XK K110 feathering spindle nightmares!

[bpjacobsen]

Just having a bad k110 feathering spindle day. lol My advice, don't get the red colored metal upgraded blade grips. I can't even get the screw in on the one side. It's as if it's not long enough as it won't bite. Also, when I did have it together, it came apart in flight. happened like 3 times. (yes thread locker was used) I'm approaching giving up on this one. the screws are just way to small and difficult to work with. Argh!

[Thomas.Heiss]

The red alu blade holders are from the K120, right?

Don't you need to use the feathering shaft from the K120 as well?

I have the red things lying around here because I badly needed a swashplate replacement.
I have issues with the two red swashplates!

I visually inspected how to put together the red alu blade holders with my K110 spindle: This is simply not possible.

As you say it, the spindle is too short, the shaft does not even go beyond the bearing or fit (at least) the same height.
I surely would not be able to mount the K110 screws with the K110 spindle and the K120 red alu blade holders and included bearings.

[bpjacobsen]

Originally Posted by Thomas.Heiss

The red alu blade holders are from the K120, right?

Don't you need to use the feathering shaft from the K120 as well?

I have the red things lying around here because I badly needed a swashplate replacement.
I have issues with the two red swashplates!

I visually inspected how to put together the red alu blade holders with my K110 spindle: This is simply not possible.

As you say it, the spindle is too short, the shaft does not even go beyond the bearing or fit (at least) the same height.
I surely would not be able to mount the K110 screws with the K110 spindle and the K120 red alu blade holders and included bearings.

Well, it just shows you you never know what you are gonna get sometimes from chinese distriutors. I got the metal upgrade from here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Notice it says both K110 and K120 and it shows the black one. Yet they sent me the red one and no rotor head. I reached out and told them it was missing the rotor head and that it was read instead of black. they sent me the same dam thing again with no rotor head. It drives me nuckin futs!! and makes me not want to do business with China again! But yer right, it definitely does not fit and I do wonder if I were to get the feathering spindle for the K120 if it would then fit? Just very annoying and a waste of my time and money.

[Thomas.Heiss]

Originally Posted by bpjacobsen

it shows the black one. Yet they sent me the red one and no rotor head.
they sent me the same dam thing again with no rotor head.

Some dealers (BG, ebay, online) may be able to send you the (red) rotor metal head with the number XK.2.K110.018 (my dealer lists it in black in his DE shop, BG shows it as red).

If you order the set from BG, you get the red rotor head (inclusive) without any problem....but who knows what the next guy exactly does when packaging.

Try to order the head 2-3x from different shops / ebay and maybe you are lucky once :-)

..(...)..

BUT:
The K110 tuning red swashplate quality is IMHO not that great.

BG sent me (from the whole red tuning head set) the swashplate and the inner ring even did not spin freely a single mm!!!
Looks like the XK / Wltoys factory put that wrong swash assembly in their package without evening checking and just (wrongly) glued the bearings in or did something wrong when pressing the inner ring in, can that be?!?

After lots of manual hand force several times I can finally spin the inner ring of the swash just a little bit, but it is definitely not smoothly but very rough; so not usable.
So in the end I have wasted ~18EUR because the #1 red swash is corrupted and for sure I can not fly it on a K110 and I was not that much interested in a metal head/blade holders anyway.

I got my #1 black swashplate from a German XK/Walkera dealer (good QS).
I had good experiences (fast shipment, cheap, including shipment) with a Chinese dealer on ebay.de where I ordered a 2nd black swashplate.

But I got the red one (#2) which worked firstly great but developed a small slip after a few flights when I try to turn the inner ring slightly (after 45-90 degree) against the outer ring (bearing) when it is mounted on the K110.

In comparison: My black swashplate does not do anything wrong when I try to turn the inner ring by hand when it is mounted (to check for slop), but compared to the red #1 swashplate the inner ring (bearing) was not fix either so it was able to spin freely.

I really have no idea why there are so big quality differences from the black vs red alu/metal parts!?!

Originally Posted by bpjacobsen

and makes me not want to do business with China again!Just very annoying and a waste of my time and money.

Unfortunately there are not that many options.

A German dealer has the swashplate + blade holders + head rotor as a set and sells it for ~24,90EUR + shipment (it is not in stock, but individual swash+holders+head parts are).

And only the red one (where another user wrotes on RCGroups.com about the really bad quality), not the black one.

..(...)..

I came across another German dealer which sells Wltoys (V977) or XK110/K120 metal tuning parts.

Microheli seemed to have some individual parts for the V977 before with bigger ball sizes but the set (swashplate, head, blade holders, connector rods) was quite expensive and is not in stock.
So far I have not checked Lynx or RakonHeli for the V977/X110 side...

But the other option would be remaining "Heli factor" tuning head parts (no swash) for the K110/V977 but which are so expensive here in Germany so I see no way to set them up on 3+ BNF K110 helis.


I will weigh the two metal vs plastic head parts but this balancer only has the full 1g scale which is not that very precise (not 1-2 decimal places after the dot).

I think for 3-5 K110 helis and to preassamble 3-5+ full heads as spare to make our life a bit easier at the green field when you quickly need to change parts it makes much more sense to stick to the plastic parts and only to use any good metal/alu swashplate with better quality (is there any)?

Why not?
What is that bad with the K110 plastic head hub + blade holders?


However, you can really feel how much play the K110 plastic swashplate inner ring -- without the additional (gold) brass ring -- has and much slop back and forth, side to side it develops on the main shaft when you slightly wiggle the swashplate.
So I want a good swashplate tuning solution for more precise flying (and head / swashplate 3G setup).

