After reading some forum posts on RCgroups, I found that a few people were running 3 cell Lipo packs on their E-Razor 250s, I figured since I had a 3 cell pack laying around from the old Walkera 22e, that I would give it a shot.

I soldered a spare JST connector to the pack from the 22e and gave it a whirl (literally).

Results?  WOW the increased head speed was immediately noticed, the heli was loads more stable and responsive.   After about an 8 minute flight, the pack was getting low so I shut her down to make some post flight checks.  The ESC and brushless motor were cool to the touch and everything seemed to be fine.

I am going to be looking for some 3-cell packs for a good price now, I was honestly shocked at how well the little FP heli flew on 3 cells!  Domo Approved (as you can see).

Oh yeah, I also fixed the Novus FP, I put a new tail boom on her and she flies great!

Last weekend when we went to the field to fly (and crash) *see the previous post* Duraplanes, I brought the Dynam E-Razor 250 Heli with me.  After cleaning up the fixed wing birds, I figured I would give the little electric helicopter a go in the light winds we had.

Here is a vid my Dad shot with his Snap Video cam.

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So with today’s weather being almost 50 and clear, I figured it would be a great day to check out the field for some Duraplane flying.  I loaded up the old Dodge and headed out.

After much persuasion, I got the GMS 76 started on the newest “Franken Plane” and took her for some flights.   Once again (as expected) the engine just would not stay running while in flight, and I ended up having 5 dead stick landings.  Luckily the Dura-plane is, well… durable, and can take hard landings (not that I had any ).

Later, Dad showed up and we did the maiden flight of his newest tail-dragger Dura-plane.  After about 6 successful flights, between Dad and I, on approach for a touch and go the receiver battery went dead and the plane hit a fence post pretty hard.  Luckily the damage was limited to the prop and fuselage (easily replaceable).

Here is a pic to give you an idea of the carnage!

I received 2 new batteries I found on Ebay today: 600mah Lipos for the Novus FP or Walkera 4#3 as some would call it.  On the third charge I crashed pretty hard into the coffee table and snapped the tail boom.  Luckily I have a spare boom but didn’t really feel like fixing it tonight, seeing as I have to de and re-solder the tail motor wires to replace the tail boom.

Anyhow, here is a pic of the broken bird:

Seeing as the weather has been absolute crap lately, and entirely “airplane unfriendly” I have been doing some serious messing around with electric helicopters,  if you read below you saw the Novus FP and the Walkera 22e.

Arriving today was the E-Razor 250 by Dynam RC  (china product!).

Right out of the box I was impressed with this little heli,  I opted for the 250 size being that I wanted a smaller heli, there is a 450 which is a more traditional size but I enjoy the small ones. It has very nice components, to mention a few we have: CNC aluminum head, tail and swashplate parts.  Everything else is plastic/carbon fiber.

Upon charging the included 850mah 2cell Lipo (7.4v) I went over the heli to make sure everything was good to go.  I found a loose screw on the pulley that runs the belt that spins the tail rotor.  Small fix but still annoying.

Then upon powering up the heli for the first time, I noticed a VERY distinctive wobble in the head somewhere… originally thinking something was out of balance, I was very upset to find that the entire head itself would wobble about 1/8th inch back and forth when you spun the main rotors by hand.  Upon closer inspection, it was very obvious that the main shaft was BENT!  Yes.. the shaft that the entire power system runs on, the head/swashplate/main gear/tail pulley was BENT AT THE TOP!

Needless to say I was extremely upset by this, so I called Nitroplanes “tech” support.  First off calling these guys takes about 20 mins of waiting in a “queue” for someone to answer, finally when you get someone you have to convince them that there is a problem with the product.  The rep first tried to make me take apart the entire head and remove the main shaft and as he put it “roll on your desk” to see if it was indeed bent.  I refused and told him the wobble was so prevalent and that I could visually see that the shaft was indeed bent.  After some more convincing the rep put in an order to send out a new main shaft.  So I should be receiving that next week.

After some more inspection I was pretty much ready to give it a go (yeah I know, I shouldn’t fly a heli with a bent main shaft but I couldn’t resist!) I decided to try in my office near the break area and noticed right off the bat that this heli is very twitchy and agile, definitely a 3-D machine (if I ever get that good!).  After a few flights I decided to pack up and go home for some more inspection/flight.

Back at home in the garage I immediately took apart the head and removed the main shaft.  Finding that when I rolled it on my workbench you could easily hear/see the bend.  It turns out the shaft was about 1/16th of an inch bent at the top 1/3rd.  I tried to bend it back as best as I could, I got it pretty close and re-installed it in the heli.  After about 3 more battery packs worth of flight, I was pretty satisfied with my repair job.   No the wobble isnt entirely gone, but its much better than it was and the heli responded well to the change.   I cant wait to get the new shaft installed, as it should make a huge difference.

Other than those 2 things I am fairly pleased with the heli, it has a very nice computer radio that is easy to figure out and extremely high quality components on the heli itself.

