Trex 600L Dominator Review

[RC/DC_5000]

I finished my 600L and since I didn't have any insight into it when I bought it, I thought I'd share my experience and lessons. I used a RX pack that split into two leads. One for the Gpro and one for the RX battery port (S.BUS). I have a 2200 RX pack and its so light and fits so easy. At 83mah consumed per hard flight... the RX pack is hard to deny.

What I liked-
Man this thing looks good. The 750mx is one mean looking motor and can pump out 6 horsepower continuous and 9.7 horsepower for 5 seconds. Love the way they braced the motor, you couldn't move it with a pry bar. I'd rather have the motor totally immobilized as it is versus adjustable motor mounts. This helicopter is built to rip. The servos look like works of art and operate so quiet and efficient. The Gpro is awesome and very easy to setup and very sweet to fly. The blades are beautiful and almost perfectly balanced. The aluminum parts have excellent tolerances. Did I say this thing looks awesome? lol. It does.

What I didn't like-
The plastic molded into the carbon fiber frame for the rudder servo peeled up a little bit and I didn't over torque the screws. It works and its sturdy, it just isn't perfect. The tail boom support clamp does not fully contact the tail boom. It should come with a nylon sleeve a la KDE Directs version.

I needed two replacement cyclic servos due to bad servos from the start. Align quickly replaced the servos citing a bad batch at the factory. The new ones are amazing. I've had MKS servos do the same thing and they cited the same reason. So it is what it is.

Overall, I'm still very happy and overwhelmed with how bad a$$ this thing is. Once you fly it, all the little nitpicking goes away. It is a 700 class motor in a 600 frame. What more can I say? The servos are so powerful and I'd definitely give them their own battery. I have a 2200mah installed in these pictures. Its so light and small... weight was never a concern.

I put on the 550 vertical stabilizer cause its white and easier to see. You just need to shave off about 10mm so it doesn't bang the ground. Apparently the 550 tail boom is higher up. I decided not to cheap out on batteries and ordered the Pulse 3700 45C. Can't beat this helicopter for flight times.

I used Align's Serial adapter and think they intended it to be strapped against the leading battery. It looks pretty clean and is a perfect fit and reach. I put all the power wires on one side and the antenna/signal wires on the other. (I've been hovering around with my 1450 batteries in series from my 450L)

I think I will also permanently wire the Bluetooth module to the frame and possibly get the speed fuselage. Pretty happy with this thing and would definitely recommend it.

[Smoggie]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
The 'peeling up' plastic on the tail servo mount is because the screws that hold the servo are a bit long and they come through and push the outer plastic away from the frame. These parts are all identical to the 'old' 600 Pro which has the exact same issue.
The fix is easy, either use shorter screws or put a couple of washers under the heads so that they dont come all the way through.
Careful application of heat from a hot air gun or boiling water will allow the plastic to be flattened down again if it doesnt go down itself when you take out the screws.

[RC/DC_5000]

Thanks for telling me that. I did just as you said and got it flat with a couple washers and a heat gun. Only the forward set of screws had the problem. Wonder if Align intended the screws to come through the plastic a bit and they failed to do so. The back two tried to push through but didn't raise the plastic.

Thanks again.

[Smoggie]

Good that it worked for you.

I really like the way my 600 Pro flies.
It's upgraded to similar spec as the Dominator with the bigger motor and brushless servos. I use it as a testbed for my 'tweaking' urges, so it's currently running with a stretched tail boom that allows me to run 630mm main blades and 105mm tails, plus I've just installed a standard FBL head off a Blade 550X in place of the Align DFC head.

[RC/DC_5000]

Thats cool. I see Align met us in the middle and released the FL head. Shorter head like DFC but with the swash followers for support. I know the DFC can be a real PITA for some.

It sure is a sweet model for the money. Pretty impressed how they can get it all together with a budget price. It definitely isn't budget performance. :-)

Unfortunately my Pulse batteries were out of stock.. but within the week I'll be looking forward to flying this thing in big air.

[Smoggie]

The DFC head always worked ok for me, the only slight issue i had was that it wears out the ball links on the end of the pitch arms. The 550X head was just to satisfy my curiosity really, but it worked so well I left in on.

Here it is:

[RC/DC_5000]

Looks good. I imagine you got the FL style head on your Align before Align released it. I like the idea of the the compact head with the added support.

