Welcome to the heli world. Like you, I came from the truck side. (Revo 3.3) It is a bit much with a HH Gyro. I fly mine without one, and yes, it is a lot of work. Have you looked at the manual to show you how to adjust the pots on the e-board? It might help you out. Personally, if I were you, I would stick with the stock parts. You actually want the blades to "blow up" if you have a bad crash so that energy lessens as it goes down the path of parts with all that energy. You can pay about half price going with the Blade CP tail blades and some people have used the main blades as well by taking off the black plastic pieces they come with. Hope this helps you out some. I'm right there with you brother. I'm still in the learning phase but people have been very helpful here. Welcome aboard.

Thanks for the reply, I'm really not trying to rush my learning curve of the "Rotory Beast" lol. I do have several years exp with fixed wing applications. My crash was totally my fault today. I hit the idle up switch which made the hover wayyy easier at first. then I forgot when I went to idle down and land it said Swoop crash clackitty clackitty. it was kind of funny. but I was scream Nooooo the whole time... As you said, I'm probably the same and at least a few months away from inverted flights. so the symetrical blades really won't due me much good as of now. I'll check out the trainer blades and start there plus they are supposed to be much more impact resistant. the wood blades shattered when they hit the pavement. I've been sitting here looking at the page 11 and thinking that may help my tail problem I'll try that as soon as I get the new parts installed tomorrow. As far as my lipo goes yea I just couldn't take the 5 minutes of the stock batt pack. it's like as soon as I got comfortable with bringing it off the ground I had no more power left. I have a Lipo from my Brushless Mini-T. So all I did was make a connector for the batt pack from ultra deans to mini deans. Now I'm looking at 15+ minutes of flight time, the only thing I notice is that the main motor is HOT after this much hovering. and i've still got more than 2v's left to go in my Lipo before I'm at the 9.6v cutoff. I just can't wait to get my parts tomorrow so I can fly again. Any more info you have would be greatly appreciated. any kind of hint's Tips or anything. Oh yea as far as the balance of the heli goes with the new lipo in. it seems to be just about the same as with the stock batt. if not it's actually a little more centered. I noticed it felt more balanced with the lipo vs the stockie. not to mention the noticeable increase in power.

Look at your motor where the heat sink is. On each side there are slots. Cut out slots on the heat sink to match the slots on the motor. You won't believe how much cooler the motor runs. There is a picture somewhere on the forum, but I don't know where it is off the top of my head. Maybe someone can point it to you so you can see what it looks like. Hope this helps. My motor runs soo much cooler since I've done that.

cool I'll look into that thanks.

Hey Markind where is the info on the DD tail posted? [sm=confused.gif]

HelisRule - Yes, that is what I meant, you just used the correct terminology .

Heliko, got some motor oil from LHS today and applied it. Thanks for the heads up on that. I am gonna go out and fly it and see how it does.
Just got through. Yep, it helped. Smoother and quieter. If any of you were like me and did not know to oil the motor I highly recommend you do so.
I still get some yo/yo but not as bad. I was able to watch it in a stable hover when it glitched one time and I saw the servos/swashplate jitter for a second and then it dropped about 2 feet then it was back up and normal except for a few more glitches. I would think something is "telling" the servos/swashplate to do something without my input. Just haven't figured it out yet.

My AXE is way home too, I don´t know if somebody asked before, but does the original Tx cristal look like Futaba compatible? Let say the 7CP model

Yes it is Futaba compatible.
I have a 7CHP and I swapped the Tx crystal into the 7C from the Axe Tx and it worked perfect. Of course it is illegal to switch Tx crystal frequencies so I did have to get a new Rx single conversion crystal for the Rx to match my 7C. Since then I've been using the Axe Rx with my 7C and it's worked perfectly.

Ok, I've checked it over good and nothing seems out of whack. So I finally got my training blades put on and adjusted for tightness. Put the [stock] battery in and started up the Axe. Something is definitely wrong here; very little power. I need some help troubleshooting...

