SgtBilko

Yes Markjester you better stay around, this is your group, if you're not flying one now, well who knows, you may get back into it. You have had a really long run of bad luck with this, but you may get bit by the Flyer bug again [X(] [X(]. Please keep involved with this thread, everybody here appreciates all the regulars and the experiences/tips/how-to stuff (well, except for our pal DebianDog, who will hopefully keep howling somewhere else ). It's easy for me to keep with the Flyers, I've had really good luck. I certainly understand your position, you can't have a toy this expensive that spends 90% of its time in boxes mailing back and forth to Spectrolutions. Well, mine are both flyin so I'll keep my fingers crossed, and expect to see you continue to post regularly here, and at some point maybe..........[:-] [:-]

scottslc

I was at my local Hobie shop. One of the signs posted there is that there are absolutely no refunds or warranties on air models after they have been flown. Lets face it, this stuff crashes! To be honest, I can't believe how well my flyer has kept up. I too have had it back to Mike to replace a few gyros. It was gone for a week the first time and 2 weeks the 2nd. Fixing charge on both returns? $0.00. In fact the max charge for fixing a circuit board is $50.00. Guys, I know we've spent a lot of money, but this type of service is unheard of in the model industry. I know it can be frustrating to call Mike and get voice mail, but I say give the guy a break.

Scott

davidtkal

My Feedback: (1)

Well said Scott! I was asking a question more than trying to complain about the business. Mike has alway done right by me and been very helpful. I just want to try and work out the annoying little quirks. As for my flyer, it's kickin' *****! Fly it went I can, always amazes me. Seldom do I even use the TI function because it flies so nice. I just have an LED issue that the left green LED does not light up until a slight pressure is applied to the board. As you know they indicate different settings and fuctions and it would be nice to have it whole again. On a side note, can you purchase a spare board through Spectralutions?


Dave

SgtBilko

Last time I talked to Mike about that he basically said Spectrolutions would sell a DF4 or DF5 board for $50 less than the RC Toys list price for their boards. Last time I checked the RC Toys DF4 board was about $300 I forget what the 5 sells for. So yes you can get a cheaper board from Mike if he is still doing that. Also, sometimes they go through eBay real cheap. This weekend a complete new DF5 went for $575 or so, I had a "watch this item" going and could not believe it went that cheap. There is one there now at about $300 but has 6 days to go, and they usually get up to 7 or 8 hundred. So sometimes there are deals out there...

roxyboby

hey mark. I am really very sorry to hear the really bad support rendered by rctoys. I really wish I had known this earlier on. Would have considered buying this in the first place. Anyway I just hope I can play with this toy for at least a year and get my money's worth. My wife had been complaining from the time I got this toy. But I stuck my foot and went ahed and ordered it. So far Have been enjoying it. Today I am going to change the right motor with the left to see if the trimming problem will go away. Apart from that I really don't have any other issues with it. Any Idea if the transmitter will give me any problems in the future?? just kinda worried.

scottslc

I wouldn't worry. just have fun!!! I've never had a transmitter problem.

porcelainhandjive

Hello all, this is Anthony, the new owner of Mark's draganflyer. I have had some problems with the thing since I got it. The recieve crystal was disconnected right at the base and I know I took a chance buying a draganflyer that didn't work, but I took the chance and it has been an interesting experience to say the least so far. I replaced the crystal and got the copter communicating with the ground again, and as soon as I fixed that problem, another came up. The bird would not get more then 6 ft off of the ground. I had to get a new charger, so i could see if it was the dinky charger that comes with the draganflyer. It did not fix the problem, but at least it told me what was going on inside the battery. I think it is an improvement over the draganflyer charger which just has a light on it. The battery that came with the Filmer would charge at 12.6 volts, but it just seemed to not give the flyer enough power. I have heard that the batterys will charge fine, but slowly loose their burst/c and constant/c over time. I bought a brand new thunder power 2100mah 11.1 and the flyer has about 10 times more power. it is great knowing that if i am 6' in the air that if i need to give it some more throttle it will respond when i do so and not come plummeting to the ground. I spoke with Draganflyer today and they said that their new batts will last about 80 flights before they loose too much juice. The second flight that I had after getting the new battery didn't happen because one of the motors stopped working, I think the brushes went. I replaced it with one of the used old motors that came with the copter and now it constantly wants to yaw counterclockwise and roll left slightly even when fully trimmed. Today I ordered 4 new motors in hope to fix this new complication. I have a feeling that by the time I am finished with this project I will have spent more that what a new draganflyer costs on parts, but I think that half of the fun of this thing (at least for me) is tinkering with it until it works right. If anyone has any suggestions for me please post! I have been checking this forum daily. I will post to let everyone know if the new motors fix the problem with the yaw on this bird. also- I was wondering if anyone is currently using the carbon fiber blades from rcplay. They seem like a step up from these cheap pvc ones but before I spend the 100 dollars I would like to know if they are worth it. Thank you

