Is this clone worth it?

[TexasC]

Originally Posted by foweler

My EXI was, come to find out, running around 3400.
I had a few other issues (crashes) and after finally getting it back up it ate the tailbox bearing. And the belt and a little of the tailbox itself.
I don't think it was a setup issue, I think EXI bearings, or at least that one are junk.
The tail boom was foil thin too I found out. The shafts are soft and bend easily but Aligns don't seem that much stronger.
But the frame and other parts are fine.
I replace most stuff with Align as I go because that is what I can put my hands on, if I can.
I am currently replacing all the grip and tail bearings chasing down a shake.
I will find out if Align bearings hold up any better I guess.

If I had to start from scratch getting back into this hobby throwing down for an Align I wouldn't have made the move.
The clones are probably better for Align, and local hobby shop owners, than they know.

Sorry to hear about the inferior quality of your EXI, but my clone, the ALZRC is of very high quality. Appearance, fit, and finish is excellent. Of course its more expensive than the EXI, but apparently its worth it. https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=396585

[foweler]

I was reading that as you were posting it. Nice bird.

I thought the same about the EXI until it got some mileage. Not much but enough.
A few crashes showed the shaft and boom weakness. A few packs at high headspeed showed the bearings for what they were.

I'm still happy with everything else. I haven't tested the frame yet

On the other hand my HKPro is my starchild. I have stripped its tail drive gears and bent it's shafts but I read that even Align has those problems if you touch the tail down hard enough.
I replaced those and it still hovers like a rock. Maybe I'll get a sack and FLY it soon.

But I have to say yours is nicer. I wish I had known about it 2 months ago.

[Wildcards]

Originally Posted by foweler

I was reading that as you were posting it. Nice bird.

I thought the same about the EXI until it got some mileage. Not much but enough.
A few crashes showed the shaft and boom weakness. A few packs at high headspeed showed the bearings for what they were.

I'm still happy with everything else. I haven't tested the frame yet

On the other hand my HKPro is my starchild. I have stripped its tail drive gears and bent it's shafts but I read that even Align has those problems if you touch the tail down hard enough.
I replaced those and it still hovers like a rock. Maybe I'll get a sack and FLY it soon.

But I have to say yours is nicer. I wish I had known about it 2 months ago.

Where in CA do you live?

[foweler]

Amain ground zero....sunny Chico.
Well, windy and rainy currently.

[xX-Cyanide-Xx]

Originally Posted by ignaceous

So it's safe to say that the clone is a good choice if the intention is scale flying, while having the option to upgrade to quality electronics when ready for intense 3d?

J.I.

I may not be the most experienced flyer, but I've had my good and bad days with a couple of clones. For starters will this be you first helicopter? If so then I think it's a wonderful idea, It helps you get use to flying at minimal expense. I bought my first clone from ebay a few months back. It Is awesome just for learning general flight. That being said they are rotten for 3D, I've had 2 Copter X models now and they just don't cut it for 3D manoeuvres.

Don't get me wrong they will do flips and hover upside down rather well. But if your looking for some more performance. Go for the big branded stuff. I fly my instructors Align heli's, and boy are they amazing. But you could get the clone and then upgrade it a bit at a time. Pay special attention to the Gyros and the bearings. They are generally the flaws in clone heli's.

Hope this helped

[osyhaz]

My sugestion is that if you are going to buy a clone then buy a Tarot (450 Sport is my favorite). I have the align 450 sport and Tarot 450 sport airframes and theres no noticeable difference at all. Obviously, me and most people here are not capable to do real stress test to any part of both to compare them objectively, I mean, measuring in some way, if theres any, it should be nice to see it on youtube. But In my experience with both helis on crashes I saw that similar damages on both, and have noticed really diference with other cheap with no brandname on it. Im talking about head housing in this case. Also, my two sports got damage on the main grips link threads the same way and the align was about $32.00 and the Tarot about $11.00. It was inconceivable to me to spend almost a 300% on almost the same product... no way to me... money is not that easy to find right now...

