And the answer is.........



No light when plugged into the heli/PC and charging BUT a red light has now appeared so I guess that means it is charged !

Looks like my maiden voyage is here.

Have to say I am pretty impressed with Electronic Kingdom's service.

Just jope the heli works ok !

Originally Posted by gbjbasdw

Have to say I am pretty impressed with Electronic Kingdom's service.

Just jope the heli works ok !

I can't wait on your verdict

Any chance of a video ?

I ordered mine on the 8th, when did you order yours from Electronic Kingdom?

Had a quick play and it and it flies really well ( even in my hands ! ).

Tried it on the "L" setting ( learner/low ) and briefly on th "H" setting. Set on "H" it really moves around well.

Not tried any tuning or lubricating of it yet.

I bought it on the 8th Dec ( same as you did ) so you should be getting your pretty soon I'd think unless you are out in the sticks somewhere. Actually I would have had it yesterday but I was out when they tried to deliver it

Don't ask a man to fly and video - I'm not that good !

Cheers,

Steve

Steve: since you haven't lubed or tuned it, I strongly advise you to be VERY careful not to let the motors get hot! The temperature you feel on the metal cladding around, but not touching, the motors is MUCH lower than the actual motor temp!

When the alu cladding feels like a warm bath temp, or body temp (WAY below hot coffee/tea temp) .... you should stop flying, even put the heli in the refrigerator for a few mins, till the cladding is at a cool room temp. If you do fly with hot motors, they will very shortly die, usually one first, indicated by the heli not lifting and spinning in pretty circles on the ground.

NOTE: for technical reasons, for the same apparent flt performance and Tx input, the motors will often get quite dangerously hot (warm metal cladding!) in less than one minute after a full charge. Later in the LIPO discharge cycle you can fly much longer without overheating. Then, after allowing the LIPO 10 - 15 min to cool (or 5+ min in refrigerator), after a new full charge, again, check motor-cladding temp before 1 min flying is completed.

Happy Landings,
Lee

Had a quick play and it and it flies really well ( even in my hands ! ).
So you will be hooked on 4ch from now on then

Tried it on the "L" setting ( learner/low ) and briefly on th "H" setting. Set on "H" it really moves around well.
That's good to know, I like speed

Not tried any tuning or lubricating of it yet.
So will it pick up Radio 2?

I bought it on the 8th Dec ( same as you did ) so you should be getting your pretty soon I'd think unless you are out in the sticks somewhere. Actually I would have had it yesterday but I was out when they tried to deliver it
I'm in the city centre so no sticks but I know the post office are way behind with their deliveries so I'm not going to hold my breath

Don't ask a man to fly and video - I'm not that good !
Well practice makes perfect lol

I am very glad to see that more people getting in to the 5888. It is really a very nice heli for the price. I have about 100 flights on my pair so far, and its my favorite heli of the 20 I own.

I had an issue with my red one yesterday where I think one of my motors is going bad. I am having the effect of it rotating in place even with the trim maxed out in the opposite direction.

It could be I have overheated a motor and one of the motors is now much stronger than the other. I thought at first it was a loose connection to the main shaft to lower blades. But it appears secure. I will have to figure this one out.

Please note though, I have at least 50 flights on this particular helicopter, its my first 4 channel, and has been crashed multitudes of times. So i am more than happy its lasted this long without any repair.

xlcrlee, how did you notice when motors were going bad? Did you observe the symptoms i am experiencing? Did the motors squeal when the motor is going bad? My experience with brushed motors they usually squeal when going bad. I dont have any strange squeal in my motors, they sound normal, just that the heli wants to rotate with the trim maxed out in the opposite direction.

thanks in advance

All my helis are 4 channel but this is the best one for flying indoors by far.

The Nine Eagles Solo Pro is a bit frantic and the Honeybee V2 is too big.

Still trying to decide on what to lube it with. I have some oil that came with my Braun razor which ir very slippery and I guess it should be ok on plastic as that's what the razor is made of.

Seem to be having a bit of trouble trimming it. Keeps wanting to fly forwards even after pressing the bottom trim button all the way down. Guess I may need to undo both the servo link arms and give them a turn to lengthen them which should correct it unless anyone has any better ideas.

