ITS FIXED!
Didn't try a new battery yet but bought it, I changed both motors but it didn't help! Next is the new battery and last is a new 4 in 1 which e-flite is saying is the problem. I am down to 1 1/2 to 3 minute flights. I notice the 4 in 1 is blinking red to green when in flight from the start of lift off. I thought it did this when the flight was almost over when I first got it, about 8 mins into flight.
Just tested with new battery on first charge I got 6 minutes. I don't think this is enough. I am Flying in the house with landing and take off with turns.
I guess I have to go for the 4 in 1 and see. Will post info!
NOT BATTERY, NOT MOTORS, Whats left 4 in 1!
ITS FIXED! It was the 4 in 1! Now a nice 11 1/2 minutes flying stop and go, turns, take offs, etc. Old battery with 140 flights was giving me 1 1/2 minutes to 3 minutes now 9 1/2 minutes. For everyone having a time problem checkout your 4 in 1 even at $59.00 it solved it. Hope they are not this touchy!!!. Ron

Darticus,
Are you venting the 4 in 1 or the canopy or using the motor heat sink or anything to help the 4 in 1? I have all of those things done and I have to wonder if it is making a difference.
Thanks for the info! Knowledge is power.
Soloboss

Very interesting...

I've been having a heckuva time getting my CX-2 to fly at all... I was hovering and stuff, but my sticks were nearly buried...

New motors and a bunch of parts later, it hovered for a few seconds, and the dropped out of the sky. It hovers like 4 inches off the ground, is all it will do.


When it was new, I don't remember the little light in the 4-in-1 turning red...
I flew it again today, nose left, so I could see the green light... at a little past half throttle, it lifts off, and the light turns red... you can firewall the throttle at that point, full 12 O'Clock, and there is no change in the power....

Is this the problem you were having???

So, I need a 4-in-1 now??? What broke it???

Very frustrating... I've run like 6 batteries through it... beside sorta-hovering with the right stick nearly buried 4 O'Clock, I've gotten nowhere....

The only plus is, I've spent so much time waiting for more parts, I've flown the simulator like mad... RFG2. With the concept 30 eletric on the sim, I can do the whole RADDS, I can pirhouette, I can do fast forward flight, I can stall turn it....

I've mastered the simulator. If only my poor CX-2 would fly.....

Any thought would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I now have a seat sink but thats it. Hope if there is a heat problem on the 4 and 1 e-flite works on it. After hearing what you have done it appears like the 4 in 1 has a design problem not a heat problem. If you can't correct the problem by venting the heat by using the blades the only thing left is to build a small refrigeration unit to carry on top the heli. FORGETABOUTIT! It must be a 4 and 1 electronic design problem. BE GENTLE. Ron

Patrick
I look at it as 3 main parts and don't want to advise as I get in trouble. BUT you have a battery, 2 motors, 4 in 1 unit. I thought the battery but the 3 I had were all doing basically the same thing from 1.5 to 6 minutes of flight time. I changed the 2 motors as they say they have a life of about 20 hours flying time NG. The worst is the bigger money item the $59.00 4 in 1. After talking with a total of 7 techs from e-flite some things started to come together. One tech kept asking "Now whats the problem again" next time "so it won't fly" next time "So the battery is dead" next "so you can't get it to fly". WOW! Seemed like something from the late 60"s. A FEW TECHS HIT ON THE 4 IN ONE SO THATS THE WAY TO GO. Most of us spend tooooo much money anyway on junk try a 4 in 1. Hope this helps! Ron

Thanks darticus, I appreciate your post.... It used to fly... but doesn't anymore.

Sigh... more parts.... I'm glad I noticed that red light going on.... I really didn't think the 4 in1 could be bad.... I've barely flown it.

Obviously it could be.... I've spent enough to buy 2 helicopters...

Seems like the battery connects to the 4 in 1 and the two motors connect to the 4 in 1.The 4 in 1 works like a distribution box and sends out the voltage and amps. No flow no go! Good luck let us know!. Ron

hrm... I don't know if your problem is with the 4 in 1 or not... but the light going red on the 4 in 1 is perfectly normal.... all it means is that it is approaching full throttle.

you might want to check and see if everything is moving alright, and see if it needs any lube or if the motors are too tight against the main gears. I guess you could go ahead and replace the 4 in 1... it might solve your problem, but it also might not =(

mrasmm:

That's kind of my point... the red light goes on at around half throttle, slightly more.... nowhere near full throttle...

When the red light goes on, further advancing northward of the throttle stick does nothing.

That doesn't seem right.

I seem to recall when I first got it, it would climb at slightly above half throttle, and in my flights, I never saw the green light turn red.... I never needed full throttle...

Nothings binding, and everything's balanced. I just had it all apart to replace the outer shaft... I bumped something lightly, and stripped out the gear on the bottom....

I'm gonna have to try a 4 in 1, I guess... I've thrown so much money at it, I can't stop now....

I must say, I'm also intrigued by a lot of the comments on these threads alluding to "making sure your pinion is not too tight against the gears." Mine seem fine, I can put a piece of paper through it, but... my motor mounts are not adjustable. If it was wrong, what sort of corrective action would I take????? I'm scratching my head on that one, although right now, that is a deep backround concern.

Darticus: one of your previous posts says "I now have a heat sink". You mean you have a heat sink on your new 4 in 1?? Or you mean the motors?? I have the heat sink on my motors... I'm unaware of one for the 4 in 1.

Thanks again for your help everyone, I appreciate it.

