my new hobby lobby f5 e fans explodes

[tomme21]

got it yesterday, put it together in 3 hours, added cool decals, looks awesome.
today put in receiver and checked servos, all worked great, and then i advanced the throttle to check the thrust, and when i advance slowly to
full throttle, BANG, the fan explodes inside the housing, eating up the foam intake. :eek:
i open the bottom to remove the motor and find a very cheap fan and housing, watch this plane, it could have been bad had someone been standing behind it.
the only fix here is to add the expense of a good housing and fan, ( 70mm)
hobby lobby has not mentioned this prob. yet so im waiting for this to happen to someone else.
lhs guy is going to call tomorrow and see what they have to say.
just be careful.

btw, i have the great looking camo version :)

[cryhavoc38]

mine broke the nose cone on the fan the first time I ran it up. It split in two and got sucked into the rotors. I called HL and they are sending me a new fan/motor unit. BUT I've already pulled out that fan and installed a HET 6904 powered by the new Jet Screamer 1400. WOW power now.

ok back to putting it all together.

[tomme21]

mine broke the nose cone on the fan the first time I ran it up. It split in two and got sucked into the rotors. I called HL and they are sending me a new fan/motor unit. BUT I've already pulled out that fan and installed a HET 6904 powered by the new Jet Screamer 1400. WOW power now.

ok back to putting it all together.

where did you get the fan and motor?

i thought this was too good to be true, i was knocked over
by the great looks of this plane.
now im going to have to spend even more to get it in the air.
this is without a doubt a defect in these fans, o well, im too far into it now to give up. :(

[Jay Graves]

where did you get the fan and motor?

i thought this was too good to be true, i was knocked over
by the great looks of this plane.
now im going to have to spend even more to get it in the air.
this is without a doubt a defect in these fans, o well, im too far into it now to give up. :(

Tomme21,

Please send me your contact info via PM and we will get you fixed up with warranty replacement of the parts you need. I apologize for the problems but we'll do our best to make it right for you!

Thanks, Jay

Jay Graves, CEO
Hobby-Lobby

[cryhavoc38]

Tomme21,

Please send me your contact info via PM and we will get you fixed up with warranty replacement of the parts you need. I apologize for the problems but we'll do our best to make it right for you!

Thanks, Jay

Jay Graves, CEO
Hobby-Lobby

Like I said in another post. Hobby-Lobby takes care of their customers!

What other company has the CEO perusing the boards and when they find a customer who is less than satisfied, gets them taken care of?

Good Job H-L.

Edit: Mr Graves, its understood that these Receiver ready and RTF Foamy jets are great fun, but if your company wants to really REALLY boost your sales, offer the same jets as airframes only for a sub $100 price point or just a few points above that mark and a great many more enthusiasts would be purchasing from your company. An all in one solution is easy for those who are looking for a quick to get it in the air plane, but if you could look at it from the tweaker standpoint, Hobby Lobby could simply do the following.

Sell the basic airframe only, then have the motors, the DF units etc as a separate purchased item in order to equip the jet. I know this is the case with a great many of your airframes in other categories, but the foamy jet category seems to be getting alot of attention these days and H-L would be well served to strike while the iron is hot.

Some of your competitors are starting to offer the airframes without the questionable electronics and mechanicals at a sub $100 price now, but I'm sure the margins on the items necessary to equip these airframes would do alot to offset the margins in the RTF and receiver ready kits you sell now.

Just my thoughts.

[Jay Graves]

Like I said in another post. Hobby-Lobby takes care of their customers!

What other company has the CEO perusing the boards and when they find a customer who is less than satisfied, gets them taken care of?

Good Job H-L.

A lot of us at Hobby-Lobby pay attention to the boards - that is were our customers are. We want to make sure we are providing the right products and service. We certainly aren't perfect but we'll always try to make it right.

