tungnguyen

Hi guys,

Have anyone of you tried this helicopter? I'm thinking about buying it but I need to know some pros/cons about it if possible

All your inputs are appreciated.

Thanks a lot

It has some metal parts that look so great it's about 90 GBP. It's a 6ch helicopter from Colco brand.

neweheliflyer

It look the same as the Blade CP and Esky CP2 ([link=http://www.china-magic3.com/category.php?cat=16]pictuers to compare[/link]), except it come with a separate gyro

soneebee

That heli has the same head configuration as the DF40. but the heliis smaller. it is like the blade CP. in size and looks. I guess its a blade CP with a metal swash.

tungnguyen

Thanks for your inputs.

yeah you are right, it looks the same as the blade cp or e-sky cp2. However, as neweheliflyer said, it has a seperate gyro, the skid is more durable than the blade cp or cp2. I got a honey bee 4ch, it's easy to break the skid with a light crash. This heli frame has a metal part, it must be stronger than the other copters. The price of this colco is almost the same as the other 6ch heli from E-Sky, Walkera, ...

Is there any idea?

soneebee

the heli looks good and the metal parts will make it more stable and better handling. The separate gyro is a plus since you can easily replace it when there is somthing wrong with it. The metal parts seem to be like molded aluminum or other light metal. it is like a upgraded CP with all the addons..

tungnguyen

uhm thanks a lot.

I think I will give it a try. This helicopter comes with 1 x spare wooden blades, 2 x 1300mah lipo bats, 1 x landing skid, 1 x training kit for just 90GBP. It's not too bad right ?

soneebee

It is good for the price, I was looking at the picture and it seem to be appealing. have you seen the motor.. it looks like one of the 540 motors that i had a couple of decades ago on my RC cars, kinda reminded me of my Trinity monster horse power motor where you can replace the carbon brushes and even the end bell for cleaning.. it looks like that motor only bigger.

The head is a hiller type design with a 180° collective interaction on the flybar. I have this type of head on my DF40. it is okay and simple but response is a little slow, it is very good for beginners doing hovering because of the slow response. I am not sure if the links that blade CP did on there heli will fit that it will make it to a bellhiller head. Add 2 more links on it so it wil have a 90° interaction better response.

tungnguyen

Thanks for your reply, soneebee you seem to have a lot of experiences, I will need your help in the future ^^ i saw some of your video on google video it's cool

I ordered it, hopefully I'll get it next week. I'll post my comments about this heli when I fly it

soneebee

am not really experienced but I saw how the head works on my DF40 it does have the same head configuration.. it is very easy to adjust and make all mechanicals centered. Yeah please give us your comments on this new heli.. it might have good electrics compared with the walkera

psychopat

Hi. I have this same model : colco 380XL lynx. Mine comes with a black canopy. Since I've had it I've had some success flying it around. However there are drawbacks with the electronics - watch out for the mixing circuit in the stock receiver unit burning out! This has happened three times - smoke and all, falling IC chips and holes in the plastic from overheating. I have pictures of the burnt units but its not with me, I'll try to post them in the future. My buddy also has the same heli and his also suffered the same fate. He replaced the stock motor 380 brush motor and the entire receiver unit. His seems fine now.

Mine however still keeps melting on flight and sends my model out of control into a tailspin when it overheats and starts melting components. The guys at my local hobby shop think its the mixing unit inside the revceiver but I have changed it 3 times and same thing. I'm going to try changing the stock motor and the entire receiver unit one more time and see if it works out. It might be a better idea to change the entire receiver set with another model and upgrade to a brushless motor plus esc. I'll see what happens and update if anyone is interested.

In the meantime I've got my honeybee king from esky and that works great - very easy to hover. My colco unit is in the shop and the guys are trying to figure out with the factory if its a defect in a shipment batch or if its inherent in all the models. Anyway just watch out for burning smells... otherwise the colco ccpm works great. Haven't tried the 3D stuff - can't even do it myself since I'm not that great a pilot so I can't say anything on that until I meet someone who has tried it.

martin loo

Hi psychopat, I was planning to get the colco lynx, never think it had so much problems...
Honeybee King is really good? Heard the tail has little problem eg. vibrates due to gearings. Do you have that problem too, and where you get yours locally( costs? )?

psychopat

Hi martin..

Yup the colco's lynx is really not a good purchase. Today I finally made a deal to sell itr back to the lhs for parts. Got a colco lama iv instead plus two blades for my honeybee king.

As for the honeybee king - i'd higly recommend it for its stabiility and the price. It also has full metal upgrades - I'm trying to get those. But even stock RTF it's great out of the box. The tail does need some fine tuning. I adjusted the length of the shaft for the proportional tail servo to make it stop tailspinning. On my second attemp outdoors i managed to hover it. I have videos but i've not uploaded it yet but I will do so and then I will leave a link. It was taken with one of those canon still cameras so it's not good quality plus its at night. It was a windy night, yet with my limited skills I managed to get it to hover well.

