Originally Posted by OldOz

Link -
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/MJX-R...542269906.html

Yup that's it. Some sellers have a bad habit of listing every single MJX model in the description, so you have to be careful which parts they are selling, as it may be for something totally different.
Found this out when looking to buy my F45 from Aliexpress. I wondered why of all the F45s, one was only $50 vs the $100+ of the others. Turned out it was a F29, which is the size of a SoloPro 260, or V911 and is Coax

Thank you for your help, the link where I've found the second board is:

http://www.ebay.it/itm/MJX-F645-F45-...item2321f450e3

Probably a mistake of the seller.

Originally Posted by serpicus

Thank you for your help, the link where I've found the second board is:

http://www.ebay.it/itm/MJX-F645-F45-...item2321f450e3

Probably a mistake of the seller.

For that price, I think he's trying to rip someone off...

Go to Ali-Express and the board is about 15 Euro plus express shipping of around another 15 Euro.. For half the price you can get the real deal..

I have read one post in which a user describes loss of power to dead in a minute. This would allow a controlled landing unless flying at a great height (which I don't do following my tree hit experience) I was wondering if the main motor can just go from normal to dead in a few seconds leading to a severe crash? Has anyone experienced this? Also after how many flights would the tail motor pack up? Again does this go completely dead or what? If it fails, the helicopter will spin along the vertical axis, when this happens, is it possible to ease down on the throttle for a controlled landing?

PS: Anyone considered the E-Flite 320H brushless for Blade 300X, or is it the wrong size?

http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/De...odID=EFLM1160H

Originally Posted by Lentar

I have read one post in which a user describes loss of power to dead in a minute. This would allow a controlled landing unless flying at a great height (which I don't do following my tree hit experience) I was wondering if the main motor can just go from normal to dead in a few seconds leading to a severe crash? Has anyone experienced this? Also after how many flights would the tail motor pack up? Again does this go completely dead or what? If it fails, the helicopter will spin along the vertical axis, when this happens, is it possible to ease down on the throttle for a controlled landing?

Depends on the cause of the loss of power. If the battery reaches deep discharge (less than 3.0v per cell under load) it will lose voltage very quickly, causing the heli to totally lose power.

If the motor burns out, this can also happen quickly, as usually it is the brushes that fail first. As soon as a brush fails, the motor effectively loses half it's power, so again, being a sudden change, this would cause a quick loss of power.

Regarding life span, many people are reporting around 50 flights (8-10 minutes each) being a fairly regular standard. Some get them to last a lot longer. One member Whizgig has flown over 400 flights with the original parts. The main thing is to not over use the motors too frequently. They can get very hot, so giving the motor a chance to cool down between flights and even halfway through a flight will help. For these relatively cheap brushed motors, heat and friction are their worst enemy.

Originally Posted by Lentar

PS: Anyone considered the E-Flite 320H brushless for Blade 300X, or is it the wrong size?

http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/De...odID=EFLM1160H

Hard to tell, as I can't find any dimension specifications for it. If it is less than 24mm in diameter then there is a good chance it will work.
A little expensive at $40 a pop though. And you'd still need the ESC for it to work. So your looking at at least $60 shipped if not more.

Originally Posted by Lentar

I have read one post in which a user describes loss of power to dead in a minute. This would allow a controlled landing unless flying at a great height (which I don't do following my tree hit experience) I was wondering if the main motor can just go from normal to dead in a few seconds leading to a severe crash? Has anyone experienced this? Also after how many flights would the tail motor pack up? Again does this go completely dead or what? If it fails, the helicopter will spin along the vertical axis, when this happens, is it possible to ease down on the throttle for a controlled landing?

Hello !

i allready experienced the failure of both motors, after about 50 flights.
For the main motor I was lucky, I didn't fly very high. When it happens, I barely could climb, and after a few seconds, I just could hover. I landed, took the heli in my hand to look for the problem. I activated the throttle 3 or 4 times, the rotor still turned but very slow, and then it stopped definitively. If I had the problem at 100 feet altitude, I think the result would have been far worse !

I also had a tail motor failure, it just stopped without any warning and the heli began to turn on it's vertical axis.
What I did do is to reduce the throttle so the heli didn't come down too fast and didn't turn on it's axis too fast. It landed in grass, and the heli was not harmed at all.
Here also I cconsider I have been lucky, because it occured while I was flying over a meadow. If I had been flying over houses or people, the outcome would have been different.

Roland

Originally Posted by Rollmops67

Hello !

Here also I cconsider I have been lucky, because it occured while I was flying over a meadow. If I had been flying over houses or people, the outcome would have been different.

Roland

That is why you should never fly any helicopter over people

This is one if the key reasons I moved to the brushless main motor - and paying attention to those whom are testing brushless tails as well. There are many single points of failure in these helicopters and as a toy grade the quality is questionable. That said, most of the drastic in-flight failures I've read about (and experienced) seem to come from the 2 brushed motors or pilot error. I feel a lot more confident with the EH200 brushless motor not only in that it's less likely to fail, it's also much more powerful even with a 2s lipo. Yesterday I had a killer example of that. I was racing the helicopter down a path outside my home... I ended up going head-on towards a huge tree. I threw the throttle to max and pulled back on the elevators and was amazed to watch the helicopter ascend around 10m while the nose was just inches away from the branches of the tree. When it cleared the top I was so relieved! This is the same tree I've had both a helicopter (S022) and a dragonfly stuck in before. It's a difficult one to get at as it's surrounded by thick bushes.

