colrod12

benny is a cool dude He's who i dealt with Also AT Rc expert!

wheelstu

Ok Benny is a nice guy. Mine shipped with the Futaba 6xS and after two weeks of fun. Reversing ch2 and 6 and using SWSH 3(not 3e)They also sent me a 220v charger and no ant tube. They gave me a converter and tube 3 weeks after I got the model. Right now I am trying to tame the gyro. I can get it off the ground but the tail waggs rt and lt every 1\2 second. I will put it up to 1 meter tomorrow. I wonder if I damaged the gyro. I am using the esc25 settings 1,2,2,2 and have not noticed overheating. thanx for the 411 and I will keep you posted. I got pretty good with the little fixed pitch helis so I thought I was ready for the big time. It is more fun this was because you end up knowing evering the hard way (trial and error)

Traveler

Hey,

Just did some nice hovering and emptied all 3 packs, after which I recharged and emptied one of them again. It went pretty well, and I was actually able to keep it more or less in 1 place on some occasions, even though the big training-gear and long distances to the nearest wall or other obstacle must have saved me from numerous hard landings. :-) I revised my dual-rate and exponential for the collective a bit, as I found the response a bit too sluggish with the settings I posted earlier, which actually made it more difficult to correct when it started drifting faster. I'm now using 50% dual-rate with 30% exponential, which seems to allow fine hover-control and offers quick response farther out from stick-center. In the end, I was able to keep it pretty stable. Had to land every 2 minutes or so and allow the motor at least 10 minutes to cool down, though. Hopefully, the cooling-element will fix that. Got the heli pretty much trimmed out now and the gyro holds the tail rock-solid at 70% sensitivity in heading-hold mode. BTW: I moved the gyro from the position above the tail to the one on the exact opposite side, below it, sticking it on there by the top, in the same orientation as it had previously. According to the setup-instructions on http://www.trextuning.com/ that protects it from beeing chopped to pieces by the fly-paddles in case of a crash. Sounds like good advice. :-)

I also found out today that my heli didn't come with the ESC with governor-mode that the description mentioned. Seems like others had this same problem as well. See: http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/t197541p1/

I mailed Benny about this. Shouldn't be a problem to get this resolved.


Grtz,

Traveller

wheelstu

Hey thanx for the tip. I set the ATV on ch 5 to 50% and the tail wag went away. Of course the wind came up and I am still dialing in this bird. I have a lot of time on the fixed pitched heli's so ive skipped the training gear. It is pretty hard to break the skids but they are held on with only four small screws which i will be fixing soon im sure. I havent checked my motor for overheat. How are you diong this? does it hurt performance? I was told you could get 10 min of time per pack. Which brings up another quirk. I am using strapping tape to hold the battrey pack on. The strap rc-expert gave me did not even go around the pack. I was also told that i should use heaver wire on the pack to the esc. Good flying im going to tackle head lock next I dont have an indoor site but I will try to get a pic of the chopper hovering in the server room to freak out my boss.

Traveler

Hey wheelstu,

It could be possible that my heavy (175 gram) PVC training-gear caused the gyro to remain stable at such a high gain-setting. I have now fabricated a new training-gear, out of 4 bicycle-spokes, some wood and some screws, which weighs 50 grams less and has about half the width of the previous one. Will see how it goes. I'm still using the gear not because I'm very worried about coming down too hard (usually make very soft landings), but because I'm still a bit worried about the heli tipping over on takeoff or while landing with a bit too much horizontal speed or not entirely levelled. It's only my 6'th pack of real hovering on it and I find it handles quite different from the FP Walkera #05-2. Much more sensitive and much more speed, if you don't compensate timely and properly. :-)

To check the motor for overheating, just hover for a few minutes, set it down and feel the bottom of the motor. I believe you should be able to hold onto it continously, without burning your fingers. It doesn't seem to hurt performance at the temperatures I allowed it to reach, but I'm very careful. Heared that a blown motor will usually cost you your ESC and sometimes the battery as well. I also get around 10 minutes out of the red "RC Expert" 1800mAh LiPo's. I didn't get any battery-straps with mine, but the battery sticks inside it's compartment pretty tight without it. I'll probably add my own strap, eventually.

