I figured I would repost this in this thread so more people would get a chance at some sound advice.

Now BoysToys: If you're going to go and buy a new 3-in-1 then take that $80-$90 and get the eFlight G90 dual mode gyro (I got it for $80 from my LHS). It will do EVERYTHING the Futabas do except it doesnt have AVCS (which is what Futaba uses for the heading hold functions). If you doubt the ability of this gyro, go on YouTube and search for TRex videos. I saw one of some guy flying a TRex450SA (the same model I have) equipped with Hitec HS-55 servos and an eFlight G90 gyro (:gasp: the same equipment I have!). This guy made the heli do things that push the limits of Newtons laws!! So yeah, get that gyro and the ESC for the tail and you will be all set.

/rant redux

Thanks for all of the help and suggestions. I am only going to replace the Heli Max 3 in 1 if they cover it under warranty. I am not going to fork out $85 for a replacement when I can get an entire new Axe Cp for $169+ tax at my LHS. I would just buy a complete new setup and use my old Axe for parts. I bought this heli to "test the waters" and see if this was something that I would enjoy. I promised myself that I would leave this model totally stock and not go crazy on the mods. Well not only do I enjoy it I am becoming addicted! I usually fly my heli about 3-4 days a week compaired to my RC trucks which only come out about 1 day a week. I am seriously thinking about stepping up to a larger heli. The setup I am eyeing is a T-Rex 450se V2, Futaba Gy401/9650, Hitech HS65mg servos, Spektrum DX6. I can get this entire setup for about $950 out the door from my LHS. I would like to move up to a heli that is top of the line so I can just focus on flying and not modding. The only downside is the "buy in" price.

Anyway, I will call on Monday and see what hobby services has to say then make my decision.

Well, You should at least get a gyro. When you get your Trex you can move it to the new heli with no problems. I just came in from flying both my heli's and the one with heading hold is far easier to fly than the stock one. I can hover the modded Axe without even having to touch the throttle lever once I get it in the air, It holds that well.

Ahem... This is just what I was referring to in my previous post.
IF you are eyeballing a TRex, go ahead and by the gyro and radio first. You can use all that gear in the Axe no problem. Then once you are staisfied that you can fly the Axe and not have any bad crashes, the go ahead and get the TRex. If you still have crash bad with the Axe you are going to crash worse with the TRex. It is a bigger more powerful machine and when the blades hit something they dont stop right away which in turn will demolish the head and all that energy gets transferred into the mainshaft and tail rotor drive train which may also buckle under all that force.

Do you see where I am going with all this?

Now if you have the cash then go for it. I have always said that money is a great motivator and thats why I hated crashing my Axe becuase it meant more money out of my pocket. That made me NOT crash (at least smash it into the ground, pet, house, furniture, or innocent bystander). I got the TRex not just becuase I had the cash for it, but the price I was given was incredibly cheap so I jumped on it and sold my Axe to recoup the $$$. I haven't crashed the TRex yet but I know eventually I will, everybody crashes. Right now Im working on building up a cash reserve for when the time comes that I crash the TRex and have to go out money spening.

I have a Brand new 1 in the bag I will sell you for 70.00 3.95 S&H $73.95 to your door.

My Axe is up for sell it includes:

Complete AXE with about 10 flights, extra stock charger and battery, extra blade grip, extra NIP 3-1 board, new TX batteries (duracell), extra set of repairable main blabes, 2 sets of decals. Asking $160.00.

when you track main blades do you bring the lower blade up to the higher blade or the higher blade down to the lower blade when its out of track

Bring the high blade down to the lower blade is usually the accepted procedure.

Why are you selling?

The coolest R/C Heli I have ever seen. OMG Totally Awesome!!! Here is the link so you can see the other pics.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/item.cfm?itemId=293580

Chaseman81

I just don't like the AXE. Also I have a Blade CP Pro and like it much more than the Axe.

Son and I are moving to Airsoft he is old enough now and it looks like alot of fun we have our 1st Op in two weeks need equipment. That is why I am selling.

