Darn, Tex, I have got to get more ambitious-- sounds like you're way ahead of me in "skilz!" Sucks to wreck though, sorry.

Sammy64, I flew mine loose for a little while, got the blades balanced, then flew them just tight enough to hold their position when stopping. I then held them carefully in place and clamped them down tight. A little fudging around to keep them symmetric to each other (as far as angle in the grip) and I've had them clamped since. In theory you're supposed to let them lead/lag like you do the mains, but as short as they are, in practice, I don't think it makes a lot of difference and I'm more comfortable with 10,000 RPM devices if the screws are tight.

They should be tight enough to hold them in place, but loose enough that you can mov the blade with your fingertip without holding the shaft.

One thing you can do is spin it up and then hold the end of the tail, you can feel how much vibration is there and then decide if it needs to be taken care of.

Well, G3.5 is nice, but the real life heli just doesn;t react like the sim and it does wierd things when it wants to unless you are really on it. I wouldn't call it skills, I just like to try new stuff and realize that my actions will have repercussions.
I just wasn't paying enough attention.

Although it goes right over and sits on it's head easy.

Thanks Osterizer, it's just part of learning. I've crashed before and I'll crash again, just the way it is.

thanks for the heads up .. iam going to rebuild the tail again .. i have used trex parts last time and have a few extra .. seems like the shaft is lose and floats in the bearings just a very little .. i have gone thru the tail control arms and grips and now it time to pull the boom out ..

Ha, yeah, I know. I've beaten enough parts off the BCPP. I'm just in a mood-- I'm POed at the Blade and I smoked the motor in the King yesterday (literally-- looked like it was packed with Kentucky Burleigh) so the 450 is the only one running right now besides the FPs. RealFlight's the only place I can take chances .

Anyone else had issues with the quality of the alum main blade grips and alum tail rotor grips? Both on my 450XS are worthless. The tail rotor grips somehow cause a horrible vibration once the heli reach mid stick. The main blade grips are noticeable not straight when installed in the head. I can visually see one grip is pointing slightly down. This was straight out of the box and also after I went through it and checked everything. it makes the blades impossible to track.

I've ordered plastic pieces to see if it resolves the issues. Then I will be taking this up with Heli-Max for a fix. Just wanted to see if this is a isolated instance or more common?

I have switched the tail with a Trex .. but i`m also going thru a vibration with the tail.. at about the same place 1/2 to 3/4 throttle ... feathering shaft is bent.. very easy to bend it .. there cheap to replace ..

Check the feathering spindle, might have been damage during shipping of some sort. The blade grips should be straight. The stock white blades are junk and cause alot of vibration. Upgrade to teh CF or Align tail blades.

Unfortunately, Helimax has back ordered the spindles until the end of May.[:@]

Thanks for the advice guys. I did disassemble the blade grips and checked the feathering shaft, it's perfectly straight.

I didn't want to believe the stock tail blades would be that much out of balance. I'll pick up some Trex tail blades and give those a try.

Pulled the Heli apart and rebuilt everything in the tall to get rid of the vibration .. new tail shaft (using the trex tail parts and grips in the HM housing) got it all back in shape and aligned and powered it on with no main blades or feather shaft .. just a little vibration from the stabilizer at full throttle .. finished reassembling the tail and balanced the tail blades (Align 3K CF).. the blade grips where lose .. just need a little force to move the blades in the grips now .. tested and the vibration was still very little on the stabilizer .. put the head back together and tested .. still just a little vibration .. put on a nice NEW balanced align 325 woodies and all of a sudden the dang thing has the vibration again .. swap out for a 315 woodies pair and the vibration normal again.
doing all this i was also able to fix the tail boom and my belt issue .. belt is almost center in the boom..

what motor and pinion combo are you using?

And are you sure the 325s were balanced? If putting them on meant really bad vibes, and the 315s fixed it, all I can surmise is a) they're not balanced, b) one or both or warped (which would show up in bad tracking in addition to vibration), or c) maybe the 325s were sticking on the grip hinge (something rough, bolt tension off, something like that).