Now I dont believe on buying align spares having Tarot available. Been a grown up I feel is like backstabbing myself and my family... jeje

About electronics, I havent had align gyros but talking about servos ds410 and 420 are a piece of crap. A friend of mines lasted about 6 flighs on cyclics so to keep him flying I gave him three sg90 servos(about $3.00 each) that lasted a lot more, he flew them for about 3 flights a week for about six months then he quits but still have the helicoter on a shelf. About the 450 mx new motor, Im not sure I got the bad one but for its power, I prefer to spend a couple of bucks more and buy a scorpion that works quite well with a $20.00 hobbywing pentium 40 esc at medium timing (I wont lie, mine got burned at high timing...) I use Castle on my first and second heli, the pentium on the third backup ...
About the 420 tail servo, its kind of weak for medium 3D and mine lasted about 12 flighs.

So if you are going to make an align 450 heli reliable on 3D (at least on the old sport version), you should have to spend about $90.00 on cyclis servos and about $55.00 on a tail servo and I dont see a good deal on that compared to tarot using the correct cheap electronics (as an example the $13.00 gy48v gyro that is great for 3D).

I got an exi, the cheapest version, and it was unreliable on kind of medium 3D to be honest, mine also dismantled in flights doing piroflips, but it is capable to do a lot of 3D, I think it would work fine on an average beginner to learn for more than a year.

We all have diferent opinions about helis but It would be good to comment about what we have proven, not what we read in other threads. To talk and compare it is imperative to test and in this case, in this hobby, test it as hard as possible so we can advise the others on a more acurate way. Dont be a marketing victim...

Yesterday I saw for the first time the ALZRC brand and looks promissing, saw it from TEXAS... looks really nice, like a Tarot to me but sadly I cant test it, Im back in rc cars again and is my new priority...

So you can see what a clone with cheap parts can do, and that I dont work for Tarot, heres a video of mine (including crash) of an used clone I bought on ebay that I dont know the brand, of a pro 450 belted. Using the $13.00 gyro and a $20.00 tail servo. the motor is the align 450 mx and the esc is the exceed rc 40a (about $20.00 or something like that)...

Hopping no HFsanctions for the beer...

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kco_gKodSSk&list=UUgyqlo1Bg4aqidim8Chxv-A&index=7&feature=plcp[/ame]

[Wildcards]

^ the question isnt about if the cheap parts work but rather how long they will work for. I had the same ESC on my first 450 and it lasted about 30 flights before randomly cutting off during flight causing a crash ( the joints were fine ). cheap servos are also notorious for locking up during flight. Nice flying

[foweler]

osyhaz, where are you ordering your spares from?
Do they have a US warehouse to avoid ling waits/foreign fees?

I have replaced with Align in most cases because that is what I can put my hands on in a hurry. And I was just learning what I needed to keep a supply of, and what other sources were available for said supplies.
I don't use HK or EXI because that is what failed in the first place, but I have read that Align isn't always better. Bearings? I'll find out soon enough I guess but I know the shafts hold up a little better, but not a lot. The bearings in some cases are my own fault for beating them out like a chimpanzee instead of just applying a little heat and letting them fall out.
Things like the AL hubs on the belt drives and gears on the shaft I wonder about.
They don't look that much different, though they are different.

I have 4 GY48's now, the black case for $9, and when I put my first one on, with a Hyperion Atlas DS11-GCB Fully Programmable Micro Digital Servo, $29 Amain, I didn't notice any difference between that and my old GY-401 and the Align DS520 I am using on my HK450Pro. I believe that was about $160 for the gyro 9 or 10 years ago and $50 for the servo. Is it worth it? I doubt it.
After a crash the Hyperion showed it weak cases but I had bought 2 and am currently using the second. I need to make a bracket to use with servo tape if I ever want to use the first one again, unless I find myself gutting it to service the second one of course.

I am using Detrum 9G servos on my belt and I will say they leave a lot to be desired. A lot of slop and one stripped on me already in a crash. I guess I'll see if the fail in fight soon enough. I have around 30 flights on that bird now. It took less than that for the tailbox bearing, which I hadn't beat up, to go away.
I ponied up for HS65HB on the Pro and they are way tight, almost no slop in the head.
I'm running a Hobbymate with an Exceed Proton 40 on the belt and a Turnigy 2218 with a Hobbywing Pentium 60 on the pro. I believe I have the timing set to the middle on both. I only have about 15 or 20 flights (hovers) on the Pro so we'll see I guess. I picked up a couple of spare motors and Proton 40's so I hope they end up being decent in the long run. If not, I'm going to be crashing and fixing anyway, all part of the plan, and they still all cost less than a single Align setup.

