I haven't even maidened my UM P-51 Mustang yet and I already bought a UM Stryker! Yah, it's going to be a fast bugger, but I'll practice flying the P-51 looooong before I do anything with the Stryker. I had to get it; it was 1/2 price. There are several things about it that are neat:
1. It's brushless. I sure hope all of the new planes and other stuff PZ and EFlite are coming out with will be brushless.
2. You can cut the throttle and fly it as a glider. That should extend flight times.
3. It's a UM, so, it comes in one of the boxes with a handle and that makes it easy to transport out to a field.
4. I can use my DX6i.
5. The canopy is held down with tiny magnets so I don't have to worry about it flying off in flight.

I decided I really didn't like a quad, although that is where a LOT of activity has migrated over the last year or so. I saw a coax forum member trying to sell a bunch of stuff and asked if he was interested in a quad for his P-51 Mustang. It arrived yesterday and it will be my first 4-channel plane. It has some neat stuff like blinking tail light and wing tip LED's controlled by the transmitter. He sent some videos of him flying it:

UM P-51 Mustang fast flights with the spitfire 4 blade props.avi (8 min 52 sec)

...Continue Reading

I've neglected to keep this blog up. On receiving the newly vamped CX-2, I had to reverse some things in the transmitter and tweak the gyro gain. I tried it in my garage and it was a little squirrely. After that attempt, it wouldn't power up correctly and when doing so, the first ESC would not arm, but dithered. The blue LED on the gyro would blink randomly. After a lot of frustration, I tried binding it to my simple LP5DSM transmitter and all was good. I then went back to the DX6i and everything has worked well since. I would have to conclude that when I was having the problems, it must not have been bound - I don't know what else to blame it on. I have since then had it under 2s and 3s power and it flies great. Recently, I've put 55 Degree blades on it and it has less lift and better forward flight. I'm liking it!
I had a problem stuffing all of the electronics under a canopy. I have a really nice Stamp Lama 3 canopy, but there was no way it would work on this heli anymore. I also have a 250 Hobby King canopy and, as big as it is, it didn't seem to fit well either. The problem is the front shelf has the receiver mounted to the bottom of it and that stops a lot of canopies that don't have a belly to work with what's on there. I have a green canopy that was on the heli when I bought it off of Ebay. I managed to get that to fit, but it's green. I might have to go for blue paint on that one or buy a blue Eflite police canopy, but it has decals on it and I'd prefer a plain one.

The latest with this heli is that it's been changed and has just about all new components. It now has 1811 motors used in conjunction with the C-10 bases (just because those bases were already mounted). The ESC's have been bumped up to 10A from 6A. The gyro is a MEMMS and is the GA 250. The real change is the Arduino microprocessor that is programmed to be a coaxmixer. An Arduino is bought from Ebay and the code downloaded by a USB adapter from your computer. It now runs on 2s and 3s again. Testing to follow.

OK, boys and girls, let's get back to the basic, simple stuff. I removed the Plexi plate and the Blade 400 skids. I did a true credit card mod using a standard CX-2 battery tray and a piece of useless "have we got an offer for you" fake credit card. I opened up the holes in the battery tray so I can use my 2MM screws = ~.096" = #41 drill (Remember, if you're using a Microheli frame, they use 2MM screws since the frame is already tapped for them. Also remember that the frame comes with such short, useless screws so you'll need to buy longer ones) . Use whatever is close as long as it gives clearance for the screws. I also recommend a pan head screw instead of socket head cap screws since the head doesn't have as high a profile. Use the same size drill for the holes in the credit card. Add Velcro, and I recommend the HK stuff as you get a LOT for next to nothing. The battery I'm using is FAT, but as Luv pointed out, there's plenty of ground clearance. In your back yard, my experience says to throw down a piece of plywood and lift off from that. I tend to keep my grass a little on the long side and I don't even lift off my 450 size coax from grass. If you've come this far, you've got enough experience that I think you can safely land on stock/ indestructible skids. Not only does this save a little of the hassles of adapting larger skids, but you've already got them and don't have to do anything but transfer them over. I didn't think the larger skids would prove to be a factor, but something about that particular mod wasn't to my heli's liking. I'll still try out the HK 250's when they get here.

