OC Heli Tech repaired my Trex 600EFL

[JDMeyer]

I have been flying RC Helis for several years now. I am an intermediate flyer. I have an Align Trex 500CF equipped with a HeliCommand 3A and a Spartan ds760 3D Gyro. I broke several main rotor blades and replaced a couple of damaged servos in crashes. I wanted to get a flybarless Heli however I don’t have the time to build it and wanted it to be set up correctly. I decided to find someone to build an Align Trex 600EFL Pro. I found a company on the web last year that claimed to build Helis, RC & ME in Texas. I contacted Tim the owner and he assured me that he could build the 600EFL and I would have it in 3 weeks so he charged my credit card. Three months later, lots of excuses, no Heli, and finally I had to call the fraud division of my credit card company to reverse the charges.

I now started to search the web for a company that didn’t have a lot of complaints against them and that claimed that they could build Helis. I found a company in England, Heliguy, that built the 600EFL, programmed the DX8 and sent it in about a month. I took it out of the shipping box and charged all the batteries. The first thing I noticed that was odd was the start up procedure. “Turn on the trans, turn on the receiver, set the throttle control to one half, plug in the main Batts, lower throttle”. I had set all switches to the 0 pos. I advanced the throttle control and The heli lifted into the air and spun around in a circle. I moved the rudder control to the left to stop the spin. I looked at Heliguy’s instructions that showed the gyro was set to -60% for the 0 pos, 0% for the 1 pos and 60% for the 2 pos. In the align setup it says that 60% is a good starting place for the Gyro so I assumed the
-60% was for advanced flyers and decided to use the 60% mode which seemed to work ok. After about 10 minutes of flying the tail would sometimes vibrate. This was a fast vibration about ½ inch. At 30 minutes of flight time the heli was about 6 feet in the air and it suddenly shook violently and I cut the throttle and it landed hard. The only broken parts were the rear stabilizer and one rear tail blade. However the main drive gear and the tail umbrella gear were seriously damaged. I contacted Heliguy about returning it for repair. They encouraged me to find someone in the US to repair it.

I found a web page, http://www.ochelitech.com/ that repairs helis. I contacted Will and sent the 600 to him. This is the report I got from Will, the repair shop, OC Heli Tech

“Starting at the head, the head was loose, pulled the grips off and the thrust bearings were in backwards and the balls fell out. Most of the screws were all loose all over the heli, no loctite, grease where there should be loctite. Main shaft bearings were destroyed, tail was loctited poorly and binding badly. So basically, I need to go through the complete heli before any flight will be done.”

Will repaired the heli and reprogrammed the DX8 and all I can say is it flies beautifully. And the start-up sequence is now like my other helicopters. This cost was $335.52, parts, labor and shipping, and a bag of broken parts.

Heliguy says “The fact that the switch you talk of has no effect on the tail. Unless changes have been made to the helicommand settings and transmitter settings. It left for you with that switch set to auto-trim. Did you hook up the helicommand unit to a PC at all? Or did anyone work on the helicopter before you flew it? Equally, did you press at anytime the button on the actual helicommand unit?” He goes on to say “the thrust bearings in the main head are impossible to get in backwards.”

All I know is something went wrong and I think Heilguy should cover some of the cost under warrantee. Heliguy answer “From experience and the information you have provided us I cannot foresee this being covered by warranty.”

[Larry227]

Welcome to the forum. Not sure what to say about your issue except it's exactly why I don't trust anyone to work on my heli except me.

[biffster]

Build your own. Pretty straight forward. You build it ... You trust it. Good luck.

[JDMeyer]

I flew the repaired 600 EFL Heli all day saturday and it is really smooth. It is so well trimmed that when I let the controls go it will hover for a few seconds before drifting. It is more stable in the air than my T-rex 500CF equipped with a HeliCommand 3A and a Spartan ds760 3D Gyro. I have suspected that the ds760 is designed for a heaver Heli, I always got some tail wagging. However the Helicommand 3A holds the 500CF in one place for as long as you want.
I am very satisfied with the work that OC TECH performed on my 600EFL, and Will follows direction. I asked to have the Flight mode set up easy for Normal mode and Stunt mode for the 2 and 3 pos, which he did.

I would recommend OC TECH to build a Heli for the people like me that love to fly and don't have the time to build the kits.

[rstekeur]

Originally Posted by biffster

Build your own. Pretty straight forward. You build it ... You trust it. Good luck.

