What parts should i upgrade right away on my hk450mt? Are there any real problem areas?

Depends on what you want to do with it.
If you want serious 3D I'd say most parts,
If your a beginner just hovering around or flying circuits and crashing a lot its fine.
Keep an eye on the plastic tail belt pulley and tail shaft. Mine was coming apart after some time.

If your unlucky like me you get the kit with wobbly swashplate, wobbly maingear, pre-bent shafts and very loose ball links. No matter, i needed lots of spares anyway with my learning style.

Originally Posted by sp00fman

Depends on what you want to do with it.
If you want serious 3D I'd say most parts,
If your a beginner just hovering around or flying circuits and crashing a lot its fine.
Keep an eye on the plastic tail belt pulley and tail shaft. Mine was coming apart after some time.

If your unlucky like me you get the kit with wobbly swashplate, wobbly maingear, pre-bent shafts and very loose ball links. No matter, i needed lots of spares anyway with my learning style.

Not really a beginner. But this is the heli im going to teach my dad with. So its just mainly going to be doing hovering, and maybe some crashing. lol
Ive got 3 kits on the way. One to fly and 2 for spare parts...

Thanks for the help.

Originally Posted by losifanatic

I have a tarot swash on my align and it was built better than my align ? I built a tarot and Yes its as colse as you can get to the align quality without getting an align. There are a few things on the align I think are a bit nicer but for the cash the tarot is awseome. My brothers HK is running a 3200rpm head speed but we put all align ball links on it as the HK ones have some slop in them and didnt want to chance it

I agree... and with those ball links you mentioned I have a small box where I have align and tarot links and I cant tell which is which, even threading them multiple times they feel exactly the same, so at a guess I would say the manufacturer of the align and the tarot ball links are the same manufacturer.

today my loctite would have all cured well, so when I get back home from work it is going out for the first flight... taking the hk450 tt as well...

got to see if I can get my daughter to come along and video tape for me.

Anybody can recommend a good tail servo for this HK450? I have been using the MKS DS480 from HC. But they wear out pretty easily. Thanks.

Originally Posted by EatAtJoes

All good in hindsight... I should know better... God only knows how many I have built.... I guess it's what happens when you feel too confident with ones self...

Back to basics.... Move motor pinion away from main gear if motor needs to be connected otherwise pull wires from motor etc. etc. etc.

Anyway it's finished now, just waiting for the loctite to do 24hrs before I take it out for a test flight... almost scared to fly this beast.

Video to come...

Elias

Thanks Elias for your help with the body wobble, I got it sorted. I nearly cut my fingers off when my heli tried to fly off my desk and through my $2000 laptop. I believe you only do this once

Originally Posted by heniochus

Anybody can recommend a good tail servo for this HK450? I have been using the MKS DS480 from HC. But they wear out pretty easily. Thanks.

I am an intermediate flyer and have had 3x 450 helis, I am currently using a HD-3688HB digital servo from Hobby city and its the best I have used to date.
Will be getting more of these for my other helis

>What parts should i upgrade right away on my hk450mt? Are there any real problem areas?

Check the threads on the long screw that goes through the anti-rotation pin into the swash plate. On both my original and replacement swash plates, the screw only went about 1/2 way in. What I did to fix it was shorten the anti-rotation pin enough so that the screw would go in all the way.

Originally Posted by goldcoastflyer

Thanks Elias for your help with the body wobble, I got it sorted. I nearly cut my fingers off when my heli tried to fly off my desk and through my $2000 laptop. I believe you only do this once

What was the actual problem that caused the wobble in yours, did my method (although not verified) assist or was it something else completely?

and

Did it actually go through your laptop or was it heading towards the laptop and a spectacular save using fingers etc.....

Originally Posted by heniochus

Anybody can recommend a good tail servo for this HK450? I have been using the MKS DS480 from HC. But they wear out pretty easily. Thanks.

I still have my first ever purchased MKS DS480, but now I mainly use MKS DS8910 in the 450's , less stress using a larger servo.

Originally Posted by EatAtJoes

What was the actual problem that caused the wobble in yours, did my method (although not verified) assist or was it something else completely?

and

Did it actually go through your laptop or was it heading towards the laptop and a spectacular save using fingers etc.....