Q1: Stock battery; will it discharge over time even if not used, and if so, do I need to keep it plugged into charger during long periods in hangar? Could I have overdischarged it at some point and damaged it?

Q2: Tail rotor; if I turn it with my finger it feels very notchy, not smooth at all. Almost as if the gear teeth are too big for the blade gear or the motor itself is not turning smoothly. Is that normal? Everything feels tight in the tail, i.e. motor mount screws tight. And tail spins up but I think it may sound different; not sure.

Q3: Throttle; When I start to throttle up, the blades start turning, but not like they used to, and just past mid-stick power drops off. I've noticed a degradation in power at the top end of the stick from day one as the battery got weaker, but now it's almost like turning off a switch; once I start going past dead center with the throttle stick, power just drops off and everything pretty much stops. If I back the stick back down to bottom and then start up again the blades start turning but then stop after center stick.

Q4: E-board POTs; really need help here. I'm 99% sure I have the middle one back at factory position but not sure about the bottom one. Before I stupidly started messing with them, the middle one was at about 12:30. Turning it counter-clockwise I could only go to about 10:00 before it stopped, so I'm pretty certain I have that one where it was. Unfortunately, the bottom one is where I'm unsure. I know it was originally just a hair beyond the middle one, like the 1:00 position, but I don't know what the relative counter-clockwise dead stop position was. I don't think it was as close as 10:00 so perhaps that POT was closer to its mid range? Does anyone know where these POTs should be from factory? Would having these POTs off have anything to do with my power problem?

Q5: Head: shakes pretty good upon start-up. Used to do that when the blades first started spinning but would level off and track nicely by half-stick. Now doesn't seem to be enough power to come out of it, or is there something else going on here? Like I said, nothing looks bent or out of whack and my last crash didn't appear that severe.

Appreciate any help.

Thanks.

Yes, but its normal for NiMH. The best thing to do is charge before use. Li-Po's have a much slower self-discharge rate so they can be charged and used later.

That's a bad idea. Batteries shouldn't be left on a charger for long periods of time especially unattended.

Unlikely since the ESC will cut power at a preset voltage. Overcharging is unliklely as well if using the stock charger since it's a peak charger.

Though the spur gear and pinion don't seem to be exactly the same pitch they work OK. It's really the magnets in the tail motor causing the notchy feel. So yes it's normal.

Sounds like a battery issue. It doesn't have a good charge. As mentioned earlier the ESC has an LV cut-off that seems to be tripping causing your power to cut out. This can be caused by a faulty pack or charger. Or if you partially charged the pack or didn't run it out before recharging it may have developed memory. It doesn't take much.

The pots are different on every heli. There is no standardized position for them. They only affect the tail rotor though so they have nothing to do with the power cutting off. You know what they all do from the manual so I'll only add that turning them CCW increases them. I replaced the board a long time ago with "seperates" because though it worked OK three adjustments for the tail is ridiculous and an HH gyro made the Axe easier to fly.

Given you didn't bend anything when you crashed it could be the low power isn't giving the blades enough centrifugal force to straighten out. On the other hand a bent mainshaft or feathering spindle could cause the vibration. Either way I would wait until power issues are resolved before addressing this issue.

Under no circumstance should you want blades that are more crash resistant for training!!! You want you blades to shatter when they hit something, that will disperse the energy of the impact and reduce further damage along the driveline.

I got my replacement parts yesterday. Got everything installed. and I'm back flying again. Ran another 3 battery packs yesterday without incident. I understand why you shouldn't use blades that are more impact resistant for training. But all together my parts only totaled $22. So I was happy with that. I did however have my LHS order some of the plastic trainer blades though. So I'll have sturdier blades for when I'm doing more forward flight. I'm pretty comfortable with hovering about 10-15ft off the ground. I feel it'll only be a week or so until I'm really into Fast forward flight. I guess all those days playing videogames have really helped my hand eye cordination. I was talking with my dealer at my LHS and he was telling me it takes people Weeks if not months to get to a 10ft hover. Today will be my third day.

