What did you do to your Blade 450 today?

[hemp]

Finally last night got around to replacing FBL grips, bearings, washers, re-greased thrust bearings and replaced dampers with TrueBlood Greens -- in short, eliminated all head slop. Also threw on a new set of Edge FBL blades just to try them out.

Flew three packs this morning. And...

Before today I was thinking I needed to raise the FBL Gyro's agility to make my cyclics more responsive. Umm. Nevermind, we're good.

First pack was pretty tame since I haven't touched a transmitter for a week. Second pack back in the groove. Third pack, trying tic-tocs closer to the ground than I ever would have dared before (still just as ugly, but a lot more stationary.)

I would rather fly a poorly set up heli than not fly at all. But slop-free is better.

[hemp]

Originally Posted by hemp

slop-free is better.

Spoke too soon.

Apparently I over-tightened a few things in my latest attempt to reduce slop. Swashplate bearing now 'clicks' and I noticed the screw in one of the swash control arms (FBL head) is bent so that arm doesn't rotate smoothly. I'm hoping one of these is the cause of me being grounded ... getting some crazy blade action during spool up all the sudden. So much I don't dare try to lift off.

Also noticed 1mm of vertical play in the main shaft. Not sure when that showed up. It's almost like a washer is missing, but I haven't pulled the shaft out for weeks. Gremlins.

So long story short, I need a new swashplate and will be pulling the main shaft to check everything over.

Sadly, our summer weather may be interrupted within days. I'm not ready for the rain, I just want to fly! My wife told me I should pick a lower maintenance hobby -- I said I just need more birds.

[jimmanyk]

More tweaking the Futaba/savox upgrade. Worn out batteries didn't help.

"Is there a shortage of quality batteries?" I ask myself - for the last 3 months!.

[clough42]

I trimmed the tail feathers again. This time, I broke the tail pitch slider. That's four gnarly landings in the last 24 after nearly a year of having no trouble. Two of them on concrete. I'm starting to wonder if the ZYX doesn't like baby auto landings. I never had any trouble before the upgrade.

Either that or I'm just a bad pilot. That's a distinct possibility.

[Windmanquebec]

It's been a while since I flew. If you read my story on page 100
https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=336640&page=100
you know that I was waithig for my new (used) 450. After I got it I did upgraded the cyclic servos to HS-65MG. I rebuild the head because it was build from the previous owner as a mirror image of what it was suppose to be. It wouldn't affect the flight characteristic but I like the thing done properly. I did also rebuild the tail to make sure locktite was every where needed.

Time passed by, I went away in vacation and no time for the heli.

But today I did the maiden flight to check if everything was ok before installing "another set" of co-pilot2.

The head on this one has the fly-bar cage all alu and the grip also. Combine with cheap ($3) fiberglass (I removed the provided carbon blade and paddle for when I'll be more experienced) it flew pretty good vibration-free and tracking was right on ( I hate the wooden blade for tracking).

I just had to adjust the front and left collective link one turn each to shortened them.Now it hover level.

I had to adjust the gyro gain because the tail was wiggling. I had that cured, but the tail is moving slowly left. Is it because I whent to far with the gain , should I come back a bit?

[spykez]

Slow left tail drift = slow right nose drift. Hmm.. Check the trims, then check for vibes.

[Windmanquebec]

Originally Posted by spykez

Slow left tail drift = slow right nose drift. Hmm.. Check the trims, then check for vibes.

Vibrations look good, when you say trims, you mean to add rudder trim ? I thought I read somewhere that we should never use rudder trim !!!

[spykez]

Exactly, sometimes you accidentally may bump the rudder trim. If you have a DX8 you can program out the trim steps to 0, to avoid inadvertently adding trim.

[jimmanyk]

We pressed our noses on the window from six this morning, the trees giving us an over enthusiastic wave!, wishing those "teen herberts" yesterday evening were not camped on our flying field!.

[Coorslite]

Destroyed mine! Flew three packs working on my inverted circuits and everything was looking good...got too comfortable on the last pack, went beyond my skill level and it went down hard! I had the Tarot DFC links and it completely broke one of those...blades, frame, main shaft, feathering shaft, gears, and one of the blade grips is toast...Not too bad I dont guess...However, never broke a frame so this will be interesting breaking the bird all the way down! I havent crashed in a longg time, so I was due a good wreck soon now that Im in the inverted phase!

[jimmanyk]

Waved back at the trees!.

