Discussion King V2 Upgrades and Mods Thread

[JayDizzl879]

Okay, there seems to be a need for a thread dedicated to King 2 upgrades and modifications only, so lets give it a go shall we? Here's my set up on my King 2:

Radio
-DX7/AR6100 = AWESOME! The hype you have heard is true. I have never had a single glitch. Response is instant. DSM2 is fantastic! You can pick up the Microlite package with or without servos. Got mine sans servos for $260 shipped.

Brushless system
-ESky 3900kv Brushless motor w/ 9T Revco steel pinion = great power without the overkill, motor gets only warm during flights, good flight times. The pinion runs very quietly and doesn't show any considerable wear after many, many flights. My main gears are lasting longer and looking better too.

-Dynam 30a ESC = has well over 500 flights on it; zero problems, doesn't get too hot. I highly recommend picking up the program card for easy programming.

Servos
-Swash & Tail/ Bluebird BMS-306BBs = very tight and precise, replacement gears are cheap too.

Gyro
-Telebee HH Gyro = quirky, but a great upgrade from a rate gyro. Holds tail very well, but needs occasional trim tweaking. You might have trouble setting it up and getting it to work well if you don't have a computer TX. Sub-trim is really the key to setting it up. Perfect for yard storming, but if you want to do hard 3D, save your pennies for a Logictech L2100T or a GY401.

Landing Gear
-Super Skids = wider than stock skids, more expensive than the Align gear that's popular on the King, but the Super-Skids are virtually unbreakable. They have survived some very hard crashes. They bolt right up to the lower frame without any drilling. They come with three pre-drilled mounting positions. Drawback = they shift the CG even further aft. They're a little bouncy too. Worth every penny though, in my opinion.

I've also installed Trex o-rings in the head, and Trex paddles and tail blades.

This set up runs solid. It's perfect for the type of flying I do with the King(sport flying and light aero). You don't need to buy all high end components to have a very reliable, fun to fly heli.

If you've upgraded, or modified your King, please post your set up here with your input on how it's working out for you. If this thread doesn't take off, hey, we tried. No right to complain in the King2 Lounge anymore.

Update! 4-6-2008
King v2 Measurements*Updated*
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...postcount=2415

HBK2 Boom Stretch Guide
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...postcount=2398
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...postcount=2421

The stretch guide does a great job of explaining why the mod is worthwhile and examines the steps in detail. Pics of this mod can easily be found using the "Search this Thread" tool located underneath the "page bar".

Thank you Spinup for the great posts!

While I'm at it, I've uploaded some pictures of my King with its latest setup.

[zake540]

Most excellent post,very well done and this should set the standard!

I just bought my king v2 and it was so hard trying to look for what kind of mod people were using on there king and if they liked it or not.


Thanks.

[loganjw]

Great idea for this thread!

Here's my newly renovated King. I built this from a barebones.

3900kv w/ 9T
Welgard 30A ESC
CommonSenseRC 15C 1500mAh
E-Flite Power Connectors
Logictech 2100T
Hitec HS-50 tail servo
all else stock

[JayDizzl879]

Nice set up loganjw. What kind of connectors are those?

[loganjw]

E-flite power connectors. They seem to work pretty good. They connect easily and aren't too hard to separate. I've only had this setup a week so I'm still tweaking it. I don't have the gyro dialed in perfectly yet. The bird still yaws left a good bit. I have to admit you now have me looking at DX7s on ebay. :-)

[chrise2]

Here's what I'm using:

- esky 704a HH gyro (works great when it works. I need to trim it in rate mode first and I think it'll fly much beter)
- DX6 w/ AR6000 receiver (I'm sure the Dx7 is cooler, but this is plenty cool for me right now and its cheap)
- 3100 KV motor w/ 10T pinion (plenty of power, but I'm still learning)
- Dynam 25A ESC (no slow startup. At least on my setup)
- Still use the stock battery, but am using Align battery connectors
- Stock servos, battery, frame. No CF or CNC aluminum.

Not very pimped out, but it gets the job done.

[osterizer]

Interesting, Jay-- mine's different, but same philosophy. It shows how customizable this thing is, I guess:

Radio-- I used a Futaba T9C for a long time, but now this guy has a T6EX 2.4GHz. Spread spectrum with Futaba behind it and plenty of heli features, it works great and hasn't had the teething problems of, ahem, competitors.

Motor-- JGF 400DH. Same 200W as the ESky 3800, but cooler and more efficient, and it has another 600kV if you want to crank up the head speed.

ESC-- Castle Phoenix 25. This is the Cadillac of ESCs where I (and many others) are concerned. It can be programmed just about any way that you like, to fit your flying preferences perfectly.

Servos-- Futaba S3114 swash, S3154 tail. Fast and strong. Light, but breakable .

Gyro-- GY401, the standard for micro heli gyros.

Mechanics: ESky aluminum head; HDX Blade CP Pro tail. These are quality hardware both, and great improvements over the standard plastic, but they're spendy.

Blades-- SAB 280mm CF from helihobby.com have been the best mains so far, and with CF tail and paddles the heli is a good aerobat. I use some combination with the standard blades/paddles when trimming, though-- the standard blades are good for general use.

Batteries-- MegaPower 1350mAh 15C for general flying. The best are the Thunder Power ProLite 1320s, but only if you're doing aero where you really care about the weight; they're expensive.

This is a good setup for aerobatics. It's still stable in sport flying with the bigger disc, but with the JGF and ProLites, it has almost double the power-to-weight ratio of the stock bird.

Old picture, but I'm not at home. When I took this photo it still had the ESky tail and receiver.