The heat sink is now on the motors. I don't think the 4 in 1 is an overheat problem. We know the green and red blinking lights happens but when it happens is the key. When I used the bad 4 in 1 the light would be green on take off maybe 1/2 throttle the red light would come on than green than red back in forth on a straight run of 20 feet about 6 times one way and 6 times back. This is using a full charged battery. With the new 4 in one it takes off on green may blink red than stays green, unless you really push during the flight, for the remainder of the flight. Time difference is 3 minutes to 11.5 minutes.We should just keep an open mind to this and see if its the way you can tell the 4 in 1 is failing.

Hey dude,
i had the red light problem several weeks back and determined the problem
was 4in1... sooooo I sent the battery and 4in1 back to horizon....
return receipt, which "BTW: they requested". They have it now...don't want to
bug them..but I hope it helps them solve their problem...whatever it is.
59 bucks for the main item in the cx2 and I had it just 10 days....
just not right.....I bought another in the mean time!!!! anyway I will let you
all know..maybe they read these reports..

If defective parts they should help us out! Ron

I ordered a new one yesterday. Darticus, it sounds like you were seeing what I am seeing...

I may send mine back to Horizon. I suppose they'll claim I "abused" it, but, if it at least shows them what the problem is, maybe they'll correct it, and save future people all this trouble....

I'll let you know if this works or not.


I was really considering a Blade CP Pro, but I have to say, I'm leaning more torwards the JR electric... I'm not sure I'm really so thrilled with the E-Flite experience to this point.... unless I just got a bad apple.

Okay, new 4 in 1 is installed.

First off, the red light does NOT come on until the throttle is nearly buried....

Now, we have a new set of symptoms to review:

Helicopter lifts off and begins to pirhouette hard to the right. Full left rudder almost makes it stop, but it still drifts nose right.... This is a new symptom.

Also, with the rudder buried to the left, the helicopter will not maintain altitude, and settles gently down to the ground...

With the rudder allowed to center, helicopter climbs briskly and seems to have plenty of power... climbs strongly while spinning...

When left rudder is re-applied, helicopter almost stops spinning, hovers for a couple seconds, and then gently descends to the ground.

Any ideas????

Has anyone taken a baseline temp of the 4-1 to compare it too later? I'm wondering if some overheating of the 4-1 from crashes or general use might show signs of it starting to fail.

honestly it sounds like you might have a motor going out, or you need to adjust the proprtional in your new 4 in 1. Those are the most likely, but it could be other things too if that doesn't work.

just a guess but for your spinning issue, sounds like the proprtional pot needs adjustment (it is a new 4-in-1 right?) remember to unplug the battery before making the adjustment.

when you turn to fast to the left it is normal for the CX to slowly lose altitude, try turning left a lot slower and see if it drops...

hope I'm not telling you anything you already know and some of it helps ya

Sent out the original bad 4 in 1 to E-FLITE. Wonder what they will say. Hope they send a new one. They cost to much to be a problem so soon after purchase. Watch your 4 in 1's!

are you sure you have the set screws placed on the flat spots on the shaft? just wondering.

I had the same prob and it was my set screws you have to have that collar lined up just right and really tight.

Well... It's been awhile, but I think I have success....

I got a little fed up and ordered all the blue anodized aluminum parts from Eflite... new swash, new innershaft with flybar mount, the whole deal....

Broke in the motors again....

I saw a thread on here about boiling your blades in water for a few seconds, so I did that, and rebalanced everything....

Now.... it flies real nice! Hovers perfectly. Flies for about ten minutes.

I really like the new swashplate... I highly recommend that. And I'm not sure if something was out of balance somewhere, but it reallys spins up nice & true now, no vibration whatsoever. Even seems to run quieter....

So, it's taken forever, and quite an infusion of capital, but I see why people like these so much! When it's flying right, it's fun!

Thanks to everyone for all your help!

CX2 is great fun! One thing I feel needs mentioning about Eflite is that the shafts (both inner & outer on the cx/2 & main on the cp/pro) are not very good. Both my CX2 & CP Pro both came out of the box with shafts that were not perfectly true. Which is pretty darned annoying I must say considering they claim to fly-test every bird before it goes in the box. I was able to correct the issue with a stock replacement outer shaft for the CX2, as for the CP Pro... I've got a replacement stock shaft I'll be installing but I'm still in search of a higher quality main shaft that is a true as possible.

That's one of the reasons I went with MicroHeli alum hops, because I'm pretty sure they use the same shafts on the upgraded alum parts. I don't have the E-Flite hops to compare to my MicroHeli upgrades, but the inner shaft is steel, not alum or something else.

I was having the exact same problem with my CX (red/green flashing, then red and down I go). I called tech support and they said the exact same thing, "replace the 4 in 1." Figuring to save money, I would do that first, based on tech support and this forum. $50 later, I gained about a minute of flight time over the 2 minutes. I check the battery voltage before and after each flight. Before, I get about 9.1v, after the flight I get about 8.0-8.2v. I don't think I'm getting full range from the battery, as I think (I'm new to lipos) I should be at about 6v when finished flying. Any other suggestions. Bought preowned, so I'm told the heli has no more than a couple hours of flight on it. What should I do next? I hate wasting money on things that don't work.

First thing I would check is the balance of your cells with a balancer other than the E-Flite one. Some people who have noticed a similar problem found that it was unbalanced cells, even with the stock charger. I use an Astro Blinky.
Check post #17 in this thread. That might be it also. Proportional in the 4-1.
Also, check your blades to ensure they're symetry is correct (if you have spares).
Are you using full throttle to get the initial lift? If so, possibly the cells are unbalanced. Maybe just take a charged pack down to your LHS (I always use a safety container to transport, and don't leave it in your vehicle) and ask them to hook up to a Blinky (maybe say I might need to by a cell balancer). Right away they'll be able to tell you if it's unbalanced.