Just a heads up for all of you thinking about an E-flight helicopter. I bought a Blade 400 less than a month ago and already had to replace the motor for a bad bearing with less than 10 flights and now my ESC is bad with less than 15 flights. For the price I paid I was thinking I was getting a good quality one. I emailed horizon hobby about the motor and they said to send it in and they would see what they could do. So now I have to ask them about the ESC next. Whats next the Gyro and Radio system. I hope the rest of you have been having better luck.

Maybe we should take a poll. I sense there's a lot of infant mortality in their components. First reaction is to just fix it and get on with life, but is this isolated occurrences or is it epidemic?

I had an early failure of my CX2 motor, but given the cost I just replaced both motors with better ones. In fact, now that I think of it, 30% of my CX2 has been replaced with upgrade or replacement parts! Hmmmm.

The Blade 400 is on my short list for the "next step", but this news is not just isolated and I suspect not all components are of the highest quality. I'm starting to lean toward a 450 Rex clone kit and buying the components I feel are best. It will be more expensive, but I suspect it will last longer!

Keep us posted on Horizon's response...

Mack

im sorry to hear that uv had problems with ur 400, but overall for wut u get for the price, it really is a pretty good deal. ive had my 400 for 6 months, and its had a few hick ups here and there, but horizon has takin care of me. while there parts may leave a little to be desired they do have excellent customer service and will replace dang near anything. i hope ur experience improves, the b400 really is a nice beginner heli for the price.

mack66 - if u have the money to drop on the top notch quality stuff up front, i would definately recommend that. i spent close to $800 on my rex clone, most of wich was electronics, but does not include the radio i already had with my b400. if ur looking for the next level and want to get the best bang for the buck, the b400 is a pretty nice choice imho. it has treated me well thus far and got me into the hobby b4 i could afford the nicer stuff. now that i have a few helis, the b400 is kinda my beater, but i still love to fly it, as it is much lighter than my 450 and can really move around well.

just my hand full of pennies

baurwin, what did Horizon do to take care of you? Do you think I should just send my motor and speed controller to them? When I sent an email about the motor last week they said to send it with a letter of what I would like done. It seemed like a no brainer, umm replace it please!!! I have been a Horizon Customer for a long time with airplanes but this was my first deal with them for a helicopter full of electronics. I really like the helicopter and the way it flies, just think the electronics are pretty low end and not designed to last.
I don't want to just bash Horizon or anything, like I said I have been buying their airplanes for years.
Thanks for all the help fellas!

Thanks for the input, baurwin. I'm completely objective about this and I continue to be all ears. Won't be taking the dive yet until I'm convinced I have complete control over my CX2, so will continue to listen to everyone.

Mack

i called them and talked to them for all my issues. i had the stock lipo go bad on me after 1 flight, they sent me a new one. they also sent me some new lipos for my mcx. also i bought an eflite y series harness that was wired incorrectly and fried my esc for my trex 500. i called them again and they send me a new align esc. that one took alot of talking but in the end they sent me a new one. i have some bad trim pots on my dx6i i need to call in as well but havnt got around to it. ive noticed from others that sometimes u have to send parts in for repair, and sometimes they just send you a new one. i guess it just depends on what it is.

on the battery, they told me they didnt even cover the lipos, but he sent me new ones any ways, so that was pretty cool.

it would be nice if it was just made right the first time, but at least they are good about replacing or fixing things.

Hey Fire_medic

I have had my Blade 400 for about 4 months now and I have not had any issue with it apart from one servo going AWOL on me but I stripped gears on the same so find it hard to blame to product! I know the components aren't the best, but like baurwin says, you get what you pay for. If it had Hitec servo's and a Futaba Gyro we'd be paying a couple hundred more for it. I know you know this... sorry.

I just think you have had some bad luck. I think you got the "burger they spat on" so to speak...

All of my problems have been my own doing. Crashing hard doesn't help the life of cheaper components! I have heard ESC problems aired in hereand I might upgrade that next too.

I live in Oz and had to send my TX away but it was back in 5 days fixed for free - not even postage. I assume an agent of horizon over here.

I hope it all works out for you soon.

Jon

i started with an mcx back around november and got the b400 at the first of the year. at the time i could not afford to piece a rex or clone together with the right components plus by a radio and all that. the b400 was the most logical step for my personal situation. then later when i got my income tax i built a cx450se v2, then a trex500esp. the best thing about it, is the dx6i it comes with. thats half the price right there.

dont get me wrong, i do like my 450 better, but the b400 made it all possible. just depends on ur own situations. ya know????

baurwin think about you post what i see is you should have just bought a trex rite off the bat and save a heap of money my wife always tells me to buy what iam going to be happy with in other words BUY ONCE NOT TWICE

yeah, if i would have had the money, i would have, but at the time i didnt. plus i dont even know if i would have got into the hobby if it wasnt for the b400. i really dont know if i would have ever spent that much money building one with out knowing if i was going to be able to figure it out or not. im happy with the path i took. it worked out good for me. besides, one can never have too many helis lmao

I live in Angola. I purchased my Blade 400 in Windhoek Namibia. The supplier is in Cape Town South Africa. Mt stock battery wuld not charge straight out of the box. The supplier refused to compensate. The hobby shop in Windhoek gave me a new battery at cost. Not very good service I think.

