Dale_G

Here are my observations after a couple weeks ownership of an Esky Lama V4.

First, it's different from the V3 in electronics, main frame and body. Other parts will interchange. The body is not very easy to replace because you have to line up holes in the forward and aft body and pass a cf rod through both sides, and it's hard to see what you're doing. there are two rods to contend with, both have to pass through two layers of body, the frame, and back through the body. In addition to that you have to insert the landing gear through holes in the body.

Another problem is with the landing gear. It fits in sockets on the battery holder framework, and they are a friction fit. The problem here is that if you attach training gear to the landing gear, eventually the landing gear is going to fall out of the sockets in flight.

To make life much easier, I cut the bottom part of the aft body off at the landing gear holes. Much easier to insert body rods, landing gear and better battery access. Then I glued the landing gear in the sockets. If I break a landing gear, I'll have to get a replacement set of gear and a new battery holder. I think it's worth it. See photo of the body cut.

Seeing the problem with the gear and difficulty with the body, I found the Xtreme hop-up parts for the Esky V3 very attractive (miracle-mart.com, slickzero.com). The Xtreme landing gear is firmly attached and the aft body section can be replaced by the CF tail boom assembly. The bad news here is that these parts will not fit the V4 frame. I hoped that they would fit, but this is not the case. The solution to that (I hope) is to use a V3 frame, which I have on order, and they're only around $5.

After a couple sets of blades and an inner shaft replacement, I had a bad vibration. I checked the top blades for balance and found a severe out-of-balance situation. For a quick and dirty balancing solution I threaded both blades on a blade screw back-to-back, then snugged them together with a nut of the correct size. Holding the blades between my fingers, one of the blades was noticeably heavier. I started to trim some plastic from the blade, but was getting nowhere fast, so I stretched two small O-rings over the blade at the end. It took two to remedy the out-of-balance condition in addition to cleaning off some flash. The heli blades spin up noticeably smoother now. ALWAYS balance your blades. On small helis you can use rubber bands over the end of the blade for balance.

I purchased a commonsenserc.com V1 battery pack for the heli from slickzero.com. The battery is listed as a replacement for the Esky battery, but it's almost 1/8" wider and does not fit well in the Esky battery holder. In addition, it would not charge. An email on Friday evening EDT to commonsenserc was returned with an answer almost immediately. The polarity of the V1 battery is wrong for the Esky charger. commonsenserc would send me an adapter at no charge if I needed it, and they sent me a link to their website explaining the situation. Commonsenserc did not advise to do this, but I was able to (carefully!) swap the red and black wires in the charging connector. Problem solved. I will be buying my batteries from commonsenserc.com from now on. Slickzero.com replied to my inquiry over the weekend and offered to take the battery back for a refund. Customer service like that deserves repeat business. Thank you slickzero.com and commonsenserc.com.

As far as flying the heli goes, I've been working on a low hover. It runs pretty smoothly. I find I need to input some right rudder to keep it tail-in, and that's with the rudder trim maxed to the right and the proportional pot maxed to + on the 4-in-1. It hovers stably and controllably. The training gear I have installed is a real blade saver. I can't wait to get more adventurous with this heli. My son (Raptor 30 nitro, Trex 450 electric) wants to use it to practice nose-in flight. I think that's a good idea for me as well. I'll transition to a CP heli after I master this co-axial heli.

Next to the Raptor 30, the Trex 450 is small and the V4 is tiny. That little Raptor 30 really looks immense!!

I'm going to hop-up the V4 by installing the Extreme tail boom and landing skid kits when I receive my V3 frame. It won't be an Esky V4 after that, but I won't have the body and landing skids of the V4 to deal with any longer. Will post pics when the conversion is accomplished.

If you're going to buy one of these helis, keep the following spare parts on hand: flybar assembly, inner shaft assembly and blades. Training gear is a good idea if this is your first heli. Happy flying.

Dale_G

I received a package of goodies from miracle-mart.com yesterday. The heli is now blinged out with Esky aluminum and Xtreme graphite parts. Information and pictures on the conversion to follow.

This was my first order from Miracle-Mart.com. I placed my order via web on 5/11 using regular shipping and the order was received in good condition on the US east coast on 5/17. Not too shabby.

ny_racer_xxx

Dale, quick question, when you move the elevator stick does the swash plate move front to back or in a diagonal movement? Same with the aileron?

