Wheelnut

My Feedback: (81)

Thanks, Actually I didn't have my reading glasses on and I meant to ask, which motor is the Main R motor and which is the Main L motor, because I was putting a CX 4 in 1 in a Lama V4 and the Lama doesn't have a left and right motor, it has a front and back so I was trying to figure out which outlet to plug in which motor. At that point the best way to describe them was the motor that turns the inner shaft and which one turns the outer motor.
I got it working now, so thanks anyway.

kenstogie

I too have one of these and dang it is f-u-n. It's great to be able to fly around my house and will fit the bill for winter flight in the cold North East. I love reading the mods and hats off the inginuity of these guys/gals here but I am going to leave it stock unless there are mods that will increase durability, reliability or longevity of this wonderful bird. I have just flown it in my house but can't wait to take it out on a quiet nite at sundown or a gym.

Crosman

I just got one yesterday and have a potential problem. Just talked with Horizon about it and they weren't really sure what it could be. During hover the other two I have access to are dead still in a hover, you know what I mean. This third one right out of the box kind of moves in a circle in the horizontal plane, maybe a little circle of 4 to 6 inches or so. Just can not get it to stay still. Has anyone here any ideas on how to adjust this out or what I could look at to fix this?

baurwin

J-M

how did you go about getting the swash level. whenever i try to get it level i get a nasty wobble. i got to tell you though, ive been following ur posts about all the mods and ive been having just as much fun tearing this little thing down and tinkering as i have been flying. i was completely new to the hobby when i got the mcx and now im hooked. cant wait to start working on a bigger heli.

thanx for any input

Steve Joblin

Crosman - sounds like your poor little mCX has a slight case of TBE (Toilet Bowl Effect). This is can be due to a bent inner or outer shaft, a flybar that is a bit "sticky" or unbalanced, warped or unblanced blades. I would start by checking the balance of the blades and making sure they are not warped.

baurwin

cbrian4

Hey guys i've got a problem with my mcx. It seems that if i fly my mcx, after 3 minutes i can no longer climb and it begins to rotate left no matter how much trim i add. But if i let it sit for 5-10 minutes without charging the battery it will work for another 3 minutes. I don't think the battery is the problem cause it charges right up to 4.22v and after three minutes it still has 3.9v left in it. Is this a sign of motor failure?

Wheelnut

My Feedback: (81)

baurwin,
Nice work,
How does yours fly witht he glow in the dark stuff?
I heard from someone earlier that it doesn't fly as well. Please report.

baurwin

wheelnut,

it flies like a champ, but it wasnt without frustration. the glow n the dark swash was assembled backwards and i didnt figure it out untill after a few very frustrating flights. it was all over the place, i knew something didnt look right with the swash but couldnt figure out what it was until it finally hit me. once i popped the top piece off and slid it in the other side its been flying great. the glow n the dark landing gear was brittle, broke on the first crash, never had a problem with the original. maybe i just got a bad one. other than that she's been terrorizing the cat good as ever

Wheelnut

My Feedback: (81)

Glad to hear she is flying good. I will have to find time to put my Glow stuff on. I will be aware of the potential problem with the swash plate.

Vitamin_J

I recently bought one of these things and love it! It is probably one of my favorite RCs ever....ever! I took it outside though and became frustrated that even the slightest breeze would overpower the MCX.

After reading about modifications, I have done a few.

-Firstly I took off all the decals and snipped any excess weight I saw, including the front body mounts.

-I shortened the flybar by about an inch total and am using the round weights, no plastic end caps

-I cut the top PCB mount in half, and I cut the bottom mount to 3/4. I then re-aligned the links.

-I cut excess plastic off the body and trimmed the tail down. I also filed about 2cm off the tail boom.

-I noticed the plastic bushing that keeps one of the servo shafts on the forward/backwards servo was loose. Everytime I went backwards it would be pushed up the shaft and the gear would slip down under the sprocket. I used a safety pin to tab some CA glue on it, works great now.

Now my chopper is quick! I have to use the dual-rate when I fly inside, otherwise I run out of room! It's faster in dual-rate now than it was completely stock. Outside I can fly where-ever I want, the breeze is no problem! With the weight savings I have extended runtime and performance. The shorter flybar does affect stability, but not too much. It is absolutely necessary to achieve fast speeds though, with the stock bar with full forward pitch, I would have blade strikes non-stop.

The chopper is so fast now that at 3/4 speed or above the tailfin completely overpowers any rudder control, I just can't turn! Even with my low-profile tail!


Bonus funny video:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...deoid=46302024

Tee Bee

I've got all the glow parts on mine except for the swash plate. Can't really tell any differences in flying characteristics. Still flies great.

rlheit

Everyone
Speaking of batteries; has any one measured their transmitter batteries to see how low they can go before control of the heli becomes an issue? Last weekend after about 3-minutes into a flight, the heli became erratic. I landed, and for some reason I suspected the transmitter. I changed batteries, and the heli few without incident the rest of the flight. I let thinks rest; put my exhausted flight battery in the charger and put the next flight battery in the heli. The same thing happened again. I stopped flying and measured the voltage of the transmitter batteries. They each measure within a couple hundredth's at 1.4xx volts. I don't think that is too low, but maybe I'm wrong. Now, I was using the China batteries that came with the package, but I already knew other flyers had problems with these batteries not being "up-to-shuff." So, before I flew the heli the first time I measured them and all eight had >1.6-volt; so I went ahead and used them. I had 30-flights on the bird before this problem occurred, and that is why I suspected the transmitter batteries. But, I expected a lower voltage. I had brand new Energizers and the heli is flying fine. Sorry for the lenght of this post (I can get windy some times); but, has anyone checked transmitter battery votage at the point control becomes a problem? Another thing, I thought I read some where the transmitter beeps when the batteries become low, but I have read the manual forward and backwards and can't find that information. Or did I dream that up?!!!
Thanks, Ron