+1 besides, that half the fun

[superrmario]

Originally Posted by JDMeyer

I have been flying RC Helis for several years now. I am an intermediate flyer. I have an Align Trex 500CF equipped with a HeliCommand 3A and a Spartan ds760 3D Gyro. I broke several main rotor blades and replaced a couple of damaged servos in crashes. I wanted to get a flybarless Heli however I don’t have the time to build it and wanted it to be set up correctly. I decided to find someone to build an Align Trex 600EFL Pro. I found a company on the web last year that claimed to build Helis, RC & ME in Texas. I contacted Tim the owner and he assured me that he could build the 600EFL and I would have it in 3 weeks so he charged my credit card. Three months later, lots of excuses, no Heli, and finally I had to call the fraud division of my credit card company to reverse the charges.

I now started to search the web for a company that didn’t have a lot of complaints against them and that claimed that they could build Helis. I found a company in England, Heliguy, that built the 600EFL, programmed the DX8 and sent it in about a month. I took it out of the shipping box and charged all the batteries. The first thing I noticed that was odd was the start up procedure. “Turn on the trans, turn on the receiver, set the throttle control to one half, plug in the main Batts, lower throttle”. I had set all switches to the 0 pos. I advanced the throttle control and The heli lifted into the air and spun around in a circle. I moved the rudder control to the left to stop the spin. I looked at Heliguy’s instructions that showed the gyro was set to -60% for the 0 pos, 0% for the 1 pos and 60% for the 2 pos. In the align setup it says that 60% is a good starting place for the Gyro so I assumed the
-60% was for advanced flyers and decided to use the 60% mode which seemed to work ok. After about 10 minutes of flying the tail would sometimes vibrate. This was a fast vibration about ½ inch. At 30 minutes of flight time the heli was about 6 feet in the air and it suddenly shook violently and I cut the throttle and it landed hard. The only broken parts were the rear stabilizer and one rear tail blade. However the main drive gear and the tail umbrella gear were seriously damaged. I contacted Heliguy about returning it for repair. They encouraged me to find someone in the US to repair it.

I found a web page, http://www.ochelitech.com/ that repairs helis. I contacted Will and sent the 600 to him. This is the report I got from Will, the repair shop, OC Heli Tech

“Starting at the head, the head was loose, pulled the grips off and the thrust bearings were in backwards and the balls fell out. Most of the screws were all loose all over the heli, no loctite, grease where there should be loctite. Main shaft bearings were destroyed, tail was loctited poorly and binding badly. So basically, I need to go through the complete heli before any flight will be done.”

Will repaired the heli and reprogrammed the DX8 and all I can say is it flies beautifully. And the start-up sequence is now like my other helicopters. This cost was $335.52, parts, labor and shipping, and a bag of broken parts.

Heliguy says “The fact that the switch you talk of has no effect on the tail. Unless changes have been made to the helicommand settings and transmitter settings. It left for you with that switch set to auto-trim. Did you hook up the helicommand unit to a PC at all? Or did anyone work on the helicopter before you flew it? Equally, did you press at anytime the button on the actual helicommand unit?” He goes on to say “the thrust bearings in the main head are impossible to get in backwards.”

All I know is something went wrong and I think Heilguy should cover some of the cost under warrantee. Heliguy answer “From experience and the information you have provided us I cannot foresee this being covered by warranty.”

Don't want to sounds rude but you really need to find time to build your helis.

There are a few reasons, but two main reasons are safety, and crash cost.

Basicly if you don't know how to build it or fix it, how would you know something was wrong with it?

Again, i am not trying to be rude, just honest.



Sent from my Droid Charge using Tapatalk.

[JDMeyer]

To answer the question, if one doesn't build a Heli how can you repair it?
I have rebuilt many machines. I like to get a good working unit first. For example I bought a working motorcycle and took it apart and rebuilt it for high performance. Increased its quarter mile time by 2 seconds. I have bought working Helis and have taken them apart and rebuilt them after crashes. I didn’t want to build a Flybarless 600E from scratch. I like flying and learning how each control affects the flying. That is why I was looking for someone skilled that could build it and set it up so I could study it.
I know people that like to build kits and enjoy the process of learning about how it works without anyone’s help. That is not me.

[JDMeyer]

I needed a quieter heli than my T-Rex 600EFL pro. I like to practice in the early morning in my backyard however I have neighbors near by and the 600 is pretty noisy. I bought several Walkera V450D01 RTF for this purpose. They fly ok however the screws come loose all over the HelI after a few flights and some of the screws are hard to get to. You have to be very careful in tightening the screws in the servo arms because they can easily strip if you over tighten them. If you hit the main rotor blades on almost anything you pretty much destroy the heli. I am used to a tougher heli, such as my Trex 500cf which I have crashed and rebuilt many times.

I decided to have Will build me a T-rex 450 proV2 3GX and he set it up on my Spektrum DX8. This way I can fly both the 600 and 450 with the same transmitter. I am very happy with the performance of this heli, truly a wonderful machine. Will is a master at setting up helis, so smooth and balanced, makes the Walkera V450D01 a toy in comparison.