Walkera Dragonfly 22D - here's a warning for cheapos like me

[jodaboda]

I bought a new Dragonfly 22D as an inexpensive way to get into the hobby. It looks nice, it has some nice aluminum, metal tail rotor gears. I think some people may be thinking about buying this heli since there are a whole lot available out there for not a lot of money. Here is my experience so far.

Take it out of the box. Read the manual. Charge the battery. Do as much set-up as I know. Let 'er rip. Adjust delay/limit. Let 'er rip. Adjust delay/limit. Let 'er rip. Adjust trim. Let 'er rip. Adjust trim. Let 'er rip. ETC. AD NAUSEUM.

Let me explain what happens immediately following any of the above said "rippings". Counter-clockwise yaw from hell. Apparently it's not so uncommon:

Here is one thread: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/Dragonfly_22D___i_Need_Help/m_2380859/tm.htm

Anyway, being a non-expert (hell, I'm not even a novice yet), it took me over an hour to figure out that the gear on the tail rotor shaft should actually be attached to the tail rotor shaft in some way. It just spun around, free as a bird, light as rain.

So I tried loctite. I got it in there pretty good. I played a couple hours on the sim (still FMS... waiting for G3 to arrive), then went to bed. In the morning, the heli worked! It works! It works! It works! It... oh fudge. There it goes.

Take that last paragraph, insert here for try two: "..."

Try three. This time, I took the whole assembly out. I took off the gear and grinded the shaft for a better loctite grip. I filed down the grooves on the gear (because they look pretty smashed/contorted, maybe just from being low-quality and not aligning properly with the other gear), and I used my dremel tool to grind a ridge on the side of the gear, so that the pin (that sticks out from the shaft) would catch and hopefully lock. I loctite-ed the shaft, put the gear on, put loctite on both sides of it, including over the pin, assembled the rest, and came back in side for some more FMS action. That brings you up to speed. Tomorrow we will see the results.

If this doesn't work, I will have to order some parts or get very innovative with my repairs.

Needless to say, I have logged only a few minutes of actual flight, most of which was just making REALLY SURE that the trim was ALL THE WAY to the right. So I'm disappointed with this heli, and am starting to realize...

You forum-goers are right... these things are toys. And toys-for-which-parts-are-hard-to-come-by at that.

I wanted a cheap way to get into the hobby, and I won't be able to afford something good (over $600, right?) for quite some time. But for now I'm out $100 AND haven't got into the hobby yet.

By the way, does anyone know a good way to drill very accurately through very small, cylindrical things (obviously with a very small bit)? I'm thinking I may have to drill through the gear itself and through the shaft, to pin them together.

[jodaboda]

That seemed to work okay, but another part broke off the tail, and the smaller gear on the main gear wore out. This caused the same spinning behavior, and I STILL haven't got to fly my heli...

I did a lot of searching around for parts, and though there are a few places that carry parts, only two have everything (including the tail axle). The best is here:

http://store.metamerchant.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?

I didn't even order on the website. I contacted them directly and told them what I need. They are very fast, and though the prices are a little higher, they don't charge for shipping. Send an email to Jason at ebay@metamerchant.com telling him what you need.

Other online merchants charge less, but are out of stock on a lot of items, take a long time to ship, charge a lot for shipping ($20 on a 2oz package), and take a long time to respond to emails (if they respond at all).

I hope this is helpful to some of you out there with the 22D.

[solorsix]

Yes it is definately true.. you need to get burned once before you will buy a decent helicopter.

[Mr_Nils]

I bought a Walkera 22A (22D with cp) Hornet2 clone.
After 4 weeks of adjustment and new electronic +some original hornet2 parts it worked.

It´s now retierd after a boom-strike and replaced with a T-rex and an e-sky FP for indoor. :D

[futura]

Same 22a story here.....it fly's but it took a long time, and I only got it to fly fair after I got alot more experience seting up three other heli's.

I'm getting ready to replace the sloppy head parts with parts from the new Night Ranger 3D. I have three other heli's (bought after the walkera fiasco) but can't stand to have the walkera just sit there. It won't have very many walkera parts on it when I'm done though.

I think I'll go with an electric motor tail too and ditch that geared job all together.

There just is no real cheap way under $300 - $350 to get into RC Heli's and have a good experience. A Blade CP is $230 but then $25 for the performance inhancement upgrade and $55 for a good Lipo....$65 for a cheap lipo charger.

Good thing about the BCP is, for $230 you get a heli that is truly RTF (in most cases). If I had gotten a BCP first, I may still only have one helicopter....a BCP.

Check out a Honey Bee CP2....they are less expensive and generally the same helicopter....though not as many happy stories as with the Blade CP.

[MONDO50M]

Have you tried www.rcandme.com for your parts? They seem to have a good supply of all Walkera parts. I ordered blades from them and got them in 2 days. Take a look anyway.

[futura]

Hmmm....those prices are a bit higher than ChanRC.... but replacing walkera 22 parts with walkera 22 parts is like washing dishes with sewer water.