I’m excited to be building this bird. I will say though, it’s a fair bit of work! Might be little much for a beginner getting into a hobby. I’ve been building models so long, I can’t exactly recall when I started! 4 decades of building is coming in handy here!
Perhaps it’s bad form, bad marketing, bad writing. Whatever.. I really don’t care, but here is the end photo from yesterdays work: Result of a few hours of contruction. EXI-450
Yes, it took several hours to get to that point. It’s harder than it looks. Especially considering these kits do not come with ANY instructions. Thankfully, Will (owner of MikeysRC.com) has taken his time to document 15 10 minutes videos on how to construct one of these helis. I Just completed video #6.
Following are some snapshots I took during the construction in case you find the need to keep reading.
3500kv brushless motor mountedMotor adjusment bolts. Locktite applied.Tail drive belt, adjusted to proper tension.Using grinder to open servo openings, required for some servos.One of the cyclic servos installed in frame2 of 3 cyclic servos installed. Hot glue used to hold nuts for install.3rd of the 3 cyclic servos installed (rear)3 cyclic servos installed, starting to check control arm alignment.
So, the replacement blades are just about here for the MadHawk300 FP heli. Awesome. Except, yesterday the dang thing flipped out, suddenly went to full throttle while I was getting ready to swap out the batteries.
It did the ‘Chicken Dance’ on the park bench, snapping off parts the tail rotor. Radio throttle response did not help, it idled down and was just sitting there vibrating wildly (due to broken tail rotor). Carefully reaching under I unplugged the battery.
Swapped the new battery in, got the TX and RX talking to each other… but what now? No throttle!
So, I now have two shattered main blades (replacements arriving today), broken tail rotor ($4.00 which I’d have to mail-order) and now.. neither motor is spooling up!
On the workbench this morning I checked the motors and radio. Seems the RX is no longer sending voltage signals to the motors. Great… why did it do that? Well, a good 6 channel DSM2 receives is about $35 so I checked on the price to replace this thing.
Oh come on now! Worth $15, maybe. Ugh.. more parts. At this point I’m chasing my tail on this thing. It was only $100 new, and 1/2 of the price for the receiver? Might as well just buy a new one and use this for parts! Honestly, I liked the way it few, it was fun, docile and a good trainer, even if the range was HORRIBLE, which I thought maybe I’d fixed by moving the receiver further from motor.. but.. it freaked out and crashed before I could range test.
I’ve read many people doing upgrades to make the thing really reliable. Sounds interesting for certain! But.. then, why toss more good money after bad? Shouldn’t I just chalk this up to some good training and park the thing?
I mean.. for the price of the MadHawk300 I could have bought a EXI-450 AND TX/RX for about the same price!
Then I could get replacement parts locally. Now.. the above also needs:
– motor
– rotor blades
– ESC (electronic speed control)
– Li-Po battery
But it’s also easily upgradable.. with stuff like this, a full CNC rotor head and tail, plus some spare blades:
Or, as my final plan for the EXI-450 I’m waiting for, a scale rotor head: Sweet 4-blade flybarless scale rotor head.
And of course you can get really nice scale bodies very inexpensively for the 450’s, especially when compared to the proprietary bodies for other cheaper birds. Here is a short like from just one online retailer:
Factor in cheap proprietary electronics, motors that notoriously fail (tail motors) parts that are not available in any local store, batteries that are a strange size… and you have an exercise in frustration as soon as you run into a snag. And even if you are an expert flyer, you’ll run into a mechanical failure, or electronic failure and voila.. the questions about WTF have you done begin.
So, I’m really REALLY looking foward to the arrival of the EXI-450 kit this week. I’m really bummed that I have nothing to fly right now. 🙁 But at least with the 450 if I break something I *can* get a local replacement part!
Conclusion:
Would I buy a MadHawk300 or Walkera 180x bird again. NO!. I was warned about quality early on, and I chose to ignore that advice of one vocal expert, compared to the many voices singing it’s praises. Well, guess who was right?
