Originally Posted by erkq

Yes... the 130x flies extremely well. I'd say the tail is the weakest link. But if you hit throttle-hold before going it it is remarkably resistant to crash damage.

+1!

I have crashed my 130X three times in a single outing on grass and continued flying.

Originally Posted by johnnyrocco123

I have only been flying Heli's since last June, but I have never been able to hit Throttle Hold.

I have saved the Heli at the last minute so many times, if I would have hit throttle hold, I would have crashed at least a dozen more times.

Now if the heli freaks out, (flybarless goes skitzo), I am hitting throttle hold.

If you fly in "stunt" mode or "idle-up" so you can do inverted stuff there is no other way to save your heli if it's going to hit the ground. I keep my finger under the TH on the right side of my transmitter at all times. When that "oops" moment comes up it's so easy to shut it all down. 9 times out of 10 (literally) I can just set the little heli back on its feet and fly again! I don't even inspect it anymore.

Originally Posted by erkq

If you fly in "stunt" mode or "idle-up" so you can do inverted stuff there is no other way to save your heli if it's going to hit the ground. I keep my finger under the TH on the right side of my transmitter at all times. When that "oops" moment comes up it's so easy to shut it all down. 9 times out of 10 (literally) I can just set the little heli back on its feet and fly again! I don't even inspect it anymore.

I will try....

BUt, if I have an oops moment, it's already in the ground.

Coming from years of flying planes, it's really hard. Of course, I want to slam the throttle stick down too. BADDDD!!!

Originally Posted by johnnyrocco123

I will try....

BUt, if I have an oops moment, it's already in the ground.

Coming from years of flying planes, it's really hard. Of course, I want to slam the throttle stick down too. BADDDD!!!

Yeah... I agree. It's really rough reflex-wise. I started with planes too and even worse learned to fly helis in "normal" mode. That meant I pulled the stick down to get everything to stop with helis too. When I started flying in "stunt" it was a tough road.

So I did not try to fight slamming the stick down. I just learned to add a flick of a switch to it. Then it doesn't matter that you slam the stick down, if you're almost on the ground anyway, that is. Then, eventually, you'll be able to tame the stick in case you have some altitude you want to come down through a little softer.

I saw Lynx was offering a carbon fiber torque shaft for the Blade 130X and thought it may be a cure for my self destructing tail problem - despite my attempts to balance the tail blades and endless dollars in tail hop ups and spare parts, I couldn't get rid of the vibrations which existed mid range during spool up and went away at full speed. This cause a steady stream of "rounded" nylon C and D gears, and when I switched to all metal gears, led to the tail destroying itself every 10 flights or so.

I decided to test just how much vibration existed with the steel torque tube by putting it on my dremel tool. The results were very interesting and could explain all the problems I've been having. I repeated this test with several other 130x torque tubes I had as spares, including tests with the tube contained in a spare tail boom. The resonance was there for all of them and rattled the tail boom pretty good at times. Here's a video of the 1st test. It's amazing how much it rattled the dremel tool when it hit resonance.

Blade 130X torque tube test (1 min 25 sec)

Originally Posted by Jboy90277

I saw Lynx was offering a carbon fiber torque shaft for the Blade 130X and thought it may be a cure for my self destructing tail problem - despite my attempts to balance the tail blades and endless dollars in tail hop ups and spare parts, I couldn't get rid of the vibrations which existed mid range during spool up and went away at full speed. This cause a steady stream of "rounded" nylon C and D gears, and when I switched to all metal gears, led to the tail destroying itself every 10 flights or so.

I decided to test just how much vibration existed with the steel torque tube by putting it on my dremel tool. The results were very interesting and could explain all the problems I've been having. I repeated this test with several other 130x torque tubes I had as spares, including tests with the tube contained in a spare tail boom. The resonance was there for all of them and rattled the tail boom pretty good at times. Here's a video of the 1st test. It's amazing how much it rattled the dremel tool when it hit resonance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MQFB1KuBlE

I dig the Carbon torque shaft
I put a few drops of oil on my stock metal torque shaft and all the vibrations went away!
smooth as silk now... I've not done one upgrade on my 130x and love this heli

Carbon TT had less vibes for me but ended up breaking one in a crash where I suspect the metal would have held up. Running metal now and might try carbon once this one gives me any issues.

Frustrating day with 130x. Just when I thought most of my issues were ironed out after having a great days flying yesterday, I decided to eventually replace the landing gear I first snapped trying to test auto capability (none!). After fixing original landing gear with masking tape and superglue, and later with a paperclip and epoxy (still works well), decided to upgrade to my microheli setup that was lying in a box waiting to be used (as are many other upgrades waiting for the standard parts to break, so far only upgrade has been metal b gear, and microheli main and tail blades to see if it improves the vibes, which are pretty ok on this particular heli). Excited on spool up today, was surprised to find that motor works but no reaction from swash or tail. I have now experienced the problem of other posts on the forum about this issue. Tried rebinding but problem of only esc responding persists. Then it starts to struggle to rebind. Frustrating issue - seems only a new main board will sort out this issue? Fine yesterday, problem today, with the only change being fitting the new landing gear. This heli has not yet had a major crash yet (the auto attempt resulted in just landing hard on the landing gear, and still flew fine afterwards). Most parts original except for aforementioned, and c gear which started slipping. ARRGH

Originally Posted by erkq

Yes... the 130x flies extremely well. I'd say the tail is the weakest link. But if you hit throttle-hold before going it it is remarkably resistant to crash damage.

