I posted this in another forum. Please forgive the dupe. Moderator, please remove the dupe if you wish.


Hi,

I have the Heli-Max AXE CP. I was flying it around our warehouse today without any problems. The battery started to die so I landed and shut it off and took it to my desk to charge. After the light came on Green again, I took the heli back to the warehouse for another flight. I started to throttle up, the blades all started turning, I saw the collective pitch changing and nothing. I advanced the collective further, still nothing. I could advance the collective up and down and watch the heli try to lift off, but it wouldn't break ground. I could almost make the thing bounce up and down, but it wouldn't lift. I also heard an unusual sound as it spooled up.

I was kinda thinking I have a dead cell in the battery(stock battery) but then I read somewhere that people have had problems with the board frying. I wouldn't think it's the board because all functions work normally, it just won't fly.

I have only flown the heli 5 times. I have only had it in my house for 3 weeks.

Anybody have any ideas to help me out before I waste a day calling support?

Thanks,
Mike

I had the same problem, Once when I pluged in the battery I heard a kind on hum from one of the servos then it stoped, I thought nothing of it until I spooled up the main rotor and couldn't get off the ground. I looked everything over and come to find out that the front servo had a broken gear in it. You can look through the blue case and see the gears on top of it and I noticed one was out of place I tried to fix it but the little stud the gear went on was broken off from the case. I called Tower Hobbies and they gave me the number to the helimax warranty people, gave them a quick call and they sent me out a new servo. Everthing work great now. I hope this helps with your problem.

JP

Sweet! Thanks for the reply!!!! If that's the case, I won't even call them as I have a couple Hitec 55's NIB in my tool cabinet.

I was really bummed when this happened. I was just starting to enjoy flying the heli.

You made my day a bit brighter. Now i just have to find a way to get out of work so i can go home and work on the heli. haha

You might want to check the swashplate movement when you move the throttle up (remember to disconnect the motors) and if the swash moves down level then all three servos are working correctly. I tried to pick up a servo at the LHS when mine quit but when I installed it, it worked backwards then all the other ones. So I still had to wait for the replacement.

JP

I tried as suggested. When the throttle/collective is applied, the swash plate did move down evenly. But, there was so little positive in the blades, I couldn't see the trailing edge when I looked at the leading edge with the heli level. So...I spent some time adjusting each control rod evenly. I did 3 full turns on each rod. I took the heli outside and it lifted off.

Now, I am trying to figure out why all 3 servos were suddenly out of adjustment. Doesn't seem right to me.

If this thing doesn't act right this weekend, I am boxing it backup and sending it back to Tower and wait for a replacement.

That's odd I wonder if you didn't bump the trim by accident. I know sometimes when I pick up my TX I end up moving the trim and I have to put them back to where they were. Mine were not set in the center when I took it out of the box.

Yeah I checked the trim.

When I say adjusted, I took the servo arms off and turned the rods. Not just a trim adjustment. Before I did this, the blades look like barn doors with negative collective.

Just crazy.

I spent a couple more hours with my AXE anchors to my work bench to fine turn everything.

Hopefully, this doesn't happen again!!!!!!

After I changed the servo's out for HS-55's, I was having some similar lift-off problems; not related to the battery problems though, as I'm using lipo's.
I dinked around with the servo arms and trims and pushrod lengths for about an hour or two with no luck getting it back in the air before I read the manual (yeah, imagine that) and found the description for resetting the pitch. I don't have my manual handy, but I think it's on page 11 or 12: with idle-up off, the collective/throttle all the way down, and the trims centered, the servo arms (or at least a line from the center of the servo arm to the center of the hole the pushrod occupies) should be level. The three recommended pushrod lengths (from center of the pushrod hole to the center of the ball joint) are also given and should be measured. Other than dumb thumbs, I haven't had any problems after resetting in this manner.

Anyone using their own radio for the Axe yetinstead of the one included with it?

i have an axe cp. the batt. packs fail after about 5 charges. i sent the axe in for warranty sevice, they could not find anything wrong. i have it 3 weeks and gone threw 3 packs.... tech support has told me that they are having batt/charger issues... they are sending me a new charger. i'm an electronics tech personally i do not think the 10.8v batt. are right for this heli. I'm most likely going to upgrade. I'm a beginner pilot just learning to hover, battery is good for about 4 minutes...