My frustrating 600

[Gladius]

I needed to vent a little, so I decided to share my trials and frustrations with all of you!

A little background: Last July, I found a used 600 ESP for sale here on HF. I paid $300, plus traded my Blade 450 3D for it, which had been collecting dust since it's last crash last December. I immediately bought a used Hobbywing 120A HV ESC and a Scorpion 530KV motor, since I knew I was going to convert it to 12S, which allows me to share packs with my 500. I crashed said 500 a couple of weeks later, and so the miniscule amount of spare time that I have to work on helis has been devoted to that one. Fast forward a couple of months, and I'm ready to dive back into my 600. I've acquired a stock of spare parts (a LHS went out of business, and another HF'er gave me a good deal on a bunch of his parts).

First headache was the servos. Turns out that I didn't read carefully enough, and the servos on the heli are total garbage. You could maybe use them on an easy flying plank, but helis are completely out. Found a good deal on a set of DS610s and a DS655 for $125 on the for sale forum, but 2 of the gearsets were worn. Another $54 to fix those.

Next, the HW ESC that I got. I was able to set my endpoints, and program it once. After that, it just beeps at me no matter what I do - problem with the throttle signal. Tried different receivers (no FBL unit between them to interfere with the signals), messed with endpoints, trims and subtrims - nothing. Can't enter program mode, can't reset endpoints, can't get the program box to work, can't get it to initialize, nothing. Finally gave up and bought a CC Edge 80A HV.

Next, I'm going thru the heli, replacing bad bearings, and checking for loctite. EVERY bearing that I find has been loctite'ed in place. Most of them (~80%) need to be replaced, and I'm having a hell of a time getting them out. This morning I bent one of my aileron levers by tapping on it with my rubber mallet, trying to get one of the bearings out. No problem, I picked up a package of plastic levers. No, wait, they aren't the right shape! EBay to the rescue, and I should have a new set of levers in a couple of days.

There, I feel better now, and I'm sure that I will have more to write about as I fumble my way thru this build.

[pril250]

I do commiserate with your pain and hope you get the thing completed and flying soon without any further major issues or expense

On the other hand I feel there are lessons to be learned here

[jmtyndall]

When I buy a used heli.I plan on replacing every bearing at a minimum.

I've bought three and of those three, maybe 25% of the bearings have been in good shape

[fastflyer20]

Sorry for your struggles, it reminds me of my first 600N many years ago.

The longer I am in the hobby, the less I buy used.

[NC Hillbilly]

Sounds as though you have had your share of bad luck, hope you get it flying soon!

[Gladius]

Originally Posted by pril250

On the other hand I feel there are lessons to be learned here

Originally Posted by fastflyer20

The longer I am in the hobby, the less I buy used.

Lots of lessons. One really big lesson.

[Gladius]

Originally Posted by jmtyndall

When I buy a used heli.I plan on replacing every bearing at a minimum.

I've bought three and of those three, maybe 25% of the bearings have been in good shape

Oh, i planned on it too. I bought the whole bearing set from Boca before I'd even pulled out the first one. I just hadn't planned on every one of them being loctited in place!

[Luvmyhelis]

Originally Posted by Gladius

Oh, i planned on it too. I bought the whole bearing set from Boca before I'd even pulled out the first one. I just hadn't planned on every one of them being loctited in place!

This is where heat is your friend. I use a small propane torch to heat the aluminum bearing seats whenever I encounter this crazyness. As there is really no great way of saying why the heck would anyone need to loktite them in place in the first place?
The heat will almost instantly melt the loctite and for the most part the bearings almost fall out by themselves or will do it with very little pressure. As the loctite melts and the surrounding aluminum expands quicker than the metal cased bearings. Which actually get loose as the aluminum expands away from them at a greater rate than they expand.

Virtually all the used helis I have purchased in the past all took complete bearing replacements. Which makes me laugh now when I see ads for pristine, hardly flown, never crashed helis. All mine were sold to me this way and all were trashed at one time or another before I got them except one of my Gob 700s. Even that one still took a horde of bearings. Many still needed heat to help extract them even without being loctited.

