Originally Posted by layrin2

For the life of me I cant see how someone can bash a heli they have never flown

A lot of people have had very bad experiences with the V450D01. It seems that the same poor electronics are being used in the V450D03. What is different is the main frame which is all plastic. It may be the same type that is used in the Master CP. They may have made the parts very thick which would explain why it could weigh more. It is aimed for beginners so Walkera is not concentrating on saving weight like a Logo. The durability of the Master CP is certainly very impressive.

It seems that you can get a BNF kit below $200 without battery or charger. It will be interesting to see what Helipal does with this heli. Like Tony, the people at Helipal fly high-end stuff themselves even though they sell low-end stuff. If they decide to promote the V450D03 heavily, it will affect their own Storm brand of helicopters. This could be one of the most important helis for Walkera. They will be banking on it to change perceptions of larger Walkera helicopters.

Originally Posted by layrin2

For the life of me I cant see how someone can bash a heli they have never flown

Well for one, a helicopter using the very same mechanical parts, rotors, shafts, gears and even the same servos and ESC and is 48 grams less, being lighter, will perform better. I think anyone would agree.

Secondly. It's no secret. Ask anyone. The 09-8 and 09-9 servos are beyond garbage and are 98% likely to burn up or short out quickly (within 50 or so flights). If they don't, your lucky. It only takes one to bring the heli down and cost you money. So don't take my word for it go ask some people.

Third, If you live in a hot climate i can almost promise you will either burn the ESC out or cause a thermal protection at some point in the summer and crash because of it. The ESC and the motor are known to run like a furnace.

Fourth, the tail servo is also known to run very hot and hunt loudly. I burned out 4 Walkera tail servos on my v450 within 40 flights. Plus a cheap Fusonic servo. Almost all of them burned out in the air. But i do live in florida, one very hot climate in the summer. So, Once i installed a Savox servo it lasted for well over 50 flights and still going. I'm probably encroaching on 100 flights with that servo installed now. It's been through many, many, many crashes. All of which were caused by electronic failure of the stock ESC or RX, all except for one.

I really don't intend to bash the heli. Nope. I could care less if you listen to me or not. The fact is I'm not just barking in the dark. When i first got my V450D01, i didn't want to believe it either. I was stubborn. But the truth is, the more problems i encountered, the more times i replaced the servos, the more the electronics failed on me, the MORE PEOPLE i found having the same problems. After burning out a few sets of cyclic servos and a hand full of tail servos. All of which are documented in the V450 thread. I finally replaced them all. I kept having problems and the RX kept locking me out completely. Not knowing, and stubbornly ignoring that it could be the RX. I replaced the ESC, motor and everything else. It then came down to a defective RX, of which i went through 4. Only 2 of them would work without lock out. It wasn't until i got the long antennas on the revised 2702V that i started trusting the V450. I can promise you i can bring some degree of facts to the table on this issue and there are others that have encountered it as well. It's pretty random. Like a disease or something. So, I'm sure this heli is OKAY and will fly. But you better fly it like you don't care if it crashes. Because if you don't crash it. I promise you. The electronics will crash for you before very long if your doing 3D. That won't be fun or cheap with that uhh.... "nice" plastic frame.

But really, don't take my word for it. Do your own research. Ask people about the Big Walkera helicopters. Can you trust their servos? Have you ever heard of anyone using Walkera servos in an Align clone or other bigger heli to save money? NOPE. The fact is you can heed my warnings or not. If you do, i doubt you will regret it. But if you don't. Chances are likely you'll find out on your own eventually. I really just want Walkera not to risk people's health and property because they make helicopters that do this:

V450D01 2702V Lock out Crashes (4 min 22 sec)

BTW, only one of these crashes was my fault. The 2nd one. All the rest were the RX locking me out. These were all with two different 2702V receivers installed and recored over a period of about 2 months or so. So trust me, I've done my research and paid to do it first hand too. So if we're lucky the new Devo RX doesn't have this problem. So far, I have not heard of anyone with it yet on a Devo. Though i have heard of devo locking out in random cases. So manybe these issues are random and i'm unlucky. Is it worth your wallet to try your luck?

Originally Posted by zadaw

A lot of people have had very bad experiences with the V450D01. It seems that the same poor electronics are being used in the V450D03. What is different is the main frame which is all plastic. It may be the same type that is used in the Master CP. They may have made the parts very thick which would explain why it could weigh more. It is aimed for beginners so Walkera is not concentrating on saving weight like a Logo. The durability of the Master CP is certainly very impressive.

It seems that you can get a BNF kit below $200 without battery or charger. It will be interesting to see what Helipal does with this heli. Like Tony, the people at Helipal fly high-end stuff themselves even though they sell low-end stuff. If they decide to promote the V450D03 heavily, it will affect their own Storm brand of helicopters. This could be one of the most important helis for Walkera. They will be banking on it to change perceptions of larger Walkera helicopters.

