collars then put it together, I've got 4 RJX machines sitting here and helped a friend build his X50 and didn't dial any of them in and they are fine.

[Alfred]

I found that the upper solid cone had some play on my YS50 crankshaft.
Is that by design??

[mondo100]

When i test flew my x50 for the first time it just about shook to bits!.I did not dial the motor fan in so took it apart and checked, but found it was spot on, the rest of the heli was all correct to. Turned out to be a dud batch of fuel.

[Foxden]

I've also seen this happen if the dampers aren't well greased and the spindle allowed to self center.

You almost have to be a mechanical engineer sometimes with these things, however a great bunch of heli enthiustists passing along things that they have run into certainly helps ;)

[mondo100]

I believe you have to use the same washer as the hyper to correct this

[steelie600]

I've also seen this happen if the dampers aren't well greased and the spindle allowed to self center.

You almost have to be a mechanical engineer sometimes with these things, however a great bunch of heli enthiustists passing along things that they have run into certainly helps ;)


i had this today with mine greased the dampers, and all is well with the world. well that was until i buried it in the floor.

basically some thing broke while i was tictocing and ended in an uncontrollable piro. and as i was tail down and only 6 foot off the deck i had no time to save it.:arggg::arggg::thumbup:

damage is, main shaft, blades, spindle, grips, 4 links on head, boom, tail gear box, tail output shaft, tail grip, tail blades, tail control rod(carbon) rear vert fin, belt is cut, one skid mia, tother very bent, landing struts and one side frame:cheers:cheers

will post vid of the carnage in a mo

[Alfred]

Ouch steelie, that would hurt.

Just be careful when you order the CF control rod. Over here, it's sold with the aluminum sleeve only. It's missing the stell threaded rods for both ends plus the ball links. So you would have to order them separate .

Spindle not centering is a common issue on all makes and models.
After greasing installing and letting the Loctite cure overnight. Just use the appropriate Allen key on the opposite of the tight blade holder and spin the shaft a few turns clockwise (so you can't by accident undo the bolt). This should center the spindle. Sometimes a bit of pressure is required if the dampers are very stiff, which is quite common in today's 3D helies.
If that doesn't fix it, then you have a problem in the stiff blade holder.

Usually:
Bearings not fully seated.
Loctite contamination
incorrect spacers
or the bladeholder itself not machined properly.

[steve28]

I finally fixed the heli that I had destroyed . It flys better than ever now and Im so happy . G10 frames this time