yeah it's just a hobby, it's good to learn what works and what doesn't, and most important of all what can keep us in the game for a very long time. So many people come and people go in this hobby.

 

The engineering and maintenance is part of the intrigue for me.... ask @smakmeharder!

 

After over a week, I finally managed to get a flight in today. Naturally, the wind picked up as soon as I lifted off, but I stayed with it. I went up and did a few flips and inverted hovers then brought it back down and stayed low, just flying around in the wind.
I did notice the tail seemed to kick out a bit more than I recall it doing before during pitch bumps. It might be time for me to read up on the finer points of VStabi and tail settings.
Otherwise..... It was a good flight.

 

Ordered several different kinds of shouldered bolts(half threaded) from ebay awhile back, just got them now. One of the orders I got a full threaded bolt. Contacted the seller, no reply. I'll give them a bit of time for the reply due to the Chinese new year. Hoping to replace some of the stock bolts for my frankenheli 450 kit.

Looks like I may have to mod some of these bolts as the shoulder is a tad too long.

 

Shouldered bolts? ..... as in blade grip bolts?

 

yeah that and the jesus bolts on top and bottom of the main shaft. Currently they are all full threaded, hope to replace them with shouldered bolts, apparently high strength steel. I'll find out once I mod them to fit.

 

The only shouldered bolts I received with my kit were the ones for the tail blades, as they have no metal bushings in the roots of the blades. The others I simply replace periodically..... mainly after a crash.

 

may be I'm just taking a bit of precaution, but I would like that peace of mind that those bolts wont sheer in flight, especially when I start to give the heli some increase in G force.

 

Nothing wrong with being prepared. Be careful though. I have found in some cases that not all hardware is as it seems. I bought a bag of Align screws for 450 frame, and turns out, they were more brittle and break easier than the CopterX hardware that came with the kit. Several crashes that resulted in sudden stops of rotor, stripped gear, bent mainshaft, have only bent CopterX Jesus bolts, but not broken any.

 

yeah some are good and some are bad, finding what is good and what works is just part of this hobby. As for those bent jesus bolts throw them out.

 

just got an email from the ebay seller for those shouldered bolts. He's going to send the right one in the mail today.

 

My Bluetooth adapter arrived today.
I plugged it into the Kbar using the cable from the iCard programmer. It powered up and paired with the smartphone, but the VBar app didn't seem to have active communication. A few minutes on Google and I stumbled onto someone mentioning something about having to switch Tx and Rx leads on their USB adapter they were using, so I tried the same with my cable.
Success! It worked! So not only can I forget about the stupid iCard, I can use my smartphone to adjust my Heli in the field and not have to use my laptop.

 

It was a slow day at the shop, and one of our customer/resident heckler had stopped by to visit, so I fired up the 450 and flew around the lot to kill some time. Easy enough.... light wind...... so I went up and did a few flips and inverted hovers to "wow" the guy, then brought it back down and circled around the lot a few more times. Then the guy says "can you land it on top of that trailer over there?" (This same trailer where @Crash Heligod likes to hide)
It looked easy enough, so I flew over toward the trailer and got into position to set down on top......
....... not realizing I was too far toward the back side. By the time I figured it out, chunks of small dead tree limbs started flying out everywhere from behind the trailer!! In a panic move, I pegged the collective and managed to pop up out from behind the trailer only to find out that I had no tail control and was in the Piro of death! Nearly missing the utility pole, the Heli ended up on the ground like a falling brick.
Tail pivot arm, tail boom and supports, servo horn, two pitch links- one of which was wrapped around the swash plate, Jesus bolt in head sheared, battery tray, one skid pipe, main blades, main shaft......
All parts I have on hand already except main blades.... which gives me the excuse to order new Align or Zeal blades now. New pitch and servo links will be ordered since the original ones were starting to get a little sloppy.
Thats what I get for trying to show off. Here goes another round of damage control!

 

sorry to hear about your crash, hope you can get the heli back in the air soon. Looks like a good weather there too, not a cloud in the sky.

 

Actually, I should have put that one in the Crash of the Day thread.

 

It's all the same. Not much difference. I noticed you edited the pic, I have a much better understanding now of the crash event. Try not to fly close to utility poles or electrical stuff. I'd say your lucky, it could of been much worse.

 

I've seen that one.
It wasn't actually near the lines until I had to make the 450 jump up and out from behind the trailer and more-less arced up and death-piroed over to the "Crash Zone".

 

I was a bit worried about my cyclic servos(emax). I wasn't confident about the small plastic gear. So I did some google search and it seems that small plastic gear can cause a slight skip(feels like missing a tooth). Even though mine are fine, not yet used. Not sure why emax didn't go the full metal jacket on this one. So I guess I'll order some KST metal gear servos, and just put the emax on some other project that is a lighter load.

 

Right..... one little plastic gear could be a weak link even if it is on the high end of the reduction.
On another note..... I found some 550 links that should work on my 450 (same ball size) I'll be working with those later today.

 

550 links?? What are you going to use them for???