detail photo brushless upgrade guide

[coredump]

I just did an upgrade for my buddy's mcpx v2, exactly the same setup as mine.
I really thing this M5 motor complete the mcpx. It is much more powerful
than stock motor. Works with stock tail and smaller battery. It can do pretty
much all the 3D maneuver. https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=384245
It works with V2 as well.

Because it is the second time I did this upgrade. Now I can make the process
better.

Here is the parts:

M5 motor
XP-7A ESC
AEO converter
8T pinion


There are many different way to do it. Here is how I did it.
First thing is put the pinion on the M5 motor. Because the M5 shaft is only 1mm,
it is very easy to bend. I drill a 1.5mm hole on a wood board. Put the wood board
on the back of the pinion, then use the vise to press the pinion on the shaft.
Let the shaft go into the hole in the other end.

[coredump]

Next is make room for the M5 motor to fit in the stock frame.
I take off the left and the right side of the servo.
Here is the compare picture of stock frame before and after the mod.
When the motor is mount on the frame, the motor should not touch
the frame.

[coredump]

Then we solder the ESC and converter.
The ESC comes with the plug & play plug. I prefer direct solder so I just
take those out. I found out those square foam pad is perfect size to mount
the AEO converter on top of the ESC. The AEO converter has a red led,
I like to expose the LED so you can see it during the fly.

[coredump]

Connecting the converter red power line to the middle spot of the ESC servo connection
pad. Then the black line to the lower spot. Finally the signal line in the top spot.
I just get rid of the middle two blue line of the converter, those are for tail motor
conversion. Now the ESC+converter should have one yellow line hanging out.
That need to connect to the mcpx board for main motor signals.

Flip the ESC over. Reconnect the battery adapter, and connect the motor wire
to the ESC.

Now test the ESC and motor is right direction. Connect a battery to the plug.
The ESC will make the motor have some initial tune. The red LED should start
blinking.

Touch the motor signal wire to the positive power will give the ESC full throttle.
Make sure you hold the motor properly in hand. I run out of hands to hold motor
and take picture at the same time.

You want the motor turn clock wise when you looking at the pinion. If it turn
counter clock wise, unsolder and switch any two motor wire.

Now you should have the ESC+convert+motor ready.

[coredump]

Now connect the ESC+converter+motor to the mcpx 3 in 1 board.
Again, using the foam pad to mount the ESC to the 3 in 1. You want the
converter LED facing out.

==== Edit for programming ESC ================

Skip this part if you don't need to program your ESC.

If you want to program the ESC. You need to have the heli
bind to the TX first before power on the ESC. So solder the
yellow signal wire guide by the next post. Then solder
the male battery plug in the front of the 3 in 1. Just the same
spot as the where the ESC power line is going to connect.

Now you can power on the heli first. Wait until the heli bind
to the TX then connect the male plug to the ESC battery plug.
That should able to get you into the programing mode.

Sorry I don't have a picture of doing the ESC programing.

========================================

Cut the ESC battery plug. Solder the ESC power line to the 3 in 1
power line in the front of the board.

Connect the battery to 3 in 1 to verify the ESC power line solder
correctly. The ESC should initialed with tune and red LED on converter
should come up with the blue LED in 3 in 1 board.

Again, if you connect the yellow line to the positive power, the motor
should turn in full throttle.

Almost there. Just one more soldering to do.

[coredump]

Now connect the yellow wire to the 3 in 1 main motor signal.
The spot is very small. It might take a few try.

Then the soldering work is done! Just put the servo back.

[coredump]

finishing the job.

[CousinLarry]

**THANK YOU FOR THIS!!**

I just ordered those same components, I know this is going to come in handy... Thanks again!

[maarset]

Really Nice Job! Great Pics!

[c3hutson]

Props... I was going to do this with my install but got lazy/anxious

[coredump]

I add a section in the original post for programing the ESC.

[rubyvroom]

well done.

my question is for the volt meter crowd around here (liftbag/roffey/others).

here is my observation/question:

as in the photos here, i also powered my ESC by taking a lead off the 3in1 from the front where the battery leads can be seen to terminate, keeping the stock battery leads intact. however after studying the wiring i started to wonder, would it not provide a better/strong current to the motor if i connected the battery directly to the ESC, which in a brushless config, now powers the main motor directly anyway and bares the brunt of the load?

my thinking is the 3in1 is an obstacle for the current flowing to the motor. in addition this allows me to take the existing 3in1 batter leads, shorten them and soldier those directly to the ESC avoid the nasty task of heating up the 3in1 to the point where i can get a solid connection/soldier to those batt terminals AND at the same time actually provide a more direct batt-ESC-brushless relationship all in one shot.

