HK600GT review/build

[Ber60]

This is one of the cheapest heli's I ever build and reading about this heli in the Hobby King's reviews didn't gave me a lot of confidence but hey you never know how it turns out. As there was no manual included I used the T-rex 600 GF manual to get some guidelines
I will skip the "opening of the box" ect. and go directly to the build.
The frame:
Top servo link was missing



frame deformed due to bad fit on the bottom plate ( now this is a bad start )



So I redid the frame to fit the bottom plastic plate/bracket, all mounted and locktide screws ,belt placed, I used the shaft to center the bearings in the frame .One screw was missing of a canope mounting ( again something missing pfff ) luckily I have all sorts of screws and found a servo link to replace th missing one (still have to mount it)



Skids, anti rotation bracket, tail boom, rudder servo mount and tail rod guides mounted and no problems ( well, well, well ).
The size is beginning to dawn on me



Mounted the tail on the boom, the screws are a bit dodgy ( use very good tools and there will be no problems ) then I noticed somthing, the belt is scraping the bottom of the tail casing ( not very good I think )



Now this is bad machining the bottom half moon is off center



My eye fel on this little discrepency on the tail shaft this is a 2mm out of 90° angle on this small amount of distance
( this I am going to leave alone )



Of to my workshop to repair the tail casing

Filed the belt space out left the bad tail shaft angle as is



The new belt passage enough space now



Tail, struts and main gear mounted was a bit wobbly but hey I used to work on Belt cp's so I bend the gear straight ( no problems )



By comparison with my wife's bike, man this thing is big



Tried to mount the servo's but the where hitting each other ( problems, problems )



The original servo mounts that I will use



In combination with the mounts of the HK, I drilled out the left side ones , then I realized I have not enough mounts for the pitch and rudder servo ( damn )
so I made some more out some left ovet aluminium strip



A perfect fit

[sutty]

Excellent clear and precise report so far. I had been looking forward to it and you haven't disappointed. I await the remainder with baited breath. I know you have come across a few glitches, but you have dealt with them in your stride, as I guess many could, and for the price, perhaps it is acceptable. I guess further proof might be needed in terms of durability, bearing failures etc.

I am not used to the size of my 600 yet, and as you know it still scares me. How I would feel if I thought some of the components might be of suspect quality I have no idea, but I know that you will spot and correct most if not all issues in this regard.

If you think it is big now, just wait until you spin it up. I'm looking forward to that too.




Cheers

Sut

[Ber60]

The flybar cage bent 1mm due to not enough spacers in the flybar control arm
It started to bind



I grinded down my own 1mm spacers to fit in the cavity of the flybar control rod,
yes there are spacers in the arm
A view of my 1mm spacers made to fit



The spacers mounted in the fybar control arm



I had a gut feeling the radius arm of the washout assy is a mirrored mistake because the ball-link entry is reversed but redbird300 told me it was a common use in some heli's



Started to setup the head and noticed when leveling the washout arms the plastic servo ball-links where 5mm to short ( at the bottom of the pic)



I started to experiment with the main shaft, cut it 8mm from the top and drilled a new hole for the top Jesus bolt but found it to short, so of to the LHS for align links ( longer than HK links) and main shaft.




What the ... the align shaft's jesus bold sits already +/-2mm lower no need to cut down the shaft to make the links fit




So with the longer links and the shorter align shaft everything falls in to place, servo arms and links all at 90° all the way up to the washout arms



The whole head is setup and by -12° collective the anti-rotation pins are still half way down in the washout base mounted the tail servo, paddles and blades and the heli whas almost mechanically finnished ( I am still waiting on a delayed motor ).




I can get +/-12° of collective and +/-8° of cyclic not bad it you ask me
I enjoyed the build of this heli and found only a few problems that were easy to solve.
A good value for money imho

Up to the electronics but I wont post about that
Just for your eyes onle




Enjoy the thread

Erwin

[sutty]

Sorry Erwin, I didn't mean to jump in, in the middle of your post. Didn't know another was to follow. Just went on my lunch, and saw the first post, and figured that was were you were up to so far. I guess my comments about value for money, you agree with as I now see your comments at the end.

Now I guess we all look forward to the maiden video.

