Align T-Rex 550E vs. Blade 550X vs. Synergy E5

[jimmy77611]

I don't understand how to go above the castle recommended limits. When you put in an acceptable value, it says "use whatever% throttle curve", but when it's in the yellow or red it doesn't tell you what throttle curve percentage to use. How will it work?

[taoY]

Originally Posted by tomatwalden

I would put in one word of caution with the Synergy. IIRC, my two friends who had that heli had to do some interesting dremelling on their motor shafts to get them to fit properly. Don't know the details, but didn't sound like a perfect first build ...

Details please.

[jhamel]

Originally Posted by taoY

Details please.

I believe he is talking about cutting off motor shaft excess, so that the motor shaft does not come in contact with the Lipos in the Synergy E5.

This is how long the 40mm long KDE-1100 motor shaft protrudes into the Lipo battery compartment. This pic is using a large 40C 5A Lipo.


I left the motor shaft intact.

[taoY]

Thanks John as always.
This is compatibility issue not the heli design issue. All heli with motor mounted this way has this potential issue if the motor shaft is too long.

Thanks again

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 4

[jhamel]

Originally Posted by Nelsonisms

You've got that right. Of course it's been spread out over many months, but I'm scared to do the math to figure out how much I've actually spent upgrading my two "BNF" Blades.

I hear you. Not counting the cost of gasoline to and from the fields, I have spent $28,982.36 in this hobby since January 2011.

Originally Posted by Nelsonisms

I hadn't really considered anything other than Align or Blade in the 550 class. Mostly because I'm a creature of convenience and want a company I know will be around for a long time and will not take a lot of time and effort to track down parts for. I don't want a situation like the Outrage Fusion 50 where the future has been uncertain or the KDS Innova 550 where the dealer relationships just aren't there yet.

But the Synergy E5 does look like a real nice ship and a worthy contender. I notice that both HeliDirect and AMain (among a few others) stock and sell parts for them along with a fairly long list of US dealers. You've definitely given me another option to consider.

Even the cheaper clone helicopters will fly inverted and do loops and rolls. You don't need to spend a lot of money to get you flying and have fun.

To me, I look for overall user experience and ownership satisfaction over time. These are some general criteria I use before purchasing a helicopter:

1) Online Manual. I consider that the manual and updates should be readily available online. With Align, the manual is a mystery. The manuals are not readily available from the company. The scanned copies circulating are not necessarily up to date. The T-Rex 550 manual has had over 10 revisions over the past two years alone. To have a meaningful discussion about the manual, one needs to include the date revision. Even if you purchase a brand new T-Rex helicopter, there is no guarantee that the manual in the box is the most up to date manual. I find this issue very frustrating.

Except for Align, most other helicopter manufacturers have the helicopter manuals readily available online.

2) Parts availability. Despite parts been backordered frequently, I would say parts are equally available for either the Align and Blade helicopters. I have not had any issues getting parts for the Synergy's.

3) Replacement parts. Align has too many editions to the parts, and it is not always easy to figure out the correct part you need. Most other helicopter manuals to include Blade's and Synergy's include part numbers, so one can easily identify the correct replacement part. Getting the proper replacement Align part can be frustrating and time consuming experience.

4) Forum Support. I have had questions on every single helicopter kit I've put together. Horizon Hobby support is limited, as they don't seem to have much knowledge beyond the written product specs or the product manual. Align seems to have more knowledgable folks supporting the Align products. However, one should be able to obtain answers from either helicopter in the forums. Synergy is really nice in this regard, as it has its own website forum with support from both Matt Botos (owner) and team pilots. Miniature Aircraft offers by far the best support, as you can get on the phone with the product designers and engineers, but MA does not make 550 size helicopters.

5) Vendors: I like to have multiple options for vendors. That's one of the reasons I have stayed away from Logo's and "beautique" helicopters. Blade, Align, and Synergy have multiple vendors' support.

[Nelsonisms]

Originally Posted by jimmy77611

I don't understand how to go above the castle recommended limits. When you put in an acceptable value, it says "use whatever% throttle curve", but when it's in the yellow or red it doesn't tell you what throttle curve percentage to use. How will it work?

It's always 30, 70 & 100 for "set RPM" mode...those are the three slots regardless of what "desired head speed" values are configured or what is displayed to the right of the boxes. In actuality they are more of a range, but remembering 30, 70, 100 is much easier.

From the help text in the software....