[Jherison]

Installed the aluminum seesaw with new bearings, old plastic tube was worn and did not fit snug with the flybar anymore. New part eliminated a good mm of slop. Next will be the slop in the pivots on the grips.

Also pre-ordered a baby brother for the 450, a Nano CPX. Thing is smaller than my mcx2, except the rotor (1/4)" bigger. Full blown cp heli. That will be my trainer away from the sim.

[Epoweredrc]

put two more flights on my FBL one, not a great sky but still had fun.
Does anyone else's swash move some? its like you grab it and can move side to side just a lil bit not sure the pillow ball is wearing out or what or is this normal, i just never noticed
thanks

[hemp]

Originally Posted by Epoweredrc

Does anyone else's swash move some? its like you grab it and can move side to side just a lil bit not sure the pillow ball is wearing out or what or is this normal, i just never noticed

Swash should not move against the shaft (other than sliding up/down.) Not sure, but I would guess the plastic is wearing out around the bearing race. In any case, I'd suggest replacing the swashplate; and be sure to grease the bearings.

[InFocus]

Originally Posted by Epoweredrc

put two more flights on my FBL one, not a great sky but still had fun.
Does anyone else's swash move some? its like you grab it and can move side to side just a lil bit not sure the pillow ball is wearing out or what or is this normal, i just never noticed
thanks

Yes, I've worn out swashes on the B450. I even had the aluminum 'upgrade' one and it wore out even faster than the stock plastic ones. The result was alot of slop in the head, and I think contributed to some vibrations. The slop developed everywhere, the pillow bearing to shaft, pillow bearing to top swash, and top swash to bottom swash bearing.

For me, what I think contributed to the excessive wear was I was using Align size balls with the Tarot ball links (which are also Align sized), just for the 2 washout arms. These were really really stiff. I thought they would free up a bit over time, but instead I think it just put extra stress on all the bearings and wore stuff out fast.

I then switched back to using the B450 sized balls, and put the B450 ball link ends on the Tarot washout arms. This was much more free, and my latest swash (the plastic one) is lasting much longer.

[IanWhitehead65]

Hi,

I was given some CF tail blades and I found they were out of balance causing all sorts of problems so I gave up on them. Anyways, last night I gave them another go and their balance was not so far out after all. At about 40-50% throttle with main blades removed, the rudder pushrod started to vibrate and become "invisible". I did not increase the speed above 50% without the main blades incase it over reved and threw a tail blade.

I put them on the blade balancer (went straight onto my 100-120 heli main blade balancer) and one side was slightly lower then the other. It did not seem like much but it was a little worse than the stock blades. I took a piece of fine "wet and dry" paper and used it to lightly sand the trailing edge of the heavy blade. I could not see anythnig coming off the blade but I could see the dust forming on the paper. Did this a few times on the leading and trailing edge until the balance was perfect. Put them back onto the heli and run it up to 50% and the pushrod remaind stable and the vibes were minimal.

I used a 600 grit wet and dry paper which is very fine and it left the CF almost polished so it was hard to see I had sanded them. Did not take off much material - in fact it was so little as to not seem important - but it was obviously enough to make a big difference to vibes.

I was reluctant to add tape to the light blade as I was concerned it would creep along the blade and come off. Never had any luck balancing tail blades this way so taking material off the heavy blade seemed the only way.

From the safety perspective, I only took off a very small amount of material and believe I only removed the epoxy binder and did not get as far as the CF webbing so I do not believe I would have compromised the blades integrity. If anybody else is considering this they will need to carefully consider if they are taking off too much material and getting into the CF webbing.

So I am pleased that I have successfully balanced my first set of tail blades.

Cheers, Ibs

[Epoweredrc]

Thanks for info bout swash time to get a new one the heli be down for while got get new tail servo mine acting funny but cojld be from vibration from swash

Sent from my ZTE-Z990G using Tapatalk 2

[Nathan89]

brought a new one to day will use old one as a doner till i replace main frame.

hovered in lounge room to trim in ready for maidan flight in the morning : )

[Jherison]

2 flights at dusk, about to recharge and put the night blades on when the Mosquitos decided to change my plans.

The only good thing about winter months, no bugs!

[FuntanaS]

My B450 is now retired. I am putting all of the electronics into a Tarot 450 Pro FBL kit. It's kinda sad to strip her but the Tarot is a sweet heli. I put close to 800 flights on the B450.