Heli-Max AXE CP With DX 6 Radio/ TP 11.1v 1320mah Lipo RTF (RTF)
Linden, MI


http://www.rcuniverse.com/market/item.cfm?itemId=293949 <--(See the ad here)

Perfect if you plan to move up to a Trex or want your heli to fly better. RTF

chaseman81

hey everybody, I just flew the falcon3d at a friends hobby store, in a word, unbelievable. I think everyone that has read my statements knows I am very much into the esky honeybees, for the money I just don't think they can be beat, but I have not flown anything that competes with that falcon for anywhere close to the price. My buddy sells then for 299 rtf. I have flown the align products and this will fly with anything they make and a large majority of the parts interchange, and the falcon rtf cost what most aligns cost arf, it has to be the most stable heli I have flown period. It is optioned like most upgraded helis, headhold gyro, all metal head parts, etc. Now, having said that, it is relatively new to the market so parts may be tough for the first year, but since suprex and align parts will interchange you should have no problems. don't get me wrong, I still think the helimax is a good chopper, but for the money you end up spending to upgrade the axe to fly like you want, there are alot of other options to look at. One word to the newbis though, there is no such thing as a ccpm that flies itself, they all require deft fingering but there are helis that inspire flight and ones that inspire fight, you just have to choose wisely and blade cp's and axe cp's are for intermediate pilots. these birds are hard to master if it is your first heli but they are still great little helis. Once again, just my opinion and I hope the information helps.
If you are interested, the falcon is made by ART-TECH, worth looking into

Almost back in action!

I just got my replacement Center Hub (snapped during tests on the test bench) from Tower and have re-built the whole rotor head, re-installed the upgraded Feathering Shaft, put fresh O-Rings in there and cleaned and lubed everything.

Now, I can finally start hacking on my new DX7's program for this little beast. Check it out - when you first start almost everything is Bass-Ackwards - I had to carefully go over the Servo-Reverse settings AND set the CCPM Mix to -60 / -60 / +60 for everything to work right.

OOOooohhh man! Such fine and precise control of the pitch and throttle curves now! I just tested her, firmly held in-hand, to get the tracking just right, and I can already tell I'll be able to get a very smooth and controllable hover going soon. I can target the 'zone' of the stick movement where I want to initiate the hover, and make sure that stick response around that area is very gradual for collective and throttle response - SWEEEEET!!

I am putting the Training Gear back on, as for now, we are back at Square One with a totally experimental and unpredictable model (been here several times!). But I am confident I can get the program down just right to allow for smooth liftoffs, hovers, and landings.

Its been too windy lately to think about any outdoor action but I have the clubhouse available and should be able to get enough indoor play time to get the hover dialed in again.

I will post some pics and DX7 settings once she's up again.

PS: My buddy just crashed his TREX - nasty, dude. He was doing some nose-in and just brain farted and lost it. HE shoulda hit the throttle, and bought some more time to re-orient, but instead dumped it. The freaking flybar was WRAPPED around the rotor head. Somehow, his Jeti ESC ($99) SMOKED in the process. A set of CF blades shattered. Tail boom wrecked. Many small parts to replace. Ugh... He's a good pilot too - he's looking to go inverted pretty soon - but first must learn the Nose-In Hover!!!

No thanks, I'd rather crash an Axe. ACtually, I'd rather NOT crash and will do everything practical I can think of to avoid this doom!!

I am very comfortable with the Nose In Hover now - on the sim anyway. I can hover any heli in FS-One or Realflight nose-in. I can even slide the heli around and around the observer keeping the nose-in orientation. TRY THAT!! Try it Left, then try it Right - a very tough exercise!

The problem with helis markind is that there is no promise of NOT crashing! everybody crashed their heli sooner or later!! It doesn't matter how good a pilot your are!! Some people crash WAAAAAYYYYY less than others.

I haven't crashed my TRex yet but I am being as careful as I can with it. Had LOTS of very close calls though. Do I see a crash in my future? Yes, I do. But hopefully it will be becuase I tried something crazy and not just hovering around.

ive heard both i dont know which one to go with in the blade tracking. i heard bring upper to lower and lower to upper both answers on this forum. wish i knew which one to go with on the tracking blade problem

I just got back from a weekend camping on the beach in Pismo, CA. It was a needed break after getting so frustrated with my Heli on Friday night. I was able to look at things from a different perspective and not be as emotional about things. Over the weekend I decided to see how much it was going to cost to fix the Axe and then decide if it was even worth fixing.