Tee Bee

My Chinese batts haven't lasted long in any of my Parkzone or E-flite models. I wouldn't get too scientific with them as their performance isn't consistent. Just chunk'em and move on to better batts IMO.

baurwin

my tx started beepin when the bats got low but i never lost any control. i did however after many flights start seeing a loss of control when the lipo starts getting low. was not an issue in the beginning but after a while it started happening. now, any time it starts flying irratic, i bringer down n swap the lipos out n she flys good again.

Crosman

OK, finally got this one to settle down into a solid hover. It was the inner shaft as was mentioned, thank you. Now I'd like to know what is the best way to shorten the flybar, different kinds of weight or leave the stock weights? How much to shorten, etc. Has anyone here any first hand modding on this subject?

MSP1957

My Feedback: (1)

Being lazy, I hope you guys can list he mods you have made rather than reading thru the thread :-) I love this little heli. Brings a big smile to my face. I have been flying fixed wing for five years. This is my first heli. I look forward to bigger (Blade CP??) things. Thanks.

Michael

Steve Joblin

Crosman - glad you got the TBE solved! The best way to shorten the flybars is to use a Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel to remove the plastic tip portion at each end of the flybar. Obviously, make sure you trim the same amount off each end!

I'm not quite sure how to trim the flybar if you have the older "original" paddle style flybar.

J-MICHAEL

Along with all the other mods I did to my MCX that I posted about 2 pages back, I also did another one about a week ago.... Since I just posted it in another thread, I just copied and I'll paste it here for any MCX freaks that care....


Alright.... Try this one out for kicks... As I've been doing it for over a week now, and haven't told anybody but now I'll tell you... You know how the flybar attaches to the top head, and clicks into place right ? You also see how its in there pretty tight to eh ? Well, I removed the top-screw and tossed it in the can, and even shaved a bit off the top head until it just about meets the top of the flybar top-piece... The MCX doesn't need it at all... I put a good 20 flights into her doing this, and all is fine... You'll see... Tracking stays good also. Its in there still tight as ever, since its braced into position anyway by the little locking stub and hole...

The benefit : A tad more energy that one motor gains as it now has less to crank-over... You know how us weenies are... Every stray dog-hair counts... Also, during your normal crashes, the flybar stays locked into place... But during the hard crashes, the flybar will usually unlock, and eject from the rotor-head assembly putting hopefully less stress then on the flybar, but mainly the weak inner-shaft that would take the blow the most during a crash from the upper-blades striking along with the flybar at the same time, if that makes sense to ya....

The disadvantages : Those days that I enjoyed most with "Tapping the ceiling" as you saw in one of my indoor videos are over my friend... As shaving the top-portion of the head down some puts the flybar itself closer in relation to the ceiling, and makes it more interesting... Pics below, if they help any... Also... On your blade tracking for the uppers... Do the normal balancing and applying tiny pieces of tape if need be, but also try switching the flybar ball-link onto the otherside, and trying the other ball that you would attach it on the OTHER blade... Mine was off quite a bit a few times before... I switched sides, and then perfect tracking... Try it....


Inside video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9emrekcSD_o


Cheers,

~ Jeff







Here is what the original inner shaft/rotor head looked like before I removed the screw, and shaved the top part of the rotor head looked like as you know...

J-MICHAEL

With my flybar style, I removed the end little plastic piece which you might be able to see from the seperations in the first pic, and then for the other portion that is left, which is metal I took it from 8mm and shaved with a Dremel stone down to 6mm and tested it in the video below along also with canting the esc board... I still have to try and find time to do yet another video for the other mods I've done, but its just getting better and the MCX is down in weight now from the 28 gram stock weight to 24 grams...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vesKxbhXBOY


Cheers,

~ Jeff

kenstogie

Just finished the first vid of my MCX. I had been flying for about a day when this was shot. It's pretty short >1 Min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJO88wEmJ1o

gasrc

Okay, how do you remove the tail fin without cutting it off? I want to install a glow fin, but can't figure out how to get the original fin off without damaging it or the boom. It appears to be glued on.

gasrc

...and another question. How do get rid of the toilet bowl effect? It flew perfectly out of the box. I switched the blades for the glow ones and now serious TBE! I would say about a 3-foot circle.[:@]


EDIT:
I figured it out. The top blades are badly out of balance. I ended up putting a 3/4" x 1/4" piece of electric tape all the way to the end of one of the top blades. TBE gone, but there's now black tape on my white-ish blades. I'll have to swap the electrical tape for packaging tape later.

gasrc

NO MOD speed tip!

I have found that if give the the right stick some left input while in forward flight, you can get to fly forward at a pretty brisk pace....certainly fast enough to get into trouble. The reason is that the swashplate tilts even further forward. That said. I'm still going to modify it.

Steve Joblin

Mine just comes off... the tail fin is held on to the boom with a friction fit... I can't get my boom off (that seems to be glued on mine!)