That is why I didn't buy the cf blades yet. I have thought of that rotor13b. Figured I would just be braking more blade grips and ball links. But when you really think about it the plastic parts that wil break in a minor crash with the cf blades is still cheaper than a set of wood blades. You just have to do more work in fixing it. Personally I would rather save some money and have to disassemble the heli a bit.

I almost had a ground crew catastrophe the other day. I was showing the heli to my buddy, just hovering around a bit. When I finished I landed, pulled the thottle all the way back and everything stopped spinning. I handed the tx over to my bud to hold onto (still on) while I picked up the heli to remove the canopy and disconnect the battery. That's when I heard something that sent chills up my spine. "So this is the throttle." he says. Just as I turn to see him reaching for the throttle, I quickly grabbed the heli by the skids and cleared the blades just in time. He had thought it was off since nothing was spinning, lol. You shoulda seen the looks on our faces when that thing started spinning up, rofl.[X(]

Well, I'm grounded for now, until tomorow. Waiting for the jb weld to dry on the tail motor terminals, and trying to figure out a servo alignment issue.
Just when I was getting to where I could fly around the yard a little too....[]

I just ordered the FMA Cellpro Balancing charger. It is the most reasonably priced actively balancing charger I've found. So far I've only come across three. The FMA, the E-Station and one from the Czech's. All those other so called balancers out there are really just mechanical current limiters. The market is flooded with them.
Now I just have to decide on spending 50 bucks on 950 mah battery or a 2 and a half ounces heavier 1450 mah. Both discharge at 23c. Does anyone have any thoughts on which one I should invest in?

I have the FMA system and it is sweet.
It does it all and does it right. For the price you can't beat it.
And as for the battery I use the Thunder power 1350.
It is about $50.00 and its awesome for the axe cp.
The tp 1350 seems to be the most popular for power, weight, size and dependability.

I posted this up in another thread and figured it might be helpful here, so I'm reposting:

I found a way to balance the blades using ordinary household items: 1 paper clip, 2 rubberbands, 2 CD jewel cases, a dictionary, a ruler, felt-tip pen, scotch tape. I based my procedures off of T-Rex Tuning.

I bent/broke off one of the straight pieces from the paper clip and threaded it through the holes on the blades. This was held in place by the rubberbands and wrapped them above and below enough times to hold the blades straight (at the 3 and 9 o'clock positions).

I placed the extended paper clip pieces on the upright CD jewel cases to find the lighter blade.

I placed the ruler inside the upright dictionary and held the ruler perpendicular to the table. Using the ruler, I followed the directions as described in the T-Rex link above to find the center of gravity. I placed enough tape at the appropriate end of the blade to match the center of gravities between the blades.

I then rigged it back up using the paper clip and rubberbands and then balanced their weights with more tape.

NEVER DO THAT!!!


NEVER EVER EVER GIVE YOUR LIVE CONTROLLER OVER TO ANYONE!!

Keep it YOUR possesion until you disconnect the model's pack. This applies to all models!!


EIIIEEEIIII!!!

Yes, I learned that very important lesson that day.
This is my first venture into electric flight, so I'm sure I'll learn more lessons along the way; just so long as it doesnt cost me anything(appendage wise that is)
On another note, another friend of mine got a foam B29 with four electric motors; similar to those airhogs planes that use motor speed to control everything. I think this was his first venture into rc flight period. He flew it and broke it a couple times; Fixed it up and brought it over to the same guys house to show it to him. Mind you this was after our little incident with the throttle. The B29 owner handed him the remote and this time he was careful not to touch any of the controls. Next thing he hears is "ready?" just as he turns to see the B29 owner chucking the plane into the sky he screams Nooooooo! He managed to keep it in the air for a few seconds. ROFL

Now I know how Markind feels when he does something amazing with his heli....
So the other night I got to a friends house to show off my heli. He has a HUGE 2 car garage and there's LOTS of room for flying. He pulls out the two cars and in I go to do some hovering.