Set RPM Governor Mode
Fixed RPM will allow you to set 3 distinct head speeds that you would like to use. Simply enter the head speed and some vehicle setup information and Castle-Link will do all of the work to set up the controller for you. The first head speed is used for throttle inputs between 1.1ms and 1.5ms (up to 50% throttle). The middle head speed is used for throttle inputs between 1.5ms and 2.0ms (between 50% and 99% throttle). The last head speed is used for throttle inputs greater than 2.0ms (greater than 99% throttle).

You can see the % of output for each slot by clicking the "info" button and viewing the pop-up window. In "simple mode" it just waits for the throttle to lock in at a fixed postion for more than 1.5 seconds and locks on to that RPM. For the other modes (governor low, high) it calculates a dynamic percentage to achieve a given head speed, but I don't know why anyone would want to use either of them over "set rpm" mode.

What you're describing is just a limitation of the way the label controls were implemented in the GUI of the CastleLink desktop application. They probably should have put a another label on them for the throttle positions in addition to the label used to display the other informational text. I see how they thought it was a good idea since they have a few different governor modes with differing information and just tried to reuse the same fields to save space. It's just a goofy software design in that regard (at least that's my opinion as a software developer.)

[Nelsonisms]

Originally Posted by taoY

Thanks John as always.
This is compatibility issue not the heli design issue. All heli with motor mounted this way has this potential issue if the motor shaft is too long.

Thank you John and Tao

This all makes sense and believe me I understand that different components from different manufactures going into a custom built heli may or may not require some "fitting". That kind of thing doesn't scare me in the least.

John, I appreciate the time you put into detailing your guidelines. I will certainly keep all that in mind.

[Atomic Skull]

Originally Posted by johnahamelv

but MA does not make 550 size helicopters.

The Furion 6 is a belt drive though and it would be a simple matter to do a DIY Raptor 30 job to it and cut 5CM off the boom and put a shorter belt on it.

[jhamel]

Originally Posted by Nelsonisms

Another question I have concerns the helical pinions...

Although helical gear systems are nice, as they tend to run much quieter than straight cut gears, not every helicopter is designed to handle them properly. The helical pinion system benefits from a pinion support bearing. This pinion support bearing serves two purposes. One purpose is to keep the motor shaft from canting away from the main gear and thus keep the pinion spinning true and maintain a proper gear mesh. The other purpose of the pinion support bearing is to have the helical pinion rest against the bearing, and minimize the axial load that would otherwise be handled by the motor bearings, and cause premature wear on these motor bearings.

Ideally, the main gear should also be supported by two bearings blocks; one above and one below the main gear. This 2-bearing block design is better able to maintain the main gear running true and maintain a more consistent pinion-gear mesh.

The T-Rex 550 has a legacy design that does not have either a pinion support bearing nor a bearing block below the main gear. This is the reason why Patrick (owner of KDE) does not recommend helical gears on the T-Rex 550.

[Atomic Skull]

Helical gears on helicopters are just a gimmick like DFC. Spur gears actually have slightly more efficient power transfer than helical due to increased friction on helical gears due to sliding contact between the teeth.

[koppterx]

it's not a gimmick if it produces a benefit, which they do. and yes, helical gears do generate more friction but that does not result in a measurable degradation of performance.

[Atomic Skull]

Originally Posted by koppterx

it's not a gimmick if it produces a benefit, which they do. and yes, helical gears do generate more friction but that does not result in a measurable degradation of performance.

The only benefit is noise reduction though. And they generate axial thrust which will increase wear on radial bearings. You could design a motor mount with thrust bearings and have thrust bearings as stock on the mainshaft but then I think you are adding more complexity than the noise reduction is actually worth.

[jhamel]

Lets assume you have a well designed helical gear system; a mechanical system where the main gear is beefy, enjoys bearing block support both above and below, and spins true without wobble, and is matched with a similarly highly quality hardened metal CNC pinion that spins over a pinion support bearing. A helical gear system that maintains a consistent gear mesh.

Any negative issues with this helical gear system design compared to the more traditional straight cut gear system?

[koppterx]

having somewhat of a background in both statistics and science I tend to be leery of
'it's better" claims absent real data. these are toy helicopters, not f1 race cars, and i tend to rely more on empirical data (of which there are plenty of helical 550s out there) than theoretical assertions.

[Atomic Skull]

Here's an interesting idea. Use a skew gear and have the motor stick out the side. Or one motor on each side coupled to shaft through the pinion.

Engranajes helicoidales cruzados (0 min 20 sec)