Chris R.

Dale_G

The swash plate moves diagonally. That's due to a phenomenon called "gyroscopic precession" where an applied force is manifested 90 deg later in the direction of rotation. I think the effect is reduced to 45 deg because of the counter-rotating blades. So in this case, your control input is effective 45 deg in the direction of rotation from the input on the swash plate.

On true coaxial helicopters that have cyclic and collective pitch on both rotors, the effect of gyroscopic precession is canceled out. These RC model helis don't have collective pitch, and only have cyclic pitch on the bottom rotor. The top rotor sort of follows the lead of the bottom rotor. I think.

bkmalone86

Actually the "A" Blades are controlled mechanically by the stab. rod on the very top of the aircraft (try taking that bar off and flying, or better yet, just one of the weights). If you (carefully) hold the helo in your hand as your running it, keep an eye on the bar and then tip it. The bar should deviate from the plane of the blades and then return to the normal position. Now (finger off the throttle). Check out how the bar connects to the A blades, as that bar dives it automatically counters the change in attitude. It is similar to the stab. bar on the UH1.

good luck,
From the Army Avionics Tech. who has gone through 12 B blades in 4 days of flight.

JulianB2

I have had exactly the same hassles with lotsa blades being chowed by various solid obstacles. I have managed to \save\ a couple by getting the power off fast when I know I am going down ...got to move rally fast on the throttle toggle to do this.

Dale_G

I still need to upload the photos of the heli with the xtreme parts, once I put it back together. (I have to put it back together b/c a roll of fabric (thanks Dear...) fell on the heli and crushed it.) I was able to straighten out the Extreme landing gear, but the lower center holder set got bent along with the outer shaft assembly. The stock lower center unit is going back on it.

I was going to get upgraded motors and more aluminum parts, but the fact is that I want to progress to a 3D collective pitch heli, so I'm not going to spend any more on the Esky V3/4. I priced out full bling and new motors and was into the territory where I could just buy a better heli.

I am going forward with plans to put longer servo arms on the cyclic pitch servos

I still have to input some right rudder because the heli drifts to the left, even though I've used up all the rudder trim and pot adjustment on the 4-in-1. I'll just have to deal with it from now on.

For those of you still interested, Extreme has come out with new parts that, while being advertised for the Blade CX2, they look like they would work with the Esky v4. I had to purchase an Esky v3 frame to make my V4 work with the earlier Extreme parts. Miracle-Mart.com sells the extreme parts, but it looks like their online store is down until August 21st.

Dale_G

Here are the promised pics with the Xtreme upgrades. I've decided that I'm done with this heli for now. I put it back together today and flew off one battery pack. At one point I was able to hover hands off for a few seconds. The heli still slowly rotates to the left and requires a little right rudder periodically to bring it back. This is making it a little harder to concentrate on flying the heli using the cyclic controls, but I'm coming along. I flew it in a fairly confined area containing lots of obstacles and didn't crash!

I tried to put on longer cyclic servo arms, but found that the arms I had did not fit the Esky servo hubs. Oh well. I was hoping for quicker and more vigorous control inputs.....

So here are the pics. Sorry, but it started to rain as I finished the first battery pack so there are no flying photos or vids.

Left to right - 1 - view of frame etc w/out body, I fabricated the aluminum boom supports. 2 - I used the original Esky V4 body, cut down. This shows where I drilled the Xtreme 4-in-1 platform for the CF rod to mount the body. 3 - overall view w/ body mounted. 4 - from underneath showing the boom supports. 5 - closeup showing boom support and Xtreme tailboom attachment points. 6 and 7, different views with hand in pic showing relative scale.

I'm expecting delivery of my new Vulcan 450SE from Xheli.com on Wednesday. Now to start procuring all the necessary bits and pieces! One thing to be said for these little Esky helis, you can get flying pretty quickly for not a lot of money, but IMO once you start upgrading and adding bling, better just start with a higher-end machine. No matter what, I'll probably keep flying and tinkering with my modified Esky V4.

NAF

Wow very nice
I would like to know what other parts you needed besides frame/landing gear/tail

gasrc

I would like to know if the Xtreme make-over is HEAVIER or LIGHTER.

N1pster

Heavier, perhaps some one with some scales will come along and say by how much, I'm betting in excess of an once maybe 2 or 3.