When Disaster Strikes,,,aka Crash Report

[1BADAIR]

Originally Posted by Helihangover

Almost forgot. I left the 2 screws out that hold the Aileron servo in. Didn't notice til after the crash. It kinda had a quick jerk to the left every now and then but other than that I really never noticed it.. To bad I can't blame the wreck on that..

HAHA i did that once. I had to change my chassis cause the tail boom screws wouldn't tighten. About a week later i noticed that I forgot to screw the pitch servo down.
The 65hb's are a tight fit so it didn't do anything abnormal

[the big O]

Another one bites the dust.

The tail wigged out, then it wagged, then it piroed outta control. I've been fighting electrical problems for a while. Guess they're still there. I think a servo roasted and freaked out my RX or gyro. I had a bad BEC in my ESC that was taking out my servos one by one. Finally pinned it to the ESC and replaced it and all but one of my servos. Guess I should have replaced that last servo. Now I can replace it and my main shaft, Feather shaft, canopy, main blades and flybar too.

I guess I can do the tail mount servo now. I think that should work better than the stock mount. My ds290g didn't really fit in there all that well.

[frankbma13]

great pic man. glad to hear you are breaking it all down, and rebuilding. got my swash swapped out tonight, and went with the 12T. Test flight passed.

These guys should have been there to see your crash! we should have taken a pic then. later man.
K.

[Larry227]

Here's my crash for today. I have 4 batteries and ran through 3 packs just fine. Keep in mind I'm just starting to get the hang of FF, banked turns etc. The first three packs were great. I did lots of banked turns, round circuits while banking, working on nose in etc. I was almost going to call it a day but decided to go ahead and run the last pack. Worst part is a little voice told me I shouldn't but I figured I would only hover. Well I did only hover for about 3 minutes then figured I would do one nice large banked circuit and then bring it in and call it a day. Nothing different than I had been doing the previous packs. Well I got about 3/4 around and it was banking to the right more than it should and I had a brain fart and my thumb went the wrong way went I went to correct it.
Here's what's left. Not sure if I stripped any servos or not because I'm just about to tear into it. Pretty sure my main shaft is bent. The boom actually broke off at the back of the frame and the belt broke also. Suprisingly one main blade only has the plastic torn. That's the one that flew off when the feathering shaft broke.

[Slyster]

Larry! Ouch.. sorry about the crash!... You know.. you could use small zip ties to hold the skids on to the frame.. then your frame tabs wouldn't have broken.. the ties always pop on a crash.

I be you can improvise on not have to replace the frame.. do some drilling.. use small zip ties.

[Larry227]

I'm hoping to save the frame. Still haven't torn into it but my servos feel ok. Going to take it apart right now.
Not only did I break my Blade today, I broke a one way bearing in one of my fishing reels during a hookset today. Been trying to track that down.

[Slyster]

your lakes are open already?

[1BADAIR]

its not bass season yet!
haha we are getting 10 inches of snow tonight

[Larry227]

Originally Posted by 1BADAIR

its not bass season yet!
haha we are getting 10 inches of snow tonight

My bass lake just lost the rest of it's ice last week. It's always bass season here.

I think I'm done assessing the damage:
main shaft
feathering shaft
belt
tail drive gear (looked fine but replaced it anyways since I was in there)
top main bearing
blades
one blade grip
lost shims from one blade grip
stabilizer bars (somewhere in the field, just noticed they weren't here)
boom
tail shaft (looked fine but replaced anyways)
flybar
main gear

I think that's it. All I have left to do is put the tail on and set everything up. All the tabs broke off the frame but drilled the landing gear from the bottom up into the main part of the frame. Not the best way because it will for sure thrash the frame next time but I will try and re-do that with zip ties or fabricate some new tabs. At least I can finish repairs and get it setup this way for now.
HXT900 servos all feel ok. I'll see if they act up when I power it up.

[1BADAIR]

our ice was gone about 2 weeks ago. There was someone jetsking around the edge of the melted ice on a tuesday then thursday it was open

[Woody_99]

Originally Posted by Slyster

.. you could use small zip ties to hold the skids on to the frame.. then your frame tabs wouldn't have broken.. the ties always pop on a crash.
.

Tell me more about using zip ties to hold the skids on, please.

[Woody_99]

I spent most of Saturday night installing my new SportBEC. After a multitude of location trials, I installed it vertically on the inside of the frame and moved the ESC to the opposite side. Looked good, and fit well and tight using servo tape and wire ties.

