GTOAbuser

Can't wait to see some pics of it. I hope it works out for you too.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Spent the better part of this afternoon trying to get this Brushless tail motor set up and running. I went through the programming of the ESC and set the throttle end points and then programmed the ESC to shut down only when sensing the lowest voltage (high, med, or low). Removed the old brushed ESC and began the process of soldering the new one onto the Dean Connector. Its a real pain in the neck trying to solder two wires to the same terminal which already is coated with solder. Hooked everything up and found the tail ESC and motor were just beeping over and over. Connect it back to the throttle output and it works fine. After some experiementing I found the error code meant the throttle signal it was receiving was not right. It doesn't like the gyro's signal for some reason.

Well, after a couple hours I got it to work. For some reason the gyro doesn't have as wide of a range as the range on the throttle on the radio. I disconnected everything but the esc and tial motor to channel 3. Then went through the sequence to set the end points on the ESC, only this time I moved the throttle from the 100% setting to around 10% instead of 0%. Then, when I went back to the gyro, I could swing the heli, or give left rudder and the ESC would sense a zero throttle and arm the ESC. After this, it worked just fine. Too windy outside to test, so only did a hover in the basement. It sounds really smooth.

Here are some pics of the new baby motor:

Shadow99

That's a SWEET looking mount for your BL tail motor , did you fab that up yourself? Is it acrylic, plexiglass, or Lexan?
Does your gyro have Adjustable Servo Travel pot on it, try increasing it, I had a simular issue on my buddies set-up using a Telebee gyro and a GWS ESC.

Shadow

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

I believe the mount is acrylic. Just went to Lowes and found the shelf pegs in the hardware bin. There's a 1/4 inch peg that's slid into the tail boom with a screw holding it. Its a little sloppy so its wrapped in electrical tape.

No adjustment on the G90 gyro for end points. But, you can believe I was swearing the next gyro would have 'em.

GTOAbuser

Looks good!! I bet it does sound good, shouldn't have a problem holding the tail anymore you would think. That would be pretty wild if you could get varible pitch blades for it like the planes use.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

After spending most of the weekend on a boat floating around Lake Michigan on the wind and waves, I finally had a chance to try out the new brushless direct drive tail motor this evening. I have to say it flies great! I started flying with the gyro set to a slightly lower gain setting and began to increase the gain as I built confidence. At first, the helicopter would hold heading but would rotate about 20°as I would add collective. Once I added more gain to the gyro, it would nearly hold a heading with hard collective input. There is still no wag to the tail, so there could be a little room for some increased gain on the gyro. But for now, I will fly it as it is set. Again, I am truly impressed with the way it flew with the brushless motor running a direct drive prop and a heading hold gyro. Hopefully, this is the setup I’ve been looking for to finally attempt some inverted flight.

PilotLight

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Did some more tuning on the direct drive on the axe. I tried installing a GWS 4025 prop and found it was a little too small. You could hear the prop cavetate against the air coming off the main rotor blade. Decided to go back to my original GWS 4530 prop. I did multiple flights while adding gain to the gyro. The helicopter will fly just fine until you give hard left or hard right nose and then let go off the stick letting it snap back to center. This will start up a heavy tail wag if the gyro is set too high. It will rotate almost 30°left or right as the tail motor pulsates up and down. It really gets your heart rate up! Once I found the setting that would not allow the tail to begin to wag I began to experiment with heavy collective input. You can give lots of climb and the heli will just about go straight up without rotating. I tried to duplicate bouncing the helicopter up and down like I've seen in the videos on the Internet, but the gyro isn't quite as effective as a 401. The axe will rotate just a little and during the decent may pick up some wag. But, I've got to say, this is the best it's ever flown.

During startup, the brushless main motor jerks to a start and will cause the helicopter to rotate nearly 180°. I found that by increasing trim to get the tail motor running about half throttle to where its not increasing in RPMS or decreasing allows the main motor to start quickly, but the tail motor will prevent the heli from rotating. So, it's a matter of technique.

Video when time allows...

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Went for some more inverted flight this afternoon. Two loops were somewhat successful, but the third was not so good. Every time I get inverted I need nearly full negative collective pitch to force the heli back up before I can return to positive collective. I’m not sure if I should attempt to hold an inverted hover, or just continue trying to fly larger loops. One of the loops required full positive collective a few feet off the ground. Luckily, the gyro held the tail firmly and I could fly up and away. The last loop started about 15 feet off the ground and when it was nose up vertical I added negative collective, but it ended up tail down a few feet off the ground. From there I can’t tell you what happened. Somehow it ended up landing on its top. Damage report: fathering shaft, seesaw, stabilizer hub, fly bar, and center hub.
Just before I went inverted I added some increased pitch to the blades on the positive side and reduce the amount on the negative sideby screwing in one turn the links from the servos. This may be why it could not get the helicopter to climb while it was inverted. I also could have held too much positive collective when it was inverted which began forcing the heli towards the ground. I’m starting to think I need to use full positive collective and nose up until it’s vertical then go to neutral collective and finally full negative collective until its inverted. We’ll see after the next rebuilt.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Great news! Rebuilt the head with the stock plastic system and went for a test flight. The 14 tooth pinion gives adaquete head speed, but the tail began to wag. Then it wagged until it went out of control. Blew up the head system again! Only 5 minutes flight time on this rebuild.

Should just throw my money straight into the trash can and save a step.

Somedays are frustrating more than other, why does it have to be today?

motodude11

My Feedback: (1)

alright question i just got the cp-l axe is it worth switching over to the new direct drive tail on the new axe?