There could be some truth in the recommendation to use heavier wire and connectors for the battery. Mine sometimes run reasonably warm. Nothing too serious, but heating usually indicates you're losing amps somewhere. However, it would mean replacing the similar wires on the LiPo's as well and I'm not about to start tinkering with those. :-)


Grtz,

Traveller

wheelstu

Hey I got to hovering for about two mins and was able to hold my finger on the motor. I bought a temp gauge anyway. I still havent used DR but my gyro is behaving and my tail responds to my liking. I guess I will have to start on 8's and auto rotations.
Thanks again

wheelstu

After buying a temp gauge I am getting 131 dg FH on the motor and 115 on the sink plate on the ESC. after 4min of flying nonstop. I landed on my connector and pinched it a little. I am going to look into getting gold connectors and larger battrey wires. What kinda of temps are you guys getting? Anyone have a line on a cheap optic tach?
Thankx

heli46

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Traveler

Hey,

Quick update on my motor heating-issue. The cooling-element they sent unfortunately wasn't quite enough to eliminate the problem. They've now sent an Align 420LF 3200KV and the alu version of their own brand 3200KV motor, with a set of different pinions to try, as free replacements. If that won't allow me to solve the problem, I would be really surprised. Should arrive in 1 or 2 days and should also include a replacement Align BL-25G ESC, which has governor-mode, as they advertized for the heli I bought. Ofcourse I will have to send back everything that I don't use and shipping to Hong Kong from the Netherlands is probably quite expensive, but that's hardly their fault and is one of those things that you have to take into account, when doing online business overseas.


Grtz,

Traveller

radobahn

My experience with rc-expert is limited but here it is..

Ordered a Dragonfly FP years ago (first heli) and it arrived in about 2 weeks when I payed extra to have it MUCH sooner. They also failed to respond to my 2-3 emails requesting some sort of tracking/reference number for the shipment. That was the first and LAST time I ordered from them...

UGBOYZ80

[link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3336715/tm.htm]Read this forum about RC-Expert[/link]

Traveler

Hey,

I just got my replacement-parts in the mail this morning. Unfortunately, the alu-cased version of the "RC Expert"-branded motor didn't run much cooler that it's CF-coated counter-part. The Align 420LF, however, seems to be perfect. I fixed the heli to my work-bench and ran the Align 420LF, with a 13T-pinion, for several minutes, at 75% throttle-stick, with the normal pitch associated with that position. I didn't even have a heat-sink on it, but it got just moderately warm to hot, and the ESC ran a lot cooler, so it's probably drawing less current as well. It seemed to deliver more power overall as well. The rotor accellerated much faster when revving the throttle-stick from 50% to 75% and the head-speed seemed a bit higher.

I have now put the heat-sink on it as well and will do some flight-tests tomorrow or friday. Looks very promising.

BTW: I still don't have anything but good words to say about RC Expert. They were very cooperative in solving all my problems. I'll definately do a lot more business with them in the future. Too bad some people have bad experiences with them. Please note that no response to an email can have all kinds of technical reasons as well and there seems to be a very weird problem with their DNS, which still pops up on occasion and can cause mail addressed to them not to go through or get delayed. Luckily, I administer the mail-servers I send it through and now made a habit out of always checking if mail to them got accepted by their server, giving it an extra kick in the butt in case it got stuck. :-) If this problem is not limited to the servers I send my mail through, I can see how this can cause some problems for others. If I have the time, I'll do some more debugging to figure out what exactly is going wrong. If it turns out to be something on their side, I'll be sure to notify them.


Grtz,

Traveller

Norrmannen

As I see it there is only 1 problem. You have to know exactly what you want as not all of their solutions are good enough. If I need a new 420/3200kv Align motor or a XL-kit only I wouldn't have any problems in buying it from them but I wouldn't let them judge what components to get anymore.

wheelstu

Yes the more you know the better. I am still having heat problems but I am flying alot. This other motor sounds interesting.