I thought I'd try the Plexi plate and 400 skids to see what they looked like and to see if they would affect flight. Well, I didn't think they weighed all that much, but the heli did. It took a bunch more throttle to get it up in the air. I can cut back on the rear portion of the skid pipes, but I did it more to see what would happen. Before I chop the pipes, I'll see what the 250 skids are like when they show up.

Luvmyhelis offered to sell me the parts I needed to do this conversion. He mounted them onto a stock plastic frame and sent them to me. I transferred them over to my Microheli frame. Somewhere in the mix, two wires got switched, so, I packed up my stuff and sent it to him. He was gracious enough to get it all straightened out and now, it flies great. I have to admit that I couldn't get it flying on my 2 cell batteries like he did. When I switched to a 3 cell battery, though, it was a completely different heli. With a programmable transmitter, I was able to dial in the gyro gain I needed to keep the upper rotor from spinning on power up. I tweaked it a little bit more to get it to hold the tail better with power on it. I guess the setting will be determined by the amount of vibration and exact hardware used.
I ordered a HK 250GT skid set and will mount that to see how it looks. The Blade 400 skids are a little on the large side. We'll see.

It's cold outside and there isn't a lot to do, so, I decided to see what would happen if I used my Blade 400 skids on the CX-2 MicroHeli frame. I really didn't want to use a battery tray if my intent is to use 2 cells and 3 cells without a hassle. Instead, I used a piece of 1 1/2" X 4" Plexiglas and that will get some Velcro to hold the battery. Instead of drilling new holes in that dinky frame and then drilling and tapping the skids, these plastic skid supports lend themselves to mounting directly to the frame's bosses intended for mounting the battery tray. I used a 1/8" drill so the bosses fit through the skid supports. On the rear, the Xtreme boom bracket is already designed to do that. I ended up with a sandwich of Plexiglas, skid supports and boom bracket. After that, I transferred over the mechanical hardware and servos.

I have decided to document my CX-2 to brushless build here. The basis for the build in the MicroHeli frame:
http://www.hopmeup.com/Items/mhecx10...ADE%20CX%20NEW
The price varies all over the place, so, do your shopping!
The next decision was what to do about a landing skid set and battery tray. I wanted to try 2 cell as well as 3 cell batteries, so, I decided not to use a stock or otherwise battery tray. I just ordered the Hobby King skid set from their 250GT heli to try. It not only gives you skids, but also has a nice flat piece of plastic to afix Velcro to for the infamous credit card/ Velcro mod done a looooong time ago in the Lama 4 thread. What remains to be seen is how the cut-outs in that plastic will interface with the existing mounting bosses on the MicroHeli frame. I hope I don't have to reverse engineer it to make it work.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...ding_Skid.html

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...Skid_Pipe.html

I intend to use the drive train from my CX-2, which includes the Xtreme outer shaft and gear, the world-renown GloWorm adapter for the inner extended shaft that is adjustable for your custom inner shaft length, Xtreme composite pivoting blade grips, the Boomtown shortened flybar and a bunch of different blades.
The C-10 motors are from Hobby King:
2900KV motor $9 http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...idproduct=6584

The Turnigy 6A Plush ESC's:
Turnigy 6A Plush $8 http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...idproduct=...Continue Reading

I haven't updated my blog page in quite a while. I have sold my Lama 2, HBFP version 1 for parts, HBFP Version 2, gave away my 5G6-1's, sold my King 2 after only a few months. I have replaced my Lama 4 with an A-300. My Walkera Lama 400D is my biggest heli and flies great with minimal mods. The 5G6-1's were replaced with an MCX-2. I recently aquired a DX6i transmitter. When I sold my HBFP, I bought a Champ micro plane and love it.
Near future plans: Upgrade my CX-2 to brushless with a little help from Luvmyhelis and others. Hopefully, all of the electronics will fit under my Stamp - painted Lama 3 canopy.

Please disregard.

Gone