roxyboby

hi scott. Just a quick question. How are your roll trimms setup up. Are they almost centered or are they set half way thru to the left or to the right?? I am asking this because all of a suddent my roll trimm needs to be set to half-way to the left cause the heli rolls to the right when centered which never used to happen before.

poorjohn6

Hi all... I want to pass along my experiences with buying DF parts from the Australian dealer. They had a part not available direct from DF.

1. The parts arrived 4 weeks after ordering. 2. They were not as shown on their site, which was a complete wiring harness with plug. Rather they sent some short pieces of wires one has to add to the existing harness. 3. When I advised them that the order had arrived, but had not as yet mentioned the dramatic difference between as shown and as received, I received a reply back consisting of a long tirade of views why the United States was all wrong, along with details.

I realize some people have different views of the US (+ and -), but they have no place in a business transaction. I mention this so as to save any of you the uncalled for abuse by dealing with this company. Beware...

CostaRica1

Ooops ¡ That sucks man, the dealer mut be an idiot.

scottslc

I try to set my trims at 0. You have to make sure your motors are vertical or else you will have to trim them out. Also, if your using the TI, make sure you set the ti before each flight (standing at least 15 feet away, pull your throttle all the way down and to the right for just a few seconds.) This being said, you always end up trimming some.

And Poorjohn, what are you doing buying parts from an Australian dealer?

lol thanks for the heads up. And for the record, I replaced the wiring harness on my flyer. (Too much trimming on the wires made them tooo short) Huge pain...

Best, Scott

poorjohn6

That idiot had a kit that increased the length of the arms by 50%. They claimed that it would make the DF much more stable. The kit included longer arms and a new harness. Heck, after seeing the kit, without the harness, I could have gone to the hobby store and made one myself and saved the abuse.

Have not tried it out as yet, will let you know how it works later.

By the way, I just heard back from the idiot saying he could not let a chance go by without saying what he thought! Note that this was after he received the US dollars!!! I had answered his tirade. Part of his reply is:

"To me these matters are more important than a bit of lost income. I don't want to live with the regret of knowing
I could have said something but didn't. If one has an audience and something to say, then one must speak."

Hunter850

My Feedback: (1)

porcelainhandjive, welcome to the club.

I don't want to say much because my DF has flown perfect from the beginning Knock on Wood .

Except for a few blades and supports while learning to fly and the batteries which I had to replace everything else is fine.

Most of my flying is done in my backyard which has lots of rocks on the ground and I am surrounded by trees. Been up to a couple hundred feet a few times.

I bought my CF blades from E-Bay. Steve from the forum here makes them or at least sells them. They were like night and day. The DF is a lot more steady and responsive with these. Some of the other DF flyers though have gone back to foam blades.

I would recommend you be comfortable flying your DF first before switching because the cheap foam blades are easier and cheaper to replace than other parts.

Something has to give during a hard crash.

No Stick

Hi all you Dragonfly groupies.

I just found this thread and haven't been able to look at all 1200 posts so I have a simple question. After looking at all the stuff on RCtoys I think I want a Dragonfly V Ti or the Dragonfly V Ti Pro. Please help me decide. Also I have the Black Widow brown bag kit with 200 mw Tx/Rx set and 8dbi polarized patch antenna. Great unit. Can anyone show links to posts that installed the black widow on the DF?

Looks like I will have to sacrifice 3 Xmas and 14 b'days to get this unit. By then I will be too old to even remember "Let's shoot some aerial video". "Aerial video, what's that".