We also pick up some great thoughts when reading customer feedback. I will run your idea of a "Ready to Customize" (RTC) plane by our product folks. We certainly need a new acronym :)

Thanks, Jay

[cryhavoc38]

We also pick up some great thoughts when reading customer feedback. I will run your idea of a "Ready to Customize" (RTC) plane by our product folks. We certainly need a new acronym :)


RTC "Ready to customize"

I like that! :D

[mike2663]

Although I don't own the F-5 but I've been more than pleased with the customer service I have received from H/L. I had a minor isssue with my F-18 they bent over backwards to make it right. I was so impressed I pre ordered the 70mm F-16. Mike

[tomme21]

got it yesterday, put it together in 3 hours, added cool decals, looks awesome.
today put in receiver and checked servos, all worked great, and then i advanced the throttle to check the thrust, and when i advance slowly to
full throttle, BANG, the fan explodes inside the housing, eating up the foam intake. :eek:
i open the bottom to remove the motor and find a very cheap fan and housing, watch this plane, it could have been bad had someone been standing behind it.
the only fix here is to add the expense of a good housing and fan, ( 70mm)
hobby lobby has not mentioned this prob. yet so im waiting for this to happen to someone else.
lhs guy is going to call tomorrow and see what they have to say.
just be careful.

btw, i have the great looking camo version :)

looks like more work than i thought. the foam in front of the fan is gouged out real bad, going to take a lot of spackle and sanding to try and fix this. trying to find a good motor and fan to replace one that came apart, anyone have any good ideas for a drop in for this plane? im trying to keep the cost as low as possible but need something that will push this weight.

[hyperdyne]

I bought an F5 and it had lots of problems during assembly. The fan is grinding, servos dont work, and the BEC gets hot. Battery was puffed right out of the box too.

Still trying to figure out how to return it. I filled out all the forms online and havent heard anything back from HL. :(

[tomme21]

I bought an F5 and it had lots of problems during assembly. The fan is grinding, servos dont work, and the BEC gets hot. Battery was puffed right out of the box too.

Still trying to figure out how to return it. I filled out all the forms online and havent heard anything back from HL. :(


yea i called but no answer, its a common problem from reading the posts on the boards, however a lot of people have good results with them so its a toss up, im not judging here just trying to get someone here to help me get a motor and fan set up for this plane. :confused: :confused:

[EDF30]

Reality is that any mass assembled fan is likely to have problems. Dosen't matter who makes it or who sells it. I've been building fans for a few years and blew a number up myself. What I learned is that you have to do a lot of tweaking/balancing, and sometimes scrap an adapter/rotor, and even a housing, as they are just machined/molded too far out of spec.

I hardly trust my own fan builds as far as I can throw them, :D so my level of trust for a factory built fan would even be less.

Bill

[m1am1can3sfan]

So I had the same problem. Nose for the fan cracked in 2 and one fan blade snapped off. However I put the replacement fan and nose that came with my plane and so far it hasn't broken. Unfortunately, the servos don't respond to the remote control. When I plug the battery in I hear the celebratory chime, but it seems like only the motor responds. Any ideas?

[Fresno Flyer]

Anybody out there?

I just bought, received, assembled and attempted to fly the F5-E 70mm Fan Jet (Cammo twin elevator servo) that just came out in December. Everything went fine from order to assembly until the first flight attempt. Prior to flying I did all the required set up per the (limited) instructions and a download of special retract setup. 1st the fan cone broke but I got it shut down and pulled out before it took out the fan blades. I then attempted to take off and the right landing gear collapst and rashed up the underside of the right wing and elevator. I readjusted and tried again and was able to get it in the air just as the right gear started collaspting again. The plane flew fine after trimming and then the landing, one of the slowest and softest ever right side went down again. rapily loosing foam from the underside of the plane on the ashpalt, I dicided to take it home and rebuild retracts. Three hours later with beefed up retracts back to the feild next day. 10 feet and back down she went. Great looking plane, nice flying plane, exellent slow speed flyer but the retracts are junk. Maybe a bad servo also? Can anyone help?????

Can't say I got my $250 worth out of a five minute flght.

????????

[Spoonman]

I just got one of these myself, and have been carefully looking over the plane after reading about some of the problems that some of you were nice enough to document. My problem so far seems to be with the EDF unit. I shined a flashlight down the intake and saw either a split or a chunk missing from the EDF cone, not sure which as I haven't removed it yet.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18583561@N07/3486689602

I don't think I'll be revving this puppy up anytime soon :(

[Fresno Flyer]

Spoonman,

I had no trouble with the fan other than the first time I reved it up the cone on the front of the fan broke in half. Mine flew fine without the cone and I did not even install the extra one that came with it. The only real complaint from me was the landing gear being really cheap and folding up. I beleive I also had a bad retract servo. As far as the ECS, BEC, Motor and the rest they worked OK.