[jmtyndall]

Originally Posted by Luvmyhelis

This is where heat is your friend. I use a small propane torch to heat the aluminum bearing seats whenever I encounter this crazyness. As there is really no great way of saying why the heck would anyone need to loktite them in place in the first place?
The heat will almost instantly melt the loctite and for the most part the bearings almost fall out by themselves or will do it with very little pressure. As the loctite melts and the surrounding aluminum expands quicker than the metal cased bearings. Which actually get loose as the aluminum expands away from them at a greater rate than they expand.

Virtually all the used helis I have purchased in the past all took complete bearing replacements. Which makes me laugh now when I see ads for pristine, hardly flown, never crashed helis. All mine were sold to me this way and all were trashed at one time or another before I got them except one of my Gob 700s. Even that one still took a horde of bearings. Many still needed heat to help extract them even without being loctited.

Never crashed and barely flown are only counting flights and crashes after they post the listing lol

I bought a never crashed heli with a bent spindle, a bent servo linkage and a bent swash to grip turnbuckle. Pretty amazing the things that bend in normal flight huh?

[Gladius]

In my case, they bend during maintenance.

[Felix the cat]

Originally Posted by fastflyer20

The longer I am in the hobby, the less I buy used.

AMEN

[Gladius]

Ha! This old thread. Fitting it should pop up again because I've just recently made some progress on the build. It's taken on renewed significance for me, since my Dad was always into aircraft and he just recently passed away. He passed on some of his tools to me, and I got to use them on this build.

I finally removed all the old electronics from the heli, and cut out the frame to install the Scorpion 4035-530KV motor I got for it. I had complained about the cost of the KDE motor mount that it needed, but after seeing how nicely it allowed me to align the wiring, I'm happy with it. I used a drill press I got from my Dad to bore out the end of the pinion, so the motor shaft could slip all the way thru it.

This morning, I used my new soldering station for the first time to solder the connectors onto my ESC and BEC. Sooo easy! Man I wish I had gotten one of these before!

I also was able to use a butane torch to get the bearings out of the bell cranks. Thanks for that tip Luvmyhelis!

[JaggedEdge]

The times I've bought used I gutted the heli and started fresh. Tested each component and replaced as I put it together.

[Gladius]

That's what this heli has turned into. It would have been cheaper to just buy a new one, but after reading about all the stripped tail gears on the current version, I'm actually kind of happy that I got an older one.

[Gladius]

So I got to my tail grips last night, and found that they only have 1 bearing. On the 500, this was a huge problem, but I haven't heard of the same problems on the 600. Is that because the single bearing grips on the 600 didnt eject like the ones on a 500, or just that there hasn't been any recent threads on the topic? Am I OK with the single bearing grips, or should I replace them with new dual bearing grips?

[SumOFparts]

So you're talking a single radial and a thrust bearing?

That's the way it is in my 550's V1/V2's......

Looks like they switched to the double with the 550/600 dfc's

[SumOFparts]

I could be wrong - but the bad 500 grips didn't have thrust bearings - only radial...
And that was a way's back....

[Gladius]

No, the 500's had a single radial, and thrust bearings. They have to have thrust bearings, or 1) the grips would fly off, or 2) lock up so they couldn't rotate. I ended up buying a set of V2 tail grips with 2 radial bearings since I was close to my old LHS anyway.

[Gladius]

I've made some more progress on this build. The tail is pretty much all done, minus blades and the pushrod. I also powered up all my electronics for the first time (SHE'S ALIVE!!) and got all my bell cranks properly set up. I also used the pieces of frame that I cut out for my motor to make a pair of frame stiffeners to reinforce the area between the motor mount and the third bearing block that I added. Getting excited...

[Gladius]

Successful maiden flight this morning! I'm running 2000 rpm headspeed, which is a little low, and its not as locked in as I would like. I'm going to put a little larger pinion on and see how that does.