mnemennth

Thanks; I learned it the hard way. I've straightened the 3mm FS on my all-plastic Hausler 450 at least 4 times; I swear it's made of case-hardened cheese. Every time I order some, I always get the 4mm V2 shafts. I'll find a source; or I'll actually put a V2 head on it. We'll see.

As comp[ared to OEM HobbyKing? I say pretty much if it's a moving part you're gonna want to replace it with Genuine Align or Tarot as the need arises. On mine, the following were bad out of the box or failed in less than 3 packs:

1-way bearing out of the box. As well as those in 2 of the 3 complete gearsets I bought as spares along with. Main &Autorotation gear were straight, are STILL useable, if a bit noisy. All replaced with genuiine Align one-way &Align ground one-way bearing sleeves; one-way hubs now run visibly & repeatably true.

Main bearings in 2 packs, growling, vibration. Replaced with VXB SS. Blade grip bearings crunchy after 2 packs. VXB SS.

Tail rotor main bearings in 2 packs, tailrotor grip bearings crunchy out of the box. Tail slider bushing fell apart from yoke during original final assembly; locktited & reswaged. Replaced entire tail assembly with EXI when abusing it on the turntable didn't free things up before main bearing started to howl, then Tarot when that wore out. Don't forget to check your idler pulley in the tail regularly; it can make the tail sluggish "and you just can't figure out why".

Swash loose as a goose out of the box. Had spare; it was over tight. Bench abuse loosened tight one up to serviceable condition.

Had 1 mainshaft out of 9 (Original & 2 4-packs of HKspares) that ran true to less than .001; next best was .004. Every Align ground one one I've bought since true to less than .001.

Washout base stripped screw hole out of the box & damaged washout linkage. New spares ordered with kit were serviceable.

The chassis and CNC on this bird are pretty good, pretty straight and pretty rugged; of course if you go FBL/DFC you'll cut the number of moving parts in half.

mnem
I spent more in spares on that order than the original Heli...

Kozzy_98

A tad off topic...

I found this video on youtube of Bobby Watts doing some autos. I found this one interesting because it wasn't the mindless throwing around that you normally see, but some very interesting ways of how to do a "dead stick landing."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIvO-tWc4yc&[/youtube]

pushinoldrc

My Feedback: (46)

Don't try this with a 450 size bird, as the blade mass isn't near enough to give you more than about .03 seconds of positive pitch for touchdown.
Love those autos by the way.
500 or larger size birds are much easier to learn autos. The blade mass keeps good enertia for a long time.

bigpapa1272

thanks mnem....do you know where i can get a complete bearing set for tarot or align so that i can go ahead and replace all of them at once....i would rather do that so as to save me the headache of tearing it down again....also if you could recommend a good motor and esc....i am trying to keep the money factor down....so turnigy or the like would be good.....thanks bigpapa

ahamay

Not sure what your skill level is or if you have flown before but if your just learning then trust me you'll be tearing it down soon and often enough. rcscrews do a full bearing kit but you can buy a second 450gt kit for the price of the bearings and Idon't think it's worth it at this point. If your just learning then learn on the cheap stuff and replace as required. Most of the HK bearings are ok but Iwould replace the tail grip bearings at a minimum and get a good drop of oil on them, I use fishing reel oil...some swear by labelle 107.

I can highly recommend the turnigy plush 40amp esc and also the H2218 (red/ silver one or the black one) both from hobbyking. I have this combination on two 450 PRO's with hundreds of flights and they are a good combination with plenty of grunt. An 11 or 12 tooth pinion with this combination is a good start.

Hope that helps.

Jonesy

ingleburn

+1 on all that Jonesy. Couldnt of said it better myself.

Welcome bigpappa. Any questions you have just fire away. Theres plenty of people here to help you on your way.

ingleburn

With all this talk of bearings, parts and HK 450 GT's I thought I would take the old FB'd one out today and give it a run.
What an adventure. It was so weird to fly and hard to control. Almost crashed it a few times and decided after 2 packs to bring it in and retire it.
The FBL GT has a few vibration issues I cant solve so Im going to transplant the gear onto the other one as its as smooth as silk.

So as of now Im officially FB free. Wish I didnt have so many spares for it or I would buy a Tarot pro kit and retire the GT altogether.

ahamay

Flybars.... Pffffft

No, seriously flybar and FBL is really night and day to fly, as you've witenessed. I could not wait to get rid of my other flybar heli after converting my GT to FBL.

