Trex 600L Dominator Review

[RC/DC_5000]

Maybe when I have more money I can get a backup set. How much do your favorite servos cost? My replacement servos should be here this week so the 600L may finally be ready for more than hovering.

My charger and batteries got here today. I got the full tilt charger now. 40A on a 6s pack. And the 3300-60C Turnigy. They barellllllllly fit. I forgot to think about the velcro straps... so I'm glad I only went for the 3300. The 60C packs are pretty big. I daisy chain two boards to charge 8 packs at once. So the two Turnigy packs cost 100 bucks to make 12s. I can charge 8 of them in about 48 minutes.

[xrayray]

are you going to charge at the field too?

My servo's are $40 but the $80 ones are the premium brushless ones.

[RC/DC_5000]

Those servos do look good. I like how the website describes every tiny detail about them. And a good price too unlike all the other servo bandit companies. KST just released an 8 series servo. Its looking pretty good as well.

I'm not sure if I'll charge at the field or just buy more packs. These Turnigy packs were good advice because the cost alone. I mean I can wire up a 12s stick for 100 bucks. That and this charger really take the sting out of running 12s.

I may just buy more packs :-)

[Gladius]

A deep cycle marine battery only costs $100 too though. Like most things in life, I've found a balanced approach works best!

[RC/DC_5000]

The deep cell has crossed my mind as well. Especially if I could park my truck pretty close to the field.

What do you charge the deep cell with?

[Gladius]

I use a normal car battery charger that I already had, but if you make the right connectors, you can actually use your Lipo charger. Set the battery type to lead-acid, program in your parameters, and off you go.

[RC/DC_5000]

Interesting. That does sound like the best way to do it. I'll definitely look more into that. Thanks.

[Gladius]

No problem. I believe my deep cycle is 85AH, and I can get 10-12 charges of 3000mah packs before it needs to get recharged.

[RC/DC_5000]

Nice. I found a guy who puts his two deep cell batteries in parallel and charges at the field. Thats pretty cool lol.

This new high powered charger has opened up new possibilities :-)

[xrayray]

or in series so you got full charging power at 24v

[RC/DC_5000]

TAIL SERVO FAILED DURING FLIGHT TODAY.
THIS HELICOPTER IS BEING RETURNED.

[RC/DC_5000]

TAIL SERVO FAILED DURING FLIGHT TODAY.
THIS HELICOPTER IS BEING RETURNED.

[xrayray]

Originally Posted by RC/DC_5000

Dammm... Thats it man. The full 40A at the field... can you imagine?

I just charged 8 of my 450L batteries in 20 minutes lol. That'd be insane at the field. We'd need someone to lug around two car batteries though?

haha I was thinking like a stroller or cart that you can place the charger on.

Originally Posted by RC/DC_5000

Align came through with 3 brand new cyclic servos in the time it took to send them in and get them back. Excellent turn around and great support. I didn't even have to follow up on them.

The new servos are definitely different. They sound different and move different.
Got it all together and feeling much better about these servos already.

Still an Align fan here... just a little rough start.

Yeah, been there too. We're all Align guys at the field except for Carbon Fiber and Reckless lol

I hope to see that dominator in the air soon!

[Smoggie]

That's very good service. Did they say anything about what the fault was?

[CrashNburn420]

I leave my deep cycles in my truck, use a jumper cable to connect them to your charger. If you get a noco gen 2 charger, you can leave it hooked up to the deeps permanently. Just plug it when you get home to recharge both batteries. Sylvester has a thread on here about this setup, works great!

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=374446

[RC/DC_5000]

TAIL SERVO FAILED DURING FLIGHT TODAY.
THIS HELICOPTER IS BEING RETURNED.

[RC/DC_5000]

I'm moving onto a Goblin 630 with Vbar. In reflection of building the Trex600L, I'll leave my insights into how it can be improved. Align has so much potential to be the best helicopter company on the planet. The ultimate value bird. But it still requires attention to detail.

Trex 600L
-carbon rudder linkage rod is too long. With the linkage rod adjusted as short as possible- you can not achieve rate mode hover at 90* servo horn and Gpro rudder trim at center. You will have to peg the software rudder center trim. (Or move the servo horn away from 90).

-Canopy holes need better alignment. The second set of holes need to be a tiny bit further back. Having them so close increases the risk of cracking the canopy for nothing. Also, its just a PITA to put the canopy on.

-750mx has too much torque for those plastic TT gears. It either needs stronger gears or a smaller motor.

BL 815/855 servos need a total recall. Back to the drawing board.

GPro seems to zap the servos when toggling setup menu. They act like they get the electric chair treatment when you flip through the menu. This can't be good for a servo that already has extreme reliability problems.

Reputation, Reputation, Reputation. Pre-release, send 20 kits to reputable dealers for firsthand experience from the customers view. Let them build it and find all the problems. Then adjust and release the product. Align always releases first and lets the public pick it apart.

