600 My turn to build an Align T-rex 600L Dominator

[Nade]

Hi y'all,

I had the opportunity after my Bell 47GII build to add the Align Trex 600L Dominator to my fleet. So I wanted to share the build with you. Should you see or read something that you can contribute to or help with, I'm all ears and eyes.

The beginning took off without a hitch. A far cry from the start of the 47G.

 

[Nade]

Since I am familiar with primarily Blade and SAB products building an Align is new for me but I see the quality in this make to be up there with the SAB products. Good news!

 

[Smoggie]

Nice!
As you know I have a 600 Pro but it's been upgraded through the years to the same spec as the Dominator, plus a few of my own customisations. I got mine originally as an assembled but unflown airframe, so I didn't have the pleasure of the full 'build from a box of bits' experience.

One thing that you are most likely already aware of (I see you highlighted it in the instructions) is that with Align many parts like the head and tail come pre-assembled but the screws are not tightened and there is no thread lock applied. It's critical that you systematically remove every screw, apply thread lock and tighten. I know of a few people that have had crashes after missing one vital screw and it vibrating out in flight.

 

[Nade]

Hey thanks for the heads up on the partially assembled parts on this bird Steve. It just so happened that I had someone tell me that despite S.A.B. Telling us on their partially assembled parts that it's no needed to disassembled them, they pull them apart anyway. I didn't on mine and have never had a problem with those parts.

So I decided to check the partial assemblies on this 600 and yes, a totally different story. So I took every screw out that matched up with metal and reassembled them with Locktite. Hopefully I haven't missed any. Here's a few more pix.

 

[PLANETGETLOW]

You're almost there!!

Did that torque tube have 2 bearings inside of it?

I'm curious to see how this heli performs for you. I've heard the 600 wasn't a very good machine but we all know how opinions are!!

 

[fran11784]

I think the 600ESP is probably the model most refer to as "not very good". I can say I had a 600 pro that flew like it was on rails. Those mechanics are now in a UH1 fuselage. Keep us posted...
T

 

[Smoggie]

Yeah, i love my 600 Pro.. the design has a few little 'quirks' but it a good heli. As standard it's optimised for very high headspeed which might not suit everyone but you can fix that.

 

[fran11784]

As standard it's optimised for very high headspeed

Very true, when we moved the mechanics into the fuse we changed the tail drive ratio from 3.8 to 4.5 so we could slow down the rotor speed for scale flying. 1700 I think

 

[Nade]

You're almost there!!

Did that torque tube have 2 bearings inside of it?

I'm curious to see how this heli performs for you. I've heard the 600 wasn't a very good machine but we all know how opinions are!!

Sorry for the delay PLANETGETLOW. This one came with one bearing in the torque tube. I'll let you know how it performs. I'm looking forward to that as well since this is my first Align heli.

I'm using the Castle Creations Phoenix Ice2 HV120 ESC I had on hand with the Spirit RX and set it on the top front shelf. Turns out the Align servo wires are of a heavy duty design that you can't bend them enough to make room for the canopy to fit over them. So over to the rear shelf it went. I also set my Spektrum AR8000 RX just in front of it thinking I needed to use it with the Spirit but it was a pleasant surprise to find I can use the Spirit without it. I'll use two Spektrum 9645 sats with it. Had one in hand so I'll pick up one more. Also added some red washers.

- - - Updated - - -

I think the 600ESP is probably the model most refer to as "not very good". I can say I had a 600 pro that flew like it was on rails. Those mechanics are now in a UH1 fuselage. Keep us posted...
T

Fran11784, thanks for that info! No one wants to think they've bought a poor flying bird. Already been there and done that with my 2nd bird I bought over four years ago now, the Blade SR. But I cracked the case with that heli and still have it and enjoy flying now. Actually have four of them. Two converted belt drives.

Smoogie, would you tell me what the little "quirks" you mentioned you have with your 600? And my gear ratio of the head turns out to be 8.26 to 1 and the governed head speed at 2200. Can you tell me what their "optimized" head speed was?

 

[fran11784]

I'm sure Smoogie will respond but regarding head speed, just keep in mind these dominator helis from Align were designed from the ground up to be a hard core 3D machine. I flew mine around 2150 and really, for sport flying it was fine but in a perfect world (IMO), 2400 and up would put the motor in the perfect power range. Anything under 2400 you "could" see some tail authority problems. What I did on mine is went from 95 tails to 105 to help with tail authority and as I said, it flew fine for me. When I moved it to the UH1 fuse I played with the main and tail ratios cause I wanted to run even slower head speed.
T

 

[Smoggie]

Don't take the following points the wrong way, I like the 600 a lot, it's still one of my favourite helis despite having more 'exotic' helis in my fleet. ... But focussing on the things that sometimes get criticised:

1. Low tail gear ratio meaning that tail hold is weak unless you run screaming headspeed
2. Tail drive bevel gears stripping

'1' is really due to the 'design intent' of the heli. Align made the Pro as a hardcore 3D heli intended to run very high headspeed, so it's not really a fault as such. But for those of us who like to have slightly longer flights at less manic headspeeds it is an issue. You can fix by fitting the older generation mod 0.6 auto gear and tail drive gear set which speeds up the tail, or you could fit the new three blade tail. You can also fit larger tail blades but to do that you should do a 'stretch' because there isn't enough clearance so blade clash is possible.

'2' can largely be fixed by either running very low gain on the CC governor, or by using a different brand ESC. Also the bevel gears often need to be shimmed to make their mesh as tight as can be without binding.


The other minor annoyance I found is that with the low profile landing gear the tail is too low and the blades easily dig the dirt. The best fix for this is to get a set on landing gear from the new Trex 700X or 550X which are raked to give a nose down/tail up stance. The other criticism some might throw at it is that it's a bit on the heavy side for a 600, but as long as you run reasonable headspeed that's not too much of an issue. It's actually a great flying heli