New cheap extended inner shaft option

[Luvmyhelis]

Hey guys I have been working on this for a while looking for a solution for easy affordible extended inner shafts to upgrade so we dont enounter the dreaded blade strike.
I spent a year and tried quite a few different options. I tried available shafts from Rcrvd (horrible), Helitec-rc (gone out of business), and custom builders, plus ordering in my own shaft stock and playing with different varieties of metal to find something that works and that is easily avialable for us here on the forums. To be honest. I had hit a brick wall. Without buying some expensive equipment, and considering rod loss due to shaft imperfections, whether bent in ship or it didn't meet my quality standards. Either way things were looking bad. I even had other guys step in and try to manufacture them for me. What I ended up with was still so so quality and expensive by the time it reached the guy who actually needed it in time.

So, what I came up with was purely by accident I have to admit. I had developed a new gyromixer boardless brushless custom 3s Cx3 that I was test flying with new xtreme folding grip mods and xtreme 55deg blades with my last prototype. I run my servo links on hole #4 and have modified my swash for greater angles. I also run a custom lightweight flybar. In my test flight even with an extended inner shaft that added 2 inches between the upper and lower blades I induced a blade strike right off the bat. So I looked into my extensive parts bin and pulled out a new Trex 450 pro flybar shaft. When I mic'd it out it was a full 2mm, and tempered steel. One of my beefs with other custom shafts is the use of .077 dia steel stock or similar. They rattle in the bearings. Or the steel itself is soft.
This 2mm shaft fit like a glove.

All I had to do is cut the threaded ends off with a dremel, cut my flats and install the shaft with a homemade spacer at the top and it works perfectly.

And the cost?
A mere .43 cents. Yeah, you heard me!

No $7, No $11 or $12. But only .43cents. Plus shipping of coarse. But you pay for ship on about everything. All that is needed is a cheap dremel.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/%5F%5F11539%5F%5FGT450PRO%5FStabilizer%5FBar.html

And oh yeah, I had to build my own spacer at top inbetween the upper bearing support and the upper head. Big deal. I cut up some 3mm cf rod, then an equal length of 5mm cf rod. C.A. glued them on the ends to stop the rod from splitting and installed it. The whole project cost me less than $2 and took half an hour. Since I have already crashed it a few times and it passed the "me test" I figured I would finally post this up.

I hope you guys can use these and save some money while you are at it.

Pic 1 is the part tag. Pic 2 is a Lttg 2.0 extended shaft laying underneath the new shaft in its shipping bag. Pic 3 is the carbonfibre rod I used to fill the extension. Most guys just use fuel tubing here. It works. Pic 4 is of the heli I just built to use it on. Notice the distance inbetween the blade sets.

[cdrsteve]

Excellent work LuvMyHelis (as always)!! Any thoughts about manufacturing a few of these for sale?

[CrashCanuck]

Nice job, sometimes a little luck beats all the smarts you can throw at a problem. Any problem with the 2mm rod fitting on the bottom gear or the top rotor head?

Thanks

[Luvmyhelis]

None, fits like a glove. One guy told me his last shipment of the shafts werent tempered though. So maybe, another source would be an actual trex pro shaft? Still cheap though.

But I have crashed this little monster several times this last few days and it even trashed a gear, and skids. Still running straight. My skills need some improvement on re-learning how to operate this with all the improvements. Either that or I need to actually quit trying to fly it like my cp heli. lollz

[Junior]

very nice build! i was wondering, what swaashplate are you running on your new build there? is it one of those german made ones that can be used in either a BCX or a lama?

[Luvmyhelis]

Yes, if you are thinking of the correct one. Skytec.