I made a set with some wooden dowls, a cork, and 4 ping pong balls. I only used it twice to get a feel for how the blade handled and took them off.....

AV8TOR,

Training gear uses 2mm cf rods. It's flexible to help absorb impact.

I wouldn't bet on the grip/spindle assy being assembled correctly. Mine had one step washer in backwards. It's worth taking apart and checking. Happy flying, Tom

Tia,
I am somewhat new at the electric helicopter but I now own 2 blade cp helis. I went to Helihobby.com and bought the alum upgrade kit for $69.00 this kit has the twin 2 motor set-up and all new alum main frame and skids. After installing everything and using the Li-po battery and aerobatic upgrade motor ,I really like how stable this hovers. I would like to post a photo of this but am unsure how to do it at this time.
Randy

Randy,

I'm interested in this cnc aluminum upgrade kit for the Blade CP from helihobby; please keep us informed how it goes.

Thank you,
Harry

Ok guys,

Last night I got together with Tony Stillman. For those of you who dont know who he is. He is the AMA district 5 VP, and owner of Radio South, which is a authorized Futaba repair facility. If it's a futaba radio, Tony knows how it works.

He worked with me last night to set up the blade on the 9CSuper radio. He pretty much nailed down the pitch curves on the normal mode. The Idle-ups are coming next. Im hoping by next wednesday to have it all programmed and post the info up here. Sorry its taking so long, but this thing is complicated....at least it is for a newb like me to programming.

Once you switch over to the 9CSuper to fly the blade on, the old tx will not work anymore, because it requires changing the linkages on the helicopter too.

Since the airframe replacement kits don't come with a set of instructions (mine didn't anyway), does anyone know of a way without the manual to tell whether or not the blade grips have the mod?
Thanks.

Hey all.....I just picked up a BCP and love it. Only one set of spare blades and no other damage and now I can hover for a full li-po!!!

I'm having a little problem though...sometimes from one flight to the next, massive tail rotor trim changes are needed.

I'll fly it and get the trim so it just about doesn't need the rudder stick to be moved in a hover and then on the next flight I have to set the same trim differently.

Any Ideas on this one?????

THANKS!!!

On all the new updated versions they have a separate page that states that this edition has the 3 BB grip setup. IF you don't see that page, the blade grip is standard 2 BB. Usually the page will be on the second to last page on the manual, for some people I know they never look through the manual till they bring their heli to me for repairs.

ROFLMAO...aint it the truth.

As far as I can tell there is no external way to tell if the blade grips are the new ones. My buddy got a new blade with the 3bb grips and I had the older one with the 2 bb grips. Even a close inspection of the 2 shows no difference. You would really need to pull the grips apart to see if it has 3 ball bearings or not.

I do know that the original blade that was released had the servos and 4-in-1 with solid black plastic. If the servos and the 4-in-1 are see thru then you have one of the newer batches. They upgraded the servos with the newer faster ones and apparently there was some upgrade to the 4-in-1 as well. The blade grip upgrade came after this though so this is not a definitive check unfortunatly.

Unfortunatly without tearing it apart there is no definitive way to tell other than checking the manual that I've found.

Good luck

harry,
You can view these cnc upgrades on helihobbies website.The parts worked well and instructions are included with the kit. The two motors run very smooth and the solder job is easy. What I have is a stock blade cp that I use the ni-cad batterys with, and then I have the other one with the alum parts upgraded to Li-po. I flew it outside in some 5 mph wind and it was more stable to control. The upgrade kit does take a little while to change your heli over but I feel that it is worth it. It does add some more weight to the heli though. I also bought a small swivelvise for $19.95 at helihobby and it works well for holding the heli while you are working on it. Everyone says that the micro electric helis are hard to fly but if you take your time and keep practicing these little helis are a lot of fun. I also own real flight G3 simulator but had to upgrade my computer video card and add more Ram sims to make it work.I think that the people who operate this site are really awesome and the contributors are very helpful.
I have only been doing the electric helis for about 7 weeks now butam getting a little better each time I fly it. Good luck with your blade CP helicopter what a deal for the money. When I bought the second one I was able to fly it right away out of the box.
Randy