hopeful outcome:
1) less soldiering (1 less connection)
2) easier soldiering (no need to heat the entire board up since you avoid tapping into that batt connection point which is a bitch to heat up)
3) less 3in1 modification (just a light touch with the iron for the linear throttle touch connection)
4) reduces risk of damage to the 3in1 (i knocked off the micro resistors near the batt connection when i did my first mod and the .5mm distance between pos & neg is also annoying)
5) more efficient and more elegant power delivery to the main motor

the only downside i can see is visually - it is so tempting to tap into the 3in1 main batt point to clean up the build visually, but in my opinion, this is NOT the most lovely looking electronics package anyway and i think what i am suggesting is more electrically efficient and therefor more elegant in that non-obvious way that makes me smile.

input? did i miss something?

[fjack64]

Nice write up Coredump, Did you have any issues with the V2 board I've read some posts its hard to convert brushless on the V2 board shakes and vibes. With your set up looks like its working good with no problems. Let us know Thanks.

Fjack64

[coredump]

Solder to the ESC directly sure will work. Some of my other heli does that
in the pass. I chose not to do so in the MCPX mod for a few reasons. I will
comment those with your outcome:

1) Yes, one less soldering. But the male battery plug cable might be too
short to place the ESC in the bottom.
2) Yes in a degree. I only need to heat that spot for less than 2 seconds.
Not the whole board.
3) Yes.
4) Yes. But if you are going to solder the motor signal part, I assume
you can take care they solder in the back.
5) Not really. The cable is short and very strong. It is from the battery
plug. There is no where close to be the bottle neck. The battery plug
are more likely the bottle neck there. There is zero user noticeable
performance different. If we do a double blind test, I did not let you see
how I connect the battery cable, your way vs my way, you can't tell by just
flying the heli. I am pretty sure that is just make you feel good because
you think you do some micro optimization here.


OK, now the reason I did not chose to do it that way, mainly is cleanness
and robustness .

1) I don't like the power cable cross the edge of the 3 in 1 board.
It looks not clean. It has some risk the board cut into the power line
at a very bad crash. So I want to avoid cable cross over the board edge
if possible.

2) robustness.
Notice the ESC doesn't have a good mount on the 3 in 1. It is stick on by
some double side sticker. In the bad crash, the battery can fly out the
battery mount and pull the ESC out of the 3 in 1 board. It will likely
cause more damage than my way which did not change the stock battery
cable.

3) If you pay attention to the stock battery cable, notice they have some white
rubber on the back of the 3 in 1 cable where battery cable connect to the board?
It is there for a reason, that is because, people often pull the battery board
by hand pretty hard. If the cable solder to a solid spot, the spot cable come
out of the 3 in 1 board will get stress repeatedly. That is why those white
rubber is there.

if you connect the battery directly to the ESC, you will not have this benefit.
Over long period of time, the battery cable will likely break off from where it
connect to the ESC. It happen to my other heli mods, I learn to avoid it.

Originally Posted by rubyvroom

well done.

as in the photos here, i also powered my ESC by taking a lead off the 3in1 from the front where the battery leads can be seen to terminate, keeping the stock battery leads intact. however after studying the wiring i started to wonder, would it not provide a better/strong current to the motor if i connected the battery directly to the ESC, which in a brushless config, now powers the main motor directly anyway and bares the brunt of the load?

my thinking is the 3in1 is an obstacle for the current flowing to the motor. in addition this allows me to take the existing 3in1 batter leads, shorten them and soldier those directly to the ESC avoid the nasty task of heating up the 3in1 to the point where i can get a solid connection/soldier to those batt terminals AND at the same time actually provide a more direct batt-ESC-brushless relationship all in one shot.

hopeful outcome:
1) less soldiering (1 less connection)
2) easier soldiering (no need to heat the entire board up since you avoid tapping into that batt connection point which is a bitch to heat up)
3) less 3in1 modification (just a light touch with the iron for the linear throttle touch connection)
4) reduces risk of damage to the 3in1 (i knocked off the micro resistors near the batt connection when i did my first mod and the .5mm distance between pos & neg is also annoying)
5) more efficient and more elegant power delivery to the main motor

the only downside i can see is visually - it is so tempting to tap into the 3in1 main batt point to clean up the build visually, but in my opinion, this is NOT the most lovely looking electronics package anyway and i think what i am suggesting is more electrically efficient and therefor more elegant in that non-obvious way that makes me smile.

input? did i miss something?