[hancockdw]

This may be more in the line of a mod technique to avoid -- it isn't particularly elegant. I drilled out the front frame screw seat and passed a 4-40 threaded rod through. This one's about 1.885", 1.6" would be enough. The rod is held in place with 4-40 nylon insert nuts (after some plastic relief using a Dremel), and this also restores the strength of the frame. The plastic pieces outboard of the nuts are Du-Bro 3/32" E/Z Adjust Horn Brackets, cut for 4-40 thread. I couldn't run them any closer to the motor platform, and as it happens this left them exactly far enough apart to nestle an Align CF Battery Mounting Plate between them. In desperation over how to connect the plate, I finally got a medium sized paper clip, and using needle-nosed pliers I bent it into a bracket, passing through the mounting plate's top 2 screw holes, on through the Horn Brackets, and then folded the remaining wire underneath. The third location point is a zip tie attaching to the ESC platform. I will cover the mounting plate with velcro, and further secure the battery with velcro ties.

At the end of this, I'm not sure it was worth it, but it was an interesting experience

I attached 2 pictures; this is my first time doing an attachment, and I didn't reduce the size of the JPEG files. They're not showing up as I write this Never mind!

[Crash-n-Hard]

Originally Posted by hancockdw

This may be more in the line of a mod technique to avoid -- it isn't particularly elegant. I drilled out the front frame screw seat and passed a 4-40 threaded rod through. This one's about 1.885", 1.6" would be enough. The rod is held in place with 4-40 nylon insert nuts (after some plastic relief using a Dremel), and this also restores the strength of the frame. The plastic pieces outboard of the nuts are Du-Bro 3/32" E/Z Adjust Horn Brackets, cut for 4-40 thread. I couldn't run them any closer to the motor platform, and as it happens this left them exactly far enough apart to nestle an Align CF Battery Mounting Plate between them. In desperation over how to connect the plate, I finally got a medium sized paper clip, and using needle-nosed pliers I bent it into a bracket, passing through the mounting plate's top 2 screw holes, on through the Horn Brackets, and then folded the remaining wire underneath. The third location point is a zip tie attaching to the ESC platform. I will cover the mounting plate with velcro, and further secure the battery with velcro ties.

At the end of this, I'm not sure it was worth it, but it was an interesting experience

I attached 2 pictures; this is my first time doing an attachment, and I didn't reduce the size of the JPEG files. They're not showing up as I write this Never mind!

Thats pretty clever Hancockdw.
Pretty nice mod.

[hancockdw]

Originally Posted by Crash-n-Hard

Thats pretty clever Hancockdw.
Pretty nice mod.

Thanks!

It might not so all-fired clever, though! I just found that the canopy JUST BARELY fits over the stock battery. I can rotate the horn brackets up a bit on the rod, which changes the angle a little, and I'll shave a little off the front of the ESC platform to get a couple more degrees. And I guess I'll have to get me a Cool or trex 'hat'!

[L0stS0ul]

I can't speak to the king 2 but the original king for optimal flight pretty much used the following and it should follow to the king 2 since the only real change is the belt drive:

1. JustGoFly 400DH on a 9 tooth pinion for ~2500rpm head speed ( I ran mine with an 8 tooth and it was still very nimble even though it was heavy with the superskids and t-rex canopy)
2. ThunderPower 1320mAh 11.1v Prolite Pack
3. HS-55's on the cyclic
4. I used a telebee but I'd put a logictech on the tail now with an HS-50
5. T-rex CF Paddles are a direct replacement on the stock flybar and are lighter and more aerodynamic which = faster cyclic response. Ditch the flybar weights all together for extremely crisp cyclic
6. E-SKY CNC Swashplate is a good upgrade. There is a lot of slop in the plastic swash which is the same on the King 1 and 2
7. E-SKY CNC Washout - I see this one as optional. My plastic washout never had any slop and I did not see any improvement in the heli due to the upgrade.
8. The rest of the CNC head has to be bought as a whole as the blade grips are designed to work with the CNC center hub. I see this as more of an optional upgrade. The plastic head on mine was always quite good and is more than capable of handling 2500-2700 rpm. I'd only do the upgrade if I was going to push it to 3k.

I like the t-rex canopy on the heli but that's me.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23084487&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...00024730&hl=en

[Crazy Eight]

Here is my white v2,not quite completed yet.The cyclic servos are in,but not the rest.I'll be finishing it asap.Here is what I have for it.
Esky 3800kv motor 10t
CC phoenix 35 esc
Berg 7p horizontal
HS-65hb's cyclic
S-3154 tail
gy401 gyro
Thunder Power 1320
CopterX 450 CNC head
HDX 300 CNC tail
Compy 300 tail fins
T-rex landing skids
T-rex CNC struts
Align fiber main blades (blue & white) cut to 280mm

I'll post my yellow v2 later,and my v1.

[qwadrat]

My setup:

3800 BL
25A stock ESC
Stock swash servos
Bluebird 306 tailservo
Stock receiver


so nothing special except some selfbuilt CFK tails

[tootyful]

Here's my King2. Specs are as follows:

Radio: Hitec Optic 6
Receiver: Electron 6

Cyclic Servos: HS55
Tail Servo: HS50

Gyro: Futaba Gy240

Motor + esc: Esky BL 3800kv + 25A BL esc

Powered by Dualsky Xpower 1300mah lipos

Tail blades, fins are all carbon fiber. Canopy is a cut down Trex XL canopy.

[bas10an]

Here's my mod, I'm very proud.

Feel free to comment.

Sebastian.