I just can't make up my stinkin mind!!!! Little story first before the question! So I'm flying in my garage this afternoon and have taken up the sport of spot landing on things that you should really not be spot landing on Needless to say I went through 4 lowers, 2 uppers and an outer shaft in my stunt flying this afternoon! So here is the question at hand. Does a guy bite the bullet and move to the blade grips and after market blades or continue to burn through stock blades like my 8 month old goes through diapers. I've probably read too many posts regarding blade grips and the related blades cause it's about a 50/50 split between good and bad thus boiling down to personal opinion. Typical me if I do move to grips I gotta have the cnc micro heli version vs. the bladecx2 plastic version. With the xtreme motors in the mail and my two new DN lipos riding shotgun coupled with my fully modded lighter than stock heli I have the horsepower to whirl full cnc grips, but are the blades really all that much better? My LHS has both in stock so supply is not an issue. What to do what to do?

Crash less.
Just kidding.

Stump3r,

I would advice you to wait with biting the bullet until Xtreme releases it's special CX2 Alu bladegrips! [link]http://www.krshobbies.com/images/xbladegrip.jpg[/link]
As with all Xtreme products (haven't heared any bad notes on Xtreme!), they should be great!
Heared from reliable sources that they'll release them this month!

My opinion on:
MicroHeli bladegrips: reading about them made me decide not to go with them.
The story goes they are way too heavy and unbalanced. Also they need modifications to work properly.

BladeCX2 grips are just repackaged Protech/Dynam Vortex parts, which need modifications if you want them to work on Eflite heads.
I wont go into that company again, but please do your research. I would advice you to keep away.

The Xtreme blades seem to be stiffer and more crash resistant than the stock blades. Stocks are quite flimpsy and you should see better lift with the Xtreme's too!
When you eventually get the grip () you have much more blade to choose from too! (Esky, Dynam, Graupner, Protech etc)


(About the spot landing, first try/learn with the lightest battery you have, it's easier to save your blades, because it lifts much quicker with less weight (duh ) ).

How do You know for sure the blades are on perfectly, 100 percent straight when using grips. Do You just get as close as possible and centrifugal force lines them up when You rev up?

Amen to that ! ! I never took an upgrade back off my heli quicker than I did the Microheli bladegrips.

I made another mistake and bought their aluminum; plastic fly bar end weight assembly. piece of crap as well, and weighs more than stock ! ! Totally ill fitted; bent a new flybar
trying to get it on. I see '0' benefit from these except looks.

You can also cut and drill stock blades to fit grips, if You already have a bunch lying around; just got to weigh and balance them afterwards.

To align your blades in grips, just screw them in loose-ish, rev her up, let the blades 'set'.
Then power down and thighten the blades a bit! Don't overthighten, you'll want them to be able to move!

Thanks, Shufflez !

Do the bladegrips add even more weight to my already overloaded heli? I'm thinking about removing all the aluminum except the swash and upper head.

I'm gonna have to start running strictly more powerful aftermarket batteries, if that's the case.

I don't know what bladegrips you have (MicroHeli CNC i suppose?) but the weight itself isn't that much of an issue.
(Although they are heavier than what they can/should be)

My heli has all alloy and batteries twice the weight of stock lipo's and it still runs fine!
I haven't done anything to save weight yet , waiting on parts to do so...

Running powerfull batts is always a good idea!

LOL How true!!!!

Shufflez....once again "You are the man!!!!" Looks like I will await the xtreme version! Hopefully they out perform the stock versions. Very frustrated with my lack of inner space to fly. With cold weather approaching I won't be able to fly in the park any longer. Never break blades outdoors....only indoors doing stupid human tricks

I wanted to sign up to answer a few things about the CNC blade grips and some of the "problems" people have or have had. I was pretty leary about doing the grips because of all of the stories I had heard as well. I also didn't find out about the E-Flite lower head and Micro Heli grip problem until I had them. I am referring to the stock linkages not being long enough from the E-Flite CNC swashplate to the Micro Heli lower grips. I did about every combo I could until I saw what the probalem actually seems to be. The stock plastic E-Flite swashplate at the top where the outer shaft comes through was flush and relatively flat. The CNC piece has a sleeve that seems to protrude about a 1/16th of an inch higher therefore causing the swashplate to come in contact with the lower head when trying to snap the linkages on and therefore binding it. If you tried to fly this way it would be VERY erratic and not worth the time spent trying to fly. Rather than having to buy the Micro Heli lower head, I pulled off the E-Flite lower head and used a grinder to remove that 1/16th of inch I mentioned. (Please make sure to file everything back SMOOTH after the grinder!) After that I had zero tolerance problems and everything went on well. I can hover the heli as still as I want and with almost zero "tail walk" and no erratic movement like some people complained of.

The only thing that seems to happen is that people are taking a heli that is not "tuned" properly when in stock form and the mods amplify that. I found and book marked a few guides that helped mine out TREMENDOUSLY in the flight characteristics. Then when I added the CNC parts, if anything, everything seemed to just "smooth out" a bit I would guess due to the tighter tolerances of the CNC parts. Another thing is the blade tightness with the grips. Unlike the CCP heli's, these grips need to be pretty snug and only allowing for slight movement in the blades with a decent amount of pressure on them. To make them straight, you can either eyeball them, Pull them straight out kind of like the CCP trick, or make them loose, spin them and then tighten them up after they get straight. I can dig up the links to the "tuning" guides if anyone is interested or I can try and throw together a consolidated version of it all too when I have a bit ore time to do so if anyone is interested.

hi stump3r just to say i know what your going through, but the micro-heli blade grips do work .

rsher,
Nice tanks in the background!
I have the microheli upgrades, and would not recommend for a novice, as when you fit the blades on the location lugs they are sloppy compared to the tighter fit plastic stock, this makes the heli very difficult to trim up. For a more experience pilot however the extreme blades are more rigid, and you can push them harder, and if you have a prang they dont break!!

More guides are always a great thing. Tunez (I say this for the entire collective)we would be more than grateful if you would take the time to bring it all together and provide the tuning guides. I have personally made the choice to wait for the extreme version of the blade grips. Their products so far have proven to be the best of the best. As for a modded heli vs. stock heli I would have to also say that it has made this little guy a precision machine. Yes I can fly it unbalanced now, however it's like stepping out of a tuned sports car and into a family station wagon.

KRs Hobbies just posted that they are taking pre orders for the upgrades mentioned. Just put in my pre-order for the grips, extended upper head, and blades. Also ordered some 850 15c batteries.

They will be in stock October 15th; ready to ship, according to Keith. Free shipping on orders over 100.00. Unfortunately, a hundred bucks is easy to rack up in any hobbystore shopping basket.

Will write a review; hope others do too.

Gary

I try to start getting it together but it is going to take a while to compile. I find new articles everyday that seem to add something a little cooler and new but it's all fun anyway!! I may try to do it gradually and see if I can have it stickied and free of extra posts to keep the confusion down as well.