KDS Innova Series: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

[x5heli]

The truth about kds is tail servos n690 with plastic on kds innova 550e s4 v2 so suck. The ikon flybarless system won't accept this servo and it cause a lot of wag no matter what. I replaced and put on sevox servos in to replace my tail. And tail sock solid. It's fly great I don't know it's ikon or kds both performance great. I will video and put on YouTube by next week

[Big Island Guy]

I have a 450SD FBL and so far, everything that's gone wrong with it has been my fault, with the possible exception of a cyclic servo that went senile. Even that I'm suspecting might have been from a voltage spike when the battery came disconnected during a hover. Luckily it was only about 2" above the ground, but about 2 battery packs later, it would take off from mid travel to its limit suddenly and then it just quit entirely. Coincidence? Maybe, but my bad for not properly securing the connector. The KDS FBL unit seems to be really stable and it was super easy to set up.The only thing I really don't like so far about this chopper is that it's not that easy to get to everything for servicing.

P.S. The shaft tail drive while elegant and static proof, will not take any abuse. The merest brush at speed with anything, even stray grass blades sticking up on the lawn, will result in damage to the gears, drive shaft or both. Learned this the hard way.

[Ghostflyer1]

I have not had anything smaller than a 550 with a torqtube tail drive. My 450 is belt.

On another note I think we should all show up at Island Guys house for some flying time

[Big Island Guy]

Originally Posted by Ghostflyer1

On another note I think we should all show up at Island Guys house for some flying time

Hey, the gate's open. I got a big enough back yard for 450s (that is, for pilots with competent thumbs - not mine) and all I would ask for in exchange is some instruction!

[Familyman67]

OMG - how I'd love to jump into a Jumbo and come over.
We've hat lots of ice, snow and temperartures around -17°C (that's zero Farenheit) - I guess it very rarely gets this cold where you live - right?
(What's that noise in the background there ? Ah - yes - I guess it's the Canadians laughing at me whining about the minus 17°C )

[Big Island Guy]

Originally Posted by Familyman67

OMG - how I'd love to jump into a Jumbo and come over.
We've hat lots of ice, snow and temperartures around -17°C (that's zero Farenheit) - I guess it very rarely gets this cold where you live - right?
(What's that noise in the background there ? Ah - yes - I guess it's the Canadians laughing at me whining about the minus 17°C )

LOL. We whine around here when the temp gets down to 60 F. Hilo airport's (about 12 miles from here) all time record low is 54. Brrrr....

[mrmarc]

Now y'all mainlanders making me miss living in Maui. LOL

[Big Island Guy]

The Hawaii they never show on Hawaii 5-O. This is my son's friend, at about 12'000' up Mauna Kea last winter, after a tourist coming down the hill lost it and tagged him. The tourist had rented a 4X4 but never engaged 4WD! Some people get more dollars than sense.

[mrmarc]

Originally Posted by Big Island Guy

Some people get more dollars than sense.

+1

[Ghostflyer1]

Originally Posted by mrmarc

Now y'all mainlanders making me miss living in Maui. LOL

That Y'all almost sounded Texan

[Ghostflyer1]

Originally Posted by Big Island Guy

The Hawaii they never show on Hawaii 5-O. This is my son's friend, at about 12'000' up Mauna Kea last winter, after a tourist coming down the hill lost it and tagged him. The tourist had rented a 4X4 but never engaged 4WD! Some people get more dollars than sense.

Not many people realize this but they snow ski on that mountain :

[Tug Driver]

My KDS Innova 450. I am the 3rd owner and there were quite a few issues to work out. It was never flown by the 1st owner, the second bought it for a scale project then I got it as I wanted a cheap trunk heli to cart around with me.

The canopy fit is crap. Someone had put power to it and spun it and the canopy doesn’t have flares like a trex for the main gear so there was white dust and the top of the main gear ground off from rubbing the fiberglass.

This one started as a shaft drive. The gear mesh at the frame was horrible. The tail boom socket doesn’t have any sort of alignment pins to lock it in place so it can move on the slip of the screw holes. The carbon fiber plate was wider than the aluminum blocks as had to be narrowed so the blocks were the pinch point, not the plate which can slide. On top of that there is no key to keep the boom from turning or pin to keep the tail gearbox aligned. I converted mine to a belt to alleviate the alignment problems but this requires tensioning the belt then making sure the tail rotor shaft is 90 degrees to the main shaft by eye then aligning and clamping the vertical fin which is a slip over part to hold it all in place.

The 9G servos were junk I replaced them with corona 929’s and solved that problem. I used a hobbywing funfly 40A esc so I can program it on a board. Horror stories about the KDS esc coming out of programming mode and spoiling up. Went with an align gp750 gyro for ease of programming.

While it is a semi clone of a trex 450 pro it is significantly wider than a 450 pro so aluminum frame parts don’t fit. The tail boom is 14mm which is a unique size so get extra booms. A trex 450 autorotation year wont clear the frame because of the fan blades on the spokes.

Now with all the bench gripes sorted out I can say it does fly well and I’m very happy with it. It is a great go between size wise from my trex 250 and 500. I found a case for it and will be able to tote it around and get some impromptu flying done with it which was its purpose. Hovering flights have been good in the 8-9 minute range. I set it up with a leftover Heli-Max TX610 and while setup was a little more difficult because of the features the radio lacks it flies nice with it and feels good in the hands.