I wholeheartedly agree with marketing hype. But I know sometimes there are some points to it, though usually not all the way across the board.

I could care less about the beer as long as you are risking noone but yourself and people who know the dangers and accept them. We are adults and we own our own bodies.
Even in the case of the bicycle that rode by in the distance, or was that a car, you had it more under control than most. It would have taken a fluke of a mechanical or electronic failure to have it go and get someone that far away, something every one of us risks dead sober every time we spool up.

How much did that crash cost you and what did it take to get everything back to perfect?

[osyhaz]

Originally Posted by foweler

osyhaz, where are you ordering your spares from?
Do they have a US warehouse to avoid ling waits/foreign fees?

I have replaced with Align in most cases because that is what I can put my hands on in a hurry. And I was just learning what I needed to keep a supply of, and what other sources were available for said supplies.
?

JAJA! The crash was because I was all by myself in the field and heard that a a car came close so I got kind of nervous. If you see, on the maneuver where I crashed wasnt that hard compared to the others on this flight. The heli crashed about ten feets from my car also, but trust me, I fly as far as possible when theres people and I Know myself (more or less) my capabilities and sometimes I trust more my throttle hold than my skills...

Sorry, Im not the tipical heli hobbist... My 450 crashes has an average cost of about $12.00. Hope I can remember every detail of what I do...

1- Buy the plastic canopy that cost sometimes cents or ! and something dollars, from hobby king or x heli. It would be great to practice and develop your artistic skills... Paint wont sticks well but its just to practice...

2- It might sounds crazy but changing the tailboom supports to a trex 500 supports size and placing it as back as possible in the tailboom using the 450 pro tailboom brace, will help a lot to avoid the changing tailboom work that takes a lot of time to do. Sometimes I crash five, six or more times and dont have to change the boom, maybe the tailshaft that is very easy. This is what I use... you have to cut it but longer than the originals... http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...t_H50036_.html

3- Use the 325mm fiber glass blades from hobbypartz $3.36!!! It will work great, thats the only ones I use and I dont think that buying aligns or sabs on that size of heli will gonna make me fly better (on my Protos 500, sab blades did a noticeable difference compared to a $14.00 fiber glass blades on that size but on 450 didnt see any difference). I use the with my sorpion, castle ice 40 and 11t pinion. and one of about fifty pairs got broken in the air doing 3D. So they are not perfect, but I think still good option. http://www.hobbypartz.com/60p-pro-3252.html

4- The most frecuent parts that gets broken are the main gear, the spindle (feathering shaft), main shaft, tailboom, tailshaft, sometimes the tailblades and landing skids... I use to buy all that at FMT on ebay. Theres a lot of stores at a good price on ebay but I stay with them. The last time I tried other store, the spindle hole wasnt long enough to fit my 2 x 6 screw...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/F00217-5-5pc...item45f9a287c6

5- The mg90s from hobby king or hobbypartz works quite good on cyclics and is about $6.00 each. Sometimes they burns aligns burns too and faster and the difference on price is huge!!!

6- About tail servos, I use the futaba 9257 as the most reliable, although some of mines got burned too... Im testing a hd3688 from hobbyking that is the one on the video and feels good, but theres some issues with the gears... Im not sure about them... but while works, it holds the tail as good as the futaba 9257....

7- About the bearings... I use whatever is available on helidirect I havnt buy bearings long time ago. Be careful, most of my bearings problems when I started was because I aplied some windex or something like that to clean the tailblades and the bearings recieved some of it and rusted it or something. The thing is that since I maintain by tail blades dirty( jeje ), I dont remember having bearings broblem anymore...

As you see, I use a lot of cheap stuff that works fine, and others not that cheap like my motors and tail servo, but this is because of 3D, I need power to do some maneuvers, but what is more important, I need power and reliability on the tail to save the heli when I screw it up. But for sport flying It might not be that necessary.
I have placed that MG90s on the tail of beginners helicoters that works fine for learning purposes.