First thing I tell my friend is that I'm not that good at keeping this thing in one place (mind you that I have only flown my heli in really small spaces or outdoors on windy days) and that he should stay behind me to avoid being struck by the blades should I over correct and fly into him. I spin it up and lift off, as expected I had to correct for tail rotor drift during takeoff and it got a bit squirrely as it came off the ground. But once it got about 2 feet off the ground, it stayed where I put it. [X(] I WAS SOoO0o0o0o ECSTATIC!!!!

I spun it around to the left and then to the right and even go it nose in at one point!!!!!! And here I was thinking that my flying skills were sub-par!! BOO-YAH!!!!!!

ROFL!!!

You just pointed out something about my bud that throttled up my heli on accident. He's the only person I've ever seen crouch down and stick his hand under the heli in a hover to feel what the airflow felt like.
[sm=bananahead.gif]
Everyone else in the past have always instinctivly stood behind me in fear of the blades; but then, the axe blades are'nt nearly as intimidating as a .30 sized nitro chopper's hardwood blades making the typical helicopter thump/thump/thump sound.

Large indoor spaces totally rock. I flew my Blade in my friends 8 bay auto shop with a 30' vertical area. There were no cars, I just had to avoid the lift. I did the best flying there that I have done so far. Having a large space to drift in and no wind really spoiled me. Now I need to build a 40' x 60' shop just for heli flying. LOL

I am pleased to hear that you had such a good time.

Well, I found my issue with the pitch settings. When the blades hit the ground the swash plate separated. The top portion of the swash plate where the flybar links connect came out of the bearing in the lower portion. I disassembled the rotor head and pressed the swash plate back together. It must have been a good hit on the blades to force the two pieces to come apart. After everything was reassembled the rotor head, I spun the heli up and the tracking was right on.

Sweet.......back to flying your AXE!

So I'm slowly learning with my heli, charge by charge...

I had only flown an E-flite Blade CX before this. I knew it was going to be easier than the Axe, but wow, it takes a bit of effort.

Still getting used to the Tx too, I haven't used sticks in years and I'm completely new to RC flight.



I was flying indoors and knicked a rotor on a chair and broke a ballstud off of the upper piece of the swashplate... Luckily only 2 of the 4 ballstuds on that piece are used, so I was able to just switch to the other 2 without replacing the piece. The rotor wasn't damaged too bad, it just damaged the tip so I just smoothed it out with some CA and sandpaper...


Had much better luck in the garage than indoors, without a doubt you cant learn in small rooms with a heli this big. Once I get another battery I will take it to my work on weekends and have a nice 50' x 20' x 20' LxWxH warehouse to practice in.

I'm really tempted to buy the G3.5 simulator to help me learn and put the real thing away for a month. Next time I'm at my LHS I'm going to ask to check out the Axe CP on the simulator. They usually only have a plane sim going. We'll see how things go once I can practice in some decent space.

well i got to say ive read all these posts and keep up to date with tthe axe cp thread @ rcgroups.com too. i love my little heli. ive wanted one for the past 20 years but was driving trucks and never had time to fly my planes or play with my boats or cars anymore. i work at a call center now and live across the street from work. i charge my batterys at work then come home and go fly. conveinent to say the least. ive got mine pretty well trimmed where i want it and get the feel im looking for. ive crashed twice with minor repairs. i buy a few parts every payday and stock up in the event of a crash. so far i can hover pretty ok not yet in one spot for very long and im feeling confortable with the heli and its feel and i think ahead of the drift and compensate with small stick movements and settle back down to tera firma with no mishap. my mistake was taking it outside too soon. it dosnt like the wind as we all know. i have a big empty room in the buidling i live in about 40 by 20 best guess. and im alone with no distractions where i can think and concentrate on my learning skills. so far no mishaps indoors. im taking it nice and slow and learning quicker on the thumbs and i think im doing ok. im not after tearing up the sky just good old 2d flying and circuits. i like scale better than 3d. works for me.

Has anyone found pinions yet that fit the Axe spur gear? I was about to purchase an Align 400 motor and esc when I remembered the pinion problem. Any solutions besides drilling out the stock pinion gear?

