So has anyone here upgraded their motors? Ive seen a few different upgrades on ebay. Im thinking tying to go brushless would be too much money, the Xtreme motors are only $30 for the pair. How much stronger are aftermarket motors than stock. If you have upgraded, which did you go with and how do you like?

I've had both, and the stock motors really aren't that bad; they will last for awhile and are relatively cheap; a heatsink is a good thing for those. No problem at all, but I would definately vent the canopy as well, as they do get hot and hot is bad. Fly for a battery pack, cool for the same length of time, fly. . .

The XTREMES are the only other brand of motor I would go with; I have no experience with the Vortex ones, but been here long enough to hear people say they are cheaply made.

The XTREMES are open top ventilated, ball bearing, so if properly broken in MAY equate to longer flight times; are slightly quieter, slightly cooler running, argueably more powerful; noteably more so if You get the shorter lived, softer, but more powerful silver brush replacements. A heatsink is still good, but not required, IMO if weight is a concern. You do have to still watch the motor temps. One can't become overly confident because You can get them hot and shorten the life span of these too. The commutator is pretty thin, so I wouldn't think that You can just keep replacing brushes and never have to replace the motor; they will wear out, but I think You can get a longer life than You can with the stock.

Motors are easy to replace; so whatever You think.

I have the Xtreme 180's and love them, Goldslinger pretty much covered everything there is to say about them. The only thing I can add is go to a higher C rated lipo to get the most out of your new motors. They fly great with the stock lipo however you will really notice the performance when you give them more juice!

Yes, exactly right; The XTREMES will fly with stock, but love the slightly higher 14, 15 c rated batteries; Yea, that's kinda important.

Thanks, Stump3r.

Gary

np Gary, that' the true beauty of our collective. Very rarely do we (the collective) miss a detail! The only thing that is a little creepy at times is how much we all think alike!

I also totally agree with the above post on Xtreme 180 motors and the battery upgrades ...You won't go back to stock.

Hi guys. Lurker and relative newbie here. Been flying a CX2 for about a month and just this weekend changed out the stock motors with Xtremes. I'm having a tough time getting the 4-in-1 adjusted. Just prior to changing out the motors, things were good. Pretty solid hover with a little drift as the batteries drained off. I finally got things stable enough that it's not chasing it's tail, but it will twitch requiring adjustment. And any input to the rudder results in a very quick reaction. I spent about an hour yesterday trying to adjust before just putting it aside.
So I guess my question is: does this sound normal? Any recommendations?

I'll jump in here with my support of this statement. I just received a set of DN 15C 850 mAH packs and the increase in power in VERY noticable with the X180 motors. I have another set coming, hopefully today, for my older CX2.

The new packs do better on stock motors too, but with the X180 motors, you can really tell.

Oh! Yes! I had to reset everything to get it to quit chasing it's tail! Balance everything mechanical first, meaning make sure your shafts are all true, flybar is balanced and true, followed by blades and blade tracking. Once you have eliminated anything mechanical that could be causing issues with poor flight then onto electrical. First problem I had was gain issues, my tail was as twitchy as I am after a pot of coffee! On my heli I have the gain way down to get her smooth. Now for my rudder issues it took a combination of balancing the swash plate, adjusting servo rod length then finally adjusting the pot.
Now lets not forget lipos. One thing to add is that she will fly different with different lipos. I have 2 of the 850mah 15C DN's and two stock lipos. I set her up using the DN's and now when I fly the stock lipos she is a little off. The higher power of the DN lipos makes a noticeable difference. Set her up with your preferred lipo. There is enough of a difference going from the DN's to the stocks that I have to trim her a bit with the tx on the stocks. If you only have one type of lipos then this will not be an issue for you.
Shoot more questions if you need answers

Thanks -- mechanically everything seems fine... new blades, upper and lower stock; new stock flybar. Shafts seems fine - at least prior to the change out there were no issues. Tracking looks good.

It seems like I'm going around in circles electrically. I know I saw an approach somewhere, but as I adjust gyro gain, the mix changes. Is there a "best practice" for setting one (probably gyro gain) first then approach proportional mix?

I've been on both extremes of the gyro -- full clockwise feels loose, a little input puts it into a spin. Full counterclockwise and she twitches and makes sudden unprovoked changes. This seems to contradict the explanation in the manual for the gyro gain adjustments.

As for Lipos, I've been using my 15Cs.

Roybob,

Welcome to the forum !

Here's my checklist:

Remove the flybar, and all the blades. Rotate with power each shaft and ensure they are true. If not; straighten or replace them.

Check the gear mesh on both motor pinions to the large drive gears; it may have changed with the motor replacement. Loosen the screws slightly, (yes, You can do it with everything assembled; just kinda have to warp the lower gear to get to the screw).

Slip a piece of regular weight typing paper in between the pinion gear and the larger gear You're adjusting; manually rotate the narrow strip between the gears; this will act as the feeler guage. Kinda press the little motor gear up against the larger gear with the paper in between and tighten the screws.