I also never had any problems with DFC but this will be my first 600 class DFC. Makes sense that the big old disc would be more difficult for those pitch links to muscle around.

[Smoggie]

The problem with the DFC pitch links is that any movement of the blade grips due to flexing of the head dampers and any play in the bearings tries to twist the rigid DFC links, which in turn puts lots of stress on the ball link at the bottom of the DFC link.

This is a fundamental weakness of the rigid link DFC design. Align minimise the problem by using rock hard plastic for the head dampers and too be honest while the solution is a bit crude it works well enough. You just need to check on wear in the ball links and head bearings regularly.

[RC/DC_5000]

Agreed. I'll be sure and keep a good eye on the head assembly. Definitely don't want any catastrophic crashes with this new helicopter.

I can handle a rough auto crash landing... but not a rekit lol. God please no not a rekit. My poor old wallet couldn't understand.

[xrayray]

Hey bro I have seen some guy on here run the DFC head with FL grips and the V1 washout base with arms. He used turnbuckles for the grips. And used the standard 600 mainshaft.

He called it the "hybrid" dfc head but I can't find it.

[RC/DC_5000]

Oh wow. That sounds cool. I'd love to see that. I'll see if I can find it.

[RC/DC_5000]

Thought that I should update this thread and note that I've now had three BL 815 servos fail. Two servos that failed were from the kit.. and the third was a replacement. I remember that one guy who posted a video of his Trex 700 TOP problems and I literally had the exact the same thing happen to me. Its also possible that there were only two real servo failures. When the servos are in CCPM, its hard to diagnose which one is doing the dirty work. But this is a fact... the first BL 815 stopped moving entirely. Then the replacement for it stopped moving entirely. There is no misdiagnosing that. The third servo may have been misdiagnosed and just the replacement beginning to act up.

I know the airframe, ESC, and motor in this kit are remarkable and I'm pretty bummed to have to seek a full refund because the BL 815 servos are absolutely horribly unsafe and unreliable. If Align will refund the servos, I'd keep the rest of the kit. But I doubt that, so the whole thing is probably going back.

All skepticism at this point, but I really don't think the Gpro is at fault as some have proposed. I have the Gpro working very well on my 450L. IMO, these BL 815 servos need a total recall. There are way too many stories like this about these servos.

[xrayray]

dang that sucks D!!!!!

If you ever need good standard size servo's these are the super servo version of what I have.

http://www.promodeler.com/products/PDRS74245BLHV




then these ones are the ones I have on my heli

[RC/DC_5000]

I like the case on those servos... they look good. And I'm assuming they will work for more than 2 minutes without jamming up and frying out.

I'm totally mind blown that two servos in a row fried out within minutes of opening them from the box. First a servo from the kit...and then the replacement servo. I'm now testing a different servo on that same port of the Gpro... it hasn't fried yet. I doubt its the Gpro.

BL 815 servos cost 155 dollars a piece. wtf?

[Smoggie]

That's really disappointing. I wonder who makes these servos for Align, i think Savox used to do Align's servos but align may have changes supplier.

[Heli biggie]

And still no flight videos from align? Sorry your having servo trouble. That sucks!

[RC/DC_5000]

Thanks guys. In no way am I bashing Align, I'm probably their biggest fanboy. Gotta say the rest of the kit is so sweet.

After some thought and staring at this beautiful aircraft on my dresser, I decided to give it another whirl and sent all three cyclic servos out to Align for replacement.

They definitely don't mess around with fixing issues. I appreciate their customer support and only wish they'd put more attention to detail in their initial distribution.

The kit is so sweet and such a great deal. My advice would be to test your 8 series servos at the full 8.4 volts thoroughly on the bench. If you find a defect, contact Align USA, NOT the store you bought it from.

You can send them all the servos... and they will figure it out. Don't mess around with solving it yourself one at a time.

From what I know of Align, they will eventually get the consistency going at the factory.

[xrayray]

ok this time around, you might want to look inside the case just to check if the mini PCB has shorting problems with the metal casing.

[RC/DC_5000]

Ok will do.. you're probably right. It had to be something shorting out. Like the factory was installing the components out of the tolerance. Because the servos didn't last but 5 minutes at the most.

[xrayray]

I still recommend that you get a set of Promodeler servo's and go flying man!

I have more confidence in my flying because these are just really locked in!! I even bought a second set of 3 servos!

They are assembled in the good ol' U.S. of A! Any issues and John will take care of you.