The one thing i did not count on was the frame being durable, being plastic, OR them selling it for less. Since i have not seen it for sale anywhere, i assume they will sell it for the same amount or close enough? If it's very cheap, i would then endorse it for a good crash learner i guess. $200 is what Wow hobbies wants for a "new" V120d02S BNF. That, IMO is what this heli is worth. About $200. The V120 i think shouldn't be sold for much more than $130 or so at the most. But Walkera, as i've said before is getting ahead of them self with pricing and doing so with hubris.

if the frame is like the one on the MasterCP you'd have to have a pretty horrendous crash to put a dent into the frame. One reason I wouldn't get this is at 450 size there are too many better choices. This is 299.00 you could build a flybarless trex clone for that amount and I guarantee it would fly really well. For 100.00 more you can get a mini protos.

But......for someone who really doesn't want to play with setup too much and just fly i guess this would be ok. I am sure they probably will end up with new servos at the very least though. I really don't trust ANY of Walkeras servos. I wouldn't even fly a 450 size with their stock servos. Hell, i didn't even use the stock servos in my MasterCP....went straight to Hitec's.

I gathered that the trade price of the V120D02S is around $100. The street price in Hong Kong is about $160. This compares favorably with the 130X that sells for $280 here. Whereas in the US, you can get the 130X at below $240. You cannot really compare value for money between large helis and submicros. For a start, there is much more investment involved in research and development. None of the high end brands have a submicro CP. The Align 100 FP is widely reputed to be a failure.

I just checked the flying weights of the V200D03 and Master CP. It is 342g vs 420g respectively. Therefore the plastic frame gives a deceptive perception that it is lighter. While in actual fact it is much heavier because of its thickness. This partly explains why the Master CP sometimes behaves like a flying elephant compared to the V120D02S for me. It drops very quickly after flipping inverted and I find it difficult to stabilize it because of the momentum.

Still, I don't think anybody has reported any mechanical problems with this heli. Mechanical problems account for up to half the problems seen in the 4F200. if you take them out, it will be a substantial improvement even if you were left with poor electronics. I would be interested to see if street vendor will sell it here.

Originally Posted by pmerritt

if the frame is like the one on the MasterCP you'd have to have a pretty horrendous crash to put a dent into the frame. One reason I wouldn't get this is at 450 size there are too many better choices. This is 299.00 you could build a flybarless trex clone for that amount and I guarantee it would fly really well. For 100.00 more you can get a mini protos.

But......for someone who really doesn't want to play with setup too much and just fly i guess this would be ok. I am sure they probably will end up with new servos at the very least though. I really don't trust ANY of Walkeras servos. I wouldn't even fly a 450 size with their stock servos. Hell, i didn't even use the stock servos in my MasterCP....went straight to Hitec's.

Well said. I agree 100%. You WILL absolutely, without a doubt end up replacing the servos, at the very least, at some point due to failure, not crashing. I wanted to test it all out myself. So i know first hand. Put it to the test so that i can say these things without feeling like i haven't thoroughly tested and researched it. But the crash will cost you enough to make you upset. The servos are the one thing that keeps me from saying these are good "learner" helicopters. Only because a "learner" is not experienced enough to know it's not safe enough to spool up in your garage. With no where for you to run if it burns out, locks out or just decides it wants blood because of the servos shorting or otherwise. For me the RX could have locked me out at any point and it would have just went where the last hover correction told it to. For me this is too dangerous, having had it nearly happen to me in my drive way with my back to the garage door on 2 occasions because of the 2702V RX lockouts. My garage door knows the v450 intimately.

Originally Posted by zadaw

I gathered that the trade price of the V120D02S is around $100. The street price in Hong Kong is about $160. This compares favorably with the 130X that sells for $280 here. Whereas in the US, you can get the 130X at below $240. You cannot really compare value for money between large helis and submicros. For a start, there is much more investment involved in research and development. None of the high end brands have a submicro CP. The Align 100 FP is widely reputed to be a failure.

I just checked the flying weights of the V200D03 and Master CP. It is 342g vs 420g respectively. Therefore the plastic frame gives a deceptive perception that it is lighter. While in actual fact it is much heavier because of its thickness. This partly explains why the Master CP sometimes behaves like a flying elephant compared to the V120D02S for me. It drops very quickly after flipping inverted and I find it difficult to stabilize it because of the momentum.

Still, I don't think anybody has reported any mechanical problems with this heli. Mechanical problems account for up to half the problems seen in the 4F200. if you take them out, it will be a substantial improvement even if you were left with poor electronics. I would be interested to see if street vendor will sell it here.