[redbird300]

Excellent report Erwin ! And a very critical, careful and inventive building job ! Well done. I knew I had to leave the building part to you, lol.
Bad news about the motor I ordered though: it's not in stock yet, and even not mentioned on the website anymore. Need to contact these guys I guess for an alternative, but will need another pinion also if the kV value is different (and it probably will).I'll see what I can do, I really want us to get the bird in the air in a few weeks.
I would be glad to do the setup of the electronics, shouldn't take long as you are preparing everything so perfectly.

[Ber60]

No worries Sutty, the second part I had to redo 3 times bacause of my dumb fingers I lost it 3 times

[Ber60]

Originally Posted by redbird300

I would be glad to do the setup of the electronics, shouldn't take long as you are preparing everything so perfectly.

Ok, I will get the electronics in the bird and await the motor and turn it over to you, can't wait to see this bird airborn

Oh thanks Sutty , Raf for the nice comments

[Tomstoy]

Interesting report, Erwin. Looks like you still get what you pay for. An experienced builder, like yourself, who recognises the problems can easily overcome them, but a novice builder a on a budget, well, good luck.
Really looking forward to the flight report!

[mnwizard]

Great work Erwin, I always look forward to seeing your projects

[Tjomp]

Erwin, your building skills are really up there. What do you need a kit for anyway ? I bet you could make the entire heli yourself from stuff you´d find in your neighbours garbage can

Seriously. This looks like a nice kit for someone with experience and patience to make everything right. A beginner would probably kill himself with it, though.

Thanks for sharing your build with us, and please find enclosed a bunch of punctuation marks you can toss around in your next post.

"................................................. .................................................. "

If you are out of commas aswell, get some from here
",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "

[lex7919]

Fantastic work as always Erwin Would you permit me to publish this report onto my blog? as your work of course. i think many people will benifit from your insight here a stark warning to the masses who think these are good helis!

[Luke Warmwater]

Originally Posted by Tjomp

please find enclosed a bunch of punctuation marks you can toss around in your next post.

"................................................. .................................................. "

If you are out of commas aswell, get some from here
",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "

He's probably making a torque tube conversion for the tail out of those punctuation marks right now.....although exclamation marks would have helped with the gears at the end!

Seriously, impressive thread. I had toyed with the idea of a "cheap" route into a bigger heli having been happy with the HKH 450s I had. But this has shown quite clearly that the cheap clone route doesn't translate quite so directly for the less experienced builder!

[lankey]

Loved the write up and photography Erwin- fantastic work mate

Must admit, some of the manufacturing errors were shocking- even for a cheap kit!!

Look forward to the flight report.

[Ber60]

Originally Posted by lex7919

Fantastic work as always Erwin Would you permit me to publish this report onto my blog? as your work of course. i think many people will benifit from your insight here a stark warning to the masses who think these are good helis!

Thank you and feel free to do so Alex

[Ber60]

Thanks guy's for the nice comments and I agree, like many of you found, that this is not a heli for beginners

[B2TheEYo]

Exceptionally well done Erwin. No this kit isn't for beginners, HK's target was people who already owned a large bird like this and had spare electronics. Though the moment it was announced and released, every HK fanboy, cheapo, or guy on a budget or out for a project went on a HK-spree and got one.

Did you happen to find the main gear center offset by 2mm? Some people reported that was a big bug, other than that and the pins and a few broken bottom trays everything you discovered is new news.

[Ber60]

Originally Posted by B2TheEYo

Did you happen to find the main gear center offset by 2mm? Some people reported that was a big bug, other than that and the pins and a few broken bottom trays everything you discovered is new news.

The main gear has a small wobble and a center offset of perhaps 0.5 mm, I found it a good main gear the same for the auto rotation gear

[psilo]

Erwin, An excellent review Really useful to have a master builder like yourself go over one of these with a fine tooth comb

Looking forward to it getting airborne and some videos of RAF putting it through it's paces too!

[Azalin]

Hello,
This is my first post on this forum and i'm very glad to being here.

I just received my new HK600GT but the electronics are still deficiency.

I think this topic will be a valuable guide for me when i start to build my 600GT.

Thanks.

[mnwizard]

Hi Azalyn, wecome to the forum.