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Rebuilt again, this time I turned down the gain on the gyro before taking off. The head speed is a touch slower with the 14 tooth pinion, but not much. Blades were in alignment and there was only very slight vibration. When giving hard nose left or right, I'd get just a bit of tail wag. It would wag about 2 times and then calm down and stop on its own. Landed and changed batteries and turned down gain again. This time there was no wag with hard left or right or even with hard collective climbs, but it would drift off heading just a bit. If your last input was nose right it would continue to the right, and if it was nose left, it would continue to the left. Still trying to find the happy medium, no wag or no drift. Decided to increase to have just a slight amount of wag, but still hold heading with powerful collectives or hard nose L/R inputs, but it was too dark to test fly again.

I think its the weight of the magnets in the outrunner and the bulk of the prop not allowing the motor to change speed quick enough.

To answer the above question, no, stick with what works. The Direct drive tail motor heats up.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Here's a low quality vid I shot with the camera sitting on the TX. Sorry for the poor quality. It shows the low head speed with the smaller pinion and the lack of punch in the climbs. Great for learning though. Its much harder to fly AND to point the camera than you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b89O3F9fVvw

HAMMER JR.

DAM GUYS WHY SPEND ALL THAT MONEY ON A AXE ,FLY IT AS IT IS AND MOVE ON IT A TRAINER,AFTER ALL THESE MODS YOU COULD HAVE A T-REX 450 SA DAM

motodude11

My Feedback: (1)

Why come on and bash all the helimax products and there consumers, go play with your t-rex or e-flight or w/e and we will do what we want, theres a reason why they sell different products it because not everyone wants to fly the same thing.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Guess I haven't added to this post in while. I decided to go back to the 16 tooth pinion for greater punch in climbouts. It also allowed me to add a little gain on gyro and found it holds nice. If anything, there's a slight rotation with full collective, but it goes back to the heading once you relax the collective. Looped it about 4 times with the faster head speed. Inverted flight is now the edge of my abilities, but with practice this setup will be the ticket.

As for the capitalized comment above, its just his opinion. Everybody's got one.

HAMMER JR.

i hear you but dont understand why waste money fixing up these axe cpv3, buy the time you add kit and hop ups you could had a t-rex sa, just dont understand sometimes all the blade and axe cp are a starting point, you cant make a race car out of a ford tempo,it is a good starter but move on

GotM

Because we can??

I have fun trying different things on the Axe. I have a T-Rex450 SE V2, and it does fly 10x better. But, it is fun trying to get a little more out of the Axe.

bdelmonte

My Feedback: (4)

I just burned up my second tail motor on AXC CP V3 after only approximatley 10 flights. This is unacceptable, as I already replaced this tail motor (free from Hobby Services) after a connection came loose.

Has anyone found a suitable replacement tail motor to substitute for the Heli-max HMXE9582 tail motor, which does not require any reprogramming of the stock tail motor ESC?

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

I can't recall my last update about the direct drive brushless tail rotor setup, but I came across this problem about two weeks ago. The day before I left the country for 2 weeks, I flew about five flights and the final flight had the tail motor stop running. It sounded as though it was slipping inside the prop, but that's impossible as everything is tight. The helicopter would rotate around first counterclockwise then clockwise. Eventually I got the thing on the ground but as I reduced power it fell over and broke a number of parts. Well, I can fix those parts but I don't know what caused the crash in the first place.

I tried to duplicate the problem on the bench for a couple of batteries, but it was working great.

Today it was 60° with calm winds, so it was a great day to take her outside. Everything went OK! If I had to take a guess to what the problem was the last time it would be the technique I used to initialize the gyro. Typically I have the trim centered when I plug in the battery and I end up with the trim slightly to the right when hovering. I tried plugging in the batteries with the trim about four clicks nose left on the last fatal flight. This gave me a centered trim while flying, but somehow affected gyros output.

I gave full collective climbs and the thing just went straight up. The tail holds like its locked in.

For any of you guys using a heading hold gyro, keep this in mind. If you have a similar experience, let us know here.

motodude11

My Feedback: (1)

Alright my setup of the brushless turnigy 12-30-3850, tower pro 12a esc and telebee HH gyro worked great and locked in perfect. But the turnigy motor died after i smashed it hard into the ground and the thing popped apart and now it runs hot and falls apart. I bought a GP ammo 12-30-3850 to replace it and now i cant get the tail to lock with my telebee. I have it at about 40-45% gain and it drifts all over the place but when i turn up the gain it starts osillating like crazy any ideas??? im gunna try a gy400 and see if that helps next weekend. On a side note it seems to lock pretty good when i put it idle up... so im kinda confused.

carlosponti

My Feedback: (1)

sometimes the fun is in all the tinkering i guess no one ever considers that with comments like this. just like some might not understand my need to build an airplane from a kit rather than arf. what an obtuse mindset.

motodude11

My Feedback: (1)

Well it worked guess the telebee was just too slow to keep up to the high output of the new brushless motor. It works great got a little of fiddling left to do on the gain but other than that the Colco GY400 gyro seems to much better than the telebee at holding the tail steady.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

Looks like they delayed the torque tube tail system again.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...H=torque++tube

This has been going on for nearly a year, hasn't it?

furball

Does anyone know if the eflite n60 direct drive motor will work on the cpv3? Its only $10, so its almost cheap enough to burn up a few.

PilotLight

My Feedback: (1)

I don't know why it wouldn't work. Give it a try and let us know your results.