How many gears will this thing wreck in a crash?

sorry double tap /facepalm

That's a sweet looking drivetrain. How many speeds? I guess they went all out on this thing! Skipped belt altogether! Totally reverse of what protos has

She's no looker though. Hard to decide what's least attractive, canopy on or canopy off? Both took a beating with the ugly stick IMHO.

The framework around the drivetrain and motor looks very fragile too, possibly it's stronger than it looks?

Originally Posted by Flying Pitcher

That's a sweet looking drivetrain. How many speeds? I guess they went all out on this thing! Skipped belt altogether! Totally reverse of what protos has

You think so?

I'd call it an engineering disaster:
The top idler gear on the main shaft is obsolete (you don't need an idler gear to reverse the direction of rotation if the motor can be reversed simply by exchanging two leads).
That top idler gear also means, the bevel gear for tail drive PTO now handles the full power of the system, and needs to be lots stronger than needed for just driving the tail.
The top idler gear is also a totally unnecessary power loss.

Placing the gear what now is the idler gear, in the lower position, and inverting the 2nd stage would have cured all that and make things even more compact.

I really don't get it....

I have to agree, I'm not against complexity if it serves a purpose but this design to my eye seems a bit clumsy. Maybe others will see it different.

Anyway, it is good to have a heli manufacture investing in development of new products and it certainly seems to fly very nicely so good luck to them.

nah, I think Brutus called it.

I think it's beautiful! Rugged
Remember soxos800 with a toolbox? you could carry extra screws or linkages with you just in case

Originally Posted by Brutus1967

The top idler gear on the main shaft is obsolete (you don't need an idler gear to reverse the direction of rotation if the motor can be reversed simply by exchanging two leads).
That top idler gear also means, the bevel gear for tail drive PTO now handles the full power of the system, and needs to be lots stronger than needed for just driving the tail.
The top idler gear is also a totally unnecessary power loss.

Placing the gear what now is the idler gear, in the lower position, and inverting the 2nd stage would have cured all that and make things even more compact.

I really don't get it....

Hi Brutus, I agree the extra gears are unnecessary weight, drag, slop and complexity, but I am having trouble understanding some of your comments.
I don't see an idler gear on the mainshaft, did you mean the intermediate shaft or jack shaft? The gearset in between the motor pinion and main shaft is what I'm referring to.
I also don't understand the bevel gear tail drive, you say it handles full power, but how is that any different with the intermediate gears deleted?

Possibly Brutus doesnt appreciate that the two stage reduction on this heli is not to reverse direction of rotation (that's just a byproduct). The purpose of the two stage reduction is to be able to keep the individual gears relatively small in diameter. A single stage reduction requires a big 'dinner plate' main gear which with modern high torque motors needs to be very beefy and heavy and it requires a huge hole in the frame just where you want the frame to be stiffest. The pinion on a single stage also needs to be small which isn't ideal for transmitting high torque as it puts less tooth area in mesh.

It's not the two stage reduction in principal that I have issues with it's just that it seems to my eye a quite clumsy implementation.

JPF, why would they use a motor pinion gear that large in diameter? It seems out of proportion to everyone else.

pinion is larger, therefore transmits power better. You know how very small pinions can strip teeth? opposite idea here..
of course belt drive would be better than all those gears anyway.

It seems to me that a larger pinion would only offer the advantage of higher RPM plus less torque. EPower systems are pretty amazing today though.

like JPF said, more gear tooth contact area in the larger pinion.