IMW

Hi


I am about to go in for a fixed pitch Piccolo or similar and would like some info on what direction to take on the battery side of life ie NiMH or Li-Po? What voltage etc? Many suppliers in the UK seem to push NiMH so I wondered if there was anything useful you could tell me specific to indoor helis.

Thanks in advance.


IMW

Charlie

My personal opinion, go with lithiums. They are a lot lighter and you will get a lot more flying time, just make sure you get a good lithium charger to charge it. I have a 7.4 volt, 2100mah lithium in my Hummingbird (pretty much the same heli) and I am getting about 20 minutes of flying time.

MaxHeli

Sorry for getting off topic, but how do you like the Hummingbird?

Charlie

It's not a bad heli, it's a topical micro heli. It hasn't give me any problems, but I had to do some mods and it flies pretty good now. I'll keep it just to play around with, but I wouldn't buy another one (micro heli).

IMW

Dunno whether to go in for the Hummingbird or Piccolo.....plenty of mixed opinions.......

VinceHerman

Both are fine. I have a FP Piccolo, and have helped many others with their FP Piccolos. I have also helped with an Aerohawk, a Hummingbird, an ESky4ch (and plenty of outdoor T-Rexes.)

For indoor flight, I like the Piccolo and the Hummingbird the best. More quality in these kits than in others I have seen. But more than model selection, component selection makes or breaks the success of the heli.
The best flying helis, on any of the indoor ones I listed above, had a head hold gyro and seperate ESCs.
A 3 cell LiPo battery, a Futaba GY240 (or GY401), and main ESC with the right capacity, and a high frequency tail esc will give you a very well behaved micro heli.
You buy the bare-bones kit, add your receiver, servos, ESCs and Gyro, and have a heli that is so much more stable than the stock bird. I have flown with Piccoboards. I have flown with other all-in-one boards. I have flown with rate gyros, 3 different models of head hold gyros, and even with NO gyro.
Futaba GY240 (or GY401) is just the best for these helis. A bit heavy, so the 3 cell LiPo is the best match.
With brushless motors abounding these days, I would also consider going brushless main and tail, with 2 CC P10 ESCs.