[bpjacobsen]

I had motion rc send me a K120 spindle but it's exactly the same size as the K110. QA is horrible and obviously there is a major issue here. I can't for the dam life of me get any of 3 blade holdes to connect. either the spindle needs to be longer or the screws. I can only get it connected if I remove a bearing, and yes it flew fine but then the head was loose with play in it which is not good. I'm about ready to give up on this heli b/c as good as it flies when it does, I"m getting really aggrevated with the horrible QA in China. it's a disgrace. the one black metal head set I had was great until I had a bad crash and broke one of the blade grips. have not been able to get a good one since. really frustrating to say the least. Basically, if I want to stick with this heli now, I have to use the crap plastic which breaks very easily if you crash wrong. so I guess I will have to stock up on those then. GRRRrrrrrr!!!!

[Thomas.Heiss]

I also had my German XK dealer ship me the K120 feathering shaft. It was just an idea...too good to be true
I can confirm that it has exactly the same length as the K110 spindle :-(

So basically the whole 18EUR BG red parts can go to the recycle bin.
My German dealer would have even asked for 25EUR for the same set parts (including the top head block).


motionrc.com writes in their K110 spindle product description: 18.5mm.

I measured several spindles from my K110 spare bags (2019 + 2020) and I can also confirm this spec.
All are 18.5mm long and have no longer tolerances (not even slightly).


So the problem are obviously the tolerances of the alu blade holders and that the outer bearing which you put into the grip does not go in enough.

As I wrote above, I have the same problem with my own red alu head set.
And I guess it won't be the head block as the rubber rings correctly fit into the milled out head area...but I have to measure the blocks again to be sure.

..(...)..

The only solution for the red/black aluminium blade holders tuning set:

Use another better fitting cone washer.
Both silver cones are more than 1,x mm thick.

I picked up a suggestion from a K130 thread by search machine (somewhere, I do not know the forum) that I found by accident that pilots usually have the same problems there as the head set aluminium (sorry, I did not save the thread id) parts do not fit the spindle length?!?

It was suggested to grind down the cone washers or use other washers which might better fit in the head.

..(...)..

Maybe I will check Blade Mcpx V2 / BL parts from my nearby dealer if any washer better fits but prices are ridiculous (and there only is a complete head set...nobody reachable usually sells extra small cone washers for 1,5mm shafts).
I will have to try to contact an Austria heli store and see what their experiences are for those XK parts.

First I will try sanding down with the plastic head as only about ~0.25-0.5mm are missing (no so much) when the spindle is stuck in the middle of the bearing which is not much bigger than 1,x mm; I am not sure if this is possible for me.
With the red aluminium head set I would have to sand down the two silver washers even more to fix the gap.

All my K110 silver cone washers from multiple part 2019/2020 bags have the same thickness.
There neither are any tolerances there which you could fix by buying multiple head rubber bags.

[Thomas.Heiss]

More experiences and user suggestions from the K110 plastic head / blade holders and not perfectly fitting spindle / feathering shaft:

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?p=8079575

[yakky]

What are you guys doing to your spindles? I have a V977 that I have hundreds of flights on, to the point the servos are just worn out and sloppy. All I replace are main gears, blades and tail motors (buy the $5 motor/boom combos). Oh and I've lost a few lower main shaft bearings when an old worn out gear pops off...

[Thomas.Heiss]

Originally Posted by yakky

What are you guys doing to your spindles?

One spindle is OK but the one plastic blade grip is very rough on the one side and I can hardly can turn it; I think I had flown it before.
So I have to fix this.


On the third K110 I crashed it badly into the ground when inverted backwards forwards.
I had a quite bad angle and almost could not cut the throttle before hitting the harder (sand) route on the green field (no concrete).

This is one head where I finally notice that the spindle is totally bent and I can see it when I do the "turn the spindle with a screwdriver test".

..(...)..

But the more funny thing is, that I hardly can assemble new 3+ heads just from spare parts...all new components.


Q: Can you really grind (sand) down the silver cone gear (like 0.25-0.5mm)? How? Which side? Bigger side to the black rubber o-rings?

[ridge-runner]

I used to think the feathering shaft was too short, but then I discovered that the radial grip bearings need to be pressed hard to get them all the way in. Once all the bearings are fully seated, the "feathering shaft is too short" problem disappears.

And I don't recommend any aluminium upgrades for the K110 - too heavy for this sized heli. All the plastic parts hold up very well and the heli flys very precise.

YMMV

[Tomstoy2]

Agreed. I have 100’s of flights with the red head and swashplate. Just love it.

The bearings do need to be fully seated in the grips.
The red swashplate main shaft bearing is a press to fit and will pop out of the swashplate in a hard crash, but a pair of needle nose pliers snaps it back together just fine. Add checking this to your preflight, along with checking the main gear is fully seated.

Also, don’t use the blue medium grade loctite. Use the low strength purple instead.

The feathering shaft retaining screws have an odd head depth to them and many Phillips screwdrivers just don’t grip well. A couple precision jewelers screwdrivers work well.

My only complaint with this heli is it’s underpowered up here at 5000+ feet. Got to catch the inverted. Much harder with just a one cell battery.
Despite this, she’s my favorite, and has done more to advance my skills than the rest of the fleet combined.

She’s a tough little bird, too. $40 buys you all the spare parts you’ll ever need.
I’ve wrecked her plenty and only broke 2 booms so far. Feathering shafts, main shafts and main gear are the usual culprits.
Gone thru 3 tail motors and one main motor and a controller also.