Will I fix it at some point? Maybe. But certainly NOT with factory parts. I might turn it into a learning experiment to see what I *can* do with it. But… to what end? I don’t know. The $$$ is better spent on a 450 or 600 class bird instead of patching together what is not basically an expensive paper weight.
Upside, if there is one, is that the radio that came with it might be able to be used as a simulator controller with a $10 cable. 🙂 Maybe I’ll pick one up on the way to work and see what happens.
OK, this is frustrating. 20 some odd flights and the thing’s rear motor is going out. There is a dead spot in it, so, somethings on a hard right yaw, the motor does not start back up and it spins into the ground, breaking… more stuff.
So I’ve started to research updates to this rear drive issue, and the lack of power in the main motor (seems to be losing power, turning freer than it should.. seems like it cooked too, too much hover practice and not enough cooling airflow?).
At any rate, I found this info on the Walkera 180 (same heli, different brand name) that might get me a really sweet flying ‘learner’ heli for friends and family.
CB180Q Conversion to Brushless
8g Outrunner – brushless C10 (2S)- 180 Serie
Tail Gear Holder from Q for Brushless direkt drive
26g Outrunner -brushless C20 around 4000 KV
pinion 16 T(metal) Modul 0,3, hole 2,3mm
20A ESC for Main-Motor
12 A ESC for Tail-Motor
Gyro WK-016 Gyro 8g 4-6V
RX 2801PRO
TX 2801PRO
good Lipo around 1200 to 1500 mAh
Here is another thread [LINK] with similar solution. It might be overkill for what I want to do. Another idea on 'fixing' the MadHawk300 shortcomings.
Found this on the XHeli.com Facebook page. Love the sound of these things.
I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of my EXI-450 from XHeli.com, hopefully in the next week! Then I’ll have to build it. Then learn to fly it. Then learn how to repair it after I crash. Eventually I want to add a body kit like this, and replace the stock plastic parts (ordered plastic on purpose, about 1/2 cost and I plan to replace it as noted) with one of these: HAC 4 blade Rotorhead for 450 class Heli
The Blade CX3 is repaired and flying again! The $22 aluminum swash plate repair, actually has the thing flying better than it did right out of the box!
E-Flight OEM Plastic Swashplate
E-Flight Upgrade Aluminum Swashplate
Here is a 3 min video of first test flights in the studio, and finally my 8 year old attempting to fly it, for the first time, outside! The crosswind was playing havoc but he did a pretty good job of keeping things together. I think he’s going to be a good pilot some day.
Even though it’s a Toy Co-Axial helicopter (a $200 “toy” to be exact), with the upgraded part, it’s a joy to fly. There is something so therapeutic about an activity that puts nice big genuine smile on your face. And in the end, what price is too high a price to pay for some joy? 🙂 Even though I’ve “outgrown” this helicopter in about 1 week of intense practice, I still want to keep it around, and even put some more upgrades on it! Such as this cool LED strobe kit I’ve seen on the web. Here is a video from a guy that I think, sells the best of them:
Here are a few pics flying it outside, just before dark. Shot with an f2.8 200mm lens, 50D camera set at ISO1600 and roughly 1/30th second shutter speed. Despite the slow speed and high ISO, I think the shots are work posting. Blade CX3 spooled up and ready for takeoff.
Blade CX3 spooled up and moving out. Still in ground effect.Blade CX3 after battery change, ready to go again.Blade CX3 in flight. Blade CX3 flies overhead.
Good times. The Blade CX3 is one heck of a fun bird to fly.
The first update today was to add the factory heat sink for the main motors. E-Flite CX3 heat sink
After removing one of the motors, installing the sink was pretty simple. Heat sink install 1/2 complete
Motor re-installed and bolted back into position: Motor re-installed.
The fame looks a little naked without the body installed. But it does not take long to put it back together, and ready for flight. E-flite CX3 with body removed.