Although not an expert by any means, here's my experience. I can't tell you for sure, but you might want to try and put on the original blades and see if you still don't have the power. In my experience so far, when I don't have the power, its usually been my motor going out, but it could be the training blades. I've never tried those. As for batteries, they all discharge to some extent over time and I would never keep batteries on charger during storage. If I'm going to store my batteries for a extended period of time, I keep some of the charge left in it so if it does drain down, it won't be to the point of overdischarge. The tail rotor, I believe is normal. Mine does the same thing and it fly's great. On Q3, I would think its going to be 1 one 3 things; Your motor wearing out, battery nearing end of life, (have you tried using another battery) or problems with the e-board. Personally, I think its the motor going. I had a problem just like that with my tail motor. Once I changed it out, it was flying good as new. Playing with the pots was something I've always stayed away from, but, if you haven't turned it more than 180 degrees like the manual says, I would just set them like they are in the photos and restart from there. Sorry, I've never had to mess with them myself. As far as the head shaking, that sounds like something is out of balance. I'd recheck everything on the head. Make sure everything is balanced out as much as possible and if you have a blade balancer, I would test them and see if they're balanced. I've only had to replace a couple and have never needed to balance them, but you never know with the new trainer blades. Sorry if I didn't help you out here, but I figured I'd give you some of my real world experiences in an attempt to help. Hope everything works itself out and let us know what you find out.

OK I know I maybe jumping the gun here but how about "BRUSHLESS" for this copter? I have a Brushless Mini-T and that thing is everything and more that I could possible want it to be. So my question would be what's a good system to put into this copter? any and all suggestions are appreciated. with weblinks will be helpful as well as pictures. I'm just not sure what is worth putting into this copter. I plan on using it to be my trainer for awhile, and then upgrading to a T-Rex 450 or something similar in about 6 months or so. But I want maximun efficiency as well as performance. I already have a Li-po installed on my stock setup.

Or please list the most important upgades in order as to how you would do them. or which are most important to you.

Here's a follow-up...thinking the battery may have discharged while I was waiting for the blades to arrive, I decided to try charging it this morning. So I plugged it in and within about 15-20 minutes, I noticed the green light was on, indicating it was finished charging. Now, I'm no battery expert, but that doesn't seem like a good thing. Unless the battery wasn't all that discharged, and my power problem is something else, like the motor going as you suggested. But I don't see how that could be unless it's defective,as I've only had the Axe for a few weeks, and have only gone through probably less than 10 battery charges/hover practice sessions.

In regard to the battery developing memory, it is my understanding that NiMH batteries don't develop memory effect, but do get voltage depletion, and that ocassionally they should be fully discharged, especially if they are often recharged while still having a substantial charge. So I'll try the battery again and see what happens, and I'll try to get it discharged further and try charging it again. I'll also check again for bent/broken parts, like the feathering spindle, although I'll have to look at the parts list for that one 'cause I don't know what it is.

If it does turn out to be a bad motor or e-board, who would I contact about that at this point, Tower or HeliMax? Next weekend I will have had the Axe 30 days.

Thanks.

HeliRules, regarding Q. #5 I am using trainer blades on mine and they are OK - they don't effect power up as you are describing.
Here are some things to try for isolating the vibration problems.
Take the blades off and run the motor up and see if it reduces power with less load (just be careful of the flybar while it is spinning). You can also take the head assembly (everything above the swashplate basically) off and then try it and check for power and for vibration. Listen to the motor, does it grind/growl or is it pretty much a whine as you increase power?

Look at the main gear and for the rotation of the main shaft. You can hold it up by hand and leave it on the table to check it. See if you have much vibration at this point. Does the main gear turn smoothly (both directions) or does it have sticking spots in it? If so, the teeth may have been buggered up on the crash/es. I have found that this will cause vibration in mine.