Theres something I cant miss to tell you...
If I crash and the spindle bends, I always change the main grips screws. There we are talking about an eye or maybe a life. And I use Kasama or outrage screws. I dont trust microheli on that.

Remember the front pulley... also from fmt...

Its kind of a shame but even having 10 or 20 main chafts available at home at about $1.25 each, sometimes I feel so lazy that if the main gear is intact, I bend back the main shaft... jejejeje also the tail shaft!!! just avoiding to remove screws i think... theres a tecnique to do it quite easy.

Long and off topic... hope it will be helpfull...
Good luck!
If you need any other information or advice, feel free to ask.

Sorry about my english...

[czynot]

Geez all the talk about cheap clone exploding in midair. There is nothing pulling on the frame to rip it apart. There are twist but nothing strong enough to rip a carbon frame and steel screws.

Hmmm... I wonder why your heli eploded? Maybe because you are using 3.00 wood, FG blades or 5.00 CF blades at 3400rpms?
Welll put together heli WILL NOT EXPLODE. Running cheap blades at high speed will explode because the blades fail at the root and look like heli exploded. This happen almost 100% of the time.
Get yourself a set of 40.00 blades and see if your heli will explode again.
One thing i learn is not to go cheap on blades. it is like tires on your car. Everything depend on it. Than 2nd are electronics. you can go cheap but they wont last long.

My final thoughts are. Some clones are same if not better than original. If clones are bad? You will see alot of heli falling out of the sky and no one will buy them. if you go with clone? get good blades and electronics.
You get what you pay. Go dirt cheap and you will endup paying more on the long run.

[osyhaz]

In my case, I have used a lot of cheap blades and the root problem happened me once as I remember after about 50 or 75 pairs. All the other times my helicopter exploded was because bad or lack of thread lock or the screw got broken inside the spindle so I think that a $40.00 blades wont help me on that... what really solved me from that is to change the maingrips screws after almost every crash, using good quality 2 x 6 screws like mikado or outrage (microheli is not good enough to my perception) and using plenty of red thread lock. I think that when that screw gets broken is because of a fracture as a result of a prior crash, also have to be careful when screwing it so it wont get metal fatigue. So to me, using that high quality screws that involves some cents each crash, thats the best investment!

I think a cheap 3D capable helicopter, will help more on developing most people skills bacuse theres less stress on flying it. It maybe different on phenomenom kids, they have the advantage that they dont have to work to repair the helis so they can use their new neurones as relax as on the sim, no matter how big, or expensive the heli they are flying is.

Another thing about cheap electronics is that you dont get that heavy duty anger when they stops working...when a $80.00 tail servo burned up on one of my helis, I felt something that I cant explain... I think the word is helpless, and I cant figure out what is gonna be my feeling if it happens my $140.00 JR8900g servo... Hope never happens, Im not using it anyway, Im sticked to my few 450's.

Also two hitecs hs65mg bot burned with a diference of two weeks. Thats disgusting!
I bought the first and when I received the first the second got burned... It has made me so angry that I took one of the few new mg90s I have always available and placed it on the cyclic together with the other two hitecs and to be honest, wont see a differennce.

People has to be carefull about what they get from what they read on forums, marketing is all over the place... I have heard ridiculous things that newbies defends with their lives like that a 600 needs three satelites remote receivers to fly, when I have tested my old DX7 with one satelite in real life about 1.5 km with cero failsafe and 7km investing less than $1.00 on aluminum foil and a folder...

[foweler]

I'm running -$10 CF blades and while I admit I haven't done anything to stress them outside of running them @ 3400 they seem to be holding up fine.

I would say that there is a very reliable trend in cheap electronics failing but one can't make an absolute out of it. I'm sure there are some very good cheap or at least reasonably priced electronics out there.

You don't get what you pay for in name brand stuff, the LHS or factory approved dealer gets a big cut of what you pay for.
Not that I'm against that in every case. I like to have a LHS to go to when I need something so I buy stuff from them even when I don't have to. I just don't want that to be my only choice.

I hear you about the sense of betrayal one feels when an expensive part fails. You would expect a rep to appear like they do in State Farm commercials and say "Here, let me fix that for you, have a nice lunch on us while you wait"
I'm sure that's where the rage comes from when someone is bashing "Align Quality".

