I'm liking this one, Chris. A BNF may be in my future...

Originally Posted by DismayingObservation

I'm liking this one, Chris. A BNF may be in my future...

You should totally do it, I had more fun with the Blade this past weekend than anything else! (have the scraped up blade tips to prove it! )

I LOVE my new Blade 450 3D BNF. Running a DX7 TX and Hyperion 2200mAh 35C batteries. It was put together and set up very well. I pretty much tore it down before flying to inspect everything and it was lock-tited, lubed and greased in all the right spots. Mechanical set-up was dead on with perfect zero degrees pitch at center stick. I just needed one turn on a grip link to get perfect blade tracking. Nice and smooth hover, but still fast! A little "soft" in hard core 3D for my liking, but that was easily fixed with TX setup/programming. I started with the settings for Advanced and went from there. Best "buy and fly" heli I've ever owned and I've had a few over the years. The Blade stuff is pretty good in my experience with an mSR, mCP X and, now, the Blade 450. Glad I didn't waste money on the 120SR, CP Pro, SR, Blade 400, etc.

Finally a reviewer that knows what their doing, great job man!

I'm not loving my B450 as much...now... I've picked up a serious side-to-side vibration in the vertical tail fin. I haven't crashed it or done ANYTHING to it since setting it up and initially flying it. Mechanical issue I need to sort out.

Also, I read about a problem (because I experienced it myself and was researching) where the swashplate rams into the anti-rotation pins on the bottom of the head when at full negative pitch. Remember, this heli is opposite, so the swashplate moves UP for negative pitch. So, I'm now limited to -8 degrees at the top end and my cyclic obviously binds with any movement at that point. BAD design. There's a big thread about it on another forum and Mikel, the DESIGNER, came in and posted that it's "normal" and it was all of us with "bad flying techniques" and that we should never "experience that condition in flight". Really? -10 degrees with no cyclic binding is asking too much? Not even -8 degrees, which is unacceptable anyway? He also whined that "lots of other helis" have this problem. Uh yeah...never ran into it before, myself... Others posted the same thing and asked for specific heli examples. Not surprisingly, he just up and disappeared from the thread. Go figure...

I could fix this right now, easily, if the stupid head didn't have so many NON-adjustable links. I can move the range of swash pitch movement "down" away from the pins, but the mixing and bell/hiller arms won't be parallel at zero degrees/half stick, so I'll need to find/make some custom links. Then I'll be able to get that extra couple degrees of negative pitch for a symmetrical 3D setup since I have 13.5 on the top end for positive pitch. BUT... I shouldn't have to do this with an out-of-the-box BNF heli, especially seeing as how this is a rather major setup change and the values in the manual would be way off...

Now I'm curious, I'm going to take a closer look at mine and check for interaction, I don't recall seeing any earlier.

Originally Posted by CSpaced

Now I'm curious, I'm going to take a closer look at mine and check for interaction, I don't recall seeing any earlier.

Yup, stunt mode/idle-up 2. I could actually hear my swashplate "tink" when it hit the pins. If yours doesn't do that, please measure the amount of max negative pitch you can get without the cyclic hitting the pins at max deflencion.

When I see a situation where there is more positive pitch than negative, it ususally points to the swash not being in the middle of the travel. I would hazard a guess that at true mid-throttle stick, you have a couple of degrees of positive pitch. I would adjust the links or even use sub-trim to lower the swash and set your links for zero pitch at mid stick. Then I would bet that you will get full travel without hitting any bind position. I just rebuilt three 450's and one of them needed some adjustment of the sub-trim to set the swash for proper travel and zero pitch at mid stick, so I know that it could very well be somone on the assembly line not getting the swash in the right position before doing the rest of the setup. Take care.

Don

Nope. I have zero degrees at mid-stick. All head mixing arms level with servo arms at 90 degrees. Perfectly neutral mechanical setup. Again, I CAN fix it, but I'm going to need to make up some adjustable links to replace the fixed length ones.

Keyrigger, if I may ask... How tight do you set the belt tension? Where you can push it over about 1/2 way? Also, how tight/loose do you run your main blades? I know plenty about glow helis, but I'm pretty new to the mini electrics.

I just checked mine, and there is indeed a little interaction where the swash meets the washout pins. It doesn't seem to affect flight, but I agree that it shouldn't be there.

Originally Posted by CSpaced

I just checked mine, and there is indeed a little interaction where the swash meets the washout pins. It doesn't seem to affect flight, but I agree that it shouldn't be there.

I thought about the possibility of grinding down the pins a mm or two. There's still plenty of pin left (about 1/2) in the anti-rotation link base at full positive pitch (full down swashplate).

Might want to keep an eye on it, though, especially since these birds are a fairly new release and aren't that old. People have reported actually wearing holes in the top part of the swashplate.

I was at a fun fly last weekend and a newbie came by with the Blade 450 3D and asked for some help with it. My first impression was on the negative side. Most of the parts are plastic, it comes with wood blades and I believe the servos do not have metal gears, if that's the case what do you guys think will happen in your first crash..I'm guessing there will be some gears that need replacing, in comparison, I've crashed my 450's well over 20 times and my metal gear servos have never stripped. I doubt the Blade 3D servos will provide the same kind of protection but I dont know for sure if they are metal gears or not.

When I spooled it up the first thing I noticed was the tail was wagging so much that it was out of control. We lowered the gain so it was manageable, the next problem was the swash plate, it was all over the place. It was a fight to simply hover this heli. Trim didnt work because none of the links were setup so the swash was level, I had to guess since there was no manual to give me a reference(the newbie told me it didnt come with one that had that info).

I did get it so that he could start to begin the basics of hovering but there was no way it was RTF out of the box for a beginner.

IMO, for the money, there are better alternatives than this machine.

Look, knock off the Blade bashing, okay? This is NOT a thread for you to slobber all over your Trex clones or whatever and slam the B450.

And, for what it's worth, I learned on a .30 sized glow plastic heli (Shuttle ZX) with wood blades and plain old airplane non-metal gear servos. Futaba S148s, if I remember right. I bashed the heck out of that thing and never stripped a servo and the airframe generally always came out fine. Of course, the blades needed replacing, but that happens with EVERY heli almost every time in any decent crash/tip over.

It wasn't RTF out of the box because either he or someone else jacked it up. Your hint was "it didn't have a manual with those settings". Wrong...there are beginner and intermediate/advanced settings for several TXs, especially the DX6i that comes in the RTF kit, in the manual or the included amended flyer for the DX7/DX8. Mine was definitely RTF enough to hover and do basic forward flight. It's only when I closely looked at a symmetrical 3D pitch curve that I noticed an issue, which is easily fixed, as I've already stated. My tail/gyro/servo combo was rock solid from the first flight on, too.