I have had an E-Flite MCX for several weeks and although I like it, I wanted to take another step forward and buy a heli that is a little more difficult to fly. Yesterday, I bought an AXE Cx, charged the battery, had about five minutes of flight and it dropped out of the air (living room). I figured that since it was the first charge for the battery, it simply wasn't charged to full capacity. I recharged the battery (until green light on stock charger), but the helicopter will not take off. After about two seconds of power, the ESC shuts down. I did not do anything to warrant it, but the electronics have that 'burnt' smell. [] Surely it could not be not fried, could it!?!

Could this be related to the battery recall that I read about? If so, I guess that could mean that the battery was too much for the electronics, huh? [&o]

I just returned from the hobby shop where I bought the heil and they actually replaced it (out of character for them). I want to avoid the same thing with my replacement, so I started to inspect it and noticed what I think is the problem. The pinion gears on the motor shafts are very tight against the rotor gears. [] The teeth actually seem to bottom out, which I would consider to be a poor gear mesh on an RC car/truck. However, the two screws that hold the motors in pace do not allow for adjustment. There are two holes for the motor screws rather than one hole and one slider for correcting the gear mesh.

Am I over-thinking this? Since both helicopters had the same issue, does that mean that a heli generally has tight gears by design? The reason I ask is because I'm on the verge of using my Dremel to create a slide position for one of the screws for each motor and I don't want to screw it all up if that's how they are supposed to be.

Thanks!

Well, I was able to adjust the motor position with no modification after all. I guess there was enough room in the screw hole for at least a small move.

Now I broke a blade against the wall. [sm=red_smile.gif] I gotta practice in a bigger place.

Glad you got it figured out. Sad you hit the wall. Gear mesh should be set by placing a piece of paper between the gears and then tightening the motor. A little play in the gear mesh is ok.

This helicopter is so fragile! [X(] So far, I have broken 5 rotor blades from what I would consider to be casual bumps that my MCX would have taken in stride. I also broke the nubs off of the rotor head, which I replaced with small sections of RC car body pins. Finally, the landing gear and battery holder have also snapped and seem to resist CA repair.

Flight was very difficult to get centered with the trims on this second heli, so I marked the two pots on the ESC with a sharpie marker and tried to make slight adjustments. Now, the gyro is so far out of whack now that it will not fly at all, even after I returned the settings to their original locations. It tries to skitter across the ground if I take off slowly and flies uncontrollably in quick circles if I lift quickly into the air, resulting in ridiculous flight patterns and eventually crash landings.

I have a friend who knows a good deal more than me about helicopters, so I'm hoping he will help with the gyro on New Year's day, but if not I'm selling it as a parts bird/needs tweeking on Ebay.