furball

Just installed the eflite motor today. Works fine. I dont see any difference from the stock motor, other than the price.

BlueRay_450

Im Kinda new to the Heli-World, and i have succesfully built, and set up my new Heli_max MX400. My question concerning the the battery is, can i use, say a 2200mAh 25c battery even though it calls for a 1250mAh 15c? Thanks for any help.

RWT

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Sure it will work good if you can hang it on there with reasonable balance. If it is the mechanical mix you may have trouble getting it on there with the stock canopy. If you have the electronic ccpm you should have less trouble.

The 1250ma 15c was the first battery recomended about 3 or 4 years ago and probably cost as much or more than the your 2200ma 25c. I am running a 1500ma 15c that hovers it on average 6.5 minutes. A 1500ma 25C flies doesn't fly any longer than the 15c and gets to about the same temperature.

Oh, and this is the helimax ESC and motor on a the stock 14 tooth and helimax wood blades.

RT

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Took out the Axe last night and practiced doing some backwards flips. On the third battery pack the tail kicked out 180 degrees while it was inverted, then it did it again during an attempted recovery. It kept pulsing back and forth and I couldn't respond quick enough. Put the thing in the dirt inverted, but had time to kill the idle up switch and pull the throttle to off. Looks like a flybar, main shaft, front servo gears, and feathering spindle are all that broke. Man, that was fun!

I need another helicopter...

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This helicopter is a riot! I tried to do some sideways flips, and it worked out great. The helicopter flies wonderfully, but my nerves get the best of me seeing it upside down. I can now flip the helicopter sideways and flip it backwards. My next step will be to roll it forward inverted and to roll it to the left inverted. All of these maneuvers are accomplished with tail in. Like learning all over again, your nerves get the best of you and you can hardly breathe and you begin to shake. The Axe is flying better than ever!

The 3D stuff is a lot of fun. Will get some video if I can get some help somewhere.

[8D]

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Flip it to the left, flip it to the right, flip it forward, flip it backward, its amazing how maneuverable this thing is. Some flips are nice and square and some end up all over the place. The tail holds incredibly well. It sounds like the tail in the Pro 2 video. Its a buzzing bee mad as hell.

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In the process of rebuiliding the Axe after the last major crash, I found some missing screws and some missng thread locker. First, I decided to check all the screws that hold the frame halves together. Most were just barely tight. That's ok as there's not much material to thread into and you don't want to strip the screws. On the other hand, the two screws located either side of the main motor were missing. Yeah, the motor will hold the two halves together, but I'm not sure if they fell out or if they were never there in the first place. Anybody find missing screws on their machine? Second, the bell/hiller cnc upgrade blade holders had some missing thread locker. The screw in the middle of the mixing arm was just threaded into the arm and not tightened down. When the arm was moved, the screw rotated along with the moveable part. I removed all the screws and added thead locker to them before assembly. The warning that comes with the CNC parts tells you to check the parts with good reason. They might as well not assemble the parts and just give them to you in a bag and include the thread locker.

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Am I the only one here that has a problem with their nerves? I noticed it’s been nearly a month since the last crash and rebuild. When the opportunity exists, I fly the axe every chance I get if winds are less than about 10 miles per hour. I’ve been doing fast forward flight with climbs at the ends and at the top of the climb I’ve been doing two irouettes. Well, I’m trying to get the nerve to attempt a sustained inverted hover. Once again, the fear of crashing makes me start to shake and I can’t even begin to attempt the maneuver. I’ve got all the spare parts in a box ready to be installed! It would greatly help if I had a radio controlled simulator on the computer. My previous simulator, flight model simulator, does not support Windows Vista. Don’t be surprised if I’m complaining about rebuilding soon.

This is a testament to the brushless outrunner tail motor with a heading hold gyro. It works great!

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This time a new piece broke! The servo control arm broke on the left hand servo during an attempt at inverted flying. I was doing ½ loop to inverted and trying to hold there for one or 2 seconds and then attempting to recover. Just as the helicopter was up right I gave hard positive collective along with fullback and right on the cyclic stick. It was coming around nicely and suddenly it began to wobble horribly. Pretty much landed on its skids and broke the usual pieces. Amazingly, I turned down the gyro gain just a touch so it wouldn’t pulse as it did last time and it worked really well. This is the second time something broke on the helicopter and the crash wasn’t my fault. If I had to guess, that sounds like progress to me.

A second helicopter is so tempting, but the winter is approaching so fast. I want to get something bigger but for indoor flying smaller would be better. Decisions decisions…

72Zeq1uu

question would it be possible to replace the eboard on an axe cpv3 with a reciever ,esc and add a 240 gyro?got a friend who blew it up might make it my experiment

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That's what this thread is all about.

Just finished the rebuild. Found the servo arm holes are smaller than 1/16th of an inch. Of course, this is the smallest drill included with a common drill set. Used a digital caliper to find a #54 drill works the best for the stock servo linkages. Also, the CNC blade grips seem to bend a little each crash and they will limit the travel to only positive pitch. Bent them back, but seems they are pretty soft aluminum. Hope they hold up. Installed the Carbon fiber blades tonight. They look awesome! They're also much lighter than the woodies, but they are thinner at the root. You have to install the nylon spacers that come with the CNC Bell/Hiller grips. Hope to get some flight time in before the weather gets too cold to see how they perform.

