^ ^ Haha!
I was watching that auction, was going to bid and saw it went beyond my "mark."
Keeping my eye out for a second one.
Been flying a CP for 10 days now, well okay, not actually "flying" but keeping airborne and (barely) crashing.
To answer your Q - simplest is the source,
http://www.horizonhobby.com
As for the rest below, I tried to make it short - I've just learned so much in the past two weeks that could help any total newbie, sorry it's so damn long.
Upgrades/what you'll break:
- heat sinks, both motors, cheap, get them, use them. Many pilots like to use two per motor, see LIPOS below.
- CP Training gear, if it doesn't come with them.
- at least one spare set of landing gear. Wise to get two.
- Two sets of blades, stick with the flat blades for now, NOT the sym (symmetrical) blades. They have less lift, are a little more unstable, and are only an advantage in inverted flight. The blades are balsa covered with Ultracote and are very expensive, so although you will learn to be very protective of them, they will still get dinged - watch for my post to come on reconditioning them.
There is a blade on eBay called plasti-blade, which may or may not be good for a beginner depending on how you see it. Made of plastic, they will not ding up hardly at all. But they will do MAJOR damage to anything they hit, unlike balsa. Also unlike balsa, because they are sturdy they will transfer any impact to multiple parts that are more expensive. It's a better idea to respect the 'copter and protect the blades, IMHO, even as a beginner, and if you get a strike, let the balsa do it's thing.
DO NOT GET CARBON FIBER BLADES. If you do, put them on your shelf until you are ready for them (this is what I did.
) Not only are they a sym blade, if you have a hard landing you can get what's called a boom strike. The blades flex downward so hard while spinning that one dips low enough to hit the tail boom. A carbon fiber blade will chop that f***er right off, including severing your tail motor wires, whereas a balsa blade will not.
Also once a CF blade is nicked, it becomes a human slicing machine even when the blades are stationary - the s*** will cut you. Wait until you stop breaking blades before flying CF blades.
- Before you try to fly put some low-temp hot glue on the vertical tail support (that carbon fiber stick on the tail,) it will fall out on you. Don't CA it in, if it breaks you won't be able to get the stub out and you'll have to replace that whole rear motor mount. Which, of course, doesn't come separate from the whole chassis assembly.
- Bell-Hiller Upgrade - optional pitch mixing head, the newest ones are coming with this, I don't think yours is. Even as a newbie I saw a smoother response with the bell-hiller mixer.
- Aluminum Swashplate - optional, better balanced, smoother, and bling.
LIPOS
Eventually you're going to look at lipo batteries. All of the comments below are info I have GATHERED and not put to practice yet, the batteries are on the desk here and waiting for the DD tail mod to come in.
- The stock battery is a 9.6V 650 mah nimh, you'll get about 8-12 minutes out of it, but **the** lipo packs for this bird are 900-1350 11.1v 3S lipos, lighter than the nimh and you'll get up to 20 minutes per pack. But note it is a higher voltage - if you don't follow the precautions below, it can burn out the 4-in-1 controller.
- Lipo packs - as above, 3S 11.1v, I'm working with 1000 mah packs from
http://www.maxamps.com
- Balance charger: you can't just throw 3S or 2S packs on a charger like you can with nimh or nicad, if the cells get out of balance at ALL it can cause a fire or kill the pack. (Search around this forum for my rant on just how dangerous lipos can be if you don't treat them with respect.) So you have to use a balance charger to keep the cells in balance at all times as they are being charged. My choice was the Hyperion LBA6, which can balance 2-5S packs. Thunder Power also makes a good one, for $20 more. My Duratrax Vision Peak connects to the Hyperion which then connects to the packs.
- 8T pinion motor - When you go to the higher voltage of a lipo, a 10T pinion will put too much stress on the the 4-in-1 and blow the ESC. Also, the extended run time is more stressful on both the motors and the 4-in-1 ESC. You MUST use the 8 or 9T motor when going to a 3S pack, 8T preferred.
