What did you get for Christmas?

[Bullet Magnet]

BC is just sucking up.

[BlackCat]

Zorro doesn't buy my domain names, BM.

[Bullet Magnet]

Helps when you don't make porn sites, BC.

[Zorro]

[...] What does your fleet look like, Z?

I've got half my fleet in pieces at the moment and the infirmary is full. I'm in the process of re-building, upgrading, and blinging out two of my 250 size birds, and my 500 size bird is undergoing surgery (no comment). I've also got one of my 120 size birds awaiting a surgery (waiting for replacement parts to get in stock). The only birds I have that are actually flyable right now are two other little 120 size birds (one of them being the one you saw in the video I posted recently) and a little quad I have for flying in my apartment. I'll post pics once my fleet is healthy again and all of the birds are out of the infirmary.

[BlackCat]

Sweet. I'll be looking forward to the pics.

My coaxial broke so I bought a new one that should arrive in the mail soon. I don't mind having a lot of parts lying around as I plan to buy another one so two can fly at the same time using different channels.

This thread reminds me of an older one posted: http://cixsquad.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=330&p=3335&hilit=my+fleet. Neat stuff.

[Zorro]

I forgot about that thread, but yea my fleet has grown a bit since since then (bigger birds too). I still have that 300X though - it's actually one of the 250 sized helis I'm rebuilding/upgrading.

[Zorro]

Here's a few pics actually of that little bugger getting rebuilt and upgraded. I finished all of the soldering work on the motor and ESC yesterday, and installed the cyclic servos a few hours ago. The little bugger should scream with that new motor and ESC in it. The stock setup's main rotor speed is about 3200 RPM ungoverned (RPM slows down as battery voltage drops), and it bogs easily during pitch pumps. By the end of the pack it'll be around 3000 RPM. With this setup I should be able to get between 3600 and 3700 RPM governed (consistent speed throughout voltage drop) and it shouldn't bog much during hard pitch pumps.





I still need to install the tail servo and get the drive train installed (belt, one way bearing, gear, etc). After that it's just a matter of programming the Castle ESC and BeastX unit and doing the typical setup things (leveling the swashplate, pitch range, etc.).

[BlackCat]

I have no idea how I missed this...

That's so cool, Z. You really know what you're doing. Those things are so intricate; it's good that you keep small pieces in little bowls. Sweet carbon fiber body! How often do you crash your helicopters? I imagine with so much time, effort and money in them, that's the biggest thing you want to avoid but it's sometimes inevitable, right?

[Zorro]

I actually only got around to finishing that little bugger up yesterday. I had to wait on a few parts to come in that I needed in order to program the ESC. Attached is a few pics of the little bugger. I did my test flight this morning and it flew great. I need to just tweak the settings on the AR7200BX a little bit more to get it flying how I like. I'm stuck using the ugly plastic stock canopy because the $30 fiberglass canopy I bought doesn't fit correctly on the frame even though the aftermarket canopy and frame is made by the same company for the same heli.



I crash rather frequently because I push the limits with extreme low level maneuvers, and occasionally even risk doing blade scratching and lawn mowing maneuvers. If you're not crashing, you're not flying.

[BlackCat]

That's so cool! What happens if you put your fingers in the path of the rotors?