mayer4321

Well guys, I have another update already. I had my best flight to date last night. I built my 2nd prototype tail which I made with 1/4" foam board, it's about a gram lighter than stock by design, reinforced my broken landing gear, attached a tube for the antenna, installed the www.BLADECXPRO.com stabilizer bar which had a little too much lateral play so I taped the shaft a bit with good results (see pic), new blades, meticulously adjusted everything that needed it and WOW. I don't think I accomplished my goal of having a Lama that flies as well as a Lama can, but I am closer than ever. I flew this thing with precision for about 20min last night and pushed it hard and had ZERO blade strikes!! My cyclic is responding almost dead on, I still have an almost negligible amount of TBE. I can do about 5-6 sec hands-off without moving more than a foot.

Here are some new pics

mayer

inner_romeo

Hi again, I discovered they sent me an Australian power supply, instead of North American. I'll just pick up a 12v adapter from Radio Shack. Kind of disappointing.

mayer4321

That is disappointing. I just got my HONEY BEE KING 2!!!!! and it came with a weird plug, Japanese I think. Luckily the Lama uses the exact charger.

mayer4321

wow, this HBK2 is a very nice heli for the price. It is only my second but after some adjustments it is flying very well, I am very pleased. I will have to get some mega-power batts. Three battery cycles and no damage! I'm surprising myself. I mean I haven't even clipped anything. I hovered two batts inside and one outside, a gust took me about 30 feet away, but I brought it back safe and sound.

Does anyone else have a HBK2? I haven't found a good forum for it yet, maybe I'll start one.

mayer

Dale_G

I just found out the hard way that the Esky Lama V3 and V4 have different frames. I bought the Xtreme landing skid and tail boom upgrade kits, assembled them and guess what? No fit. That's what I get for assuming........

I wanted to give anyone out there thinking of doing the same thing I did a head's up. I guess I'll have to wait until someone produces these parts for the V4.

Look for my ad in the classifieds - my loss, your gain.

Update: I found out that I could just get a V3 frame and swap all my parts to it, so I took the skid and tail boom off the market. Ordered V3 frame and some other stuff today. I'm gonna have one expen$ive cheap helicopter.

joskibob

I literally just got my lama v3 today. I hooked it up to the charger and the charger said the battery was charged (or not hooked up) so i threw the battery on the heli flew it for a while, until there wasnt enough juice to get it off the ground. Then i hooked it up to the charger and the green (chaging) light didnt come on. Ive had it hooked up for a while now and no dice. Can anyone help?? The best thing ive found says go for a "direct" charge for a period of 5-10 mins and then hook it up to the approved charger. Any help PLEEEEEEEASE im in afghanistan and parts are not easy to come by.. i have another batter coming soon... but who knows. Cheers

Joe

PoppyDon

Joskibob,

Hi,
Did you try recycleing your charger, once your battery is hooked up, then unplug and then plug the charger back up, you should then get a green charge light. Mine does the same thing, I think they just have to reset after a charge.

Happy Landings
PoppyDon

joskibob

Well yeah i tried that. Sometimes when i plug it in and i Have the battery in the green light will FLICK on and off real quick. We took A voltameter to the charger and it was intermittent
.... or so it seemed. But the red light is constantly on. Any other suggestions? Man i got like 5 mins of flight out of it and then the batt died but it was a **** ton of fun to fly the little bit that i did get to do.

Magna

hi all

which online shop have best Lama aluminium and hop up parts in terms of pricing and shipping?

vega2614

Tech-mp.com is pretty good. You can request $2.50 shipping, or at least you used to be able to. Bphobbies is better when they have overstock sales, but that isn't always the case and the shipping is more expensive (like $6).

