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Post by Jerrymac on Sept 18, 2012 4:15:12 GMT -5
Due to lots of issue's in general, I have only been out to fly about 4 times this year and was actually starting to enjoy it a little bit again. Went out last weekend and took 4 helicopters and 14 batteries with me hoping to wear myself out flying......... But, it didn't happen. Flew 4 packs in my old Helipro 450 and was really enjoying it. Then, spooled up my most recently built 425. All seemed ok during a brief hover, then I banked hard right with a little rudder added in to fly up the field and all of the sudden everything seemed to just lose power. The motor quit and I had no stick control, so couldn't get it level to try to auto it down. It went in real hard on it's right side sending pieces flying everywhere.  I looked it over after picking up the pieces to see if I could figure out what happened. I found the jst connector that I use for plugging in the bec was unplugged. Not sure if it came unplugged because of the crash, or if it was the cause of the crash. I am thinking the latter. Since I still had lots of 6s packs to fly out I decided to just fly my other 425 while I was there. When I spooled it up, during the slow soft-start spool up, it sounded like the motor was cutting in and out.  I throttled it back down and decided to give it a look over. I tugged on all of the connectors and wires to see if something was loose and found everything ok. Soooo, I powered it up to see what happened. At about mid stick everything seemed fine, then just as it got light on the skids the tail started jerking back and forth violently so I just hit TH and let it sit back down. I haven't checked all the crash damage on the first one, but, it was easy to see as I picked up the pieces that it took out the main blades, tail boom, boom supports, broken blade grips, broken landing skids, and probably bent spindle and main shafts. Might be a lot more than that as I haven't really looked it over yet. Not sure what is wrong with the second one yet but I am thinking maybe a bad OWB by the way it acted, I dunno. Any thoughts? After all that I decided to just pack up and go home since I was a little bit frustrated by then. Rant over.................thanks for reading it all. Jerry |
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Post by dunkonu23 on Sept 18, 2012 8:39:57 GMT -5
Any of that stuff HeadHunter?
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Post by barryorbik on Sept 18, 2012 16:11:06 GMT -5
Some days just do not go well Jerry and when thinks are not going well its often better and safer just to pack up and go home but thankfully my fleet have all been behaving themselves of late. I finally got round to replacing the Gaui 50cm C/F blades on my long boom Gaui 550 with 55cm SAB ones, so next weekend should be interesting!!
Have fun
Barry
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Post by dunkonu23 on Sept 18, 2012 16:20:30 GMT -5
Hey Jerry,
It could very well be the OWB. Or... the gyro pad could be dry.
Scott
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Post by Jerrymac on Sept 18, 2012 23:25:01 GMT -5
Barry, glad to hear that your fleet has been doing well for you. I have had a few minor issues in the past but it was usually my fault for leaving a screw loose or something like that.
Scott, they were both the plastic framed 425's, one of which will get the new HH frame soon. The one that crashed was the one from my "low cost" build thread here. The one that had what seems like an electrical problem or maybe bad OWB was the older IRCHA 425 that you picked up for me a few years ago. It has a lot of flights on it and has never had any parts changed on it, except for the minor crash a couple of years ago when the elevator arm broke.
I am pretty sure the crash was caused by the bec power connector coming unplugged in flight, as it lost motor power and all stick commands too. The other one, I am not sure yet. I am gonna check all of the solder connections, plugs, gyro, etc first. If I don't find anything I might replace the OWB to see what it does.
Thanks guys,
Jerry
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Post by dunkonu23 on Sept 19, 2012 9:33:52 GMT -5
Well, the power connector would cause a bad day! So sorry that happened, bro. Also good to know one wasn't a HeadHunter. The only part's I've ever broken on one were the servo mounts, landing gear mounts, and a battery tray. I guess that's enough. The new metal parts should be stronger so I doubt the servo mounts will break. Scott |
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Post by Jerrymac on Sept 20, 2012 3:16:09 GMT -5
Yea Scott, I am glad it wasn't the HeadHunter either as it is my best flying helicopter. I haven't even flown it this year since I have only been out 4 times in the last year and the thumbs are really rusty. I have just been flying the BH450 and the 2 425's mainly. I might have to order some parts to fix the crashed one since I seemed to have lost a box of crash parts. I had parts in several different boxes, with long stuff like booms, fly bars, boom supports, blades etc. in one of them. Then a box of parts that are not normally damaged in a crash, like tail pitch slider, head dampeners, paddles, tail drive pulleys, tail belts, etc. in it. Lastly, I had a box of normal crash parts like, spindle shafts, main shafts, gears, landing skids, etc. and that box is missing.  Landing skid sets are out of stock everywhere in the U.S. and RCDumbthumbs seems to be out of stock on everything. After a visual inspection, without actually tearing the helicopter down, I will need to order parts from 3 different vendors to get it repaired and still not have any landing gear for it. If Gaui doesn't get with the program soon, I will start selling them off, and start flying other brands. |
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Post by dunkonu23 on Sept 20, 2012 17:09:38 GMT -5
You can always use T-Rex 600 skids. I use them on my HeadHunters.
