DarkWombat

Well, now that I've swapped out the electronics I get much more reliable performance. I'm still tweaking with pitch and throttle curve settings, although the heli is currently experiencing down time because I finally destroyed the tail motor, so I've got that on order at the shop, as well as some carbon fiber blades =D.

That, and with the modded radio system the heli weighs an ounce too much or so, so I'm gonna downsize to the Thunderpower 900mah battery pack. It would hover fine but I might as well get it. While I could have saved more weight by swapping out the big PCM receiver for a micro receiver, I already overdischarged my 1320 mah LiPo battery and that could be one of the reasons I'm getting poorer performance. I'll lose about 7-10 minutes of flight time with the lower-capacity pack, but since it weighs so little the heli will be more nimble (anyways, this is the pack you really need for aerobatics ). With the new pack the heli will weigh about 11.7 ounces, .3 ounces over the gross flying weight that was listed on the box of the Blade but with the extra head speed it should compensate. Dunno yet until ya try, but I might end up getting the micro receiver in the end anyways so I can use the PCM receiver in my upcoming F-27 Stryker project.

wqp

Got a question on the batteries (stock) - is it okay to fast charge them? Also I have a fast charger that supports NiMH and NiCD - but it takes your standard battery sizes (AA etc), and obviously doesn't have the special connector for the Blade's battery pack - do you think it is feasible to wire something up to the faster charger or is there a fast charger out there that works with the Blade's battery pack?

flaXen

You can fast charge them, but be sure they're not warm before you start. Let them cool to the ambient temp first.

As for the altering a non-standard charger, I'd advise against it. If it charges individual cells (AA shaped), it won't require that all 8 (it would have to charge 8 at once) be in series like you find in the Blade's battery pack, and thus won't produce the proper voltage and would be prone to weird cross-charging issues.

Personally, I upgraded to the 1320mAh Thunder Power pack and the Thunder Power LiPo charger. It's... superior to the NiMH pack. I use my stock battery for bench testing & tracking now, since I'd have to change my motor back to the stock one to use it anyway. My only mistake was not buying two LiPo cells instead of just one

kirtb

My Feedback: (10)

Greetings:

First, I want to thank all of the people that have contributed to this forum. I have read through a couple hundred posts on the Blade CP and have learned a lot.

I purchased my Blade in late July 2005, from K/C Hobby, just south of High Point, NC. Those folks are very helpful and the prices are as good as online. King RC, in King, NC, is equally good for price and helpfulness. Since I had already read many tips here, I was sure to buy the training gear and heatsinks for both motors at the outset.

Although I owned an ECO 8 heli about 6 years ago, I never got good enough to even hover before selling it. I thought there was no way I could learn to fly a heli if I couldn't even have success with an electric. The Blade CP changed all that. After discovering that the secret to hovering is actively keeping the tail under control and not relying on the gyro, I was hovering for a full 8-10 minutes by around the 8th flight. A short video clip of my 13th flight in my garage can be viewed here (look near bottom of page):

http://home.earthlink.net/~modelairp...elicopters.htm

I am now on flight #22 and can fly (really just hover) the Blade in my rather small living room, which I never thought I'd be doing. Pretty soon, I will be practicing nose-in hovering. The machine runs very smoothly after some twisting of the flybar paddles. I have not experienced any of the sticking rotor problems, but have had the tail try to whip suddenly occasionally. That alone is a good reason for learning to control the tail from the beginning.

One major change I made that I have not seen on any of there postings yet is to move all three pushrods into the next hole in on the servo arms to reduce the throw. What a difference that made! It is nowhere near as touchy. In fact, I'll probably move them in even farther for now. One thing I did have to do after relocating the pushrods was to adjust the links to the main rotor blade holders to increase the pitch. Since moving the pushrods in decreases the total throw, the collective did not provide enough pitch until the motor was at a really high RPM. Now it's back to lifting off at about half throttle on a fresh charge.

BTW, I consistently get about 10-11 minutes of flight on the original NiMH pack while doing only hovering and slow forward/backward/sideways movements.

Is there a thread on here that provides a thorough procedure for balancing and aligning the entire rotor head? I have not done anything since taking the Blade out of the box and would really like to give it a good going-over.