Again, excellent points. I suppose they are trying to price in competition with Blade. But in my opinion. If you live in the US. There is no competition. I LOVE my V120D02S, and with DJFuki and Manny compos advocating the 6 axis in 3D i can't help but suggest it over a 130X. BUT!!! Mark my words!! Buy anything but a V120D02S, if you live in the US, and your basically screwed if you have a problem. Your going to regret it at some point. Buy a Blade helicopter (300X, 400X 500X) and even if you regret it at least Horizion will keep mailing you free parts or fix you heli for free. Or you can bring it to the LHS and the guy there will ACTUALLY LOOK AT AND WORK ON YOUR HELI. Unlike Walkera. I currently, as we speak about this, have a guy mailing me his V450 that he bought from wow hobbies. He lives right down the street from them and they won't look at, fix or tell him anywhere he can go to get it looked at. Because their hands are basically tied and if they did do anything it would come out of their pocket at this point. He went to a LHS and the guy there was reluctant to work on it and in the end made the issues WORSE. He contacted me though ebay as was ecstatic to have found someone that will even look at his heli for him. This is a BIG PROBLEM to consider if you are one of Walkera's targets, a new pilot in the hobby who doesn't know better. I don't know where Walkera's main sales get done. But this is an argument we can have all day about price and outreach and the international problems. IT IS FAIR to say that if you live in the USA Walkera is the worst option, with the least support, no face time with a LHS and no where to get your heli fixed/replaced if you don't know how to yourself. Like most of their targeted consumers won't know how to do.


About the 4f200 Mechanics: I will never sell my 4f200, it's still to this day my favorite heli. Maybe not best performing for 3D, but i still love it. I've never had the issues many others have had with the mechanics. If they used a CF frame on that heli and gave it some better servos it really would be one of the best heli they ever made. If not the hardest to work on . I wish they would rerelease it for devo or something. The only thing wrong is their quality of construction. They need to make the swash and blade grips out of 6061-T6 Aluminum or make the screws/threads bigger for the ball linkages. Because they are WAY too soft to hold together in a crash. All the ball linkages always strip out. If you fly it in this state the linkages and parts WILL fly off. The other thing is they need to reduce the size of the gap in the blade grips so they can accommodate standard 200mm blades like the Trex 250's blades. If they MUST insist on proprietary blade standardization. They could at least make the blades narrower on the 3 blade head. They were too wide for 3D. The heli wasn't made for 3D. But with slightly narrower blades, like the trex 250 blade i custom fit, the heli performed 3d much better. Over all they have the capability of releasing one of the coolest 250 size helicopters but in classic Walkera style, they fall just short of the mark every time because of greed. They have no focus on quality, they just want the unit out the door so people will buy it. Again, not building any brand loyalty here.

About the V450 mechanics:
I don't expect there to be anything wrong with the mechanics. The "New" rotor head mechanics use a new swash that is half plastic and is taller. So it has a limited range of movement compared to the older, all aluminum and shorter swash on the original V450d01. Because of the limited range of movement, Walkera lengthened the ball linkages on the blade grips to balance it out. At least this is how it appears to be. I don't expect anything to be "wrong" with the mechanics except for breaking the plastic blade grips in a crash and having to buy a WHOLE new rotor head to replace the cheap plastic parts that don't even cost a nickel for them to produce. NOW, if they happen to sell the rotor head parts separately, like every other 450 manufacturer. This might be worth the downgrade in quality with a higher price tag. But the fact is they want MORE money for the "New" mechanics as replacement parts. Then they want for the OLD all aluminum and better quality parts. I don't see how material quality goes down and price goes up. But this is Walkera logic for you. At least blade helicopters are not ambiguous. You know your getting a plastic helicoper. But you also know your getting a top of the line gyro and some servos i haven't seen anyone complain about yet. I'm sure they are not good. But at least Blade isn't trying to hide under the guise of a quality helicopter brand. There is some honesty in their presentation of their cheaper brand heli. For one, they don't have people like Wow hobbies telling people that the Walkera 450 servos are as good as Hi-tech or Savox/Align servos. Because they obviously are not.

Take a look:
http://www.wowhobbies.com/hm-v450d01...3servos-2.aspx

http://www.wowhobbies.com/hm-v450d01...of3servos.aspx

The point I am trying to make is there's no history on this helicopter as of yet.
Will there be problems with it I am sure there will be. But every helicopter on this form has had some kinda problem. Just one example blades 130 tail slider. But after talking to Bob at helircstore.com who will be stocking this heli and the parts. I for one will be getting 2 of them and hope for the best. At 200 to220 bucks for a 450 BNF and it not be a clone it is a risk I myself am willing to take

Something I should add is I can and do work on my Helis. And Bob at helircstore.com has replaced all bad parts from walkera that i have got including a bad RX on A Master CP that had a tail drift out of the box. With out his support I would most likely not be a walkera customer