- Fuses: Even if you do the above, a blade strike when the motor is good and hot can cause enough of a spike to blow the 4-in-1, so you should do a mod to fuse both the main and tail motors. Use the super-thin automotive fuses, a 7 amp on the main and 2-3 amp fuse (2 preferred) on the tail motor. More details on this as you need it.
- Dual motor mod: When you go to lipos, the little tail motors have an extremely short life due to the increased voltage (and run time between cool-downs.) The best solution is the dual motor mod, that's right - two tail motors connected in parallel and they share the load with barely more than half the voltage as the stock configuration. For $22, it pays for itself 100 times over. You'll just have to ride with your battery shifted forward a little to recenter the C.O.G.
Fourth Item down
FLYING
I'm still not "flying."
Hovering well, moving around a little tail-in. To avoid some of the overzealous, impatient crap that I did, crap that's only going to piss you off and cost you money, here's a few pointers:
- Look at flying a heli like this: grab a 6" X 8" piece of glass by the two corners closest to you and put a large steel ball (or any ball with weight) in the center. Now move around the room and keep the ball in the center of the glass. Oddly enough, the motions that are going to be required to keep your CP in a hover are VERY similar to the same motions you'll do here. So similar, I still practice exactly this once in a while, with a steel ball and glass.
As the ball starts to roll one way, it will accelerate. You tip it back to correct, but it is too late and it comes back even faster. The result is a pendulum swinging back and forth across the yard in big 20 foot swings with those blades spinning like mad until it goes in somewhere at a terrific speed. So what's required are short, wiggly movements on the right stick to keep it level, while monitoring the left stick for altitude and keeping the tail rotor toward you.
- Hold the tail. You'll be doing some ground training (see Radd's below) and job one is to learn to keep the tail where you want it. For a beginner, that is pointed right at you, as if you're in the cockpit. This is not as easy as it seems, although the gyro compensates for some of the rotating force of the blades ithe heli will still try to spin left (sending the tail RIGHT,) when you try to lift off, and drift when you're trying to keep it level.
-NEVER power up if the tail rotor is jammed. This includes landing on grass - even though the main blades are free, the tail rotor will not be and will burn up the 4-in-1. Also get in the habit of powering down completely if you get in trouble - if ANY blades get jammed in a crash and there is even a little power applied, this will blow the ESC chip on the 4-in-1.
-
Vow to keep it at no more than 4 feet until you actually master it. When things go wonky, you will do little more than nick up the blades at this altitude, any higher and it can build up enough destructive speed to set you back a hundred bucks or so.
- Wobbles and excessive vibration are NOT NORMAL and will throw your gyro out of whack in flight. Out of the box the blades are balanced enough to fly fine, but if one is at a slightly different angle than the other at the grip it will create a hellacious wobble. Make sure the blades are as straight out from the hub as you can get them, and the flybar is level with the ring on top - if they are and you have wobbles, something's bent. Follow the blade tracking instructions in the manual.
- EDIT: Don't set your blade grips too tight, this is not discussed in the manual (all it says is not to leave them loose.) You want them tight enough so that they will not move in flight, but loose enough so they can "break away" and fold if you get a blade strike. Snug, but not too tight. Usually all I get are grass stains now, no chips or dings.
While you're waiting for the CP to arrive, here are two EXCELLENT places to start (right after you go off and buy some stuff:
)
Radd's School of Rotary Flight This site will do you a lot of good **only** if you actually do the exercises. It's hard not to get impatient . . .
Tosiyasu Morita's Electric Helicopter Beginner's Guide (This is a ZIP file that expands to a PDF.) I cannot describe how much this 182 page guide simply kicks ass. Everything you need is in here, I have barely begun to read all of it.
Obviously I've learned a lot of s*** about the CP in the last few weeks, when you get into a corner let me know and I may be able to save you some grief. C ya on the helipad.