I have a feeling that Blade MCX is ironically the most reliable and trouble-free helicopter of theirs. I see very few complaints about it on this and other boards and I know A LOT of people own it.
Ironycally it is the least expensive one

I speak as novice with about four months total experience with helicopters. I started with the mcx and moved up the CX3. I see E-Flite as a company that provides <u>acceptable</u>, not perfect aircraft to the masses. They and others have gone a long way towards making r/c flight <u>affordable</u> to a lot of people who otherwise would have simply passed the hobby by. The key term is <u>affordable</u>. As I understand it, part of the learning curve with many helicopters is the "quality control-repair-upgrade" phase. You have to be prepared to do your own crashing, learning, fixing and tweaking. This is called "fun".There are significant by-products of this process. The entire Internet support community isa tremendous by-product. Another is the after-market for just about any helicopter outthere. Yes, acompany like E-flite will cause its share of frustrations, annoyances and rants.I know I have had mine. At the same time, they allow you to gain and sharealevel of proficiency and expertise. Just look at the size of the knowledge basefor most manufacturers on this web site alone.

Coming from a perspective of over twenty years in the personal computer field I can say that things always get better. Sometimes it is a slow process but it always happens. I strongly suspect with the rapid advances being made in very energy efficient, tinymicroprocessors and solid state drive devices, in five years or so we will have r/c helicopters that have autopilots. Then we will be saying "I remember when we had to do trim adjustments manually while our helicopters were in the air in a 15 mph head wind." Hang in there.

I am now looking at moving up to my next helicopter. I have looked at the Thunder Tiger Innovator MD530, the Blade 400 and the Trex 450. Right now, the Trex 450 looks good <u>after</u> I put in some serious simulator time. Time is on my side and the products will just keep getting better.

Very astute observation, Stumblebee. I have had a ton of fun out of learning and fixing and crashing my CX2. And if you look at the buzz on this forum (and others) about e-Flite coaxials, I'd say they hit a nerve in the consumer market. I am one of those who was always afraid of jumping into the hobby because of the risk relative to cost of learning the hobby.

$180 for a complete kit including transmitter was to hard to pass up to give it a try. I have been entertained by this little airplane for many hours (although my wife is less entertained but that's another story). It may be a good thing to have random "problems" as it pulls you into a great community that is always more than ready to try to help out and this kind of social behavior has to be a positive thing in our otherwise insular world.

In a nutshell, it appears e-Flite has done something very positive for our community!

Mack

From my experiance id say for the price you cant go wrong nfor the 400, this is becasue the dx6i is worth the deal alone and you get a heli for free.

Now i have had my fair share of problems with eflite stock parts but choose to go down the upgrade route almost straight away. I went cnc throughout ( tail, head, body etc ) but these were not due to eflite parts failing just so it became more crash resistant.

The eflite esc has failed twice on me now so i swapped that for a emax esc instead and sinse had no problems since + i can now program the esc to do all sorts which is nice.

I swapped all the servos for hitec 65 mg`s. The reason i swapped these though was the first " real good crash" i had wiped all the stock servos out and again decided to go metal for durability. I would be one of the first to say the eflite servos are little more than junk, but when you compare the price, they have to skimp on certail luxuries to keep the price down.

Im buying a new heli a 450 kit on friday and custom making my own now as ive found i can have it my own way with parts i prefer to get a much tighter bird than just buying a rtf.

As far as rtf helis go, yes the blade could be better but for the price dont put your expectations too high, you get what you pay for as the saying goes

Ok guys, I put in a new 30 amp esc and a new Spectrum 6100e reciever and am still having problems with it cutting out when flying. I got it all set up yesterday and today I was out hovering in the driveway and it just dropped out of the sky. I was lucky only inches from the ground and did not crash. When I check out the heli I have no control and the reciever light is out. I took it inside and checked out the battery. Still have 11.5 volts. I rebound it and held it while I spooled it up. It died again, I just disconected the battery and it came up and it hasnt done it again. What the heck could be going on?

Hello fire_medic ~

Sorry to hear about your few problems you've had with your B-400. Are you certain upon battery connection to the heli that you are getting a good solid light on the RX suggesting a good connection ? It almost sounds like its losing, or never had, a bind with the TX. I've had that happen before on my 450 , and I had to rebind a few times and its been good now for about 6 months but still always had me a little baffled.

I think, as I've heard that I just didn't get a good solid bind, because I was around a lot of metal and can interfere with a good bind according to a Spektrum Rep. I've also had the problem if I try to bind in my garage, on the concrete floor...? Maybe the Re-bar or something ? I never found the answer, but just go outside and bind and its always fine. So weird. This is with my DX7 and a AR6100. But I've also had it happen with my Trex 500 and the DX7 with a AR7000...

