I believe what happened, and again it happened faster then I could see, is that one of the ESC leads got close to one of the motor leads and there was an arc that fried something. I guess I'll just buy both parts and replace one at a time until I figure out which one it is. After doing some research I found some other people with a similar issue and it seems they either had a fried motor or fried ESC so it's 50/50 or I guess it could be both. Either way, I wanted to fly today and it's 75 out...sucks...another week of waiting for the mail, darn...

i have the blade 400 never had any problems with the servos i got like 35 flights on my blade 400. i here that the servos are not that great i have never had any problems then again i have never crashed my blade. as far as heli-max heli the cpv3 electronics suck the 4003d should be better with futaba i here that 400 3d is not that easy to fly a guy at our club got that one.

I went ahead and got the Axe 400 from amainhobbies.com. $319.00 RTF version! Not a bad price. I am sure I will be posting alot more once I start flying it. Thanks for the few who gave me their 2 cents.

Can anyone tell which parts on the axe 400 are compatible with the Trex? Thanks. Amainhobbies has the RXR version on sale for $189!!!!

This price at amain is for some kind of members, but if you ask, you can probably get it. They also have the ARF for $320.

Ok, I have just ordered the RXR and RTF version!! Amainhobbies.com has a great deal going right now! LMK what parts are compatible with the Trex please! Thanks

???? Anyone vist this thread?

Of course. Just noone's sat down and inventoried a list of parts that might fit from the TR 450. I don't even have any Align helis.

If someone has interchanged parts with the Trex on their 400 LMK. Thanks. I am excited to try my new helis out soon......

The blades fit so if you buy carbon fiber blades they'll fit the Axe 400. Also, we are only going to answer questions that we know the answer too. It's be a long thread if we all answered "I dont know..." when we didnt know something lol...

I believe the Blade 400's motor and the Trex 450's motor will also work just make sure they are 3500Kv or bigger.

I opened my RTF yesterday and was very impressed with the quality. Nice Heli. Still waiting to get everything set up properly before first flight. Where do you get the metal upgrades that they show available in the back of the manual? LMK. Wish there was more LHS parts support, but there is plenty of great online shops that carry Helimax parts. I like Hobbyzone.com

You can get them at Towerhobbies.com after April. The Heli is new and the parts are limited for now. Put the part number in the Towerhobbies search box and it'll come up and you can put them on back order. Personally I probably wont get too many of the CNC parts as I'm just trying to get better with the Axe 400 so I can move up the a Trex 500 or clone.

Have another video to share thanks to my wife. I'm progressing well. When it's too windy for me (like it has been for the last few days) I fly RealFlight and keep up on my Axe 400 skills with a hover on the back porch. No major crashes yet, no more minor damage, and the epoxied pulley repair is still holding....

Here's the video: [link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJQN_yHZngo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJQN_yHZngo[/link]

Hard to tell at YouTube resolution, Tweener, but it looks/sounds like it's flying pretty well. Nice!

Just checked a few of the CNC parts again on Tower via the search box. The parts that are resulting from the Axe 400 3D Heli-Max part number searches are for the Novus nano helis that are just coming out. Don't know why that is, but you certainly wouldn't want to place an order without checking it out first.

Yes, it is. I'm very satisfied with it. I believe I have learned more getting the RxR version and setting it up with my DX7 instead of getting one Ready To Fool with. I've really learned the effects of my "tweaks" that way.

I finally installed that new tail rotor belt drive assembly. Still haven't had a crash or anything, but I noticed a "gritty" feel when turning the main rotor that didn't seem to be coming from the main shaft bearings and my flight times have been reduced indicating a higher current draw. Sure enough the top bearing on the belt drive shaft was bad. It was probably damaged in the original incident and only surfaced now.

It looks like this may be a discontinued product already. My Tower Hobbies sale flyer just advertised the RTF and RxR at lower prices "while supplies last". It looks like mine may end up being a FrankenAxe if I keep it flying. The CNC parts never did come out for it, and I really would like to upgrade it eventually. Looks like the eFlight Blade 400 head and tail parts may be an exact fit. On a further note, I have a cat that chewed the tip of one of my main rotor blades a while back. I replaced them with the Align 325 Pro woodies and like these much better.

I highly suggest the 325mm carbon fiber blades. They made my Axe 400 dead silent and the flight characteristics are incredible now, much more stable and agile (not to mention the blades look great!)

I put the 62mm tail carbon fiber blade on also, very nice!

I'm not really looking to upgrade this heli (not for a good while, at least), and a good thing too. Finally had my first major "hard landing". I let it get a little too far away at a fairly low altitude, and lost orientation. I most likely would have been able to get it sorted out if I'd had more altitude. I'll have to keep it in mind to only fly low in close. About $60.00 to $70.00 of replacement part damage was done. CNC and CF parts would have just upped that figure.

What parts were they? If they were CNC they probably wouldnt have broken and other parts would have broken instead. I try to configure my helis so that the cheaper parts will break first versus the more expensive which I replace with CNC. My AXE 400 is great, the gyro is pure and total garbage but other than that it flys great for a fairly new flyer like me. I dont fly low much because I like to have time to react. I flew pretty far away and lost orientation but recovered this last weekend which hammers home the fact that the next heli will almost certainly be a 600 class. J

I could tell it was pointing to the left (left side to me), but at that distance it had a right/left tilt that wasn't apparent to me, and it was slipping down in that direction. Not knowing which way to correct, I just waited to see if it would stabilize from the "pendulum effect", but as it became clear that it was going in, I pulled back (a hold over reaction from fixed-wing), and chopped throttle (I was flying in normal mode). Most of the damage was done to the tail, and as luck would have it the tilt was to the left so my tail-rotor assembly was spared but for a small nick in one blade. I already have replacements for that.

Total damage: bent tail boom, broken tail servo case, broken tail servo arm (the guts and gears are fine - a real testament to this servo), one broken boom support rod, broken horizontal fin mount/boom support, one broken main blade grip, bent feathering spindle, and of course the main blades were dented/chipped.

The damage estimate is actually less than the amount I posted, but I included shipping and many of the single parts I need come only in a package of two or three.

Ouch...sounds rough but the good thing about this heli, and many others, is the repair time is about 1 hour for most issues.

After talking to you on here I put mine in the ground. The crappy piece of junk gyro they give you failed while I was doing some tricky maneuvers and it started spinning out of control. I hit the ground, the blades chopped the sand a few times and I managed to hit the throttle hold but it was too late. I killed my new set of carbon fiber blades, the carbon fiber is fine, by cracking the casing. I bent the blade holders and snapped one of the control horns. I also stripped the main gear. I have the replacement parts for all of it and I estimate about 1 hour to fix it... I'll be up and flying by tomorrow. I have a replacement for the gyro, bought the same one before I knew it was junk, and I'll be using that until it fails on me and buy a real one like the GY401.

Also, if anyone is interested, I bought 2 2200 30c Zippy packs from China...they are AWESOME and my flight time went from 8 minutes with my 2000mah 20C pack to 10 minutes with my 2200mah 30 pack not to mention slightly more power.


J

Take your old gyro apart a see if there is a capacitor in there with the legs broken off.
Then take the new one you have appart too and see if any kind of support has been
added to it. If not I wouldn't use the new one either. I had two HM 4000 gryo's go bad.
The legs break off a capacitor. I only ran two batteries on the second one then decided
to check it. It was broke too. Got a GY 240 after that.

Hey thanks! Good advice, I may look into a new gyro myself. It's too bad these HM4000's are such junk. J