Scott
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Post by Jerrymac on Sept 20, 2012 22:43:22 GMT -5
I have the Trex 600 3D skids on my long boomed 550 and they work really well. More flex than the stock Gaui's without breaking. I just think they might look a little bit too big on the 425's though. I might check out the Trex 550 skids if they are a little smaller than the 600's.
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Post by Jerrymac on Sept 21, 2012 3:42:24 GMT -5
HA, I just found my box of 'crash parts' and it had several packs of spindle shafts, main shafts, main blade grips, link rods, etc. and YES, 2 new sets of landing skids.  I should be able to get the crashed 425 back in the air this weekend. Still need to look over the other one with the weird tail jerking problem, but, I really think it might be a slipping OWB which I might have a spare one to try out. Gotta dig a little deeper in the spares boxes. I know there are some trinkets hiding in the bottom.  I do need to order some blades though as I don't have any spare 430mm blades on hand. |
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Post by ptcaflyer on Sept 22, 2012 0:11:53 GMT -5
Hey Jerry
i have 430 FG blades if you need some...550's too...500 wood blades as well
also a set of Gaui 500 CF blades...the red ones(used) How about some 8x4.5 plastic blades for your Quad? LOL!!! I have a Footlocker full of "Spares" hidden from view...
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Post by Jerrymac on Sept 22, 2012 22:19:50 GMT -5
Thanks Paul,
I am good on the 550's as I got a couple of real nice used pairs of Edge 553's from Scott a while back, and never crashed the Hurri 550 yet. ( Knocks on wood).
PM sent on some 430's though.
Jerry
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Post by barryorbik on Sept 23, 2012 16:25:59 GMT -5
Well after at least a month and around 50 odd crash free flight, this weekend has been full of mechanical failures. Trex 250 one-way gear gave mid flight resulting in an unplanned (and not very successful!!) auto but no damage other than the one way bearing, them the Mini Titan threw a head link in flight, fortunately whilst coming into land resulting in another rough landing but no other damage and finally even the MCP-x got in on the act when the feathering shaft screw sheared mid aileron roll so it just fell out of the sky from 20 feet up but only scuffed up the canopy a bit more. Total cost for rebuilding the three was less than £20.00 but it bought the flying to an abrupt end. Only the Gaui 550 survived unscathed!!
Have fun
Barry
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Post by dunkonu23 on Sept 23, 2012 19:21:39 GMT -5
Three flights on my Rush 750 today. No crashes.  That brings it up to 60 flights total. |
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Post by Jerrymac on Oct 11, 2012 2:36:46 GMT -5
Well, I finally got the crashed 425 repaired, and even repaired the little 200 that I crashed last year and never fixed. Still haven't checked out the other 425 yet though, but that one will be torn apart this winter and upgraded with a new HeadHunter frame so I will check it all over real good then. I misplaced my TX so I couldn't go through all of the set-up on both till I recently found it. Winter is just around the corner here and we are now in the cloudy, windy, rainy season so not sure when I can get out to fly the newly repaired helis yet. Hopefully we will still get a few nice days before the cold, windy, snowy weather sets in. I am hoping to have the entire fleet ready to fly next spring. |
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Post by barryorbik on Oct 12, 2012 5:18:20 GMT -5
Good to hear your sister is recovering and that you have found time to rebuild some of your helicopters.
The winter is drawing in here too now and its too dark to fly after work at 6 pm plus its very wet and windy, so its back to the flight sim and the MSR indoors. Last weekend the trip to our flying field was another disaster, as the rebuilt Trex 250 lasted less than one minute before the brand new one-way bearing failed again, just wish Align would upgrade that item. Then the Mini Titan developed severe shakes on its second flight which I eventually traced to a notchy bearing on one of the washout arms. The 550 flew but felt very unhappy and twitch with the 550 carbon blades on, so I need to go over the set up again as I was expecting it to be even more stable than with the 50cm blades as the SAB ones have a wider chord.
Has anyone tried FBL main blades on a flybarred heli yet and if so what did they fly like?
Have fun all.
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Post by dunkonu23 on Oct 12, 2012 5:32:16 GMT -5
Barry,
It depends on the helicopter, head speed, and blades. Some FB blades work fine on some helicopters. Others? Not so much. What you can get is pitchy behavior in FFF. I've seen it with Mavrikk blades on my HH's. So.. I went to FBL blades. No such issue.
Scott
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Post by Jerrymac on Oct 12, 2012 16:27:50 GMT -5
Sorry to hear about your mechanical issues Barry. I know what that is like. I hate crashing due to mechanical problems. When I crash due to pilot error I don't feel so bad because I know it was my fault. When I recently repaired the 200 I found out why the tail was acting up last fall. One half of the tiny tail gear was completely smooth. There were no splines at all on it. Not sure what caused that, except maybe that I run the belt pretty loose as they seem to break easily if run too tight. I haven't flown it yet but I did hover it in the house and the tail seemed to hold pretty good now. Never tried FBL blades on a FB heli so don't know how they would work out. |
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I throttled it back down and decided to give it a look over. I tugged on all of the connectors and wires to see if something was loose and found everything ok. Soooo, I powered it up to see what happened. At about mid stick everything seemed fine, then just as it got light on the skids the tail started jerking back and forth violently so I just hit TH and let it sit back down.
That brings it up to 60 flights total.