I've posted some more vids on youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYcNBbHKaZo ). My battery life seems really short, but maybe its because I'm flying more aggressively. What do you guys usually get in terms of flight time?

joskibob

Ok i finally got my battery all charged up (thanks to one of my crewchiefs) and now im trying to trim the bad boy up. I see that on the controller there are the trim buttons and there are obviously the "gain and proportional" is there anything that shows what the trim buttons on the remote do... or can anyone explain? Also it seems as if my bird has a strange "tick" sometimes when im flying it it will TICK tail left. It seems like some sort of gear is being skipped over or something... anyone ever have that problem?

PoppyDon

Joskibob................The trim tab levers correspond to the stick they are by. The left stick has two, one that runs vertical (throttle) and one at the bottom of the joystick that runs horizontal (rudder) or yaw. On the right stick the trim lever that runs vertical is for pitch and the horizontal trim lever is for right and left drift. So lets say you lift off in a hover and you notice the nose of the heli turns to the right, land and adjust the trim lever to the left a little bit, then takeoff again to a hover and see if that stopped the nose from turning, if not repeat steps. ALWAYS land to adjust the trim levers, if you try to do it while flying I can almost guarantee a crash from pilot error. So start from hover and notice what the heli is doing, if drifiting to the right adjust the trim lever on the right stick to the left and see if it stops the drift. Do this for all 4 axis of the heli. Whatever you do with the long flight joysticks, do to the trim levers. As far as the tick sound from the heli, I have never heard anytinig like that, turn the heli on its back and look at the two large gears under the battery, see if any teeth are missing. If so you will need to replace the offending gear. Hope this helps...........btw what was the problem with the charger?

Happy Flying
PoppyDon

PoppyDon

Vega2614............I always stop my flights at 9min30sec's, that always gives me about a 1min30sec fuel reserve. I have crashed at least twice by stretching the flight time out so I just fly for 9min30sec's so in answer to your question I get around 11min's battery time.

PoppyDon

vega2614

Wow, those are long flight times. Is that with the stock battery?

joskibob

Between on piece of sodder and another piece of sodder there was some metal that was missing... so the circuit between the two was blown somehow. Anywho it was an easy fix. My crewchief (who is also quite handy with a soddering gun) took a piece of rubber enclosed wire and linked the two together... then it worked like a jem. This heli has been a blast. My buddy (who just happens to be a heli pilot) is having a hell of a hard time getting his falcon off the ground. very happy with my lama Thanks for the advice by the way.... im still having a couple drift problems but im starting to maintain good hovers. I dont think it's ever meant to be perfect.

PoppyDon

Vega2614............... Yep, I have always gotten those long of flight times, even longer (15min) when the lipo's were new, I have 2 chargers and 3 batterys and I alternate between my 2 lamas, yep they are stock.

Happy landings
PoppyDon

PoppyDon

Joskibob............Thats great news, I'm so glad you got everything working like it should.
I know you will be thrilled with this little heli. Just dont push it past its envelope and it will last a long time. I have over a hundred and fifty flights on mine! Best of luck to you.

Happy flying,
PoppyDon

rotor123

After several hard crashes and subsequent adjustments to the gain, proportional, ball links, and flybar links, my lama 3 is totally off balance and uncontrollable. I have tried adjusting this, and that and then that and this and then everything, and am having little success in getting back control. Is there any way to get it back to the factory default adjustments or is it going to be trial and error, in which case I am about ready to toss in the towel.......or possibly, should I buy a new one and try again?
Any advice would be appreciated.

PoppyDon

Rotor123..............After reading lots of post on different forums, I know they say always know where you started when you adjust the gain or proportional so you can go back there if things dont get better. I guess you have to decide if the cost for replacement parts and the frustration of having a sick heli is worth the trouble or just buy a new heli.
I know I had a crash where I had to replace some parts, total bill was $38.00 a 1/3 cost of a new one. Probably you can find new V3's for under $100.00 guess you have to decide if you want to tinker around trying to fix the sick heli or get a new one. Anyway best of luck, hope you get a good flying machine or are able to fix the one you have.

Sincerely,
PoppyDon

mayer4321

Vega - I AM TELLING YOU YOU MUST TRY THE MEGA POWER 850mah's. They are awesome! I am getting 15+ mins HONESTLY.