A little time lapse video of re-assembly:
Ready to enjoy some indoor heli flying fun. Completed bird, and Spektrum DX6i flight controller
Well, it was, until the plastic factory swash plate decided to separate. I’d been fighting with adjusting the swash links most of the evening, after putting the heli back together again. I thought that maybe I’d bent a servo link rod during the heat sink install, so I worked on adjusting the cyclic/swashplate links.
Trying to stop a hard forward and starboard liftoff, and full rear cyclic would barely have any effect. It was not until an hour or so later I noticed that the plate where the servos attach was separating from the bearing and main rotor shaft. Duh. This explains why 2 directions worked great (pushing up on the plate) but the opposites failed (pulling down on the plate, but the upper bearing remained in position, thus no control. No control, but one check of an exciting crash!
The official term for this is TBE (toilet-bowl effect). Not fun. There is quite a discussion of the problem HERE. Once I discovered the problem, it was a matter of deciding how to solve it. There are a couple of solutions.
First of which is a pretty inexpensive factory replacement part. Stock replacement swash plate.
Second is one of the CNC or cast metal solutions from E-Flite (the original manufacture) or other sources. Research indicates that the E-Flite is the one to buy. E-Flight aluminum replacement swash plate.
Fortunately, there are plenty of other heils in the shop ready to fly. Blade CX3 (left), Exceed-RC Madhawk 300 (right)
I also have video shot with my old Canon DV camcorder (found it in a storage box yesterday). Right now I don’t have the right Firewire cable for my MAC. Hope to get that resolved tomorrow.
It was bound to happen, taking the next step and actually taking 2 minutes to edit my little ‘movies’ (really a personal video diary of my learning to fly and crash little flying machines). Here are the first two that I actually was able to load into iMovie and convert.
First is the Revel Proto CX. My micro counter-rotating blade heli: I cut a bunch of worthless time (more worthless that this video, hard to image but true) out of the middle and focused on the ‘good stuff’:
Next is video of the bird #2, the Blade CX3. EFlite Blade CX3 - MD520 Notar
I had just unpacked it, installed the training gear extensions (the funny orange balls) and bound it to the Spectrum radio that came in the ParkFlyer HobbyZone P-51 foamy. That was a nice little treat. Blade CX3 - MD520 Notar
For the most part it worked great. Here 90% condensation of about 25 minutes of actual flight time with the CX3. This was my first attempt.
However, yet again, I managed to mangle the landing gear after a few panic throttle chops as it got a little close to big steel things that would break it. :/ Back to the hobby shop for MORE stuff! Blade CX3 replacement landing gear. I left them 1 on the rack. At least they are not TOO expensive!
And finally, here is my repair video. First semi-successful attempt at time-lapse with the Canon S1100 micro-camera. The hardest part, I thought, would be learning how to do this with iMovie ’09. Nope, after some prodding around it turned out to be pretty simple. Sadly the camera was doing some sort of zoom-in and zoom-out madness. Site down before watching, you might get ill. Some are going to wonder about the music. Did I shot the video with this music in mind. NOT! Who’d try to shoot video like this, outside the brain-dead corridors of intellectual bankruptcy one finds in L.A. or N.Y.? No, but the frantic into to a good German industrial metal song just… WORKED! I only hope YouTube does not over-dub the music with something totally lame out of their music library, as I’ve heard they have started to do this.
UPDATE!
YouTube send me this message today. Hopefully they don’t over-dub the music. But, when you’re using a free service, their hardware, their network, it’s not a stretch to concede they own that copy of it.:
Your video, Eflite Blade CX3 MD520N (Notar), may have content that is owned or licensed by UMG.
No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.
It’s beyond obsession at this point. I’m going to need a 12-step program.
Yesterday I converted some old ‘iron’ at the gun shop to one of these at the hobby shop (I don’t have a need for a piddly 9mm anyway). This is Heli #3: Blade CX3
As I type, the batteries are charging for the Heli, and the transmitter.