As you reassemble the top check again and again for vibration as you apply parts (making sure each part is "locked in" so that it doesn't come apart as you spin it up. If you have a scale (I reload ammo so I have one) weigh each one and see if they are equal (add tape to balance them).

Do the same for the Main blades, find the center (length wise) by using something real flat and thin - something so that they will teeter-totter and mark each one's center then compare and see if they line up by placing one over the top of the other. Weigh them if you can and add weight by using tape. My plastic blades were pretty darn close and have stayed that way even though I have hit them several times on ground and boom. If you can determine the "heavy blade" and weight to the light blade (I think you add tape to the end of the blade - there are some threads on balancing and where to add tape). This is not the best method but it works if yo don't have balancers etc.

While you have the top apart, check the feathering shaft by rolling it on something flat and see if it bent. It can be bent straight (or very close) by hand or by using a LIGHT hammer and easy taps if your careful (put a cloth or something rubber over striking spots to protect the shaft while hitting it (doesn't take much force to bend it straight).

Now, my head button still has some SLIGHT wobble but I believe that is due to plastic parts and slack throughout the head and shaft works, so concentrate on the metal parts first and as you make adjustments see if the vibration decreases.
I know that this will not help with the power problem but it should assist with balance / vibration in that you will be trueing everything up as best you can with your tools on hand.

Get some Motor bearing oil (Heliko put me onto Trinity brand from TowerHobbies) and my LHS carries it and that smoothed out my motor immensly.

Regarding the main gear and teeth, I will put a new one on mine and it will run pretty smooth but as those teeth get chewed up it will start to vibrate a little more until it gets so bad that I replace it again. I have had spots where the motor gear would not engage 3 or 4 teeth in spots but it still worked, just vibrated more.

This is part of the learning curve for Helis. You will work on it and troubleshoot problems and later when/if you go into a larger bird you will have invaluable knowledge and experience for continuing maintainence.

Good luck on the power problem.

Take the battery pack to a Batteries Plus store they will be able to test the battery with a couple different machines to determine if this is the cause of your problems. Also check all yoru wiring make sure everything is secured and connected tightly. I've never liked Nimah's as the life of the packs are not that great. after each use they do get cell depletion and it continues to derteriorate with each charge. When I store my batteries I give them a FULL charge and store them away and after about every 2-3 weeks pull them out and give them a complete cycle. a full discharge and then full charge and put them back up. it's work fine for me but seriously if your content with 4-6 minute flight times then stay with nimah. if you want longer times look into Li-po packs. I have a 3s cell Thnuder Power 1325mah pack and I can get close to 25 minutes out of this pack. You just have to either install a voltage meter to make sure your not over discharging the pack on my 3 cell the cutoff is 9.6v or like I do let the heli rest and motors cool down after about every 10 minutes and check the voltage level with a volt meter. I know they seem expensive but they are a well worth while investment for this kind of high powered-draw machine. I flew the stock battery for 1 flight it lasted maybe 5 minutes. I happened to have an extra lipo from my rc car stuff so I just soldered up a connector to make the Ultra deans connect up to the Micro deans conneter on the copter and that's it. took maybe 5 minutes for the soldering. well worth the time and effort. Not to mention it's alot more powerful than the stock batttery. I don't know I'm very new to the helicopter. As I just bought my first a coupel days ago. But I've had a lot of experience with batteries. And this is just my 2 cents.

K94max, thanks for all your insight. I wish I had read your post right when you posted it as it would have saved me a part. One of the things that's been nugging me is that when the blades were idle, one of them seemed to tip down slightly. I had figured this was just due more to physics than anything else, but I finally decided to check the spindle. When I pulled the blades off and stuck the allen wrench in the first bolt, I was surprised to find the bolt was actually not tight. It unscrewed quite easily. Same for the other side. When I got the spindle out, my suspicions were realized, the spindle was slightly bent indeed. Unfortunately, not having read your post, it appeared that the spindle was made of hardened steel or gun metal or something. So I dealt it a more than sufficient blow with a hammer to render it defeated! Oh well, live & learn. I'll need to get a replacement. Do you know if the Blade CP uses the same spindle? The not-so-LHS has Blade parts but no Axe parts. [] At anyrate, that was probably the root cause of my vibration. I'll check all the other stuff systematically as you suggested once I get the spindle replaced. Thanks again.