Jonesy

rikybob

@ All - Finally put the Lurgy aside a bit and flew!

Hope all is well in your worlds!!

b

PS Welcome aboard bigpapa!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdkDCqi7F4k[/youtube]

Ddaddy

Male Lady!

rikybob

You know what's funny?

I have the nicest, coolest little rural post office. Lovely folks!

My "mail lady" is literally as homely as a mud fence!

Sweet as pie but one would have to tie a pork chop around her neck to get the dog to play with her!

b

ahamay

Firstly..... glad your feeling better. Our 13 year old minature fox terrier has just been diagnosed with diabeties a few weeks ago, so we have to give him insulin every time we feed him. He got really bad before we got to the problem but he's bounced back ok.

Secondly....nice posh git 500.

Iagree those mqx's would be a good thing to learn on if you didn't have a sim or in conjunction with a sim to train your brain....and they look crash resistant as well.

I've been up since some mad hour this morning with a heavily pregnant other half not being able to sleep as bub's kicking the crap out of her.....so out the front with the mcpx. Since I gave it the once over a few weeks ago and replaced a lot of broken parts it's never quite been right, but this morning Idiscovered that the blads were not at 0 pitch mid stick...not sure why this is now out. So fixed that with a coupls of turns on the linkages and it's much better.

I"m using the hyperion batteries and whilst they don't have the punch that the nanotech's have it's flying more or less like it came out of the box which is good. I've bought the extended blade boom and tail for it last time as that seems to hold better. I've got kbdd blades on it and Iswapped them back to back with the stock blades then the bullet blades but Ithink the kbdd blades are better for flips and inverted etc. The bullet blades are good for general flying around as they are a little larger than the kbdd and have a bit more gyroscopic effect in faster forward flight.

Jonesy

ahamay

Has anyone got their hands on a nano cpx yet ? Interested to hear the reports on them....

Also.. If anyones up for a laugh... check out this ebay add I found yesterday.....


http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Phone-4s-...item4abcadb170

Jonesy

rikybob

All the best!

b

rikybob

Not yet!

Re; Box, someone will prolly buy the damn thing!

b

hugj

My Feedback: (7)

Hey Brian and all!
Well it's been a week of sleepless nights and trying to get the 550 hk to behave right! This was to be a replacement for the swift 550 whick gave nothing but problems.
The hk did the same thing! First off let me say for the money it was ok and me being the anel me I did expect more.
I had issues with the bearings and main gear but the rest was me in the setup.
The build went well and looked very promising as you read in other posts.
The first test flight reviled a tail wag from 5 oclock to 8 oclock, never had this happen with the beastx fbl unit. read alot of forms on the trex550 having this problem everyone said it was the
tail or gyro location. went through everything rebuilt tail with align parts relocated beastx rebulit main gears , main shaft tryed every setting in the book. still had the wag from 5 to 8
Changed voltage output on the bec. upgraded the beastx to latest and greatest firmware did a master reset on the unit and on the radio, put a new tail servo on.
all with the same results 5-8 wag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was ready to comit the trash bin till thismorning.
Got to work early and forund a person who had the same problems as me! The fix was so simple it could not work! WRONG!!!
I was trying to set the tail in heading hold, he said ste the tail in rate mode find which way it drifts and correct by inceseing or decreasing the tail push rod length.
So I did hat this evening, it worked great!!!! Now in rate or heading hold the tail is solid!!!!!!!!
I have a video that I will try to upload tonight if my internet will allow.
I hope to put it in the air this weekend! I am HAPPY!
Hugh

hugj

My Feedback: (7)

P.S.    Brian you sound as if you have octaretallitses on the Heli world, do not leave us hanging by ourselves, enjoy all you whit and wisdom
  BTY IT stands for a shi##y outlook on life!
Hugh
 I have had it many times I think I still have it   The wifie is still unemployed!!!!

rikybob

Great news Hugh!

My head would have actually EXPLODED!!

That kind of stuff drives me INSANE and my discipline of late is off so I NEVER would have figured it out!

My experience with the ZYX is that I simply ignore the rate setting during set up!

Look forward to a viddy soon!

b

rikybob

Kind of you Hugh! More like full of piffle and poppycock rather than wit and wisdom!

I really enjoyed flying the Big 'un today (made my feet sweat and was FUN). I may simply be fazing out the Little 'un??

We shall see!

Sorry to hear about wifie!