One other thing, Is the spur gear 48 or 64 pitch?

finally found the official forum. Need signs to find the way. Well I'm pretty new to the heli world, about a week now. Just curious if I changed the servo rods from the third hole into the first if that would decrease the touchyness? Mainly the right stick is my concern. I could hopefully make up for the lift by using trim. So could the gyro still function properly when the system tries to level? Since theres three rods equally spaced would it negatively effect certain movements outside of the general need more movement to accomplish target? Ive already done this, waiting for battery to charge but the info would be nice. I'll keep updated.

rainydays... seeing how it sounds like you are going to try it shortly

guys have talked about this change, make sure you shorten the control rods as applicable for the new holes... I think that everyone talks about moving the rods in 1 hole and not the 2 holes that you are talking...

Thanks for the info but I dont these servo arms are ever going to all level out. By changing the hole I changed the angle, and like a triangle, the the distance is now shorter. The rods were paralell but not are tilted. Dont think the cpu takes this into consideration when priming cause every time nomatter what lengths I make, the arms always follow the same patter. The front remains same level. The right is slightly up, and the left is the highest. Note the left bar is also the longest, that space gone, pulling the arm up over the right side. So servo arms always remain constant. Makes me wonder if the cpu really primes. This info says no. So now every adjustment I make will directly effect how level the plate above is. Trust me, I super glued a knob that broke pulling off, adjusting, rethinking, etc so this is accurate. Really, what does the cpu level if the servo arms always remain in the same PATTERN. Hight ,ay be different but all the other servo arms follow. So should I just eyeball this?

I wouldn't even bother doing that if I were you. The Axe is plenty stable as it is, If you want to slow down the cyclic put a wheel collar on each side of the flybar and even that is masking the real problem which is you hamfisting the sticks. Flying a heli is an excercise in constant control, Learning it right the first time will go a long ways in flying different birds because no two are going to fly the same even if there the same model.

Thats like saying your not skilled enough to drive a bus witha steering wheel the size of a quarter. No, and I prefere not to be. i'd prefere a larger wheel for accurate movements. Same here. Why use 2 percent of the space available when you could stop twitching and guide it along accurate knowing how much pressure your needing. Why guess, why make it so hard in the first place. Truely congratulations if your able to fly well the way these are built but I'm just revolutionizing here and I guess that does come with scruteny. RC cars arent this touchy and I would buy one if offered in this manner to the way they are now. So I am determined here. With that said is there any advice you can give. Thanks

Comparing a heli to a bus, that's funny .

Rainy, others have done the "servo arm" thing too and it's worked for them. You do want to really try to limit your cyclic movements though.

I think all Rotor means is it's easier to learn good habits now than try to break bad habits later.

Changing the arm swing also affects the pitch curve so when you put the linkage back in the normal hole your pitch will be different for a given point on the throttle/collective stick. That may throw you at first as one degree of pitch can mean a 10% increase in lift.

The [link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/WTI0001P?&I=LXK184]1/16" wheel collars[/link] Rotor mentioned work really well. This is the route I went. They stabilize the heli by dampening flybar movement and it doesn't affect pitch curves.

rainydays - the addition of the wheel collars and if you add a set of Blade CP flybar paddles, that will give you more weight and really mellow the heli out...

and I kinda drive my heli like a bus

Yeah ill try the collor thing last, hard to beat down this dead horse. Actually to get lift requires alot more up on the stick, so much I have to add alot of trim to make it some what normal. Just curious here. So should the plate the rods regulate be perfectly even? Right now even though the arms arent even the left and right plate is even. The front though is slightly lower looking back? Not much at all. Guess I could tell by the wings rotating straight or wobbling. Would that be an accurate cause I heard if the are off, that can really screw with a heli. Just looking for a ball park what I should see. I knew I should have taken pics prior to this.

your servo arms need to be paralell to the ground... if your arms aren't even, they are going to mess with you when it comes to mixing, it'll bind things up (that's as technical as I can get)


when adjusted properly, this will put your swashplate paralell to the ground and arms also...


you need to make adjustments to the heli with the power of the radio on and the helicopter plugged into the battery.. (pretty obvious, but guess who forgets this part )

Alright, outside of a busted nob from earlier Ill see if my wreckage count increases. See if my shoebox landfill increases in size. Time to just leap and see what happens. Props for einstein, brave man, braavvve mmaan. Thanks for all the help and TheStratCat didn't mean any harm if it came out that way. Thanks