Originally Posted by J_skaggs

+1!

I have crashed my 130X three times in a single outing on grass and continued flying.

+1000!

Learning to use TH is an essential heli flying skill. In fact, I'd say it is second only to learning how to hover in all orientations - which is another essential skill that should be mastered as soon as possible (certainly before working on aerobatics).

Joel

Originally Posted by johnnyrocco123

Thanks, that's what I was looking for.

Note that ProgressiveRC also has a parallel charging board which includes self-resetting fuses, which I thought was quite innovative:

http://www.progressiverc.com/safe-pa...-umx-130x.html

Originally Posted by deonjams

Frustrating day with 130x. Just when I thought most of my issues were ironed out after having a great days flying yesterday, I decided to eventually replace the landing gear I first snapped trying to test auto capability (none!). After fixing original landing gear with masking tape and superglue, and later with a paperclip and epoxy (still works well), decided to upgrade to my microheli setup that was lying in a box waiting to be used (as are many other upgrades waiting for the standard parts to break, so far only upgrade has been metal b gear, and microheli main and tail blades to see if it improves the vibes, which are pretty ok on this particular heli). Excited on spool up today, was surprised to find that motor works but no reaction from swash or tail. I have now experienced the problem of other posts on the forum about this issue. Tried rebinding but problem of only esc responding persists. Then it starts to struggle to rebind. Frustrating issue - seems only a new main board will sort out this issue? Fine yesterday, problem today, with the only change being fitting the new landing gear. This heli has not yet had a major crash yet (the auto attempt resulted in just landing hard on the landing gear, and still flew fine afterwards). Most parts original except for aforementioned, and c gear which started slipping. ARRGH

Yes, sounds like your 3-in-1 gone bad.

Originally Posted by Spyro37

Yes, sounds like your 3-in-1 gone bad.

Must be a reason why these failures occur, not sporadic surely. I noticed some oil on my canopy, came from oiling recently installed metal gear to smoothen initial running. That could have sprayed on to the front servo board. For the 3 in 1 to work correctly, I will assume all servo boards have to work correctly, If one fails, 3 in 1 may not work anymore. I will clean the servo boards and see.

Originally Posted by Jboy90277

I decided to test just how much vibration existed with the steel torque tube by putting it on my dremel tool. The results were very interesting and could explain all the problems I've been having. I repeated this test with several other 130x torque tubes I had as spares, including tests with the tube contained in a spare tail boom. The resonance was there for all of them and rattled the tail boom pretty good at times. Here's a video of the 1st test. It's amazing how much it rattled the dremel tool when it hit resonance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MQFB1KuBlE

I wonder if your test is reliable IMO.
The torque tube is securely held by 2 bearings on both ends.
A rod that long and small diameter will obviously wobble even slightly causing the effect as demonstrated without the bearings.
A short metal drill bit will not give the same result.

Sorry to hear that it seemed and sounded that your tail gears are getting destroyed prematurely, and not from a crash.
My 130 is pretty strong. I usually get 50-100 flights per gear, which includes crashes before a gear gets "rounded". So I couldn't & shouldn't complain for amount of fun I get.
I might also try these on my other 130X just for curiosity once released.

http://www.horizonhobby.com/webapp/w...pe=productgrid

For those that are interested with DS35 conversion, this is 100% plug and play mount for the DS35 servo. You'll need some small screws (not included) .
Of course, the DS35 servo is available and can be purchased everywhere including eBay, until the 130X rudder mods became known.

http://www.banggood.com/Wholesale-Wa...7-p-50193.html

Flew a couple batteries in the 130x after I was done with planks today. Woot! I am now front flipping, side flipping, and flying circuits, both fast and slow, with a lot more confidence! This thing rocks! I gave away my MCPXs and spares to another flyer since I haven't touched them or my nano, since getting the 130x. I flew my 450 heli the other day, and the methods and confidence carries over almost 1 to 1 in terms of feeling I can do stuff with the 450 after trying it and being successful on the 130x. Not much more I could ask for out of the little plastic fantastic!

Originally Posted by Spyro37

I wonder if your test is reliable IMO.
The torque tube is securely held by 2 bearings on both ends.
A rod that long and small diameter will obviously wobble even slightly causing the effect as demonstrated without the bearings.
A short metal drill bit will not give the same result.

Hardly scientific, I'll admit - was curious to see if there was any resonance and wasn't too concerned about replicating the heli configuration too closely. I was in the middle of rebuilding the tails for both my 130Xs when I stumbled across that carbon fiber TT and curiosity struck.

Although...I think you can see in the video that the end was still when the middle section did its number...as if it was constrained at that end. At a high enough RPM, everything fell perfectly in line.

Anyways, I put off the rebuild of my 130Xs and ordered a couple of carbon fiber TTs from Helidirect. I'll give them a real world test when they come in. That's probably the only reliable way to see if it will be better.