It's not if, it's when

[kpod]

I've had around 200 trouble free flights out of this guy. Recently, I've been flying it slow headspeed on 4s at 100% tc and it was very docile and laid back flying. Today, I wanted to try out my new dinogy 1500 6s battery so reprogrammed the esc, setup and tweaked the robird governor, and tweaked the tail settings and the tail hold was perfect and power was ridiculous relative to 4s. Well, it was way faster than last time I flew it and I dumb thumbed it straight to the ground.

Questions for you guys:

Would you fly this battery again? It doesn't appear to have puffed but it definitely pushed in the top leading edge.

Would you fly these blades? They are perfect except for the dent on the bottom side that you can see in the picture. I was thinking about putting some thin ca on it and keep flying them.

The rest of the damage was feathering shaft, both main grips, canopy, and boom. Not too bad considering how hard the impact was.

My esc with caps facing down in the nose was unharmed. One cap was slightly bent and the esc was pushed in to where the motor wires were touching the belt.

My other thought is that I've been dying to try the x3. It might be time to put one together and move my electronics over to it.

[Aryemis]

Well that makes two of us, I just dumb thumbed mine to the ground this afternoon
So far it looks like I've broken the blades and the blade grips (also lost one long ball of the blade grips). The spindle is probably bent as well but the main shaft looks fine. The canopy grommets stayed on the canopy mounts, the canopy did not ; but i'm gonna change canopy anyways, this one is all banged up from the two prevous crashes !

This heli is really a tank !

Oh and I'm not too sad about the blades, they were KBDD 325 orange blades, they looked awesome but were waaaay too heavy for my liking, and for the 3S motor.
I had to put my cyclic settings way up on the SK540 (near max settings) and it still didn't match the agility I had on the MSH blades.

And anyway i was planning on going 6S stretch, and this is the perfect excuse
Still not sure if i'll go align 360's or RJX vector 360's.

As for your lipo, keep it somewhere safe for 24H, and if it hasn't done anything suspicious, it should be fine; just check that you have no dead cell.

For the blades one of them looks fine, but the usual check is to try to bend them, and if it makes crunching noises throw it away.

[scott s]

Hard to tell from the photo but that dent in the lipo does not look like it even got into the cells at all?

[Russell Harding]

I'd keep a close eye on the charging/balancing, resting, and after flight voltages of the battery. If it is similar to other batteries (for me within 0.025V) for a few cycles I'd probably not worry about it.

+1 on bending the blades. Any softness or crunching reveals internal damage. Epoxy is probably better than CA for stabilizing.

[kpod]

I'll check the blades and keep an eye on the battery.

I've decided not to try the x3 yet and get the mini back in the air. It truly was flying perfect right before the crash. I have spare shafts so I just ordered blade grips and 2 stretched booms. Oh yeah, and a $40 canopy. That is redicoulous but I really like the stocker. The funny thing is right before the flight I noticed some minor cracking at the holes on the canopy and was pissed that it wasn't perfect anymore.

[dr dremel]

Doesn´t CA eat the foam these blades are filled with? +2 for the bend test otherwise.

And on a side note: Crashed my MiniP 2x yesterday. Luckily both times skids first, blades unscathed despite the 2nd impact ripped off the LG and broke the boom supports. 2 zipties later I finished my remaining packs.

kpod are you out of zipties or why would you look at the X3?

[kpod]

Tried but the zip ties dont seem to hold the links on the grips.

Mini p is awesome but x3 has its pluses as well. I want them both.

[scott s]

Originally Posted by kpod

Tried but the zip ties dont seem to hold the links on the grips.

Mini p is awesome but x3 has its pluses as well. I want them both.

What?? zip ties to hold landing gear on in an emergency but links to grips. What the heck are you thinking about?
3sx and you will reduce crashes by 98% and all related costs!!
Local shop owner and excellent pilot loves how the x3 flies but it crashed like crapola. Sold his!! I think the x3 is the worst of the gaui line up at the moment and the x5 is still top notch but they still have not fixed issues with first generation x3 kits. But like them all, time may introduce improvements but gaui record is pretty poor for changing anything in reasonable time!
Just my opinion!

[kpod]

Just kidding about zip ties.

[dr dremel]

LOL @ zipties on the bladegrips. Should be easy to get the tracking right.

Regarding the X3, it is an interesting heli as is the Forza. They have all have their pros/cons, it´s just that in my experience the MiniP is easy to rebuild, spares are cheap and it will fly like before after a rebuild. That being said if I´d have the time/space my fleet would definitly be larger.

40 bucks for the original canopy is a bit steep indeed. I ordered a blank fusuno a while back (10€) as a beater canopy but it´s horrible quality and I really prefer the original paint scheme.

[BHChieftain]

Me personally, I would not mess around with any damaged blades... I like to at least have the chance to auto a bird down if something fails mid flight!

Chief

[kpod]

Ill probanly pass on the x3 and save to go larger. Im liking the size of the goblin 570 and the look ok the silver and white.

There really is nothing like the mini p though. I want a max but its way out of budget right now.

[rdlohr]

Sorry to see time caught up with you. It gets us all.

I wouldn't fly that one blade with the dent either. Hopefully the cells are OK. They look OK but time will tell.

Rick

[HeliSmith]

If I want extra assurance the battery is ok I will charge it up then discharge it some so I can check the cell voltages to make sure they are all close still. I always use a cell gauge checker anyways this allows me to see that the cells are not drifting apart.. I've never had a problem being extremely careful although there is risk to playing with dented lipos I am sure

[kpod]

The blades dont crack when bent and the battery balances and charges fine.

Ive got edge 353 blades but I like the align 360's more.

[Russell Harding]

The align blades are great except the part that says ALIGN on it.

Yes, I'm a snob when it comes to my mini.

[sp00fman]

It would be pretty easy to sand the tips a bit and spray it white over the brandname..I would

[rdlohr]

[kpod]

I finally started to fix it today and found out I broke a main bearing block too. I just went ahead and stripped it down and will do a complete rebuild.

[kpod]

Finally got it in the air today. I about forgot how ridiculously overpowered this thing was. It makes my 12s 600 feel tame.