Originally Posted by gbjbasdw

Seem to be having a bit of trouble trimming it. Keeps wanting to fly forwards even after pressing the bottom trim button all the way down. Guess I may need to undo both the servo link arms and give them a turn to lengthen them which should correct it unless anyone has any better ideas.

I broke TWO of the ball links, one on each of 2 helis, while removing & re-inserting links!, requiring removing and disasembling entire rotor system .... NOT funny!

I then discovered it's easier when the link ends are WELL-lubed, both when taking apart and when re-inserting.

The lube I use is German and comes in a tubular needle dispenser: it is sold where they sell model railroad trains (for model RR hobbyists, not toy stores).


Lee

Yes you need to excercise great care with ball links.

Lengthened the one that moves when changing pitch and it now seems much better.

Phone my local railway model shop - they wanted over £7 for some oil. I'm not paying that kind of money for a small syringe of oil !

Have painted the ends of one of the top and bottom rotor so I can see how they are tracking later.

I'll re-read Lee's post on who to modify the tracking if the rotors are out of whack.

Originally Posted by gbjbasdw

Phone my local railway model shop - they wanted over £7 for some oil. I'm not paying that kind of money for a small syringe of oil !

Model Shops do tend to rip you off with stuff like this, I use Superfine Machine Oil for my n gauge trains with no problems. You can get a tin that will last a lifetime for a couple of pounds. If you have a Singer Sewing Machine shop close to you you will get it there. Or here is a link on ebay for the same stuff but you will have postage to pay
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Singer-Sewing...item1c1792d0e0

BTW - I am still waiting on my 5888

Bummer on the wait, when I saw you had just posted here I thought "joy, his 5888 must have come!"

I feel for ya dude, the waiting game sucks, I would rather play hungry hungry hippos!

"how did you notice when motors were going bad? Did you observe the symptoms I am experiencing? Did the motors squeal when the motor is going bad?" >
1. lack of climbing ability, shorter flt times, finally exactly what you experienced, culminated with spinning in one direction on the ground, even with full opposite yaw-input .... and not taking off.
2. I had only one (of well over 15 motors I've so far replaced which were either defective or worn out from use) squeal, and someone wrote in that one of his squealed from the start (he returned it).


"Have painted the ends of one of the top and bottom rotor so I can see how they are tracking later." >
I did that at first, later found that removable small piece of clear tape on T.E. is a much easier and quicker to discover way to discover which blade needs more or less lift .... plus., moving tape towards tip shows coning angle need increasing on that blade rather than more pitch (you can safely twist in more/less pitch if you remove main blade bolt first, else it'll strip!).

a good trick to distinguish the upper blades is to remember which blade is closer to the link, and to swing one of the lower blades fwd and put a small stripe on the innermost part of the blade: that way, one blade is "white" and the other the one with the mark, only seen when you swing the blade fwd.



NOTE: getting blades tracked so that the leading edge is a single white line adds about 5% effective power ....

spending a lot of time to get the white line to be razor-sharp adds more than 20% power!!

(the sound will drastically change!!)



Lee

The 5888 flies/handles SO well largely because it has ca. 2x the mass (thus 2x the weight!) of similar helis. Because of this high loading the motors can thus easily become overloaded. Although I've encountered a few defective motors basically D.O.A., I have slowly but eventually found out how to generally ensure a relatively long 5888 motor life.

Besides weight, there is also imperfect voltage-regulation software! This is normally accomplished by square-wave pulsing the LIPO voltage to effectively modulate the current. The LIPO discharge curve is NOT flat, and unfortunately G:T: Model's programming allows too much higher-voltage current to flow to the motors during the first minute of flt./use. That can & will quickly overheat and wear-out the motors!

Checking the motor temperature several times during the first minute of flt. via the alu cladding (which is stupidly not touching the motor! [it would otherwise be a great cooling radiator![) and stopping flying so soon as the outer alu cladding reaches human body temp or so, is very, very useful!! If you get your nose close, you can actually smell the poor burning motor!!

Obviously the more drastic energy-requiring maneuvers made during this 1st minute of flt. (after full charge), the more often you should check temp.

Lubing, perfect tuning (incl. blade & stab bar balancing) and razor-sharp (see above post) tracked L.E. reduces power req. by ca. 20%, and really helps a lot!


Lee