Rotor123 - as far as scrapping and starting new or rebuilding and tweaking, you CAN and I think should fix your heli - I have spent more on parts and upgrades for my Lama3 than I spent on the RTF kit to begin with but I'll tell you I could now take a pile of Lama parts and assemble the thing and adjust it and make it fly better than they do out of the box. I would definitely recommend rebuilding, the more you work on these little things the more you understand them and being able to take a trashed heli and determine what parts you need to replace and what adjustments you need to make is very rewarding.

Joskibob - I agree with PoppyDon, a ticking sound sounds like a gear with missing teeth.

Guys, I have assembled one sweet Lama3...

I have esky alum swashplate, alum upper and lower hubs, BCXP stabilizer bar (a must have with alum upper hub or you will shear lower blades in half OFTEN) Xtreme Productions blades (indestructible), XP sport tail and landing gear and canopy, I have the BB motors but I'm waiting for stock to go out to replace, and I have moved my ball links out one spot on the servo arms. This thing is flying so well I find myself laughing out loud while I'm flying, and PoppyDon my Lama's envelope is now HUGE, I haven't been able to push it too far in it's current configuration. This Lama has gone from a $90 bargain entry onto the heli hobby to about a $230, much more capable and fun to fly, heli but I have spent SOOO much more than that on video games over the years. This heli has been worth EVERY PENNY.

Oh yeah, I crashed my HBK2 HARD the other day, still waiting on a few parts.

I witnessed a friend accidentally contact a plastic can of fish food with the blades of his Belt CP in flight. It was quite a sight, just a brown cloud of mist for about 2 seconds, we got a good laugh out of it.

until next time,
mayer

ps. Easy Control Happy Flight!

PoppyDon

mayer4321.................Whats the best way to get the tracking the same on the upper rotor blades?

Happy Landings,
PoppyDon

ct420

Repairs are a necessity. I've had my Lama about 2 years, and the only original parts on it are:

4 in 1
frame
center head
canopy

Everything else has been replaced or upgraded... It's just part of the hobby. Of course, mine also flies much better than it ever did when it was new.

mayer4321

PoppyDon,

I have read about people bending their blades to achieve various results. My opinion is blades are not made to be bent, any changes should and can be made via adjustment to parts that are MADE to be adjusted. That said - I have seen my blades out of track, more often after a significant rebuild than any other time and I have always been able to bring them back together with 1/2 to 1.5 turns of the linkage between the stabilizer bar and the upper blade holder it is connected to. Adjust in 1/2 turn increments and check tracking after each adjustment, it may take several tries but they will come together.

I'm telling you guys everyone who loves their Lama should feed it MEGA POWER 850mah batteries. Longer flight times and better performance, you will not be disappointed, and just in case anyone does not realize this - they can be charged with the Lama's charger, and NO they won't wear your motors out. I have run 50-60 cycles through my Lama and I have not WORN any parts out... yet.

mayer

EASY CONTROL HAPPY FLIGHT!!!

PoppyDon

Mayer4321.............Thanks for the info, thats what I thought I had read on how to adjust blade tracking. Do the motors get very hot using the 850mah Mega batteries? I know using the stock motors, they get pretty warm in the 9min range. So I would imagine running 15min could get the motors really hot? Thanks again for your help.

Happy Landings,
PoppyDon

mayer4321

PoppyDon,

The motors do get pretty toasty by the end of a MegaPower 850. But any motor is going to warm up during use, they have never gotten hot enough to melt anything, and I don't know yet if the bb motors will stay cooler. I will tell you this - I can fly my Lama hard all the way thru a mega power battery and the stock motors don't get ANYWHERE NEAR as hot as my HBK2's motor does after 8-10mins of flight on its stock esky battery. I have read alot of people talk about problems with motors getting real hot, my opinion is that if they are not melting their mounts their not getting too hot, but I'm still new to this hobby.

Mayer