Anyway, here's a video from my flight today with a new 1080p camera. I'm not sure I'm getting the full quality out of it yet and there is a little bit of jello. I had to cut some of the footage as the morning sun was too bright from some angles. I figured I'd post it anyway.

F45 over Juniper Ridge on a sunny morning (3 min 39 sec)

Originally Posted by rexless

Anyway, here's a video from my flight today with a new 1080p camera. I'm not sure I'm getting the full quality out of it yet and there is a little bit of jello. I had to cut some of the footage as the morning sun was too bright from some angles. I figured I'd post it anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOjl4d3FGLU&hd=1

Hhmmm, seems to be cold in the morning...
Very pretty flight, and, as always the music is very good.
Congrats to the singer, I think you know him...

Roland

Today I took my EH200-modified F45 for 2 flights.
On the second, when the heli was at more then 100 meters, it began to slip to the right (I thought).
So I gave aileron to the left to compensate, it drifted more, I gave more aileron, and finaly the heli smashed in a field.
I realized at this moment, that with the bright sky and the distance, I had misjuged the helis position, thinking it was sliping to the right, but it was in fact sliping to the left, and all I did is to accelerate this.

The crash, even seen from the distance, was very hard, and I said to myself "OK this time there will be lots of things to repair."
Finally I took the heli, it was full of earth and mud on the left side, but, nothing seemed broken.
Astonishing.
It was raining the last days, so the earth is wet and soft, that helped to amortize the crash
It was still bound to the TX so I tried to spool it up, but there was a bad vibration when the rotor was turning.
The rotor shaft didn't seem to bee bent, the flybar neither, then I saw that one of the blades was severely bent.
I replaced the blade, cleaned the heli from the earth and mud, and voilą, it flies like before.
It's really incredible how this thing is robust.

Have nice flights and smooth landings

Roland

Originally Posted by Rollmops67

Hhmmm, seems to be cold in the morning...
Very pretty flight, and, as always the music is very good.
Congrats to the singer, I think you know him...
Roland

It was about 7 degrees out when I flew earlier so yeah... getting close to frost! Excellent weather for the motors though. No chance of overheating. I'll pass on your congrats to the singer. I should be seeing him shortly.

Originally Posted by Rollmops67

Today I took my EH200-modified F45 for 2 flights. On the second, when the heli was at more then 100 meters, it began to slip to the right (I thought). So I gave aileron to the left to compensate, it drifted more, I gave more aileron, and finaly the heli smashed in a field. I realized at this moment, that with the bright sky and the distance, I had misjuged the helis position, thinking it was sliping to the right, but it was in fact sliping to the left, and all I did is to accelerate this. The crash, even seen from the distance, was very hard, and I said to myself "OK this time there will be lots of things to repair." Finally I took the heli, it was full of earth and mud on the left side, but, nothing seemed broken. Astonishing. It was raining the last days, so the earth is wet and soft, that helped to amortize the crash It was still bound to the TX so I tried to spool it up, but there was a bad vibration when the rotor was turning. The rotor shaft didn't seem to bee bent, the flybar neither, then I saw that one of the blades was severely bent. I replaced the blade, cleaned the heli from the earth and mud, and voilą, it flies like before.
It's really incredible how this thing is robust. Have nice flights and smooth landings Roland

Congrats on the EH200 upgrade. Are you on stock blades and 2s lipo still? I had to go back to this configuration as my blades are useless at 3s. New ones should arrive around the time snow flies. I find the power to be excellent already but even today with almost no surface wind there's enough of a breeze at ~100m that it was hard to descend as softly as I was hoping to. At least with this setup I feel confident letting it drop fairly fast as I know a quick burst of power and it will recover.

So just a few minutes ago I too smashed my F45. I was barrelling along nicely, taking a smooth path past a tree but didn't realize there were 2 trees hiding behind the first one. Bam! I hit the tree at about 10m and dropped to the ground. The damage was a very slight bend to the flybar - fixed instantly - and a broken landing skid. I checked everything else out and proceeded to fly it all the way home. Only downside is the video got screwed up and didn't save so I lost the footage.

I love this helicopter. It really is the most fun to fly out of all the helis I own.

"I love this helicopter. It really is the most fun to fly out of all the helis I own."

+1

On the HobbyKing website I see a 10T 3mm pinion, is this the correct one with 0.5M? (For some reason they haven't given the modulus?

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...r_3mm_10T.html

This is the one from my HK wish list: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dproduct=11198

I'm also considering this one:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=11197

Originally Posted by rexless

Congrats on the EH200 upgrade. Are you on stock blades and 2s lipo still?

Yes, still 2s cells, for me it's enough power and RPM's !
I fly with Turnigy 2200 mAh batteries where the voltage remains over 3,6 V on each cell almost to the end, and the EH200 is still reactive enough at this voltage.
And I set my low voltage buzzer to this voltage, so when it begins to beep, I now I still have about 2 minutes to return on earth.
I ordered Walkera #4 blades, they may have a little less pitch, so maybe the heli will fly with a little bit more RPM's and stability ?
Wait and see...

I find the power to be excellent already but even today with almost no surface wind there's enough of a breeze at ~100m that it was hard to descend as softly as I was hoping to. At least with this setup I feel confident letting it drop fairly fast as I know a quick burst of power and it will recover.

Yes, this is one of the advantages of the brushless motor, it speeds up very fast compared to the stock motor, so in case of emergency (or just for the fun !) you can recover perilous situations quickly and fly more relaxed.

I love this helicopter. It really is the most fun to fly out of all the helis I own.

Yes, it's just a "toy", but with a little training it can be flown quite quickly, and the price-fun-sturdiness ratio is fantastic !

Roland