Alien- Thanks for the advice, and the Spektrum DX6 I am planning on getting will work with my Axe, but the Futaba Gy401 will not. So, I am just going to continue to fly using the stock electronics until I am ready to move on to a bigger heli. I have not crased my Axe in over a month and the only part I have broken is a tail rotor from coming down and landing too hard. The $$$ that I spending on my Axe is by no means breaking me, it is just frustrating me.[:@] I have 4 other RC trucks and know how much it costs to keep things in working order especially when you play hard. I just feel that some of the replacement parts for the Axe are grossly overpriced for such an inexpensive entry heli.

Anyway, I was going to send off my orginal 3-in-1 to Hobby Services. I spoke to someone on the phone today they stated that they would warranty it out. I went down to my LHS and they had a Axe CP there that was returned due to a bad receiver. Since it was going back to HeliMax they let me swap out my defective 3-in-1 for the functioning one and my Axe is now back in the air. While there I priced out a couple of TRex options from an SA to the SE and new SE V2. The best deal was for a 450SA combo with the brushless motor and ESC for $220. However, I would still need over $500 worths of radio, gyro, battery, and servos to get it flying. The SE V2 that I was really looking for is on backorder until late July. So that is definitely a no go right now. So, I am going to wait on any TRex for a while and continue to fly the Axe for now. I still need to perfect my figure 8's and get my circles down a little better before moving up.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions!

Axe Cp belt tail conversion is getting it's maiden voyage this weekend!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi.

I may be crazy, [sm=spinnyeyes.gif] but there are instructions on the Axe web site for installing a HH Futaba GY240 AVCS Gyro (FUTM0809). I know next to nothing about this but I would think that any gyro manufacturer today would make it so that it would fly on anything. If not, they would be shooting themselves in the foot. [:@] Take a look here.

http://manuals.hobbico.com/hmx/hmxe04-gyro-manual.pdf
[link=http://manuals.hobbico.com/hmx/hmxe04-gyro-manual.pdf]Install HH Gyro in Axe[/link]

That may not be true. [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_5814723/tm.htm]This thread[/link] discussed the compatibility of gyros and tail motors in pretty good detail.You may want to give it a look.

Strange how this thread has so many selling the Axe and switching to a more expensive heli, or upgrading parts. The draw to this heli was the low cost, everything included Helicopter learning experience. It will fly upright and inverted. If you want to start high performance 3D, then the upgrade (and price increase) are justified.

I haven't advanced that far yet, but I think the Axe is still a great buy and a great heli.

It is a good heli and it's deceptively fast. I can tell my skills have definately improved flying this bird because when I'm flying now because it used to be when I got into trouble I would freeze up and have a hard landing or crash. Now when it gets squirrelly instinct kicks in and I can save it, Fly out and try again. I really didn't think much of it until today, I just had to get a flight in before dark. Well usually early evening when the sun is going down we get a gentle to moderate breeze going which makes flying harder than normal. The first time I was flying out and made a medium turn back towards me when the wind picked up and started blowing my heli back. A few months ago that would have been a crash as I would have been dissoriented. Today I calmly just swung the tail around and let the wind blow me back and with more forward speed came back around again and continued my flight. The second incident happened right when I was landing, I just touched down when another gust came up and tried to blow the Axe over to the left. Again, I saved it by just punching out and coming back around for another approach and landed smoothly. What a rush!!!!!

Oh, And this was with the stock Axe, No mods what so ever except a lipo battery.

Blade Tracking
I have a different take on tracking. I mark the ends of the blades and the washers on the hub so I can tell them apart. Then I only adjust one of the blades. In my case that's the side with the yellow washer. This means that the other (blue) side never gets touched so my pitch curves are never inadvertantly altered. To me this is the easiest and simplest way to track blades

How are those flat bottom blades working out for you?

The only reason I am selling my axe is my son and I are moving to airsoft. His birthday is today now. the 6th and he is getting his 1st AEG gun. and we are going on an OP on the 23rd. Really it's a chance to hang out with him and build some father son bonds something to talk about and a fun time too.

The Axe is the best way to finaince the new hobby now I have upgraded it with the DX6 it flies better and is worth more.

When I come back to Heli's (like i did this time, after owning a Concept 30 about 16-17 years ago. It's still addictive. and cheaper and better and fun as hell. But I have racing on Saturdays with the R/C cars with my wife, going on Op's with my Son. Something had to be sacrificed.

For my new gun and BDU's, Op tickets, sidearm, extra mag's, bb's.... I know im forgetting somthing. Anyway we'll see. Hell who knows if nobody buy's my heli, might have to use it for recon...lol

Chaseman81 rants