Originally Posted by layrin2

The point I am trying to make is there's no history on this helicopter as of yet.
Will there be problems with it I am sure there will be. But every helicopter on this form has had some kinda problem. Just one example blades 130 tail slider. But after talking to Bob at helircstore.com who will be stocking this heli and the parts. I for one will be getting 2 of them and hope for the best. At 200 to220 bucks for a 450 BNF and it not be a clone it is a risk I myself am willing to take

Well, i agree for $200 it's a crasher heli you don't have to worry about too much, i guess. But where is the link on that price? I have not seen any for sale yet? I'm guessing about $300 for a BNF will be their price. Plus shipping too. I'm thinking like $429 for the RTF, maybe more. It's not going to be priced like the master CP if thats what your thinking. I could be wrong. I was about the master CP. It's hard to find one of those for sale. I don't think wow carries that model, a lot of US distributors are not carrying Walkera anymore. So I'm curious to where this is all going to lead. These things, and the past, very real, safety issues with the big 200+ size Walkera helicopters should be of concern to ANY potential buyer. Simply not talking about it does not help anyone, at least I don't think it does.


I Know this much. If i made tires that go flat in 50 trips, or break shoes that failed after 100 miles, or anything else that would be a safety concern on a car. I would probably deserve any ridicule i received for putting peoples health, life, and property at risk. The company would probably go under within a year. Especially without refunding or compensating the buyers. So why is it not okay to talk about a heli that might take your face off?

There is a BNF version without battery or charger for $193.55

http://9imod.com/index.php?main_page...oducts_id=2070

You can talk about anything you want and I support that. But we are talking about a helicopter you have no experience with.
1st lockouts yours where with WK Rxs this is a Devo Rx lockouts do not seem to be a problems
2ad week motor in your own words this one looks to be different
3rd flying a 450 class helicopter in a small space such as in front of your garage will never be safe
And last I work with a seller who stands behind his products. I call him on the phone tell him the problem and he does what ever it takes to fix it.
Try that with wow hobbies

Originally Posted by layrin2

You can talk about anything you want and I support that. But we are talking about a helicopter you have no experience with.
1st lockouts yours where with WK Rxs this is a Devo Rx lockouts do not seem to be a problems
2ad week motor in your own words this one looks to be different
3rd flying a 450 class helicopter in a small space such as in front of your garage will never be safe
And last I work with a seller who stands behind his products. I call him on the phone tell him the problem and he does what ever it takes to fix it.
Try that with wow hobbies

Your right, but that motor is installed on the "new" v450d01 and it reportedly runs just as hot but with any luck the motor shaft won't be soft as aluminum like the old motor. The motor and Esc are only a problem in places like Florida or if you tie wrap the esc to tightly it will short out. My main gripe is with the servos, with which I do have experience. I'm not here to argue. I've said my peace. For $200 its not bad. but you will pay twice when the servos fail or otherwise. The Devo units HAVE had the same problems as the 2702v. There is a reason why they revised them at least 3 times, recently, each change having different antenna configuration. The newest ones having 2 long wires like the revised 2702 now has too. I won't be monitoring this thread any Longer because it is not my intention to argue. I simply want my data and findings known. So when the problem occurs people don't keep spending money, like I did, on a lost cause and a lost company. So immediately following this post I will be unsubscribed from this thread. I wish the best of luck to anyone who gets this heli, or any heli for that matter.

personaly i think this may be a start of great things from walkera a company that does it all radios electronics models look out futaba jr ive played with their gear and love it and the price can't be beat look out align lol.

It looks that it will be a massive launch. The heli heavily back-ordered by vendors and distributors. It will be the first time that a 450 Walkera heli will be available for sale in Hong Kong. I hope the receiver won't have any of the problems of the old 2702V, It is given that you will have to replace the servos. I hope that newbies do not get overwhelmed by problems as many did with the old V450D01. I am not going to get one because for one, I am absolutely scared of the 450 size.

Originally Posted by zadaw

It looks that it will be a massive launch. The heli heavily back-ordered by vendors and distributors. It will be the first time that a 450 Walkera heli will be available for sale in Hong Kong. I hope the receiver won't have any of the problems of the old 2702V, It is given that you will have to replace the servos. I hope that newbies do not get overwhelmed by problems as many did with the old V450D01. I am not going to get one because for one, I am absolutely scared of the 450 size.

Zadaw, it's like anything you just have to get used to the 450 size and if you're worried about safety just remember to keep it well away from you. I , admittedly, didn't fly my 450 at all this season but it was because I have had some tail problems and it got on my nerves enough that I just shelved it and started playing with the MasterCP. My 500 I just won't fly it much at all till I stop having all these little mishaps. Mishaps with 500's and above can put more serious dents in ones pockets

Oh, yeah, the bigger birds fly soooooooo much better though. The micros really get your skills ready for when you fly the bigger birds.