A multi-million dollar company can't get a third grader to translate the manual into decent English? WTF. All of Align's legal disclaimers are in perfect English. Looking out for number one I see. How about putting some effort into the American market.

[IrvingWashington]

Originally Posted by RC/DC_5000

I'm moving onto a Goblin 630 with Vbar. In reflection of building the Trex600L, I'll leave my insights into how it can be improved. Align has so much potential to be the best helicopter company on the planet. The ultimate value bird. But it still requires attention to detail.

Trex 600L
-carbon rudder linkage rod is too long. With the linkage rod adjusted as short as possible- you can not achieve rate mode hover at 90* servo horn and Gpro rudder trim at center. You will have to peg the software rudder center trim. (Or move the servo horn away from 90).

-Canopy holes need better alignment. The second set of holes need to be a tiny bit further back. Having them so close increases the risk of cracking the canopy for nothing. Also, its just a PITA to put the canopy on.

-750mx has too much torque for those plastic TT gears. It either needs stronger gears or a smaller motor.

BL 815/855 servos need a total recall. Back to the drawing board.

GPro seems to zap the servos when toggling setup menu. They act like they get the electric chair treatment when you flip through the menu. This can't be good for a servo that already has extreme reliability problems.

Reputation, Reputation, Reputation. Pre-release, send 20 kits to reputable dealers for firsthand experience from the customers view. Let them build it and find all the problems. Then adjust and release the product. Align always releases first and lets the public pick it apart.

A multi-million dollar company can't get a third grader to translate the manual into decent English? WTF. All of Align's legal disclaimers are in perfect English. Looking out for number one I see. How about putting some effort into the American market.

A bunch of totally avoidable mistakes... and I'll spend double the money for a different kit.

Whoever owns Align, should fire the guy who runs Align.

Having about 60 flights in mine now.

1. Carbon rudder fits perfectly to reach 90º servo and the manual indicated angle in tail blades.

2. My canopy holes are perfectly positioned. Its true It takes about 10 flights to figure out how to put it fast and easy, but no issues putting the canopy on now. Try puting first the forth two and later the back two holes.

3. 750mx. So is too much power an issue?... crazy thing. You have governor gain and autorotation bailout gain and throtle response configuration too, at least in the edge 80hv. No gear issues here, you always can limit your throtle if you think the motor is too powerful for your needs.

4. Gpro is awesome. The 8xx servos are so fast that it could seem there are something wrong with the noise they make stoping the cyclic and rudder so abruptly when doing the setup or even when doing the initialization before the flight (usually you get blade noise like if you where hit the blade tip with something when doing initialization before flight due to sharp and sudden cyclic movement, but lol, thats not a bad thing XD).

5. Its true that servos can be fault out of the box, and some of them needed a recall, it seems there was a deffective batch or something. If your servo is working properly it will keep working, not a reiliability issue, more likely a quality control issue I think.

6. Im not very good at english, but never ever had any problem understanding any align manual I have had. That includes the old 600 nitro pro, 500 esp, 500L and 600L. All the align manuals I've seen are pretty much the same and they are very good, they could be better thats for sure, like everything else.

[RC/DC_5000]

You described the tail pretty vaguely... the remark is that the tail control rod does not allow the Gpro to hover in rate mode without pegging the software trim. Because you didn't mention this, I'll assume you didn't bother to setup and test hover in rate mode and thus, didn't experience any problems. PS. If you fly really hard backwards... it matters. The "angle" the manual indicates is not even close to actually holding a heading in rate mode.

Before you disagree... take your 600L out of HH mode and into rate mode. Spool it up and try to hover. Note which way the tail spins around cause it can't hold a heading.

Too much power? I said torque. The 750mx motor is great yes... and it makes 4400 watts of power. But it also exerts extra rotational force, known as torque into those gears. If you talk to some people who fly it really hard... the 600 gears are pretty soft and get little white stress lines in the black plastic. Not strong enough. It has nothing to do with power or how it feels to me. It has to do with the black plastic gears getting white stress lines in them from the 700 class motor can wedged in that frame. You saw a motor intended for a 700 class heli get shoehorned into the frame.. did you see the drivetrain upgraded to withstand it?

The rest we pretty much agree on.

[IrvingWashington]

About the angle for the tail blades, its true, I didnt test it without HH, so I guess you are right. I still have about 1mm free each side to tight the links more. May I ask what's the angle you find to hold the tail without HH?

About the gears, its true they get that white marks but I think that could be normal wear. The thing is that if the gear is black and the mark is white you notice it. I remember when I replaced a white main gear in my trex 600 nitro, it had about 300-400 flights and never saw white dust in it, but when I looked closely the teeth were missing like 0,5mm from the bottom to the tip but I never before noticed that wearing (due to oil and the gears being white I guess).

Also, the gear ratio was changed indeed to acommodate the 750mx, but its true its not harder or stronger gears.

I also have seen wearing in the gears of other helis, I remember my old synergy n9 for example, but in that case there was no white dust, there was black dust XD in a black gear.