Revo_Rash, good idea. If I end up at the LHS today I'll bring the battery and see if they can check it. I do plan on getting a lipo, and have spent the better part of a week trying to decide what setup to get. I can deal with and justify the cost of the battery, but all the other stuff, charger, balancer, power supply, myriad of connectors, pieces and parts to marry them all into a charging system is a bit overwhelming and hard to justify. It would appear I'm going to have to spend as much on a power solution for the Axe as I did for the Axe itself. I'm probably going to go with the TP1320 that so many here have touted, just don't know beyond that yet. I like the price of the Mega Power batteries, but I've read some less than encouraging posts about those. Thanks for your input; it all helps.

Hey Folks - Does anyone happen to have a used but working e-board for an axe cp that they're willing to part with for a fair price?

I can attest to that. I bought a $99 Mini-T and put a $130 Bl setup in it. only to find that the stock even Custom Nimah's were no match for the system. I've yet to buy a Balancer or any of the other stuff you mentioned except for the charger. My Li-Po pack cost me around $45 Charger was $50 and I had to buy a DC Converter box for an additional $60. Also that little connector you see there is home made. I just snipped the end of the stock battery pack and soldered a regular Ultra deans connector on. But here a couple pics of the stuff. As you can see the Heli is well balanced, and even more balanced than with the stock battery I think.

Sorry to hear about the spindle but, you will probably not make that same mistake again [:@]. Unsure of the blade spindle, my guess is no, but I do not know. Be sure to get some BLUE loctite and use just a little to apply to screws when you put the grips back on the spindle.
Yep, the cost of the batts, charger, balancer and power supply will cost as much as the Axe. However, get a good charger and balancer and (I made my power supply) and that is a one time expense. Still costs but it is the only way to get any flight time with these by using Lipo. I use the Triton jr, equinox balancer, and 11.1v 910mah batteries from towerhobbies. Make sure the batteries are labeled "wired for balancing" if you use a balancer. You can make a power supply from an old PC supply for about 10-15 dollars. There is a thread on how to do that. Wasn't too hard - here is the link if you want to try. www.rcbatteryclinic.com look for "pc power supply for chargers".
If you do not have the abilities to do the modification perhaps you could locate a PC shop or electronics shop or person and give them the printout of the modification and have them make it for you?
lot's of good talk on the TP batteries but my electriflys do ok and you can get two for about $55 I think. Charger was about $80 and balancer about $35 I think. Add the P/W and there is your $200 same price as Axe. But, like I said, that is also $150 you will not have to spend on another heli later.
Good luck on getting your parts and back to flying. If you want to check out another thread on this site look at Replacement parts kit in the Helimax thread. It contains a list of parts etc that are suggested to purchase if you are going to order a feather shaft.
Hang in there, it will be costly, don't ask how I know

Thanks again. I was going to head down to the HS to see if the blade parts would work, but I decided I just didn't havethe time. It's close to an hour from me and that would have put me in their parking lot just before they locked the doors so I scrapped the mission; looks like it's have to be a Tower order and wait. []

Actually, your battery setup is very close to what I've been leaning toward, i.e. the Equinox and Triton Jr. I was originally thinking about the Electrifly 910 as well, to 'keep everything in the family', but I've read so much here about the TP1320 that I thought I could justify the extra expense for the battery. I was just hoping to find a charger/balancer/power supply combo for, well, less than I'm finding them for. But I'd forgotten about the computer PS option. That may be viable. I'll check out the instructions for that, as well as the parts list thread you mentioned. Thanks for the tips.

