am new to the forum and a newbie pilot with a eflite blade cx2; have had great fun so far, with only a few blade cracks and minor repairs. however after my last crash, the heli wants to drift severely to the right just before take off; i have tried to trim as much as possible, checked for asymmetrical weighting, etc.. can't seem to figure out what to do.

need help from some veterans in the field

thanks in advance

have you moved any servos or servo arm linkages while repairing?

thanks for the reply; i do not think so, but certainly a possibility; i will try making adjustments there; i can fly the heil, but to have stable flight i have to hold the right joystick almost flush to the left and slightly forward.

is it ok to move the servo arms ( with the battery disconnected?) if so i will just have to tweak a little at a time until stable

thanks for the diagnostics and recs

doc

one of the servos is probably bad. move the servo arms to level, then plug a battery in. if the right servo arm goes down as far as possible and kind of quivers or jitters, the servo is probably ruined. to make sure, take the plugs for the servos out of the reciever and switch them, then test again. if the same servo malfunctions, the servo is ruined. if the other one malfunctions, the reciever is bad. it is probably the servo, though. i had the exact same problem a while ago. the servo had gone bad.

Before you head back to the hobby store and ask about servos, you need to examine your swashplate and servos.

Here is what I would do.

CENTER YOUR TRIMS --- !!!! (did you catch the emphasis?)

1.) Disconnect the ball linkages from the swashplate. Power on the heli.
2.) Move the right stick in circles, and see if both servos travel equally.
3.) If they move equally, go to the next step, if not, you have a bad servo.

Centering your servos:

1.) Power on the heli, let it sync up (you might want to disconnect the motors for this just in case you bump the remote.)
2.) Unscrew one of the screws that holds the white servo horns onto the servo itself, remembering the orientation of the arm.
3.) Replace the servo arm onto the servo, parrallel to the ground, at the most level angle you can, sometimes a perfect 90 degree angle is not possible.
4.) Rescrew the arm onto the servo, and repeat for the other side.

Leveling your swashplate:

1.) Viewing your heli from the back, note the image attatched to this post.
2.) If side A is HIGHER than side B, screw the ball linkage on side A further down onto the control arm, etc, etc, and visa versa.
3.) If side A is LOWER than side B, screw the ball linkage on side A further away from the control arm, etc, etc, and visa versa.

Ideally, you want the swash plate to be completely level, that is the only way to get a proper hover without major control inputs.

Now, here is the relatively hard part.

You do not want to have one arm that is significantly longer or shorter than the other, which means in order to level the swash plate you will have to work with both sides. It is not terribly difficult, just requires some patience to get the swash level using both sides. Generally you will HAVE to move both sides to get it leveled.

After you have done these two things, your trims should work properly in flight, and your hover should be stable.

Let me know what you figure out.

much thanks; guess i will spend the next few hours fine tuning the set up you listed and give it a try.

that should take care of it, i'm sure.

thanks again,

doc

wow; that is some detail work. i appreciate the specifics and will let you know how it comes out.

thanks again for the help.

There's two very small arms on the lower rotor driver that break easily. Both of these must be there for the chopper to work. They fit in the links from the swash plate to the rotor mounts.
Also, the drive pins into the rotors at the lower rotor driver can shear. Both of these must be there also.

thanks to all; a lot of work to check out.

doc

It sounds like the swashplate seperated. If it did just squeeze it back together and you will be back to normal flying again.

I agree, swash plate separated.
After a minor crash, my CX went fast forward and a little right. I checked and everything looked fine. I noticed the swash looked "odd" when I was checking it for level. I squeezed it back together gently and success! Flying normally again.

Check that swash!