Bryan,
WOW that is what I have been waiting to hear! Thanks for pursuing the issue of the 9C, I can't wait to hear all the details.
Thanks again Bryan

Thanks L0stS0ul. Seems others misinterpreted my question. It's not that I didn't read the manual, it's that the airframe replacement didn't come with ANY manual, no paperwork at all, extra page or not.
It wasn't brand new stock where I bought it, so I guess I'll assume it's the old grips. I already did the mod once to my complete heli so when it comes time to transplant to the replacement airframe I'll just tear it apart and see.
This little guy is tough, I cranked it into the pavement last night from a couple of feet up and it was back in the air 2 minutes later after I found where the battery had skittered off to.

Thanks to member Dick Dietz giving us some info on switching from mode 2 to mode 1 I got brave and talked my brother into getting a blade. I used Dicks info to guide me but I did the mode swap just a little different. I pulled the back of the tx off and instead of cutting and splicing the wires from the fore/aft cyclic and collective pots I just de-soldered the three pin header from the pcb and swapped the headers from one pot pcb to the other. then without removing any of the screws that hold the gimbles to the front case I was able to wiggle out the centering bar from the fore/aft cyclic gimble and swap it out. I turned over the throttle friction spring and added a slight bend to it in two places to try and reduce the "notches" on the collective stick. It helped a little but it could be a bit smoother still. It took me 35 minutes to have the tx mode swapped and that was the first time at it. If you open up the tx and look in you cant tell that it was not done from the factory. This could help if you ever need warranty work. you could carefully swap the tx back to mode 2 and send it in. Hopefully that will never need to be done. The blade flys great after the mode swap.

so I guess I posted this in the wrong place before so.......

So y'know that useless, dangerous, battery ruining 2-hr charger that comes with the blade?

Well, I found a good use for it......

If you change the plug to match the Blade TX charge jack, and load the Tx with 2500 mah NIMH AA's, the unit makes a great TX charger. It's a little more than 1/10th of C so it will charge a dead set of AA's in 10-12 hrs. I am using 2500 energizers from wal-mart. They are supposedly sanyos which I can't confirm, but they are made in Japan which is a good sign. I have found that cheap NIMH AA's which are made in China don't tend to live up to their mah rating-The energizers are awesome though!!!

If the above charger dissing offends someone, I will qualify my dis by saying that ALL CHARGERS OF THIS TYPE SUCK, regardless of who sells it, and yes all the manufacturers seem to be doing it.

Company Reps: Why not include a safe overnite charger or incorporate a timer into the charger at least?

I hope some guy out there who's been burning through the disposable AA's reads this and finds it helpful!!

JASON

I just got my BCP 2 weeks ago. My manual came slip sheet saying it the 3 ball bearings instead of 2 ??? Are there two different batches??
It also says i have S75 srevos ?? are these new and improved?? I have training gear attached. Been doing my ground school for a while
but like some others it takes almost full power before it thinks about going up.Could this be the Sticky collective i have read about or
do the 3 BB suppose to fix the problem. I am new to choppers (helis) and I built a couple of fixed wings back when i was younger--
hard to find flying fields these days.

Thanks for any and all help in advance!

Bob

aka dignlivn

Yes, there are two different batches of Blades.

The first batch had 2BB blade grips, Black servos and Black 4-in-1

The new batch has 3BB blade grips, S75 servos, and a new improved clear 4-in-1

The new model has the obvious 3BB improvement, the servos are faster, and the new 4-in-1 has a MUCH better gyro.

My blade has the clear 4-1 and only the 2bb Grips, I bought it in late August, Just after horizon started shipping them again. But my dad bought his about two weeks ago and it has the upgrade

i thinking of getting one of these Blade but i don't know if it good i want to know the pros cons about every thing(also what is the best upgrade(how do i install it(and were can i get the part the cheapest(please show links)and it it good for a first heli and is it easy to fly.