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Battery died. Heli spun. Landed but tipped. Scuffed blades. Fn pissed! Less than one minute of hover.

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I had another incident with the helicopter, but learned something in the process. To fix the carbon fiber blades from the last flight I glued the tip together as they were split at the tips for about 1 inch. There was a vibration issue which was taken care of with some black electrical tape. This flight, the helicopter flew about 5 minutes when the tail suddenly flipped out. I recovered, but that wasn’t the end of it. A minute later, the heli began to rotate out of control and crashed damaging the tail motor mount. During the repair, I decided that the only reason for the dual tail control issues was the temperature. Both of these last flights were with the temperature at about 50 degrees and the helicopter was at around 70 when leaving the house. Once the tail was fixed, I let the heli stabilize temperature by sitting outside overnight. This last flight was at about 55 degrees and there were no problems whatsoever. The tail held just like it has all summer long. The gyro seems to be very sensitive to temperature changes.

Eflite G90

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Its amazing how the black carbon fiber blades are nearly invisible when spun up. You have to focus on the heli's canopy more as the disk is difficult to see.

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Let the gyro stabilize in the cooler temperature and it works great. Now the problem is the the ball links are not as tight and the plastic is brittle. Had a ball link come off from the swashplate to the blade grip mixing arm. The Axe settled to the ground even with full collective and it landed on its skids then fell over. No damage except some dirt on the blade tips. Snapped on a new link and flew out the other batteries I had before it got dark. Of course, now there's vibration issues again. Still, I was impressed how well the tail held during hard collectives and flips. We need a better connection than snap on ball links, but its has to move in multiple directions so a hinge type connection won't work. Other helis have the centrifugal force pushing the link back onto the ball, or side ways across the ball. Just something to think about when buying the next helicopter.

tonywayne

On my cpv3 i rotated the tail 180, fliped the prop and reversed the polarity so it blows back on itself. U have to ruff up the shaft and ca it on so the prop dont pull off. It is much cooler after a flight now. I also use the 10$ gws motor that comes with 2 orange props. HINT, Use black sharpy marker to color the orange props and it looks factory, dosnt rub off eather. [sm=wink_smile.gif]

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I actually like the orange blade as it makes it easier to see. Helps with orientation.

Began the rebuild on the copter and it doesn't look as bad as I first imagined. The canopy is toast. Also, the battery is probably going to tossed as it has a small puncture at the rear and is bent. That was probably the most expensive part I ever lost. The rest of the expensive stuff seems fine so far. Servos came out fine without stripping a gear. Blade grips are ok too. Just a main gear, stabilizer hub, and feathing shaft and blades are all that need replacing. Had to bend the tail boom back, but it is reuseable. The big test will be adding power to check the ESC and gyro, but they look fine as the only thing out of the ordinary is the double stick tape needs replacing. I wish they would sell a crash kit with all the parts that usually break for like $10. I would buy a dozen of them and have a bunch of heads ready to go. Just remove the main gear, slide out the shaft and head and replace with a new one ready to snap in place onto the swashplate ball links.

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Powered up fine. Its sitting in the basement ready for the next flight.

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I am nearly certain the last two crashes I had with the Axe CP was due to the fact that the gyro was warm in the house and then brought outside to a much colder temperature which caused the heli to spin out of control. To prevent this from happening I have been letting the helicopter set in the garage so it’s ready to go. A few days ago, when I tried to fly the Axe, the electronic speed control on the tail would not arm. I even tried to hold full left rudder and it would not arm. The only thing different was that day it was nearly down to 35° F.

Today I brought the Axe outside as it was 51° F and wanted to give it another try. It worked this time, but I found I had to hold left rudder to get the speed control to arm the first time. After the first flight I could plug in the battery, wait for the gyro to initialize, and then rotate the nose to the right which armed the tail’s speed control. After that everything went great except for the fact that the wind was blowing 10 to 15 miles per hour with some gusts. I decided not to try anything fancy and to just fly in circles and in figure eights.

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Indoor flying was great. Still like throwing this thing around once in a while. Found some Thunderpower V2 20C batts for $25 so bought a pair.

This thing is so much lighter than my trex 450 sport.

You'all still flying?

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There's no comparison from the Axe to the Trex Sport. The Axe is soo much more sensitive and squirrelly. It makes the trex feel sluggish and slow. Both require cold soaking the gyros in the cooler air as they both kick out the tail about 90 degrees as they cool down from a warm house or car. This can lead to an orientation problem fast.

Anyway, wanted to suggest another heli as an option for a beginner. The Eflite SR looks like a modern Axe CPV3. Its got a HH gyro, brushless motor, 2.4 Ghz radio, digital servos and the radio is programmed for a beginner. Some of the videos show the thing being smashed into the ground and then taking off again. Must be durable. Other vids with Spektrum radios show it is quite capable. Come to think of it, if I install my Futaba 7C into my Axe I'd have a scratch built SR. Hmmm...

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Found some interesting qualities today I wanted to pass on. With the air about 43 degrees the tail esc would't arm. I found if I go full right THEN full nose left the esc would sense a zero throttle and arm. Not sure why, however it could be the esc is recalibrating the range and using a new point for zero once full stick left causes the gyro to give its signal.

Wish I would have known this 3 months ago.

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Hovered the Trex 450 Sport inverted tonight. Looking forward to trying it on the Axe when my skills improve.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PXIf9JYhWs