NIB Blade MCX (yellow) -- rcvr flakey? can I fix it?

[RootlessAgrarian]

Hi all

I decided to add a little yellow MCX to our fleet for indoor winter flying.

Ordered direct from HH (maybe a mistake in hindsight). Took a while for UPS to get the toy to our remote rural location, but we unboxed yesterday and flew it this morning.

Unf it seemed to malf after just a few minutes of flying. Everything was dandy, we were remarking on how stable and well-behaved it was, then suddenly it stuttered in flight and then lost control and hit a wall.

Much anxious examination of the heli which seemed to have survived undamaged (even though the motors wouldn't stop despite having the throttle at zero). Servos still working, blades still spin up smoothly, no teeth missing :-) After some more cautious bench testing it turns out that the light on the controller board keeps blinking out at random -- not steady blinking, just cutting out every so often.

When the light goes out, it seems that connection to the controller is lost. So the heli behaves very strangely -- flies just fine then "twitches" -- or keeps going in its last direction ignoring the controller for a while, then "comes to its senses" and behaves for a few sec, then the light goes out again and it goes haywire, falls out of the sky, hits the ceiling...

Funny thing is that when the light is out, seems like I can get it to come on again by handling the heli -- tilting it sideways, picking it up. It's as if there's a very marginal connection someplace. I have checked all the little connectors (that I could see and identify) and they all seem to be plugged in. What next? If it's a bad solder joint we're hooped 'cos I don't have any iron tiny enough to work on that submini board.

I bound the heli to an identical controller (from my well-loved nano qx) and everything was just as strangely broken, so I don't think it's the controller. I'm pretty sure it's something intermittent failing in the receiver on the heli. Best guess anyway.

We are in Canada and a return to HH is going to be silly expensive. Can I fix this myself??? is this a known problem with an obvious fix that most people know about already? can I replace the controller board w/o specialised microsurgical tools?

[Ferret Dad]

Contact HH by phone and tell them what happened. They've helped me and may others in the past, even sending out new parts free of charge. Worth a shot.

Mike

[cspcrx]

call them. I had an issue with an MCX2 and they were great!

[RootlessAgrarian]

I did call HH and talked to a friendly guy who said he would send me a new controller card, even gave some advice on installation.

That was 2 weeks ago... still hoping and waiting. I notice that the "5 in 1" controller card for the v2 model is not yet available, hope that doesn't mean there's a worldwide shortage! so frustrating to have the brand new heli out of action.

I have searched online and found no source for this controller card. Starting to have an anxious feeling ... did I buy a defunct product, end of the line, no spare parts??

[bigedp51]

RootlessAgrarian

I'm going to ask you a stupid question because the same thing happened to me.

Have you checked and replaced your transmitter batteries ?

I have a mcx2 and nano qx and every time it happened it was the batteries and losing binding with the heli.

I upgraded my transmitters with a DX6i for my Blade helicopters and a Fly Sky for my V911 helicopters that give you much better control "AND" transmitter battery voltage on their digital readout.

Good luck and keep us informed.

P.S. Being a well informed American I have to ask if you have tried duct tape to fix your Canadian problem?



"If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy"

[RootlessAgrarian]

OK, time went by and no controller board appeared in the mail so I sent HH an email asking what was happening.

This is the answer:

The main board for the MCX is on back order. We will have one on back order for you. When the boards arrive in stock, one will be shipped to you at no charge. Here is the invoice for the order:

As I suspected (after extensive googling for them) these boards are in short supply worldwide. In fact, the going price of a replacement 5-in-1 control board online is $60 or so -- more than some vendors are selling the whole RTF heli for! I suspect they've had a bad production run and are scrambling to keep up with the warranty replacements.

And yes, the radio batteries were brand new :-) And we tried it with 2 different 4ch controllers :-) One of which is known to work perfectly with the Nano QX every day.

There was a weird aspect to this failure mode, which was that picking up the heli by its body sometimes made the light go back on; the slight squeezing action seemed to remake a connection that was flaky. I found some references online to a previous revision of the 5-in-1 board that had a similar problem (a vulnerable trace which would crack easily), with the connection briefly restored by "squeezing" or pinching the heli body.

Anyway, we're now waaaaaaiting for the controller board. I have to admit -- am I being a sucker here? -- that in my impatience I've ordered a BNF version of the mCX2, the replacement for the DOA mCX. I mean, it could be weeks before the board gets here and we have to have *something* to fly indoors!

[kmot1943]

Oddly enough, I found that packaging tape (the thin but wide clear stuff) is better than glue for attaching new pieces (e.g., wings). A buddy of mine is using wee magnets for attaching wings and tail sections.

Tom (yep; another Canuck)