1. Li-Poly battery and heat sinks
2. plugs in and snap on
3. online www.helihobby.com
4. not a good "first" heli but definately not the worst....it has a few options that may not be rookie friendly but it does fly extremely well for its size and price....buy the crash pack and training gear if its your first bird.
5. it flies quite easily once you have dialed it in.

My blade holds a ROCK steady hands-off hover in dead calm conditions for about 3-5 seconds....definately a great flying micro....and with collective it makes this one a stand-out....

Has anyone had any luck changing the crystal in their blade to operate on a different frequency? I was told through someone in my club that I could change out the channel 17 crystal in it with a single conversion crystal and use my Futaba transmitter with it. I bought a Hitec 72mhz single conversion crystal on channel 26 to do this, but get no response from the helicopter. Tt gives me alternating flashing red and green lights on the 4-in-1. This is the same flashing I get when I take out the original crystal, so my guess is that the receiver does not recognize the crystal.

My reason for going through all of this trouble is that my helicopter seems to have collective glitches when I hover. I did change the motor to the 8 tooth and also am running a thunderpower 3 cell 860 lipo pack. This configuration is supposed to allow long flights with the flat bottom blades as I am just learning about helicopters.

I am very interested in hearing the results of setting up the helicopter on the super9C as I have a 9C that I would like to use with it. However, the person I knew that did this change did not mention changing any linkages to make it work with a 9C.

OK guys,

Here it is the 9C programming.

Well, here's what I got

First set it for PPM. NOT PCM

Pick swashplate type SR-3
Goto SWASH AFR
make ailerons -50%
make elevator +58%
make pitch +64%

Goto END POINTS

make throttle 43/100

Goto REVERSE
reverse the ailerons, and the throttle

Goto PIT-CV/NOR
Point 1 46.0%
Point 2 52.5%
Point 3 57.5%
Point 4 63.5%
Point 5 75.0%


Goto TH-CV/NOR
Point 1 0%
Point 2 25.0%
Point 3 50.0%
Point 4 75.0%
Point 5 100.0%

Goto REVO./NOR
Mix = ON
Point 1 -20%
Point 2 -10%
Point 3 0%
Point 4 +10%
Point 5 +20%

Goto the advanced menu

Goto HOV-THR
MIX = ON
Turn the VR(c) knob till it reads
RATE=0% (-71%)

Goto HOV-PIT
MIX = ON
Turn the VR(a) knob till it reads
RATE = 0% (+10%)

This is just the set-ups for normal mode.

You ABSOLUTLY MUST VERIFY all the settings on your helicopter BEFORE you attempt to fly it. I dont know if this programming will work for every Blade helicopter, but it should give you a place to start. Most likely you will have to make fine adjustments to the Pitch curve to get the correct one depending on where your servos are centered and how the linkages are tuned.

Ill say it again. YOU MUST VERIFY THAT THE BLADES ARE MOVING CORRECTLY AND ALL DIRECTIONAL LINKAGES ARE CORRECT B E F O R E FLYING IT!!!!

If you dont know much about this, I wouldnt recommend trying it until you can have someone that knows about helicopters verify that your heli is set up correctly.

Bdavison:

I did not follow your advice and am attempting to program my 9C. I think I have it set up to your specifications correctly, but I can not get the 4 in 1 to initialize. I did notice that you had two entries for the TH-CV/ NOR and none for the pitch. I tried it both ways and had the same results. I also tried the throttle end point both ways to make sure I had entered that correctly. I also put the throttle trim all the way down but with the same results. Any suggestions?

Can I convert the blade to mode 1? (throttle on the left)

What adapter did you use for the Blade CP Tx? All my other radios are Futaba and the plug is not quite the same. I've alo read the ring/tip polarity is different than Futaba.

Thanks,

Carl