I was sucssesful at hand launching this bird but it is a handfull by yourself and most of the control horns are on the bottom of the plane so a slight modification of the addition of foam runners to the bottom of the plane were necessary to keep the linkage in tact.

I left the retracts in the plane but actually I am going to remove them (and the 4 servos, linkage and struts) to reduce weight, rebalance the plane and see how it flies without being weighed down so much.

Hobby Lobby is top notch as far as I am concerned as far as standing behind the stuff as they took care of my complaints immediately!

[Spoonman]

Hey Fresno Flyer,

My retracts seem to operate just fine, I have worked them manually without any servo attached to ensure the retract itself does in fact lock. Since your post, I tested my retracts with servos attached to see if there was any difference. What I can see is that your end point adjustments will be critical, they need to travel a specific distance to actually get the retract to lock. If you look at the side of the retract, where the slot is, you'll see a pin that rides along the slot with a detent at each end. You have to adjust the servo until that pin just touches the end of the slot. One side for locking down, the other side for locking up.

The hard part is that you cannot see this pin with the retract inserted into the wing and I think a lot of people with this problem are having trouble with finding the balance between a retract that locks down, and a binding servo that strips gears.

I measured the travel and you need 15mm to go lock to lock on the rear gear. Starting with a low end point and work your way up. What I do in these situations is start increasing end point value in one direction only until you start to hear the servo load up, it'll start making some subtle noises without any further input from you, stop at that point. Then back the end point value off until the sound is gone. Do the same thing for the other direction, and when you have done that, measure the throw (mark the linkage and measure travel). I can't get mine to lock with anything less than 14mm and 15mm is max. Splitting hairs for sure but there is very little margin here.

Now if one is okay and the other is off, you'll have to adjust the linkage manually, luckily for me the left and right gear was dead on and only my nose gear needed some adjusting, and that one has adjustable linkage anyway.

If none of that helps then perhaps the servo itself is stripped.

As for stripping it down to fly without gear, I would think you'll wind up tail heavy seeing as the rear gear is so close to CG and the nose gear is heavy and way up front. You might have to stuff some weight into that cavity where the nose gear lived to get proper CG. You'd still be quite a bit lighter overall though.

The manual states it'll fly straight and level at 50% throttle... Have you found this to be the case?

[swcentoni]

I purchased one, assembeled and on the first flight it shut down and crashed. HL sent another kit......assembeled it and when I started the fan the ESC somked and failed on the bench. Glad it didnt start a fire. I'm putting in an E-Flite ESC. Its a good loking plane but little thought went into this model. Very unhappy.

swcentoni@aol.com

[flpalla]

Just a heads up!!!

I went through this a couple of months ago (fan blade and casing cracking). When assembling these fans, I would recommend snugging down the bolts, DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN. I would prefer using liquid threadlock on all screws and bolts. Cranking down on the the bolts definitely causes the fans, case and cone to shatter. If you can, try to balance the fan as best as possible, this makes a world of difference. Unfortunately I learned the expensive way.

Good Luck,
Frank

[gforce_Czech]

Hello,
a week ago I bought this plane in RTF version. My plan was to build it and go to field, but....

1. problem...for the elevator I have version with only 1 servo !!! there is the metal stick which needs to be guled to the groove and it should be connected to each elevator on each side. The thing is that the groove is not in line with the elev. flaps and it is simply doesnt work...

2. problem...the included remote controll is really crap! Forget that somebody will use it ! If I will touch the lever for gear and switch it, all the plane will lose signal and it starts to beep...this is really funy

3. problem...the model is using BEC system for feeding the receiver. It must be big crap because it is interferes all the signal..I can go 30 feets from model and all the flaps and gears go mad!!!! Do you have similar problem ?

I solve this issue by ripping out the BEC and put there just 4 AAA bateries for receiver.

Since 1 week I was not able to get this bird to air because now i am waiting for new radio Hitec...

Does somebody know what type of controller is in this model (I dont have any label on my controller) I would like to know which voltage can bear. I would also ask if somebody knows what type of motor is exactly there.

Thank you very much for reply and sorry for my poor english