I am VERY happy with my honeybee king. I am considering upgrading the motor as well but honestly for regular flying and beginner's skills the brush motor really works fine. It does get a little hot so I'm getting a heat sink for it. I think you can get the HBking on the net for under USD$300 plus shipping depending where you are. Also my canopy melted because it was in contact with the motor so I'd watch out for that. going brushless with a smaller motor could easily get rid of that minor irritation or just put in a little plastic bracket to push the canopy from touching that stock brushed motor.

Of course before taking it outside I'd fly it on the ground to get a feel of the sensitivity - I did it on my slippery living room tiled floor. Once I could feel how much effort it took to hold the tail, I went outside - I think I hovered on my fifth battery pack - that's not too long considering I am absolutely new to flying rc. I think I got a lot of practice from my colco since that was horrible to control and to keep the tail is really hard. The colco lynx's tx is really bad especially for the rudder control. The unit reaches its full range left and right with only about 30% of the stick either way. That makes the unit too sensitive to get any regular flying done - much less if you want to eventually progress to 3D flying! Its enough to put you off flying altogether!!

I'll update on the lama iv but I believe it'll be cakewalk since its really stable and i've tried it at the hobby store. This is probably the best thing you could get for beginners and it is a coaxial system so it's stable. I'm charging the pack as I type this so I should be able to get it up in a few minutes. At the store on a well trimmed unit the lama iv hovers practically hand free. I'll give it to my wife since she's getting interested in helis now that she's seen me hovering about two storeys high.

Let me know how you get on with the honeybee. Also parts are really easy to get and cheap. So it's a no brainer between the colco lynx and the honeybee. But in fairness to colco's lynx - my friend and I may be the only two losers with a defective product - I am only sharing my experince, not dogging out colco's products. But if you ask me, two is enough for me to say too many times.

I have heard of someone taking the colco, using optic 6 hitec tx/rx and installing brushless for main and tail rotors and hovering the colco and it's apparently very stable that way - but for the cost and having to do all that for a RTF unit just makes no sense unless you have access to so many parts lying around for free. So there's both sides of the coin. I like to be objective so you can make your own mind up.

Cheers.

tungnguyen

If I knew the Lynx 380 has some bad problem like this, I would not buy it... but it's late now, I may sell it when it arrives

Colco Lama IV is good, cheap, stable. however, the receiver is mixed with esc, so if it is used for a long time, it will be burn easily... so be carefull when flying, give it some break to cool down its motors

Have you guys check Aplus 400 helicopter? Full CNC, Carbon Fiber version, brushless motor, ESC, .... with the price of an upgraded Honey Bee King I ordered one, can't wait for it to arrive

psychopat, have you tried the Walkera 53? It's bigger than Lama IV, it looks quite cool, when I have some $$, I will give it a try

Angeljuice

I have had no problems with mine (£90 inc delivery from China), it is my first heli, so I have taken time and some trouble adjusting, but the heli itself is very robust and forgiving, Ive crashed it in ways that would destroy lesser models, and it's still flying strong.

The gyro is better quality than most and the electrics seem superior to some more expensive heli's I've seen. The heli's stability is fine as far as I'm concerned.

As I say, I am new to (owning) Heli's, so am not the greatest source, and I may have been very lucky with my purchase but in my opinion this is a well crafted model which is better overall than a lot of its more expensive rivals.

It is true that parts are harder to come by than other models at the moment, but if this model helicopter gets the respect I feel it deserves then that will soon change.

tungnguyen

Hi Angeljuice,

Welcome you to this thread. This is the first positive comment about this helicopter

If possible, can you shoot some flying videos of your Lynx 380? Or sharing your setup experiences?

All inputs are great appreciated!

Cheers,
Tung

martin loo

Yep, the Lama is very stable to fly, but only indoors, not outdoors if it`s totally calm outside. I`ve brought my Lama outdoors once but it`s totally different flying indoors as it simply cannot beat even a slight gust of wind, until iI gave up after a few crashes!

fannie6603

i have purchased 10pcs lynx 380xl to try the market and all this 10pcs were sold out in a short time. And i have not recieved any complain about the reciever yet. maybe its my good luck i don't know.Any way,i think it will have good market in future.

psychopat

I know a couple of guys who would be really happy to know that the lynx actually flies - w/o all the problems. My buddies and I may have been the three most unlucky people or we might have received a bad batch of product. Who knows. I am still interested to know how well this 'bird?' flies - if anyone has videos I'd be very happy to look at them. I am of course talking about a stock setup with the nec gyro and colco electronics. My poor friend is still struggling to get the heli to hover even though I am sure he has the skills and control to get another properly calibrated heli to hover with little problems. As for me I'm off the lynx so it's really not a problem for me. I always thought that it was quite cool with the metal swash and so on.. though I must say that the main blade clamps tend to always break the ball link in crashes especially side first or overturned.. Anyway - please email me if anyone posts videos of the lynx flying!