I'm still at the hover phase, so on Sunday I'm in the garage doing my hover thing and checking out the "tail bounce" when moving the tail. No big deal, just practicing.

Then all of a sudden, I hear this sound I've only heard once before. It was a sound like you hear shooting a spit ball out a straw (only really loud), or a shot from an air rifle.
This time the sound was made as one of the tail rotor blades broke off at the root and went flying across the floor.
Talk about a vibration, holly cow!! The tail shaft bent, it shook so hard the connector came out from the gyro to the boom mounted tail servo, and beat the wire up a bit. The shake was so bad that it even separated the heat sink from the ESC. (it was still sticky, so I secured with a tie wrap, and it seems to be OK.)

Kind of scarred me a bit. The blade breaking may have been my fault, since I was using align tail blades, and had to sand down a bit of material to get it to fit. It was still a tight fit so I thought there should have still been enough material to hold it, but I guess not. It actually broke out at the back side of the screw hole.
I am going back to stock tail blades.

Things like this make the old CX2 seem like a lot more fun, but I'll get there.

[1BADAIR]

Originally Posted by Woody_99

I spent most of Saturday night installing my new SportBEC. After a multitude of location trials, I installed it vertically on the inside of the frame and moved the ESC to the opposite side. .

Thats how I have mine. Even with the ESC heatsink partially touching/covered by the chassis heat is not an issue

[Woody_99]

Originally Posted by 1BADAIR

Thats how I have mine. Even with the ESC heatsink partially touching/covered by the chassis heat is not an issue

Looks good there too.
I'm not that happy with my solder job onto the stock ESC thought. I couldn't ever get the solder on the ESC to liquify all the way, althought the connection is pretty sturdy, it's just not really embedded. I was afraid to get out the big gun iron in fear of melting something.

Edit: I used the 100w iron and did a much better job on the solder connection. Also I installed new heat shrink around the ESC too. While messing around with the ESC, the heat sink came off. I found that not all the chips had compound on them to conduct the heat away to the sink.
I put new compound on all the chips, seated it real well with the heat sink, and tightened it all up with the new heat shrink.
Makes me wonder if the lack of heat sink compound to cool the chips could lead to early failures that I've read about??

[lokidude]

Still learning, 3 flights of tail in hover, decided to go for just one more pack. Sudden gust of wind and now I get to learn how to rebuild .. hehe. Really enjoying this hobby but I think I need more than one heli so when I'm rebuilding one I still have one to fly.

[mr2mkii]

Had a bad crash yesterday evening. It was more windy than usual (10-15k), but I was stupid and flew crosswind...coming around a turn wind blew her way out, and kind hung right in front of the sun. Couldn't see it, but kept it coming around... suddenly it's feet from the ground...can't stop it...booom. Worst crash yet...with my carbon blades being completely ruined.

[johnbs8]

Originally Posted by mr2mkii

Had a bad crash yesterday evening. It was more windy than usual (10-15k), but I was stupid and flew crosswind...coming around a turn wind blew her way out, and kind hung right in front of the sun. Couldn't see it, but kept it coming around... suddenly it's feet from the ground...can't stop it...booom. Worst crash yet...with my carbon blades being completely ruined.

next time, give it full pos collective, wait a sec, throttle hold and go in for the catch

[fast400]

Originally Posted by lokidude

Still learning, 3 flights of tail in hover, decided to go for just one more pack. Sudden gust of wind and now I get to learn how to rebuild .. hehe. Really enjoying this hobby but I think I need more than one heli so when I'm rebuilding one I still have one to fly.

thats a nice looking crash LOL
man you toar it up pretty good, yep now comes the fun of a rebuild. not hard just go slow and get everything as level and striaght as you can.
she`ll good as new and flying again before you know it

[JezUK1]

Do you need a new frame as it looks like your landing skids have come away and they tend to snap i have found. Unless its just when I crash lol.

[lokidude]

Originally Posted by JezUK1

Do you need a new frame as it looks like your landing skids have come away and they tend to snap i have found. Unless its just when I crash lol.

Yep all 4 gear tabs broke. New frame, main shaft, tail shaft, feather shaft, gear struts, blades etc. Rebuild is progressing. I'm sure I'll be back here looking for all kinds of setup advice when it comes time to get it all leveled and trimmed.