I received a VWinRC 450 Sport Flybarless kit from a local retailer and put it together while waiting for the electronics to arrive at the end of the month. I ran into a few issues.

#1 The main shaft does not fit into the one way bearing sleeve even after i tried polishing the inside. When i tried forcing it in, the two of them got stuck and would no longer separate. I've been told it's only supposed to slide in. So i'll need to buy a new mainshaft and main gear set.

#2 The three linkages are supposed to be 19mm, 28mm and 32mm according to the manual. The set i got only has 19mm rods. There is no way i can connect the elevator and pitch servos. I will need to buy a new linkage set.

#3 The screw for connecting the brace to the tailboom is wrong. When i called up the retailer, the VWinRC screw set apparently only has screws for the main body. I will need to buy a complete stabilizer mount set for that one screw.

#4 When i checked the screws holding the main frame, many of the screws are loose when i unwound them and would not re-tighten. They're apparently already stripped coming out of the factory.

The included pic shows the short linkages and the stabilizer mount set with the wrong screw. The main shaft is a loss.

I'm ordering CopterX parts (particularly the mainshaft and bearing sleeve) and hopefully they'll fit. Is this typical of what i would expect from this hobby?

As is often the case there really is a difference between a $60 kit and a $200 one.

I often wonder if hobbiest really believe that the least expensive frames,bearings,belts,gears,linkages are the same quality as the mid priced ones much less the top of the line ones.

Yes Virginia there is a difference between a $1 and a $12 ball bearing ,yes there are many grades of bearing,plastic, carbon fiber,it cost more to maintain + / - 0.005 tolerances that it for 0.001 ones and in my past working career I had to maintain + / - 0.0002 tolerances and this was long before CNC machinery and air conditioned shops.

Charles

I bought the HK 250GT kit and found most of the holes in the CF needed to be opened up, several screw holes were stripped and the aluminum tail tubing was incredibly easy to damage. I will probably have to drill through the block that holds tail tube in place and use nuts and bolts instead of the screws they have in there now. Nothing awful or unusual for $40.

I recently purchase and build a Copterx 450pro FBL V4 kit. The servos were junk and replaced all the gears, tail blade grips (bearings failed after 2nd flight and could not get the bearing out of the tail grip), main shaft,tail shaft, servos, and torque tube with Align parts except the servos. It was mostly the builders fault (me) but there was a big difference with Align parts. The heli is rock solid now and I'm having a blast flying it. Over all I'm still a head about 250 bucks so I'm happy I bought a Copterx. The FBL gyro is cheap in price and works pretty good after a few tweaks here and there. For now on only Align parts will be installed on this heli!!

Thanks, the electronics I'm getting is the one for the copter x. Already got some metal gear servos along with it so I'll probably just use the plastics for the slow stick I'm planning on getting. I'll probably be getting align replacement parts as they break.

I was aware of weak parts but I didn't expect their own parts to not fit in their own helicopter. How do you guys fix stripped out plastic and metal screw holes?

Well, most of clones need some works to smooth en the mechanical parts, but its all easy.
But it is not for ppls without mechanical works experience, it will be hard for them to understand. Some times it requires creative idea mod/works to get things done.
Most of my experience achieved wen I was in younger age working as a mechanic, involved lots of creative skills to repair parts.
Since then when I took up RC, from the experienced gain/growth I no longer purchased original big brands name RC Heli.
I love all clones as I have succeeded all setup & mod with little cost. It helps to lower the cost of expenses. Anyway its all going to crash sooner or later with original or non original if u flies 3D/hard 3D.
Most importantly it all flies same & extremely well as original no problems with 3D.

But certain important parts from clones are really bad, example for HK250 swash.
That's the parts I had replaced with original for all 250 clones.

Hajile, are you near a local hobby shop? If so you can probably get the screws you need there. Are you in the USA? Most Ace Hardware stores have small metric screws. They will have tiny sheet metal screws that you could use to replace the ones with strippied holes. Just go one size larger. If you are not near local stores you can always order a decent screw set from the on-line dealers. Align screws would probably work on your machine. An Align link set would also probably work.

RWW

After looking around a bit, i just realized that those links are meant for a 450 pro? So aside from the tail rotor, the two also differ in how the servos are placed? Makes me wonder if the hobby shop simply started throwing spare parts into a box without checking what heli they're actually for.

@whitehedr
Unfortunately no, the only hobby shop i know is in the city. Our ACE Hardware stores seem to be inferior to yours, either that or they just happen to have the same name.The smallest screws they have are 5mm wood screws. I need 2mm and 2.5mm (What's what those two in the pic are right?).

There's a store that's really into parts. He's got boxes of motors and electronics scattered around the store rather than in neat little plastic bags like in the high end stores. The thing is, he specializes in airplanes and doesn't really like helis. From watching youtube videos, i don't think i've actually seen them use precision screws on airplanes, it's mostly wood screws and various types of glue.

I have never had any luck finding very small size hardware locally. Even the LHS doesn't sell much small enough for most helis. Most of my hardware is salvaged from helis I threw away.

This place is pretty good source for screws if you can't get it locally.

http://rtlfasteners.com/