[coredump]

My heli seem fly fine with the V2 board, I do get some vib from time to time.
Even wit the stock I do get them. The vib is cause by the servo in my case.
I need to clean them every 20 flight or so. I keep my heli head in perfect
shape so I don't have much problem with the upgrade itself.

With my buddy's V2, during the test flight. It shake and vibrate pretty bad.
My buddy claims that it is all fine with stock motor. So I take try to get it not worse
than stock. I did some very careful detective work on the heli.
His heli head has noticeable vib and the blade is not tracking well.
I found a very slightly bend on the feathering shaft. Replacing the feathering
shaft improve the tracking. Balance he blade also helps to keep the vibration
in the head down.

Now the heli can take off and trace the blade reasonable well (still not 100%
tracking). Heli still have shaking from time to time. Then I learn that his heli
has never clean the servo, ever. It has been about 100 flights since he gets
it. So cleaning the servo it is. That did get rid of the shakes in the up right
flight. My buddy does not do 3D flight so he is pretty happy about the heli
now.

He get so excited and he flight his heli into my heli, which is parking on the
ground in the back of the pilot line.
Then both heli are down. My heli is damage very bad because the motor
did not start at all. It just take the hit of the flying heli. Replace main shaft,
hub, blade grip and new blades and feathering shaft. Pretty much the
whole head. However, I still haven't able to get my heli track 100%. The tracking
is still off by a little similar to his heli now. Really hate that happen. Oh well.

Here is a video of my heli today, after the repair. The head is not as good as
before.It do flip fine. I can get it to TBO if I set pitch limit to 75%. If I set it to
70% it is pertty hard to get into TBO. However it is very windy now so I need
the pitch to flight the wind. Doing normal slow maneuver is fine.

Here is a video I just take this morning. I am still learning 3D so not much
interesting maneuver to see.

Originally Posted by fjack64

Nice write up Coredump, Did you have any issues with the V2 board I've read some posts its hard to convert brushless on the V2 board shakes and vibes. With your set up looks like its working good with no problems. Let us know Thanks.

Fjack64

[fjack64]

Originally Posted by coredump

My heli seem fly fine with the V2 board, I do get some vib from time to time.
Even wit the stock I do get them. The vib is cause by the servo in my case.
I need to clean them every 20 flight or so. I keep my heli head in perfect
shape so I don't have much problem with the upgrade itself.

With my buddy's V2, during the test flight. It shake and vibrate pretty bad.
My buddy claims that it is all fine with stock motor. So I take try to get it not worse
than stock. I did some very careful detective work on the heli.
His heli head has noticeable vib and the blade is not tracking well.
I found a very slightly bend on the feathering shaft. Replacing the feathering
shaft improve the tracking. Balance he blade also helps to keep the vibration
in the head down.

Now the heli can take off and trace the blade reasonable well (still not 100%
tracking). Heli still have shaking from time to time. Then I learn that his heli
has never clean the servo, ever. It has been about 100 flights since he gets
it. So cleaning the servo it is. That did get rid of the shakes in the up right
flight. My buddy does not do 3D flight so he is pretty happy about the heli
now.

He get so excited and he flight his heli into my heli, which is parking on the
ground in the back of the pilot line.
Then both heli are down. My heli is damage very bad because the motor
did not start at all. It just take the hit of the flying heli. Replace main shaft,
hub, blade grip and new blades and feathering shaft. Pretty much the
whole head. However, I still haven't able to get my heli track 100%. The tracking
is still off by a little similar to his heli now. Really hate that happen. Oh well.

Here is a video of my heli today, after the repair. The head is not as good as
before.It do flip fine. I can get it to TBO if I set pitch limit to 75%. If I set it to
70% it is pertty hard to get into TBO. However it is very windy now so I need
the pitch to flight the wind. Doing normal slow maneuver is fine.

Here is a video I just take this morning. I am still learning 3D so not much
interesting maneuver to see.

Thanks for posting your results. This conversion does look and flys really good I will try this soon as I get the V2 board I can't see very well what version is your V2 in the pics.

[coredump]

Thanks. I think the M5 motor with extended tail is pretty sweet for basic
3D. I learn a lot more on this heli than I ever did on the 2 450 I got. It is
much cheaper too.

both BL upgrade are done on the V2 1.3 board.

[GParker]

Very nice!!! I can't wait for my skills to progress to this level. I am converting to Spin 16500kv brushless next week.

[superjet112x]

Very nice

[websjk]

I went from a M5 to the Spin 16300 and wow, what a difference. It is unbelievable. I just need to improve my flying skills now. The difference is amazing. Had to change my setup a little. May try a 8 tooth on it instead of the 9 tooth. Not sure I needed the extra head speed. But now I can do things I could not do with the M5.