I will post more as I get a better feel for this new little bird!

I brought the Walkera 22e to my father’s house on X-mas so I could show him first hand how well it hovers, well upon trying to get her up in the air, all of the sudden the main motor stops and I can’t figure out why.

Fast forward to that evening and I am testing things out, I tried a new motor and that did not fix the issue, upon further inspection… it looks like the 2 MOSFETs or Field Effect Transistors that run the Speed Control for the main motor, were burnt to a crisp. DOH!

With much googling to follow, I found out Walkera no longer makes this type of 4-in-1 receiver (2x esc, receiver, gyro) unit and I would have to purchase a new 2.4 ghz receiver (and transmitter) to get this bird flying again, which turns out to be more expensive than buying an entire new heli.   So I guess this bird gets shelved for now, its hanging from the ceiling in the hangar.

The good news was that my parts arrived from wowhobbies.com yesterday and I was able to get the Novus FP back in action (I broke the tail rotor).  After 2 battery packs worth of flight, I noticed the tail was all over the place and the heli was un controllable.  Luckily when I placed my order with wowhobbies, I added a tail motor to the order.  After switching out to the new motor, the heli flies better than ever!

Oh yeah the hangar!  I took a page from my Grandfather’s book and hung all the airplanes (cept the 330s its too big) from my garage ceiling!   Here is a  pic taken with my Iphone!

So I did some adjustments to the swashplate on the Walkera 22e and it hovers a whole lot better now!

Check out the vid below!

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My father had a Walkera 22E Controllable Pitch Helicopter he was a bit too intimidated by to fly.  So I traded him my 6XM transmitter/receiver for it.  Took it home, balanced the blades and set the rotor head up the best I could and began flying it.

Below is a short video consisting of my “better’ hovers (or attempts to hover).

Enjoy!

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Thats right, I bit the bullet and got a little Electric Heli.   I’ve tried my hand at this before, 2 times in fact, both times failures.

The first two times I went the cheap-0 route and bought an electric helicopter from “China Seller” on eBay.  The first time was back in 2004 with a small Fixed Pitch model made by Exceed which ended up with me selling it on eBay for a large loss.  The next time was in 2007 when I tried to go right to a Brushless, Controllable Pitch bird made by Walkera.  That one ended with me crashing and rebuilding the heli and then selling it to a neighbor… again at a large loss.

This time I did my research though!  While at Nexgen Hobby in Hagerstown, MD the owner demonstrated one of the “ultra-micro” helis he had for sale in the store, an E-flite MSR.    It was a nice bird, seemed fairly stable and easy to fly, so I did some research and came to the conclusion that I was going to get one!

Well, I didn’t get the MSR, I ended up getting a Heli-Max (Great Planes) Novus FP.  Nearly the same size as the MSR, but this bird comes with a full CNC Aluminum Rotorhead, Swashplate and a larger battery.  Not to mention it was 20 bucks cheaper!

Right out of the box, I was impressed with the quality of the little bird, this was not surprising seeing as Heli-Max is a Great Planes company, and they don’t mess around.  The bird came with a 2.4ghz transmitter, 110v wall charger, extra set of main blades and a plastic adjustment tool for the gyro.  The manual is concise and very thorough.  I was able to get an extra battery for free with this package so It worked out well for me!

First impressions of the little Novus is WOW this thing is small!   I immediately started charging one of the batteries and went upstairs to grab a bite to eat.  After about 20mins I checked and the charger’s LED was green, meaning the battery was fully charged.

Following the instructions, I plugged the charged lipo battery into the bird, then turned on the transmitter.  After about 10 seconds the servos (sub-micro digital) twitched indicating a good link with the 2.4ghz tx.

Ok so here we go, me being the nut job that I am dives right into flying this thing.  I’m all over the place and start crashing into things right off the bat.  Luckily I am in my basement where there are lots of soft things to bounce off of like couches, lazyboys and carpet.  After about 10 attempts at hovering I am beginning to get a bit flustered and negative.  What do I do?  I decide to trudge on.  By about the last 2-3 mins of the first battery, I start getting into a decent controlled 10-12 sec hover.  Feeling good now!

While I was flying (trying to) on the first lipo pack, I had the other one charging and was getting pretty pumped up!   The second pack went MUCH better, I was hovering for 20-30 seconds at a time now, getting a nice feel for the bird and noticing that small corrections make a huge difference with such a small heli.  By the end of the second pack I was VERY confident and began meneuvering around my basement.

When the battery is starting to go dead, it’s a pretty deliberate effect, I noticed it was taking almost full throttle to hover and the tail rotor was sluggish, then all of the sudden you arent even lifting off anymore.

Anyway, here are some pics of the little bird.  I’m off to fly some more!

I finished my dad’s newest Duraplane Aerobat this evening.   I set it up as a taildragger as opposed to a tricycle setup.  This plane has a Thunder Tiger .46 Pro and Futaba receiver/servos installed.