Do this on both. Now check the 'play' on both as the large gears aren't perfectly round and may still bottom out at one area and be good in another quadrant of the large gear causing a bind. If You can move the inner and outer shaft very slightly without rotating the pinion (and I mean slightly) then You are good to go.

It is important while You are down there to make sure the 2 screws on the aluminum cap holding the inner shaft are TIGHT! Twitchiness, can happen with this slipping and grabbing; slipping and grabbing of the inner shaft. The inner shaft should be flush with the plastic gear hub. If it's not, then the screws may not be holding it on the 'flat' of the shaft.

Now check the end play on the shafts. They should just barely move up and down; it's best to error slightly too loose, than too tight on this end play. Now rotate both shafts; they should move freely, the upper will seem a bit more freely.

You should have good blades, that are balanced or at least have the same die number etched in them (that means grabbed out of the same package). You can see the numbers 1 through 4 etched in the plastic in the hub area.

Make sure the flybar is PERFECTLY straight, or install a new one.

rev up the heli and adjust the upper blade tracking with the flybar ball turnbuckle, until the tips run as true as possible.

Okay, run the cooled heli for one minute on fresh battery. After the one minute, turn the gain (the little pot on the left for the gyro) up or clockwise until the tail twitches all the time, pretty much). We don't care about the nose turning tendancies right now.

Now turn the Gain down (counterclockwise) in VERY small increments, until the heli just stops twitching (except for occasionally) You do not have to turn off the heli each time for this adjustment; which is nice.

After cooling for 4 or 5 minutes; load another fresh battery and fly for one minute; after the minute adjust the other pot, until the turning tendancy stops. You will have to unplug and plug in the heli after each adjustment, for the adjustment to take.

You will never get it perfect, because of motor temps, brush wear, 4 in 1 warming up, alot of factors, but that is why You adjust it after 1 minute of flight; as You get rid of the initial battery surge, and the adjustment will be good for most of the flight.

You have new motors, and You may have to do the pot adjustments again after an hour or two of total flight time; but after that; You should never have to adjust the little pots again. So if a problem develops again; adjusting the pots again should be the last thing; not the first thing, You do.

The motors always break in unevenly and You will have more uniformity when You have 100 percent contact between the brushes and commutator.

Hope this helps.

Gary

This is perfect!

Thanks Gary. I'll report back after I've gone through all of this. Since I'm going on vacation for a bit, it may be mid-November before I can report status.

One more question - after reading another post elsewhere... I did notice that the lower blades don't rotate as freely as the upper blades with the motors installed. Uninstall the motors and they're both fine. It's as if the lower motor has a bit more resistance to it than the upper. Is that normal?

Jim

just had about a 1min fly time a full power then she sinks low on the stock battery after total 20 flights. Time for a better c rated alternative battery?

Yea, if it's a bit tighter, it's normal. I think You must have missed that in my post above, but that's alright.

Gary

That's too short on any battery. Lots of reasons for going for more powerful batteries, but I think You need more than that, i would look for another problem. Maybe my above post will help.

Gary

RoyBob,

I forgot to mention that You should use a high quality oil/grease on all bearings, and things that rug together. Use a quality dry graphite or graphite/molebdymun (sp?)powder on the gears; or leave dry; but DO NOT wet lube the gears below. Also, DO NOT lube the motor; it's already packed. I know a very few people lube their little 180 motors, but it is totally unecessary; won't do any good, but certainly CAN do harm; as it will inevitably creep and get where it's not supposed to and lacquer the commutator, insulate and heat up the coil, etc. etc.


A LOT of people have recommended TRI-FLOW GREASE and/or oil, and I have tried it; and like it better; far better, than anything else i've tried. It's the most refined Teflon lube that's safe on all plastics that I could find.

The grease is particularly good, as it is VERY sticky; not thick; just sticky, and won't lose it's viscosity under higher temps. It stays put; meaning it won't creep, and lubes forever! My heli hasn't been quieter than it has when I started using this stuff, so I'm emulating what the Pro's use. You can use it on anything on the heli to simplify Your life.


I grease all bearings, bushings, and swash parts that slide. I grease all the metal balls. I oil the tiniest amount on the blade pivot points, nylon balls, flybar pivot joint.

I found the tri-flow combo grease tube and oiler from an E-Bayer who sells industrial sewing machine supplies, but should be easy enough to find on the internet.

Sorry about that... just crossed my mind and threw the question out.

By the way, have you seen the new FlyCamOne2? 90 degree head with servo arm attached?

Roybob,

No; You need to enlighten Me on that;

BTW. I just posted a lube guide for You too; just on top of Your last post.

Gary

Thanks for the lubricating info...

Finding an information page in English for the new camera is hard. Do a Google search for "flycamone2" and down near the bottom the list there should be a site for modellbauland.ch. Use the "Translate this page" for a translated look -- but more important are the photos showing the imaging head with a 90 degree turn. A UK hobby shop site indicates it will start shipping in mid-November and it's priced around 45 pounds, or $90.

Maybe Jamie can pick up a US distribution?

Okay, thanks.

Gary