Pulled everything apart and lubed/checked/tightened, set up head again checked pitch,tracking/pitch curve & throttle curve. Never wobbled again.
Smashed my laptop screen, 5 stitches in my left hand & destroyed head/blades/2servos. Boy these things have some power and it was on a fresh battery

Originally Posted by goldcoastflyer

Pulled everything apart and lubed/checked/tightened, set up head again checked pitch,tracking/pitch curve & throttle curve. Never wobbled again.
Smashed my laptop screen, 5 stitches in my left hand & destroyed head/blades/2servos. Boy these things have some power and it was on a fresh battery

OOOOuuch... they sure do, better your hands than you body I guess, either way not good.....

As far as the wobble yeah it seems just pulling it down and setting back up seems the way to fix it... although mine was tail and yours was head.... go figure...

Okay so i have like a million spares of this thing and am just shifting over my RX and ESC to another kit as broke too many things on my HK yesterday... so transferring from a first release HK450 to a HK450MT... however the most annoying part of the process for me seems to be trying to get the motor to mount into the metal (instead of previously plastic) mount holes...... ROOOOAOAARRR!!!! stupid design is stupid. The plastic one gave you flex to kinda smoosh the motor into it and the bolts into it and make it fit. But because everything is metal... and i can't push the stupid turnigy motor wires out of the way enough and the stupid 45 deg angle between the wires and the holes this is a PITA to line up and then with one remaining hand put a bolt on my hex driver and hold the heli upside down and try and get it lined up.... i give up. Spent 40 mins trying to get it in there and then realised the bolt size was different between 2 different orders of the same motor....

Annoyed. Though the build took be about 3 hrs to get to just having to install the motor. Everything else is done besides servo + swash centering and some final balancing.

Do people normal undo all the hex screws and remove the motor mount and then attach the motor to it and install it all at once?

Originally Posted by yogibbear

Okay so i have like a million spares of this thing and am just shifting over my RX and ESC to another kit as broke too many things on my HK yesterday... so transferring from a first release HK450 to a HK450MT... however the most annoying part of the process for me seems to be trying to get the motor to mount into the metal (instead of previously plastic) mount holes...... ROOOOAOAARRR!!!! stupid design is stupid. The plastic one gave you flex to kinda smoosh the motor into it and the bolts into it and make it fit. But because everything is metal... and i can't push the stupid turnigy motor wires out of the way enough and the stupid 45 deg angle between the wires and the holes this is a PITA to line up and then with one remaining hand put a bolt on my hex driver and hold the heli upside down and try and get it lined up.... i give up. Spent 40 mins trying to get it in there and then realised the bolt size was different between 2 different orders of the same motor....


Annoyed. Though the build took be about 3 hrs to get to just having to install the motor. Everything else is done besides servo + swash centering and some final balancing.

Do people normal undo all the hex screws and remove the motor mount and then attach the motor to it and install it all at once?

Hiya Yogi!

I hear tell that is what some folks do!

b

Originally Posted by yogibbear

Okay so i have like a million spares of this thing and am just shifting over my RX and ESC to another kit as broke too many things on my HK yesterday... so transferring from a first release HK450 to a HK450MT... however the most annoying part of the process for me seems to be trying to get the motor to mount into the metal (instead of previously plastic) mount holes...... ROOOOAOAARRR!!!! stupid design is stupid. The plastic one gave you flex to kinda smoosh the motor into it and the bolts into it and make it fit. But because everything is metal... and i can't push the stupid turnigy motor wires out of the way enough and the stupid 45 deg angle between the wires and the holes this is a PITA to line up and then with one remaining hand put a bolt on my hex driver and hold the heli upside down and try and get it lined up.... i give up. Spent 40 mins trying to get it in there and then realised the bolt size was different between 2 different orders of the same motor....

Annoyed. Though the build took be about 3 hrs to get to just having to install the motor. Everything else is done besides servo + swash centering and some final balancing.

Do people normal undo all the hex screws and remove the motor mount and then attach the motor to it and install it all at once?

Yes very frustrating as there is little to no room to mount the motor without having the wires touch the side, all mine are touching even with motor mounted at an angle, but thats the 450's for ya....

What I do is leave one whole side off, mount everything in, then put the final side on, that way I the ability to run cables, put everything in without issue.
Complete build times from box to ready to fly is 4hrs +24hrs to let the loctite cure. But I must have build over 20x 450's I would say...

Elias