I have to look into these mg90's. Are they as lash free as the HS65hb's?

[osyhaz]

Originally Posted by foweler

I'm running -$10 CF blades and while I admit I haven't done anything to stress them outside of running them @ 3400 they seem to be holding up fine.

I would say that there is a very reliable trend in cheap electronics failing but one can't make an absolute out of it. I'm sure there are some very good cheap or at least reasonably priced electronics out there.

You don't get what you pay for in name brand stuff, the LHS or factory approved dealer gets a big cut of what you pay for.
Not that I'm against that in every case. I like to have a LHS to go to when I need something so I buy stuff from them even when I don't have to. I just don't want that to be my only choice.

I hear you about the sense of betrayal one feels when an expensive part fails. You would expect a rep to appear like they do in State Farm commercials and say "Here, let me fix that for you, have a nice lunch on us while you wait"
I'm sure that's where the rage comes from when someone is bashing "Align Quality".

I have to look into these mg90's. Are they as lash free as the HS65hb's?

I feel the mg90s just nice. I think I saw in youtube some test video where they say something like one side is faster than the other talking about input but in flight I dont feel anything like that. Remember that on a 450 the wind can make more effect in the heli than a not so perfect servo on cyclics so I think it is not big deal...

I like to be fair so I must recognize that the only thing I was covered with a replacement warranty was a castle ice 100. Castle did it great!
But I think I have a kind of a particular case. I live in Honduras, Central America, and the postal service here is not reliable, and theres no LHS in my city, not even in this country... So I have to pay for a mailbox service in Florida where I receive what I use to buy in USA or China, and the mailbox service works as a private curier that charges me about $5.00 per pound for sending it to Honduras plus custom duties... At the end I pay abot 35 to 50% more... and to claim and send it back to USA it is an oddysey. And must pay custom again for the claimed item... So I see no good bussiness on buying expensive parts, only when it is extremely required in stuff like tail servos for bigger than 450 helis. I havent found anything reliable and testing stuff on that bigger helis will end being really expensive.
So I prefer to buy cheap, and throw it if it doesnt work anymore, but it doesnt happen too often...

What you say about the brands stuff is what many people dont gets..., Big brands has a lot of marketing expenses and some people in the middle between the factory and the last customer or user, and everybody in the middle has to win... And that happens on almost everything we use, not only this hobby.
But thats ok... thats how the system works... It is all about on what place you wanna be on that system...

Try the servos man, they will work fine...

[foweler]

I'm going to
I have some Corona 939's coming already but HKPro kits too. I bought for spares but I love being surrounded by running helis. Will most likely build out.
My EXI is supposed to be my test bed so I will probably get the mg90's and try them on it first.

I respect marketing and advertising for what it is. It greases the wheels of the market discovery process.
Before Google it saved a lot of running around and calling to find out about pricing and availability. It still does for most people on most things, although net pricing has evened out pricing on identicle brands for the most part.
Probably the most important market function of marketing is to make people aware of the existence of products in the first place. Not so much outside of the realm of the mainstream though.
We might see an add for something heli we didn't know existed on this site but we probably won't see it in the Sunday paper with the garden products coming out.

I have every respect for marketing and for purveyors of specialized products like the LHS. Once again, I just don't want, through cries of stuff like "We need protection (a legal cartel) from those darn direct Chinese importers! " leading to a huge reduction in individual market choices.
That is never good for the consumer, just the cartel members, regardless of what might say to sell it to voters.
Far fetched to think it would happen in just the hobby business but they would certainly join in when the cries go out for broad brush legislation by a more visible sector of the economy.
Sent from my VTAB1008 using Tapatalk

[jerry1711]

hi that heli is a keep rc heli it is a clone of 450 I have 2 of them value hobby sells the bare bones no electronics foe 33.00

this helis is decent flys well the gyro is probably a keep 2052 gyro
the only thing I would check is the tail gear pulley I haad to driill and put a set screw in the gear the belt rides on I had to do the same thing on my align 450 so much for align quality

[PcChip]

That heli linked in the first post is absolute trash junk garbage.

Get a Tarot Super Combo, or a VWINRC kit and add your own electronics