Well, enough for now.


Sincerely,
Kirt Blattenberger

MikeFreas

Not sure what you mean about aligning the rotor head. As long as your blade tracking is on and your not getting any major vibration your good. It would not make any sense to balance the whole head on a little heli with so much slop in the mechanics. I fly my blade with nicked main blades all the time because I'm to cheep to spend 17 bucks. It sounds like your on the right track with it. Before long you will be flying it around in a field having real fun. When you get good try to see if you can auto it. I know it's not a true auto rotation but it's cool as hell to see the tail motor stop and the head RPM be so low. Just start all your attempts up real high.

flaXen

My brother actually moved all 3 servo rods to the inner-most hole. He didn't like the sensitive throw, and I discovered his collective was horribly sticky later on while I did maintenance on his Blade for him. I did what I could to smooth it out and now he says he wants to move the rods back out, so consider checking that.

wqp

Hey my tail motor is coming a bit loose in its housing - how is it supposed to be held in place? Has a bolt fallen off, or should it have a spot of CA on the side or something?

Human_Enigma

2 screws hold the tail motor in its spot.. just like the main motor.. one each side of the output shaft..

wqp

Weird they must've both come loose and fallen out!! I'll have to find a place to buy some tiny screws i think!

Jimmy Hoffa

My Feedback: (3)

You can use 5 minute epoxy to hold the motor in, just be careful not to use too much and get any in the motor bushing. It is removable and can be peeled out when you are ready to replace the motor.
Phillip

flaXen

The front bushing in the tail motor keeps coming out for me and my bro. I've resorted to squeezing the front of the motor housing to get it to hold it in place, which has worked well. Glue did nothing, but perhaps a dot of JB weld or something might be a better solution. Anyone else dealing with this issue?

robstach

Hey guys.. wondering if anyone else is running into this problem:

Had a minor crash so pulled everything apart. Did the washer/spacer switch, no problem. Put a new CENTER HUB and new ROTOR HEAD on. The ROTOR HEAD felt a little tight on the center hub so I worked it a little , loosened up a bit. Once you put the flybar through the rotor head frame and the rotor head, everything becomes tight, real tight. I thought that maybe the flybar was hitting the side of the cutout in the rotor head so I widened it a hair but no help.

The symptom is similar to the sticky collective. There is simply too much binding if you will.

Any ideas?

robstach

Well... I thought I heard of this before. My memory kicked in (finally) and I found someone else with the identical problem I am having.

Here is Thrilsekr's original post:

Tips for installing a new center hub and spindle set -- EFLH1145

DON'T THROW AWAY THE OLD ONE!

I am an expert at crashing, so I have logged a few hours in repairing as one could imagine.

So I had a bent main shaft. on my heli. Also the spindle was bent.

I bought the EFLH1145 ( center hub and spindle) and EFLH1155 (main shaft and drive gear). I did this repair before this thread.
Anyway. To make a long story short, after spending three hours trying to figure out why my blades would not pitch well (after the rebuild). The solution to the problem was... The new rotor head did not fit right. It was too small for the center hub . It fit just fine at the top, but you will notice when you have to replace this stuff that the rotor head has some grooves that align with the center hub . When the rotor head was in its proper place (at the very bottom) the movement up and down was restricted all the way from the bottom, up to where the grooves stopped. I spent hours trying to figure out why the swashplate would not move freely on the main shaft (allowing the blades to pitch), and also looking at the spindle and blade grips to see where the restriction was before I figured it was the new center hub .
I busted out the trusty dremel tool and tried shaving the grooves on the center hub down. Did not help. I had to take it all apart again and use my old center hub with my new spindle (not sold separately) to fix the problem.

I do not know to what tolerances the parts are made, but after hours of trying different lubricants on the swash plate and shaft, and twisting the blade grips to trying to "break in the parts" (before the real problem was concluded) I had to use the old part anyway.

I don't know if this made any sense to you guys, but just something to watch out for if you buy EFLH1145. The new center hub might not fit the old rotor head properly restricting swashplate movement in turn restricting blade pitch.