Traveler

Hey wheelstu,

After having flown it yesterday, I can really recommend the Align 420LF over the RC-Expert motors, at least when used in the T-Rex 450X. I hovered it for 8 mins straight and it got just moderately hot. I would still recommend a heat-sink for it, just to be sure. The RC-Expert motors seem to be able to provide enough power to lift the Rex, but seem to have a serious heating-problem in this application. I'm pretty sure the RC-Expert motor would have burned out in a short time if I would have made a habit of keeping it in the air for over 5 minutes, without a long cooldown-stop.

Power-consumption of the Align 420LF seems equal or slightly less than that of the RC-Expert motor. Power-output of the Align seems slightly higher. I timed it yesterday and got around 12 minutes of air-time from the red RC-Expert 1800mAh LiPo's and around 15 minutes from an Art-Tech 2200mAh LiPo I got through RC-Expert as well. These batteries seem to be of decent quality and able to handle the current required for basic flight in this application. They're both rated at 10C and only get slightly warm to the touch during most of the flight. Really a bargain at US$25,- a piece, a price-range where quality can sometimes be a concern.

One other thing I've found with the RC-Expert 3K-chassis my Rex came with, is that the pitch-servo tends to bind against the battery at full maximum pitch in some cases. It's easily remedied by moving the battery slightly to the left and / or adjusting the servo-travel properly, but one of those things you need to check for.


Grtz,

Traveller

wheelstu

thats good to know. I am heading for a problem with my connectors. The ones RC-Expert set it up with are a step down in wire thickness and the plugs are starting to come apart at the connector on the motor side. Where did you get your new motor? I would like to have the same thickness of wire from my motor to my batt pack. I heard gold connectors are the best. This would allow no loss of current or overheating. I m going to go the local hobby store and check out some stuff. Meanwhile as long as I can fly I am happy.

Traveler

Hey wheelstu,

RC-Expert sent me the new motor as free replacement. It would be around US$50,- if you buy it there. The wiring from the ESC to the motor seemed OK on my heli, but the shrink-tubes around the connectors were a bit too much to the back, and left around 0.5 to 1mm of the connector exposed at the front. The wires were of slightly different lengths, so there didn't seem to be any danger of them touching eachother. Since I got a new ESC, I also had to solder the connectors onto that and the new motor myself and made sure the isolation covers the entire connector, when plugged in.

The connectors from the battery to the ESC (which you are probably talking about) indeed seem to be the weak link in all this. The wiring and connectors seem to be a bit small for the current they have to handle and usually heat up a little bit, even when just hovering. Nothing too serious, though, so I'm not going to spend time putting different connectors on my ESC and all of my LiPo's just yet. The bigger gold ones indeed seem to be the best, as they have the lowest resistance.


Grtz,

Traveller

Traveler

Hey,

Just some more test-results regarding the RC-Expert 3200KV-motor. I just hooked them up to an ESC and ran them for a couple of minutes without any load, at around 50% power. Surprisingly enough, they ran almost just as hot as when inside my T-Rex. The alu-cased version of this motor stayed cool a bit longer than the CF-cased version, as could be expected, because alu takes longer to heat up.

I don't have exact temperature-readings, but after about 6 minutes at 50% power, the alu-version of this motor started to soften the bubble-wrap I had layed it out on, which is when I shut it down. :-) Seems like these heating-problems are inherent to those motors, regardless of the application. As RC-Expert told me that the max. temperature for these motors is 70 degrees C, this can't be good.


Grtz,

Traveller

wheelstu

Ok I think that as long as it flies why worry. I have been getting up to 160 fh on the bottom of the motor and 140 fh on the ESC sink. The book says it will shut down at 80 c so I have a ways to go. I usually run one pack and let it cool down while I recharge.

foreverknight

Keep away i brought something through one of there re-sellers RCmachine and there both terrible. Check out my thread to see all the problems ive been having with them.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3336715/tm.htm

Traveler

Hey foreverknight,

They were very helpful in resolving the 2 main problems I had (I got the wrong ESC, without governor-mode and the motor ran too hot). I must have emptied at least 20 packs and it still flies like the day I got it. Only getting more stable and manouverable, as my skills improve. :-) Ofcourse, I got a T-Rex with a good radio and electrics and you got a Walkera #35. You can hardly blame the seller for Walkera's lack of quality-control, except maybe that they shouldn't be selling Walkera-products at all. ;-)

