"bo-jack" vs. genuine

[jimdandy1]

go easy on me guys i'm new to this hobby and this is my first post. Is there any part may it be plastic, metal, carbon, electronic, etc that is worth the risk of possible failure to spend a little or sometimes a lot less on then buying what originally came with my kit?

[flerpie]

In terms of risk assessment, what the heli came with is known to be adequate.
Your kit is of unknown origin, so Align is assumed.

However, some of us will suffer no plastic. Some say it's useless bling to
replace things like battery tray, receiver shelf and other bits w/metal parts.
But I've never maidened any plastic that I can get rid of beforehand.
Weight is called on as a factor at times. I usually weigh the replacement
and the original plastic part and many times the replacement is lighter.
Many of these types of comments include zero data. So they are just
assuming the metal part is heavier. Show me a pic of stock and replacement
sitting on a scale. Or at least state the actual weights involved.

I have never seen a factory stock motor mount that has heatsink fins on it.
So in the trash that goes and I get one that has fins. I usually hack up the
stock motor mount and make frame stiffeners. Or use it for an additional
shelf for mounting electronics in the rear of the heli.

Some things are build preference. What I dislike most about plastic parts
is the mounting screws. Any thread designed for plastic is sloppy and will
strip after repeated in/out.

Do what makes ya happy!

[helihaven]

*However, some of us will suffer no plastic.*





Now if i could only find aluminum main gears and landing struts!

[flerpie]

Nobody can tell me that for $400.00 I shouldn't get a metal battery tray
when a metal replacment costs $10.00.
(and there's plenty of fat profit in that $10.00)

[helihaven]

First thing i do is throw away all the screws and bearings....and replace with something i KNOW i can depend on...i crash enough due to my bad thumbs...i dont need any help from cheesy screws or shoddy bearings

[extrapilot]

Many engineering plastics have significant advantage in our application.

One is the potential to be RF transparent. You don’t see carbon fiber canopies for that reason. Having the entire base of your machine opaque to your TX signal is probably not ideal, if you want to avoid RF shadows.

Another advantage is that some plastics can help attenuate mechanical vibration. A related potential upside is the ability to absorb more energy in a crash.

[flerpie]

Good points, extrapilot. It's a series of tradeoffs.

[flerpie]

Originally Posted by helihaven

First thing i do is throw away all the screws and bearings....and replace with something i KNOW i can depend on...i crash enough due to my bad thumbs...i dont need any help from cheesy screws or shoddy bearings

I pretty much keep abec3 on hand but this is what I've noticed.
When I check a bearing for notchiness, a new rotgut original bearing
is always much much smoother than the bearing that has been crashed.
So even original flavor bearings are always better than what I take out.
All I do is hovaround and crash so at this point I gotta wonder if HK
bearings aren't good enuff when I'm at such a newbie level.
Have you really had rotgut bearings seperate the inner race
and fall apart for no reason? I haven't yet.

[helihaven]

I haven't had a "rotgut" do as ya described, true...never gave em a chance to, lol my first experience with HK bearings was about the same as with their screws and bolts. The first bearing i took out of the package was so notchy...felt like 3 of the ball bearings were SQUARE. now i will give credit where its due, and this is just my humble opinion, but you aint gonna beat HK on their airframe parts, i have found they are FAR cheaper in price and as well made as just about any others, in fact, some of the machining tolerances seem closer than actual align parts...ive had bearings just fall out of align tail grips, and the same bearing fit snugly in a hobbyking grip....and maybe its all the luck of the draw? I do know HK plastic parts are pure crap...more like rubber....

[Corvette & Copter Guy]

Plastic VS Metal...True there are pro's and con's of both. Most new cars/trucks have a plastic/composite intake manifold. Its cheaper material, cheaper to mold, no "heat sink" effect, and is lighter. The down side is strength, it wont last long with NOS, blower, or turbo! There are composite plastic that will do everything we are looking for in our hobby. They will never come to market. Think about it...if a part was made that was unbreakable, lightweight, rf invisible, and so on...the company would go out of bussiness. As with any part, we have to decide what we want to use for our own aplication. I use nothing but metal, no plastic. There is a bling factor but mostly I know the threads in metal are just better than plastic.

[flerpie]

If you had super plastic Mr. Jones would show up at your front door in
dark sunglasses because all that material was supposed to be used
in the stealth heli project and they can't figure out how you got it.

[extrapilot]

The conspiracy theory makes no sense. If a manufacturer has access to material that can do a better job at lower production cost than the material in common use, that is competitive advantage. If you are big fish in the small pond, perhaps you keep that material as backup. But if you are small fish, you have no choice- you offer something dramatically better, or you never get the chance to be big fish…

The problem isn’t the technology or the willingness of a vendor to produce/sell it- it is the unwillingness of people to adapt. Performance example outside this niche- Nascar vs F1… Metal, striking lack of technology. vs plastic, bleeding-edge technology… Zero contest on the track.

[Corvette & Copter Guy]

It makes sense. If a company offers a "lifetime" part...there will be no need to replace it. If you have a "breakable" part...it will always be a good seller. I worked for a plastic company that made composite materials for NASA and I can tell you the plastic we want is being made...just not into heli parts.

[extrapilot]

You miss the point. I didn’t say that more advanced materials do not exist. I said that if a manufacturer has a material which can do a job better, for less cost, he will use it. That is a universal in business, because if he does not use it, his competitors will. NASA is a perfect example- they forgot this lesson, and companies like SpaceX and Scaled Composites have left them standing.

The fact that we don’t see super-exotic materials on our machines is not due to concern about future revenue. It is because no one will spend $150 for a polyether-ether-ketone landing gear… It is simply not cost effective, unless you are at the highest level of performance. And, it is certainly possible that special parts are provided to sponsored pilots-

There are plenty of examples of successful implementations on parts which have very long lives. You would be hard pressed to find RAM or a Flash pen drive that is not lifetime warranty. Heck, even in our niche, there is no fixed lifespan on carbon composite rotors. They are replaced because they are damaged in crashes, or because new profiles or more advanced construction obsoletes them.

[flerpie]

My boom block could be rated for deep space? I'll take one!

[flerpie]

I get quite frustrated about how slowly the RC industry moves forward.
20 years ago my futaba 7ch. Tx couldn't balance on a lanyard without
financial help. My new futaba T7C has the same problem.
But that's a situation where they choose to make it not the best it can be
in lieu of milking your wallet a little more.

[Newfiejudd]

The plastics are out there, and other RC vehicles use them. For example take the RPM parts for RC trucks. I have upgraded several parts on my Tmaxx 3.3 with alloy pieces. They weren't cheap parts, I used 6061 pieces. Then would bend or transfer the damage elsewhere along the vehicle. I saw a guy with a crap load of RPM plastic parts, and he would launch that truck like a scud missiles, and he had the landing accuracy of a shot gun at 100 yards. But those plastic parts would never break. So of course I upgraded. Sold the old alloy parts and have never looked back. And the plastic parts were a fraction of the cost.