Hmmm... this is not good! Can any of you vets come up with a fix? I tried everything I can think of. I am pretty sure that my old center hub is bent so it kind of rules out using the old one.

ohnokyosho

My Feedback: (2)

A LHS is selling them for 189.99 here in Big-D. Things like the Slo-v Plane is only 119.00. The are always much cheaper than anywhere... Looks Like a dump but prices are low. So many people smoke in there that often the boxes of the items are discolored. lol...

ALSO - I need some help with the Blade Chopper....
I need some help with this Copter (eflite SP Blade). I am getting play in the head to where my forward and reverse is not working. If anyone can take a close up picute of the head unit showing the linkage so I can see if something is broken off or etc.. I would really appreciate it.

[email protected]

acr1346

..robstach...I drilled out the rotor hub (part #034) with a 15/64 drill then cleaned the grove with
a #11 exacto blade. It is a perfect fit and slides smooth up and down.

Human_Enigma

robstach:
if you yanked the swashplate off the damaged main shaft, you might have damaged the bushing or the fit of the bushing in the swashplate to not allow it to slide freely on the mainshaft.. thats why I reccomend cutting off the main shaft if ya wreck when pulling it apart for rebuild.. pop the servos off and move each piece of the head assembly individually to pinpoint the area of friction..

Human_Enigma

ohnokyosho:
better yet. why not post a pic of yours and we can look at it for you.. the Blade manual comes with an exploded view of every component and where it belongs.. you may want to refer to that first..

robstach

ACR1346: Sounds like that is going to be the ticket .. thanks!

HumanEnigma: Swash isn't even on the mast... everything is separated and I am having this problem. The friction is between the rotor head and the center hub. It is difficult to describe. But that is definitely the spot.


Thanks guys........

robstach

Well .. I found an answer I think. After calling Horizon (tech was VERY helpful) they pointed me to their website where they have Important Bulletins on the Blad. Duh .. I should have thought to check the website.

Anyway , for those of you who may not know that this exists here is the link:

http://www.horizonhobby.com/Shop/ByC...rodID=EFLH1100


I hope that posting the link is okay. If not, Im sure a mod will delete it!

Anyway , some good info there.

Happy flying!

RW-UCD

Hi Guys... this is my first post... just wondering if anyone has set up an Hi-tech Optic 6 transmitter with the Blade. I am wondering what pitch and throttle curves work the best. I am using a JR single conversion crystal which seems to be working quite well. I have only had the Blade for 3 weeks and am still consentrating on perfecting my hover (mostly in the living room) and some FFF on a sim.

I just started using a 3 cell Li-Pol and find that the motors surge quite a bit. I also just burned out my tail motor but have another one in the box. Do I have to set the gyro gain way down for a 3 cell Li-Pol or is a little hunting and surging normal? Maybe if I got out and took it up higher a little surge my not matter as much. I put on the symmetrical balsa blades but found they weren't as stable for hovering as the flat bottom ones. I also found out that the carbon fiber blades don't have any flex and tend to break center hubs and tail booms if you crash.

What is the best li-pol to go with? I am just using my 2200mah 3cell from my plane but I think it is a bit heavy.

I am pretty new at Heli's so excuse my ignorance!!

funkypilot64

Hello rw I would be careful if you read the manuel they suggest not to use any higher than a 3 cell 1320mah just fyi

Greubin

Hi to all my fellow Blade CP owners I just picked up my BCP this past Weds. I haven't flown a Heli in 12 years, last attempt at that time I was trying to hover my first kit ( 60 nitro ) and proceeded to kill it, I think I was a bit over my head with that kit which was a GMP Cobra IIRC. I stopped by my neighborhood Hobby Town USA to browse and I saw the BCP kit Went home researched it and read a lot of posts in this forum. I went back and bought the kit. I'm amazed at what a fantastic heli it is. After 3 days and a few small mishaps I can hover for the duration of the batt. pack. Gets better each time, though I'm wondering if my heli needs a small adjustment or i just need to refine my piloting skills - I can hover within a 5ft dia circle, but the heli gets away from me at times. Is that normal for a rookie?