I hope she finds something soon!

b

hugj

My Feedback: (7)

here it is
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-JbSJNgfpw[/youtube]

mnemennth

I'll echo Jonesy's suggestion on the 2218; I have it in both 3200KV and 3550KV variants. A FINEmotor, and at $12 a bargain. I'll recommend the 3200KV for you as a beginner; no need to be torturing your batteries with the 3550 while you're still getting the hang of throttle/pitch curves. I dunno... maybe even the 2500KV. What's your opinion Jonesy?

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=11173

HK has two ESCs I REALLYlike as well; first, my tried & true nearly grenade-proof Red Brick 50A:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=18007

And they FINALLY have my SS50-Heli in stock again:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=10013

These are also rock-solid, but a bit lighter than the Red Brick. My next one, for the HDX450, will probably be the Turnigy DLux; for $22 WITHDatalogging, it's a no-brainer, even if you do need a $9 programming box to read the data.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=17619

The ONEthing I would NOTtake any chances with is the 1-way bearing; if it's even a tiny bit off, the wobble it introduces into your main gear will make the whole heli shake like a belly-dancer on crack. So far, on all my cheapie helis, the ONLY one I've EVERhad that was good were 2 out of 6 sets of gears & bearings that came with my LeadersHobby $20 chassis, all of which I bought just for spare parts. Not my HK (Not ONEin 6 COMPLETEsets of gears I bought with the kit), not my EXI450Pro, Not even my Hausler 450RTF which was flight-tested before I bought it to trim it out. While I only had 2 crooked HUBs in all those, I've replaced ALLthe 1-way bearings &sleeves with either Align (Preferred) or E-Flite. Many "Bad gears" or "Bad motors" are actually bad 1-way bearings.

If you know how to spin the bearings and make sure they're true, and you check them & you feel they're up to snuff, more power tooya. But if not, the $13 for a complete Align Hub & 1-way bearing is cheap insurance against a whole HOST of vibration-related misery. Do yourself a favor & make notes of the Align part # for anything you shop for; it makes your life much easier down the road.

http://www.helipal.com/hs1228-main-gear-case.html (In Stock)

http://www.helipal.com/hz026-one-way-bearing-shaft.html (Out of stock)

http://www.heliproz.com/prodinfo.asp?number=H1130 (In Stock)

http://www.helipal.com/hs1280-main-shaft-set.html (In Stock)

These 3 parts together can make the difference between a smooth a silk purring tiger of a machine and a psychotic howling banshee that you can never get tuned in; vibration KILLSyour Gyro, and with it your sanity.

[EDIT:] Oh yeah... I've been using 0W-30 Full Synthetic motor oil on all my bearings & tail slider. I let the last bit drain out of the bottle into an old vitamin bottle with a screw top; a couple oil changes and you'll have a full bottle. Apply with the tip of a knife or a glue applicator:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...idProduct=8466

Hugh -

Have you scoped out Mikey's RC setup tutorials?I learned more about how a heli works in one afternoon watching his videos than I did in weeks of building and looking at the plans; plus he even walks you through basic radio configuration in "normal-person-speak." Setting up in Rate mode first is one of the things he says to do...

http://mikeysrc.com/Low-Cost-450-Heli.html

Absolutely INVALUABLE knowledge for noob pilots like me; in fact, now that I think of it, I think I'm gonna review his radio setup guides again, maybe understand a bit more of what he's saying now...

mnem
Damn, that puppet is smart...

mnemennth

[EDIT] Flippin' Forum had a brain-fart; posted this as a reply to myself rather than an [EDIT] of the original post. Don't pay it no mind.

mnem
Grrr. Argh.

ahamay

I'd say go straight for the 3550 and run an 11t pinion and you could even run something like a 90,85,80,85,90 throttle curve to take a bit of the sting out if your worried about headspeed. But keep in mind headspeed is your friend. I ran a higher headspeed when Iwas learning for the extra stability and Ithink Ibenefited from it. For $12 bucks they are a great motor and you can put a 12t on it later on. I would not run anything more than a 12t at flat 100% throttle curve on the hk450gt as I don't think it's upto running anything higher. I tried a 13t at one point on my 450GT and it felt and sounded like it was about to self distruct at any moment.

rikybob

Congratulations Hugh!!!!

Thanx for paving the way!!!

I'll pick your mind for set up later!!

b

rikybob

+1! For any noobs re: Mikey's RC (Affectionatley known by me for some years as "The Creepy Puppet Dude"!).

b
Don't let the puppet touch you.....