TEX .. the motor is a GP-Ammo 28-45-2700 .. the one they recommend and using the stock 14T .. align 35A ESC .. i have also noticed that the motor gets hot after a battery .. the ESC is kool to the touch ..

osterizer .. i balanced the blades myself along with the 315's .. align blades are good right out of the package most of the time .. now the tail blades where off a lot and took 2 strips of tape to get them balanced .. i can get the 325's to track into about 1/8" .. but under hard throttle that changes .. maybe a 1/4" or so .. i bought two sets of the 325's (LHS about 1 hr away, so i buy a lot of everything when i go) and try the other ones to see if it is just a bad set of blades .. there cheap anyways

Thanks for your help guys

Go down to a 13T since thos blades are rated for 2500rpm or less.

Replace the stand offs and screws on the seesaw, that should solve your tracking problems.

All blades Trex or not need to be balanced. Pretty good becomes horribly wrong at 2800rpm.

Yes i would agree about the balancing of all blades and i .. i have the max throttle set at 96% so it should not reach the full 2700rmps .. i have not any problems and i really dont max it out anyways but i will find a 13t .. do you think this will help with the temp of the motor dropping down a tooth on the gear ?

sammy64-- I know you know what you're doing, man, just if one set of blades works and the other doesn't, there are only a few things it could be. I've double checked and found I hadn't gotten a set balanced as well as I thought, so that's why I asked.

BTW, I'm going to try a 12T to drop my governed RPM down around 2400 or so and see how it flies at that speed-- I definitely expect it to cool the motor off a bit, and probably get better flight times as well, but don't know yet.

Sammy and Osterizer:

Correctly geared, it will run cooler and you will be able to keep your head speed up when you increase pitch quickly. Over geared motors heat up quickly.

I ran with a 10T on my 3550 motor and it would shoot up without even slowing the motor, but the head speed was juat about 2500 with the 10T and I wanted to be closer to the 2700 range. Basically 11T.

Osterizer,

Hate to say this but I went against your advice and bought a CP Pro today. Heading to Chicago to visit family and wanted something to take with me.

Impulse buys are a killer[:@], luckaly I got a great price.

Ha. I was just concerned that you'd get it and expect it to fly like the 450-- it doesn't. If you take it on its own merits it's a blast, and you can do a lot with it.

I mentioned the stuff I changed earlier: currently microHeli upgrade hub, EF 4200 brushless & ESC, G90 gyro, GWS 050 tail motor with ICS esc, microHeli mainshaft and autorotation gear. I had a minor dalliance with the microHeli head, also, that I've since sobered up from- I don't like the full head, but if you do just the Al hub it tightens the mains up a lot and it flies much better. Stay away from the EF Al swash, too-- it has less travel than the stock plastic one, believe it or not. If you wan't to upgrade the stock swash, get the microHeli one-- it's a good bit of kit.

You might be able to suggest an improvement for me once you get used to it-- latest complaint is that during high-cyclic maneuvers with it the tail kicks a LOT. I put the GWS motor driving a long prop directly on it last weekend to get some better control in backflips, loops and the like. I tried it in the garage and it worked better than stock, but I haven't been able to try it out yet. I also saw a thread where people were using a rate gyro after the HH gyro (!), which sounds wonky but actually makes some sense with the motor tail if you think about it.

Sometimes I hate it, but I'll never stop flying it .

Well if you remember I had the Blade CP and I did intend to get a Pro, just didn't know when. Today was the day I guess.

I just popped it out of the box and tracked the blades and tossed it around the living room a bit to check it out before I put it back in the box to take with me.

As for the tail kicking around, I have no remedy, it's a motor driven tail...it sucks. Not much I can add to that.

Well, hope you like it anyway, but point taken-- earrings on the pig gives you a well dressed pig .

[edit] What am I thinking? Have a good trip! --bill [/edit]

LOL, thanks Bill...

Wow, I didn't realize how much I butchered that last post with typos....anyway I guess you got the point.

I am addicted to helicopters...what can I say. Honestly, once you tame the beast, they are wicked fun!

Defenitely not like the 450, but it flies pretty good with some recent mods(Blade CPP).

Went to my childhood hobby store here and they have a trex 600 on the shelf, just teasing me.[:@]

LOL, I saw the Lipo pack for the 600 and it's the size of a 100 pack of CD-RWs.[X(]

Hehe, maybe we should get TR 600 batteries to recharge our 450s at the field....

LOL, probably could...sheesh...4200mAh too!