Here's tonights fun [link=http://home.comcast.net/~jcandjoanster/Video/Helihovering.wmv]Hovering the BCP day 3[/link]

Anyway, I'm having a blast and glad to see how much information this forum has..i have lots of reading / piloting to do

cheers -

Greubin

Human_Enigma

yup.. perfectly normal. just coax it back gingerly and start again.. practice practice practice

DarkWombat

Hmm...as far as using an Optic 6, I'm not really sure. If you're lucky (and I mean REALLY lucky), then the receiver in the 4-in-1 will be Negative Shift so it will work with your Optic 6 and you theoretically could be able to just put the right crystal into the receiver and it'll work fine. However, this probably won't work out, so if you REALLY want to use your Optic 6, you'll need to get the E-Flite 2-in-1 Control Unit, a micro receiver, and a gyro. I'm using a JR 6102, the included PCM Receiver (if I could do it again I would probably go straight for a micro receiver, but the PCM receiver doesn't add that much more weight), 8-tooth main motor, 2-in-1, and a GWS PG-03 gyro unit You'll probably have to get a small heatsink (I'm using a Team Associated heat sink for their XPS speed control in which I used the included double stick tape to attach it to the 2-in-1) because things can get quite hot.

With my radio I used standard pitch/throttle curves (the ones that are shown in the Blade manual), then tried adjusting it so that throttle increased steadily and pitched increased greatly at about 50-80% throttle, but that didn't help hovering much so I decided to try the opposite, having throttle increase greatly and having pitch increase very steadily at 50-90% throttle, helped a little but the heli was too jumpy and the motor was really working hard to hover. Note that at this time I was using some semi-side-bashed symmetrical wooden blades and a Thunder Power 1320 mah LiPo. With the new radio equpiment, training gear attached and the LiPo pack, the heli weighed in at almost 13.2 ounces! That's about 1.5 ounces MORE than the gross flying weight of the stock heli (11.8 ounces)! Was seriously causing some problems. Also, since I had overdicharged my LiPo during some testing (long story, if you want to read it all go back a few pages) that could have been contributing to insufficient motor power, so I decided to lose some weight by going to the lighter 900mah Thunder Power battery pack, and I tried my hand at some Carbon Fiber blades. Also, since the tail motor was falling apart, I got a new one of those too. Hooked it all up this evening, and it weighs out at a mere 10.6 ounces! That's one ounce less than the gross flying weight of the stock heli, and performance is much better. However, the pitch curve with throttle increasing greatly and pitch increasing very steadily at 50-90% throttle still wasn't cutting it, so I tried going back to the original, manual-listed pitch curves. Now the heli takes off at half throttle, and can hold its altitude a few feet off the ground at about 60% throttle. Going to 75% throttle causes it to climb quite well, and then backing off to around 65-70% throttle allows me to hover at higher altitudes. The CF blades are really making a difference, but they're twice as expensive as a set of wooden rotor blades at $30 a pop, and if you get a in a crash you've got some trouble, because they're very rigid so they don't like impacts. The wooden blades flex quite easily. The CF blades won't flex at all if you try to bend them.

Since I was doing my flying in the backyard with the light on, I was pretty limited in what I could do and I was being careful to keep it below head level just to be safe with those new CF blades. It looks pretty awesome with them though, and flight performance is great. Tomorrow morning I'll go out to the field across the street and try flying it with training gear again before the wind picks up. The one downside with this new setup is that the flight time is only about 13-15 minutes with the 900mah LiPo, as opposed to the 25-28 minutes I could get with the 1320 mah LiPo.

Anyways, hope my (really long) answer helps shed some light on converting your Blade to use an aftermarket radio. I made a semi-detailed post about my setup (along with some pics) of the modified heli a couple pages ago if you wanna check out how I did it. Be prepared though, it WILL get quite expensive but I never glitch now, never, EVER. I had all sorts of problems with the stock radio. That and I get an Idle Up, Throttle hold, adjustable 5-point throttle and pitch curves, mixing, dual rates, and throttle and pitch hover adjustments, so it's a biiiig step up from the stock radio.

RW-UCD

Thanks DarkWombat,

So far my Optic 6 is working fine. Eventually I want to go with a 2in1 and a heading lock gyro. I think I will go to a TP 1320 and that will improve performace as well. I also got a tip from another heli veteran who suggested setting the throttle curve to peak at 80% and then just adjust the collective from there on. Is your aftermarket gyro alot more stable than the 4in1?

Thanks...