ORIGINAL: PilotSmith
Just ordered a Blade CP today and can't wait to give it a try. Was curious about using 3 cell LiPo with stock bushed motor. My experience with my fixed winged brushed airplanes was that the motors burned out after 3 or 4 flights when using a 3 cell LiPo pack. Can these cheap brushed motors handel the voltage ok and last a long time on the Blade? Second, with brushed motors I experienced them go from full power to dead when they burned out. Usually not a problem in an airplane but I would imagine in a helicopter several feet up it would be a problem? I pretty much went to brushless in most of my airplanes for reliability and extra power. Wondering if many people go brushless on these helicopters or if not worth the extra expense? Finally, do you replace the brushed motors after so many hours of operation or wait until it dies on you? Have no prior helicopter experience and it all seems a bit scarry not being able to glide down when you have a problem!
PilotSmith,
The standard brushed main motors will last a long time on Lipos. Just make sure to put the heatsink on them. Also you need to run a different pinion if you go Lipo. The Aerobatic upgrade kit comes with a new brushed motor with the right size pinion, heatsinks for the main and tail motors, & symmetrical blades. I would fly the Blade CP completely stock until you get a few crashes in and can fly it well before upgrading it. Although, some might disagree with me on that.
The tail motors will start failing more often when using lipos. A lot of people have had problems with them. I went to Lipos in February and only burned out one tail motor in 4 months, but my main motor has never burned out using Lipos. And I flew it all the time up (2 or 3, 20 minute flights a day) until a month ago when I upgraded to a Trex.
Doug