psychopat

Should have warned me about the lama 4 earlier! I burnt it twice already. It gets really hot! Once with some flashing lights and another time with smoke! haha. I've seen teh Aplus 400 - looks really good. I am considering getting one but thinking about what electronics to stuff inside and also what tx I can get that will be quite durable so I won;t have to buy another anytime soon or when I upgrade to the Trex (uh-huh) .. I've seen the walkera 53 up close. It looks smaller than the lama - really cute but fragile looking tail boom 0- dunno what it will do in a crash. Before you order it let me know what price you're getting. I've seen it in my lhs - might be cheaper here and I can help ship it to you. What about the walkera electronics? any good? the 53 has a 4-in-1. Dunno if there will be overeating problems? Did you try your lynx or has it gone straight out to ebay?

serhathakan

I think it is a clone of DF 40 except external gyro. Metal parts looks very good

tungnguyen

Well my Lynx 380 arrived a few days ago and what I'm gonna say is ... junk [X(] electronics are so so crappy!!! I got problem with glitches and range.
Tail servo is horrible, sometimes it goes very very fast and makes the helicopter spin around but sometimes it doesn't work until I put full throttle so it again makes the helicopter spin... the gyro is GY400, I don't know if they named it on purpose, it makes us confused! As you know GY401 Futaba gyro right? It's a very good & expensive and well known gyro, I used to thought GY400 is the previous version of GY401 lol

I can hover it sometimes when the gyro doesn't go wrong, it's wonderful because it is quite stable and easy to control. But suddenly the gyro goes crazy, glitches and losing signal... disaster lol

I crashed my helicopter several times but there is no damage at all, this is a good point of this helicopter. Very durable, good for beginner for crashing. Before, I had a Honey Bee FP, its landing skid breaks in a slight crash! Not good for newbie as you crash it before learning to fly it lol

So if anyone want to try this helicopter? I think you should change the electronic stuffs to quality ones. Then you will have a nice copter

My lynx 380 now is selling somewhere lol


Oh poor you bro, I actually never got this problem. Only one of my friends, he tried to fly with 3 batteries without giving his copter a break, so his receiver was burn after that... after each flight, give your heli about 5-10 mins to cool down its motors and its receiver as the receiver is combined with esc. I thought I told you on email

No, walkera 53 is bigger than Lama, Lama is just 340mm lenght but 53 is 440mm. If I buy it from eBay, I think the price is about $160usd including shipping cost. How much is it at your local shop? As everybody knows, walkera electronics are almost junk , but it's cheap, so we might want to give it a try

Aplus 400, yeah a nice one! If you are thinking about Tx/Rx, I would recommend you to take the Futaba or JR or Spektrum. I'm having a Spektrum 2.4GHz radio system now. With 2.4GHz band, there will be no glitches, no interferences, and the range is more than enough

Here is the pix of my Aplus 400 + Spektrum and its aluminum case

The1 2 thrust

Hi psychopat ! I just ordered the aplus400... after 3 days of surfing everywhere... and i think that, if you start from zero (don't have a good tx), you should consider to buy the rtf "aplus"... cause there is a futaba tx included with it, and it's ready for any heli. I personnally choose the arf kit (less tx and rx...and the "heli" is delivered in a pile of little bags) for budget issues,and i have a 8uafs tx with few rx on hand, so...

And: have you seen the video of this little monster ? They use to sell many "3D" heli that, in fact, can barely fly...that's not the case here...

I should receive mine in just about 1 week. Oups. I'll have to put a lot of little pieces together prior to crash it !!!

Happy landing

tungnguyen

go to youtube.com or google, keyword "aplus 400" there are branch of videos for this one. It flies great if it is well setup. I got a problem with my aplus 400. The blade grips are not the same, i can't track the blades.

The1 2 thrust

Received my plus 400 earlier this week, and finished to assemble it . All the heli is made of cf or aluminum. there is no plastic in it.
Wow. But , tungnguyen said: "The blade grips are not the same, i can't track the blades." and i have the very same problem.
The hole that go thru the blade holder (with the bearings in it) is off-center . When you measure it on the heli, there is a 2mm difference , so the blades are not in-line with the main shaft.

Two solutions : Ordering a set of blades holders (each) ......OR do an exchange (?) if you (tungnguyen) send me your grips, i will match them, and send back to you one of the "new" matched grips pair. It would be a big badluck if they have more than few variants of those $%?&?/... things.

tungnguyen

Oh you're having the same problem with mine? Where did you get it from? The seller should exchange for you a good one. There is a "pro" version for the rotor head, you may want to upgrade your. It could be better than buying new blade grips.

I sold mine last week so no more worry about it.

But this mechanical issue is ... suck. It seems that we all got the first error batch.