Tks,

Moe3754

My Feedback: (14)

Welcome I am new to the DF also I just got my Dragonfly V ti pro about two weeks ago and am still learning how to fly it,I have had a lot of flying time on electrics and nitro's but this is a all new ball game and boy is it fun except the weather has been lousy lately and I have not been able to fly.As for other questions will need to wait for a more experienced person to answer them but again welcome.

stevel0923

I actually just retails these CF blades for RC-Play.de. I have a steady supply of these blades if anyone is interested. If anyone is interested in buying a set, I will give free shipping (within US) if anyone contacts me via email and mentions the RCUniverse forum.

davidtkal

My Feedback: (1)

Just to let everyone know that I will be selling carbon fiber blades also on e-bay. As of now, I have been selling thicker PCV blades also on e-bay. I'll post them within a day

porcelainhandjive

thank you for the welcome, Hunter. I got the machine flying great after I tweaked the front motor about 15 degrees to the right. I am still waiting for new motors to see if that fixes the problem with it yawing clockwise. Has anyone else had this yaw issue??

bramill

Hi im thinking of buying a draganfly v ti pro but from the information in this thread i have been put off because its seems they always break and your always needing spares i live in england and it costs me $50 for postage so everytime i need a part i will have to pay $50 on top of the normal price.

yvesOttawa

bramill, it depends if you crash. Of course anything will break when crashing from 100 feet. Electric helis will probably run you $200 or more when they crash. My worst crash involved my DF landing on my roof from about 150 feet due to a foam blade breaking in half[:'(] The board was sent out and $85 later I am flying again. Since then I have taped my blades and they have held up just fine with more than 20 hours of flying time.

I don't think you can get a better deal with any other heli out there. These things are surprisingly tuff.

porcelainhandjive, are you the one who bought markjester's DF? if so, the first thing I would do is get rid of those metal strips protecting the board. Metal and radio signals don't mix and I wouldn't be surprised if this was causing him spuradic problems with the controls. You should go back to a plastic dome.

bramill

thanks yvesOttawa, im still unsure though because ive never had and other r/c equipment apart from an r/c car and im not very good with electronics so if anything goes wrong ill probaly have to send it half way across the globe for draganfly to repair i have no idea about gyros and motors and people keep saying they've had to mod there draganfly to be able to fly it. earlier in this post i saw someone say there DF just flipped over from 3ft off the ground and destroyed itsel. £700 is a lot of money for something that is so tempermental. Would you still recommend me buying 1 with all the problems that go on with the draganfly? thanks in advance

SgtBilko

Hi to all the new guys. Man this thread just keeps on going.
For those newbies looking into the CF blades, remember that $100 gets you a tougher more effective lift solution but they do NOT give when things go wrong like the stock blades do. Those CF blades can be lethal, keep them away from any pets, neighbors, etc. If they strike a tree or wall they usually won't collapse like stock blades so that force transmits to the motor, frame etc with blown fuse, fractured frame etc. Just a word of caution. I bought some, was impressed with flight characteristics, but overall don't like them, just IMHO.

Hey porcelainhandjive welcome to the Flyer group. Mixing old and older motors can really be a problem from what I have seen with my Flyers. If they are near the same age/use and one fails, I would replace them all, they are cheap enough (12.95 with brass pinion gear and capacitor at Spectrolutions) and yes, they can certainly impact pitch and yaw if they aren't fairly equal in function. Older motors lose RPM and increase current draw with time. Somebody previously mentioned getting the motors real cheap from an RC supply company so check around. I use the Spectrolutions one, have had good luck.

Anyway HI to all the new people and keep on Flyin (which I am limited to the basement now with 15F and snow here in Iowa)

yvesOttawa

I agree with Bilko, foamies will give in a crash. Saves your motors and other parts. Plus, they are easily glued back with CA. I've been through about three sets in almost 30 hours of flying and when they break after reglued, they will break any other place but the glued seam

bramill, I wouldn't say the DF's performance is "tempermental". I trust it enough to fly nearly 200 feet above my house and in my neighborhood so I have alot of faith in it's capabilities. I wouldn't do the same with my Trex 450XL though. If you are unfamiliar with the Trex, it is an electric "conventional heli" with a gyro only to stabilize the tail and it is alot more complex to fly properly and maintain than the DF. Only you can decide if the DF is worth the £700. Plus, if you are not comfortable with electronics and occasional resoldering of motors and whatnot, then this may be more expensive for you in the long run.

I have no regrets getting the DF. It's always a blast to zip around the neighborhood with it Good luck to you.

bramill

is there any major benefits to having the draganfly v ti pro instead of the draganfly v ti

poorjohn6

Hi... Are you sure about the $50 postage on light weight items? I have had many items shipped from the UK for a flat $3.00 via the postal system. I understand there is some kind of special rate for small items between some countries. As Canada is part of the commonwealth, they should have the same rate. Most of the DF parts would fall under the small item rate.

John