Actually, the spindle isn't as bad off as I thought. Maybe while I'm waiting for the new parts, I can make this one work enough to perform all of the other checks you suggested. BTW, the main rotor gear looks fine; no missing teeth. And there's no visible bend or other damage that I can detect on the main shaft either. I'll keep you posted.

I have a simple question what does the GYRO trim on the E-board do? and or should I be trimming it or not?

Update: This is almost as fun to fix as it is to fly. Determined not to wait for parts, I worked on 'rerounding' the damaged spindle with tools and 4/0 steel wool until I was able to get the bearings on it with a littl light tapping action. I know, I need to be careful not to damage the bearings as they apparently have to be purchased as part of a whole darn set, which of course is more $ than the average part. I don't think I hurt it any, but it looks like it did take care of [most] of the head wobble I was experiencing. Cool. Time for some power tests. I wanted to power her up mainly to see if the wobble was reduced or gone altogether, and to see if the battery/power was any better. Things ran more smoothly for sure, but I still couldn't get enough lift to get off the ground; better though. I decided I'd kill two (or more) birds with one stone, so I kept it running to run the battery down more to see if I could get a better charge afterward, and also to see if I could get the POTs back to factory. I think I accomplished both. The power drop off is still there, but it took more stick and this time I noticed a pattern. The dropoff seems to be caused when the tail rotor would kick in. If I used full left stick I could get almost to full throttle without dropoff. So I kept adjusting the TR POT until I think it's the way it was from factory. Come to find out, if CCW increases trim, it appears from the factory they had gyro gain almost topped out, i.e. top was at about 10:00 and they had it set to about 12:30. But TR trim appears to be set at about 01:35, or about half trim relative to its 10:00 top end.

I just kept running it and watching and a few times it did actually start to get light again, but not enough to lift off so I'm thinking the power issue is indeed the battery. I'd run it for awhile and try to increase power but eventually it would just drop out and I'd have to dead stick it for a few seconds to get it running again. Once I got it so that there was barely enough battery to spin it up I went and stood directly over it, and at low speed, looking straight down at the head button, I was able to detect a slight wobble. I'm not sure if that was just low head speed or if I indeed was seeing the effect of a slightly bent main shaft. So as not to take any chances, I decided to add that to the parts list to order. As a sidenote, I also noticed during this test that my tail boom was ever so slightly off center, starting right where it attaches to the main chassis. That was an easy tweak to get that straight again. I don't know if all of this was the result of my last hit (slid across the floor and hit the garage door, nicely embedding the main rotor in the styrofoam door insulation), or if it's cumulative damage from the three light crashes that I've had. The first two just seemingly dinged the blade tips but the door hit was the hit that really seems to have done the most noticeable damage.

You'll get a kick outta this...one of my crashes was totally deserved and wildly freaky...don't try this at home boys and girls. I got fed up one night early on with the fact that I couldn't get the darned thing to make up its mind what direction it wanted to go in my circle, so I said, "Gee, let's see what happens if I throw all of these REVO switches on the transmitter!" So I did, then gave it a little throttle. Ever seen a contortionist heli?! I have. It was one of those NOOOOO NOOO moments. But I was really surprised at how little damage was actually done. It flipped over wildly and ended up with both blade trailing edges pointing in the same direction, but I don;tthink it ever got the blades going enough to do any real damage. I had to move things back into place, but ina few minutes I was back to hover practice. I laughed it off but won;t ever try it again; lesson learned. Of course since then I've learned what exactly those REVO switches are for.

Anyway, back to the battery. It's still charging after about 75 minutes, so perhaps I'll get a good charge this time and be able to get more power...I'll let you know.

Happy Hoverin'

Getting closer. More power from the battery this time, and definitely got lighter. But still needed some tuning on the E-board. By the time I got that to where I think it may have been from factory, I had expended much of the battery. Noticed something else though. The blades are not tracking properly. Off slightly. Tomorrow I'll give the battery another good charge and maybe adjust one of the linkages to get the tracking back to normal. Flybar looks good, blades just need an adjustment. Getting there.