I have a nice related story for you. I bought my first heli (a Walkera #05-2) from a colleague, who claimed it was new, out of the box and had just a couple of very short test-flights on it. When I got it, I was really surprised at the state it was in. Missing screws, a flakey pot in the TX, jittery and chatty servo's (just to name a few of the problems I found). Had to basically take it apart and check + rebuild most of it before it flew properly. Almost blamed my colleague or the shop he bought it from for it, until I slowly started coming across several reports on forums like this one and realized that this is pretty common in Walkera-products.



Grtz,

Traveller

Traveler

Hey wheelstu,

Unfortunately, the motor's only thermal cutoff is when it burns out, possibly shorting out internally and taking the ESC and battery with it, let alone that I probably won't do well trying to auto-rotate it to the ground (if the RX doesn't lose power). I don't think it's a wise idea to just ignore these things and wait for them to escalate.

The alu-cased version of the 3200KV RC-Expert motor seems to approach at least 80-90 degrees C after running unloaded at around 50% power for just 6 minutes or so. If I put a drop of water on it, it starts to form bubbles and is evaporated in 10 secs or so. The CF-cased version runs hot even faster, as it's casing can't absorb as much heat. Remember, that's unloaded. In a heli, where it has to deliver power, it probably generates even more heat.


Grtz,

Traveller

foreverknight

Yeah i know the walkera products are a bit pants but its the customer service ive been having problems with.

Traveler

Hey foreverknight,

BTW: In my case, the seller on eBay was actually called "rc-expert" as well. You might not have been dealing with RC-Expert directly. I can't seem to find the seller "RCmachine" on eBay, unless they're not offering any items at the moment. Do you have a link to their shop? Where did your PayPal-payment go to? In my case, it was "[email protected]".


Grtz,

Traveller

X1705

Ok, I want I want I want one. . lol (the Dragonfly 22E)

I have just read this entire forum on rc-experts, plus a couple odd posts probably, mostly negative,
but what does anyone here think of this deal?

"http://www.rc-expert.com/product-package.php?pid=204"

It looks pretty dang good to me (add just $35 4-6 week shipping/ 176.00)

What I have learned so far:

Tell them "Aubrey" sent ya , ..if you want to have even a 'chance' at getting what you paid for, and at the first shipping anyways,

[sm=punching.gif]

Basically make the entire Invoice yourself with Item#'s and Prices, and whatever, into one originating email to a 'cool guy' named "benny" hehe. . [sm=sunsmiley.gif]

And learn to Pray the 'Sacred Mother of God Rosary" each day you wait for your package to ship, and arrive, if you want it to be.. umm
even 'repairable' when you do finally get it. . . [&o]

Ok, well that was pretty much said in 'good' humor, not that it isn't a truth, but just an observation. . I would really like to get this Heli.

http://www.rc-expert.com/product-package.php?pid=204

Dragonfly 22E 6ch RC Helicopter
Training Kit
11.1V Lithium Battery Charger
Lithium Polymer 1300mah battery (max 8C)
11.1V Li-ion Battery 1900mAh
CF Print PE Main Blade for DF22E
139.99 +shipping.

I am already starting on the Rosary. . and will use any means necessary within my power to gett his fair and square. hehe

(i have actually already placed an order for a similar package (without the Li-polys) is all and it had totaled me 181.00 from here:

http://www.hobby4less.com/prod_heli_df22e.htm

but I have just put it all on "hold" untill I consider this 'new found' "deal", as It is still the weekend and my order has not been processed.

THANKS MOST KINDLY!

*any comments welcomed*
We need to stick together(as enthusiasts) on these things(RC/Heli Co.'s), or we will just end up paying for lots More CRAP in the long run.

Send me Private mail if you wish. I'd appreciate any and all input on both the 'rc-expert' issue, and ALSO about the "DF22E Heli".. tnks.

maybe we (pre rc-expert customers), should start a "in Benny we trust" moto during pre-orders/shipment slogan.
[sm=RAINFRO.gif]

Cheers.
X1705