Howto: external lipo for Align 325 night blade guide

[Jotto]

I created a thread some time ago (https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=198853) about external lipos for Align 325 blades. Well, now I have done it myself, and I'd like to share my experiences with you.

The Align 325 night blades are known to have incredibly bad lipos. My local retailer has replaced my blades three times. Eventually I gave up and decided to try external lipos.

You will need:

- Align 325 night blades. You won't need the charger, but you will need the connectors that are used to turn on the lights
- Tiny lipos like http://hobbycity.com/hobbyking/store...idProduct=8864
- Micro battery extension for those batteries: http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...%285pcs/bag%29
- Tape, soldering iron etc etc

Ok, you guys ready? The procedure is:

1. Fix the batteries to the blades. I used double-sided tape. Make sure that the center-line of the batteries point towards the bolt hole. Be careful to use the same amount of tape on both blades to make balancing easier.



2. Wrap some tape around the batteries. This will prevent the air from going underneath the batteries. Be careful to use the same amount of tape on both blades here as well!



3. Balance the blades. You'll find some nice guides here at Helifreak. If you don't balance the blades after a modification like this, you'll quickly end up with a disaster!

4. Make a tiny cable going from the lipo to the charging port on the blades. Remove the little wire that connect the outermost pins on the Align connector together. Cut off the male connector with a few cm wire from one of the extension cables mentioned above and solder it to the connector pins. It's easier if you insert the connector into the blade, as it won't get warped while you solder:



You should end up with a pair of cables looking like this. I added some shrink-wrap at the blade-end connector, but you probably don't need it:



5. It's time to test it! Simply connect the cable to the battery like this. Negative (black wire) goes into the innermost hole:



If the helicopter is a dedicated night helicopter, you can as well just leave the connector in the blade and connect the battery when needed.

6. Hey, this is pretty cool:



7. Use the extension cables to charge the battery from an E-Flite charger (you did order multiple bags of those cables, didn't you?):



This charger runs off standard 4D batteries or a power supply. Hey, you can even field charge your blades in 15 minutes! I guess you can also make a parallel charging harness from the female end of the extension cables + a 2S balacing plug and charge it with a Cellpro charger.

8. Go flying! Like with all night blades, it's a good idea to check tracking in daylight with blade lights off.

[loprestty]

Good info! I do have a question!

I have one set of align 600 that only one charge, I wonder if I can do this just on the one that don't light up? Or is it ok to plug a lipo also on the one that still work?

[Jotto]

Do both. You'll get problems balancing the blades if you attach a lipo on just one of them.

[moyesboy]

anyone done similar with 600 blades?

[05RAVEN]

Thanks Jotto for posting this I did this since I had 2 pairs of blades one set lasts for 25 minutes and the other set wasn't even charging. So I used the bad set, now my blades last for hours just like the cold strings and the blades balanced perfectly. Here's a couple pics, identical to your setup but I did lengthen the charging leads so the blades don't have to come off to charge them.

[PhillyD]

05 raven beat me to the punch. I have discarded some blades prematurely in the past 2 years. I just used one set for the 5th time and they went. Good thing I found this thread. Test flew the set up with minor difference and all is A OK. One thing though, it is easy to see if blade tracking is off with the lighted blades.
Thanks greatly
Philip

[Jotto]

Way to go!

Note that you should do tracking in daylight. The LEDs on the night blades may be a little bit off vertically. The blades may seem off-track even if they are perfectly tracked -- or the other way around.

[PhillyD]

Jotto
Are you the brightest guy that side of California? I was having the same problem for some time, and even changed, feathering shaft, dampners, blade grip arms, links, redoing swash, today after measuring the fixed links with a caliper for best pair size. 6 hours wasted do you think? Lookin at it now although they seemed off track when flying at night there was never and vibe or wobble aggrrhh

[Jotto]

Glad to help!

[PhillyD]

No one else trying this?

[HeliBenj]

Hey guys, ever thought of sticking the batteries on the blade grip? That way blade CG wouldn't be affected. I'm running flybarless and am a bit concerned the blade CG will shift inward which is not not good for FBL. What do you think?

[sp00fman]

I mounted my lipo on top of the head button and run with the small connectors to the blades
It does work but i am a bit concerned about reliability and working with the tiny connector in the dark is annoying.
I regret my design decision and I advice to just mount the lipo on the blade itself.

[PhillyD]

Sorry was I was to report that I stuck the batteries to the blade with 3m marine adhesive sealant 5200. It takes a long time to dry but it is totally unmoveable. I can now fly totally in peace.

Helibenj the weight of my total setup(rigging) is about 5.5 grams for each blade. you do need to rebalance the blade for CoG and weight, but if you are meticulous with the build, you'll not have a problem. I did not need to add any tape to my blades; same everything; position of the battery on the blade, amount of paste, length of wire, amount of solder and length of heat shrink. In my opinion the battery is so close to the blade grip, the blade grip actually spports that weight or may seem to be part of the blade grip. I had zero problems which surprised me. It did not bother the far lighter 450 size heli blades. Align night blades weigh 52g a set. What size blades are you using on the flybarless

[HeliBenj]

Hey, thanks for the feedback, this is for my 500, I'm getting the 425 align night blades for christmas (my wife used my profile to get on the chat here and ask advice to fellow helifreakers, love her and HF too!).

ATM I'm using stock align 425 blades which are not ideal for FBL but do work, I don't know where the CoG of night blades stand, but I know it's better farther out on a FBL setup, so IF my blades lipos are bad I'll do this mod but might as well try to stick the lipo underneath the blade grip just to see.

[CF_Machete]

if you mount external lipos to your grips, you may want to balance the grips themselves, especially w/ an fbl setup. the difference in adhesive amounts may be enough to mess with your heads balance and cause a vibration....which could screw w/ your 3 axis gyro. I'd throw them on a scale to play it safe. however they are so shot in length, matching the grips cg may not be worth the effort.

[HeliBenj]

Just reporting back on this. I did install the lipos underneath the blade grips and stuck will double sided tape. I didn't want to shift the blades CoG inwards to keep the blades as good as possible for FBL and in order to keep blades aerodynamical characteristics intact.
First the heli flies perfect, no tracking issues (I have not balanced the head, just tried it first and was spot on). The blades have good flying characteristics, I am not able to tell the difference with day blades.
Next I will stick them better with some tape around the grip as I am not comfortable with only double sided tape although the lipos are close to the mast and tus not subject to excessive centrifugal forces.