Also make sure to keep the TX and RX a decent distance away while binding... Not right next to each other so to speak... I've also heard of guys trying to bind on the bed of there pick-up truck, and being that's around a lot of metal, the same effects occured. Interesting stuff, and over my head...!

Because at the time of bind in those places, it appeared that I had a good bind. Light solid, all the good signs.... BUT, after spool-up and in a short-hover I'd catch the RX blink, blink, ..... The heli would jitter a tinsy as a result, and then if I kept going it fell and no signal, flashing light on the RX as a result...

Again, I just went outside to a good clear area, did what the reps told me, and I've never lost any signal from flying or anything.

+1 for Horizon Hobby's customer service/support.... VERY, VERY top notch.... If you have ANY probs, I would definately avoid frustration and contact them worse case scenario...


Anyway, just thinking out loud.... I think by your sign in date here on RCU, you probably know this possibly, but I just had to throw it out there ya know ?!



Have a good one,

~ Jeff

This is a long shot based on something I ran into with my CX3 that has a racing canopy. My pod-and-boom mod of the CX3 worked perfectly outdoors until the weather got a bit warmer. One day my bird just dropped out of the sky. Everything seemed okay and I was stumped. The next day, the same thing happened. The problem boiled down to the racing canopy. The canopy just did not provide enough ventilation for the electronics. When things got a bit warm, there was a thermal shutdown. This problem never shows up with the stock CX3 because the scale canopy has two huge openings on both sides. The solution was simple. I drilled two 5 mm holes in the bottom of the canopy and three holes across the top. No more thermal shutdown problems.

firemedic,

Do you happen to have another battery to try, or have tried?

Only reason I ask is because I have an Elfite battery sitting here that drove me crazy for a while...it ends up that it has an intermittent open circuit INSIDE the pack, where you can't see it...I would be spooling up the heli, and it would just die...unplugged the battery, checked everything, plugged it back in...and it would be fine...

Then a while later, I caught it in the act!! I plugged the battery in...everything powered up...and then went dead..just like that...but in my case, it was still sitting on the ground...then I powered it up, and wiggled the battery leads where they go inside the pack...and I could make an break the connection....so I knew it was in that pack, internally.

Horizon replaced the pack with a new one....I still have the old one, they didn't request it back....it's now on the work bench as a test pack, great for doing bench testing!!

I don't know your exact situation, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to share that with ya!

Thanks guys for all your helpfull hints. J-MICHAEL. I am going to try your tip first as I have done most of my binding in the garage on the floor. I will try it out in the yard tomorrow and let you know what I find out. I think I will also try rotarydoc's idea of trying a different battery pack. I have a Belt CP at home too so I will just swap packs and see what happens. I loosened up the belt last night but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Thanks again.

IT IS A TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR HELICOPTER.... WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ?

oh, and stuff wears out.... It is called PROPER MAINAINANCE !

ps: I have well over 2 dozen flights on mine and it flies great even after I crashed it hard.

so kindly pipe down with the poo poo band.

Dave, yes stuff wears out. But the motor should not be burning up bearings in less than 5 flights and the speed controller didn't make it to twelve flights. So if I sell you something for 450 bucks and it last you 4 days you are just going to say OH WELL, ITS ONLY 450 BUCKS. Maybe your daddy is still buying all your stuff for you!
I don't imagine you read the whole thread about what has been going on. I don't know how you can "properly maintain" a ESC.

P.S. If you don't have something positive to add why don't you keep your mouth SHUT!

Hey Guys, I tried everyones suggestions today with the binding, trying a new battery and so on. I tried to read everything I could tonight about the electronics. I have the AR 6100e reciever in my heli and I think I am having what they call Brownouts. I am baffled, don't know what could be going wrong. I was hoving this morning about 6-8 inches in the driveway and nearly had a mishap. The servo in the front of the helicopter went bad and quit working. I have had so many headaches with this bird. Thinking about just giving up and getting a trex with some nice electronics. It sure would give me peace of mind to get this one working though. I hate not being able to fix it.
Anyone else know what could be causing these brownouts? Or what would make the reciever not get enough voltage. Could the servos be draining too much power or would a seperate BEC work?
Thanks guys.

I haven't been following all of your posts here but, I'd say it's time for "professional" help. Eflite is very good about their warranty. If your LHS can't help you, send it to Eflite/Horizon and they will fix it without charge if it's still in warranty. Of course, they'll charge you if it's not in warranty but, it will probably be cheaper than a Trex.

I've had a B400 for a few months now and I've probably broken everything except the frame but, I've never experienced the problems you describe. The "electrics" on my bird have been rock solid. All of my troubles have resulted from wrecks caused by my ham-fisted flying skills ...which, thankfully, are getting better. Don't give up ....it's a great heli besides, you already have significant time and money invested in it.

Good Luck

Do you think a higher discharge battery would help keep the voltage up? Maybe along with a phoenix 35 amp ESC. I also heard that horizon sells a capacitor that you can plug into an open channel on your reciever that is supposed to help with any voltage drop.