I saved $35 by buying the BNF (Bind-n-Fly) version of the kit. The Spektrum DX6i I already obtained is compatible with this (and the P-51 too as a matter of fact).
Then this morning, I received shipping confirmation of ‘Heli 4’ from the on-line retailer XHeli.com. This is my first time ordering stuff from them. What surprised me was that within 24 hours the merchandise was picked, packed and on it’s way!
Thank you for shopping at XHeli!
Your order’s shipping label is generated and is scheduled
to be shipped on 05/21/2010 via UPS.
EXCELLENT!! New Heli and parts on the way!
I’m having it shopped to my office in Tacoma since I don’t want to have it sitting on my porch all day at work. Plus, there is ALWAYS someone there to sign for it, since we are 24×7 shop. Fast FAST shipping and great prices. We’ll see how it all works out.
This is what I’m expecting. 🙂 Exceed MadHawk 300 ESky Flight Training System
Now, I already had this one here. Which now I think I paid WAYYYYYYYY too much for: RealFlight Basic
I’ve been practicing with it for a week now. It’s OK, and it has some cool planes in it, but the helicopter physics seem… weird. Really weird. And I completely irritated that I had to build a WINDOZE box to use the thing! Luckly I still had an old (circa 2006) Dell computer floating around, and it’s running Windoze XP (which the new software needs too.. got lucky there), but the hardware was not up to the task. Wish I’d known that when I bought it. So $100 for the software kit, then I had to toss in another $80 to get a decent DX9 compatible video card for the OLD PCI (not enhanced regular old PCI) interface, AND 1GB of memory for another $50. (poor thing only had 128MB in it.. not enough to even open the program.
So almost $250 to construct a flight simulator with a used computer!
Then.. then, I find this recommendation lurking around one of the Heli message boards. Heli-X.
It’s written in Germany AND it runs on Mac OSX!!!! So of course I downloaded it (it does not come with any controller, BUT the controller from RealFlight works PERFECTLY!). It’s also fairly pricey too at $50 Euro, and it only handles Helis BUT the physics in the trainer are SO much more realistic, at least to me.
Here is a shot of the simulator (sorry, I don’t have the controller hooked up at the moment so it’s just a shot of one model on the ground). It’s pretty good, and I’m learning that Variable Pitch, fixed throttle flying IS A LOT more intimidating that fixed pitch variable throttle! Screen Shot of Heli-X
After a number of pretty bad nose-in crashes (flying nose in is the most challenging), the bird was getting pretty beat up: Proto CX crash worn
With the landing gear broken and the canopy smashed, it was looking very ragged. Not only that, but the metal rod and zip ties I had holding the landing skids together added enough weight to make it fly a little funny (balance, what balance?).
Removing the weight of the rod, well.. that was not really an option: Broken and beaten Proto CX
Fortunately, the local hobby shop has a variety of replacement parts for these things (big shock, isn’t it?). The landing gear itself was about $8.50 to purchase. Easy enough. However, with all the plug-and-play miniaturization on these things, one thing that was not plug and play was the landing gear + battery tray. I’d have to perform some micro soldering to complete the repair. Replacement landing gear for the Proto CX
I lit up the soldering iron and did my best. Turns out that it was a little easier than I thought it would be. Plus, I didn’t accidentally melt any of the sensitive parts, like that servo there, located perilously close to the solder points I needed to use. Completing the repair.
With the important structural stuff fixed, the canopy was re-attached and she’s ready to fly. Good, maybe bad, but the shop did not have replacement canopy in stock. It’s OK I suppose, since I’d crashed this many times on the nose before the canopy finally shattered.
Broken gear left, repaired bird right.
Some pieces are still missing, but some clear tape and Sharpie marker returned it to serviceable condition. It’s not going to win a beauty contest, but it does fly, as you can see here!
